Low in her throat, she gasped as he enforced that connection and without hesitation he lifted her up and set her down on the edge of his desk.
Her body humming, giving her messages that she still wasn’t used to receiving, Tabby blinked and then noted her surroundings, dismay and reluctance assailing her before embarrassment could cover her instead. ‘Not here,’ she said distinctly, struggling to suppress the hungry ache he had stirred between her thighs and rise above the sensation. ‘And not when we’re arguing either… I’m trying to talk to you.’
Aristide gritted his teeth, registering that he had underestimated her resolve. ‘Tabby—’
‘No, no more excuses,’ Tabby cut in, sliding off the desk and snatching up her discarded sarong to wrap it round her hips again.
Aristide expelled his breath in a slow hiss and leant back against his desk, annoyance at her rejection, so rare in his experience with women, pulsing through him in a lethal wave. He tilted his darkly handsome head back. ‘Ask yourself why I would have to tell you anything private about my past when we’re onlyfakingour engagement.’
Every scrap of colour drained from Tabby’s once animated face. That reminder hit her like a brick and a much-needed wake-up call to common sense. Why? She had forgotten it wasallfake except for her costly sapphire ring, and the shock that she could’ve allowed herself to forget such a basic fact reverberated through her like a crack of doom. No, she wasn’t entitled to private explanations about his past loves, not if he didn’t want to make them. And yet she had pushed and pushed until he ran out of patience and confronted her with the truth that she had been avoiding.
As she left his office, Aristide wanted to smash the wall with a clenched fist. He shouldn’t have said that. Indeed, that was the very last thing he should’ve said when he sincerely wanted their engagement to become real. He had given way to temper, a rare occurrence with his deep, reserved nature. But he didn’t talk about Imogen, not to anyone ever, not even his father. In truth, legally, hecouldn’ttalk about her and she couldn’t talk about him either, conditions his father had considered necessary at the time forhisprotection rather than hers.
And he was glad of his father’s caution, wouldn’t have cared to lift a tabloid newspaper some day and readthatparticular story. He wouldn’t like the way it depicted him and couldn’t help wondering just how differently Tabby would see him if she ever learned what an idiot he had once been.
And wasn’t that trulywhyhe had stuck to the letter of the law and remained silent?
Chapter Seven
TABBY MADE HERSELFwalk out to the pool at the rear of the house and lie down on a lounger.
A mere minute later, she got up and dived into the pool, forcing herself into swimming fast aggressive lengths to drain her angry pain and tension away. No point letting feelings like that fester, she told herself. That wouldn’t change anything. What she really needed to know right then was why she was so hurt. Aristide had merely reminded her of the truth that they were not a real couple where she would have been entitled to cherish certain expectations of him.
And in reality, he had hit the nail square on the head. Their engagement was fake, so how had she stumbled into a kind of non-relationship with the father of her unborn children? By not using her brain and thinking first, came the answer. The situation was of her own making. But you couldn’t live for two long weeks as if you were involved in an endless one-night stand…at least, she couldn’t. She wasn’t built that way, wasn’t able to just write it off as a casual, light-hearted fun fling. Certainly, there was nothingfunabout the way she felt now. Her heart sank when she appreciated that all along, while she had been priding herself on her independence, she had been unconsciously hoping formorefrom Aristide Romanos. But he wasn’t offering more, was he?
When she had had enough of the heat and was fed up with agonising, she went indoors and phoned her mother, catching up on her news. Lucia’s treatment was going as well as could be expected at this stage. Guessing that it would raise her mother’s spirits, she gave updates about her pregnancy and confided that she was currently staying in Greece with the father of her children. But no, she admitted, they weren’t together-together, as she phrased it. They were only being civilised for the sake of things and meeting his family. There was no need to mention the fake engagement that had persuaded her to make the trip under false pretences, she reasoned ruefully. That was entirely her own fault. Aristide had extended the carrot and she had duly bitten.
She dined initially in solitary state that evening, Aristide joining her with apologies halfway through the meal. ‘I’m also sorry for what I said earlier,’ he added ruefully.
‘Why? It was the truth,’ Tabby replied with a determined smile.
‘It is…and it isn’t,’ Aristide countered, striving to be more honest.
The urge to slap him surged inside Tabby and she gritted her teeth, refusing to ask for clarity lest it make her seem too desperate for reassurance. She was here to oil the wheels for her children’s future visits, to meet the family and let them get to know her. She wasnothere to romance Aristide. Aristide could keep his secrets. His past shouldn’t matter to her because it was none of her business.
Aristide wondered how he had contrived to say the wrong thingagainand he went back to work that evening even though he would’ve preferred to be with Tabby. When he went to bed, she was already there and asleep, the faint vanilla scent that always clung to her in the air. He lay awake so long resisting the urge to reach for her that he slept in long past his usual rising time. And Tabby was no longer beside him. When he got downstairs, he learned that she had had breakfast early and gone out. He frowned and questioned his security, sunning themselves on the veranda.
‘She didn’t want anyone with her. She said she fancied a walk.’
‘You follow her to protect her even if she doesn’t want company,’ Aristide instructed and then his phone buzzed and an urgent business query made him turn away.
Tabby walked along the beach all the way into the little town, proud of herself for taking some exercise. When she arrived, though, she knew that she should’ve carried water with her because she was hot and a little dizzy, scolding herself for not thinking ahead, reminding herself that she needed to be more sensible now that she was pregnant. She walked off the beach, down the side of the taverna and into the front where a shaded terrace functioned as a snack bar. There she found a seat, fanning herself to cool down, and ordered water and a roll to sustain her on her return trip.
It wouldn’t be a lie to say that her heart sank below floor level when she spotted Imogen Ross, impossibly tall and resplendent in a pristine flowing white sundress and hat, strolling towards her. Tabby turned her gaze quickly to the server who had returned with her order, keen not to catch Imogen’s attention.
‘No charge,’ the server declared when Tabby persisted in trying to pay.
A frown on her face, Tabby returned her bag to the seat beside her just as Imogen took the seat opposite her. She noticed the server still staring fixedly at the table and, mainly, at Imogen.
‘The Romanos family doesn’t pay here and that ring on your finger means that you don’t have to pay either,’ Imogen explained in a tone of superiority.
Tabby wrinkled her nose. ‘Not paying makes me uncomfortable.’
‘Aristide owns most of the houses and the businesses here. What else would you expect?’
Imogen might be looking fantastic clad in her blinding white linen, glacial blue eyes deceptively languorous, but she reminded Tabby of a poisonous spider getting ready to pounce on prey. Although she had been enjoying the shade, Tabby lifted her bottle and her roll and began to rise to leave.
‘Do I scare you that much?’ Imogen rested her chin down on the heel of her hand, supremely poised and beautiful. ‘Of course, I’m going to speak to you when I see you here. Please, sit down.’
