The Wedding Party Collection. Кейт Хьюит
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with such irrational intensity? Rebecca ground her teeth with frustration. “Look, T.J. needs his sleep. The last thing I want is for him to awaken and find some strange man in his room.”
Damon swung his attention away from the train-station mural she’d painted in bold colours on the wall above the bed, his gaze clashing with hers, his sensuous mouth askew with mockery. “He’s not accustomed to waking to find strange men in his house? Now that amazes me, Rebecca.”
The inference took her breath away.
“Now listen to me,” she huffed. “I don’t give a f…fluff what you think of me. But in my house, around my son, you will address me with respect. Right now I’m tired and T.J.’s been unwell. I need to put him to bed.”
All at once the tension that had been throbbing inside her became too much. She bit her lip and looked away, blinking furiously, determined not to let the unaccustomed prick of tears show.
“I’m sorry.”
For some reason, his unexpected apology was the last straw. Her throat thickened unbearably. She swallowed and shot him a desperate look. “Please…”
“Just go?” he finished, giving her a strange, whimsical smile, and crossing to the bed, he pulled the Thomas the Tank Engine cover back. “That’s not the first time I’ve heard that today.”
She moved closer, T.J. heavy as a block of lead in her arms. “Then I’m sorry to bore you,” she said in a thin, high voice that sounded totally foreign compared to her usual husky tones.
“Bore me?” His mouth dropped open, his eyes glinting with something she didn’t quite recognise. “Bore me?”
The sudden silence rang in her ears. Damon was standing so close she was conscious of his height, of the solid breadth of him. If she stretched her hand out around T.J.’s sleeping body, she could touch Damon’s chest, feel the strong, vibrant beat of his heart.
“I think boring is one thing you could never be guilty of, Rebecca.” He blew out hard, muttered something softly in Greek, then said with a touch of roughness, “Here, let me take the boy.”
She jerked away as his fingers brushed her arm.
At once, the hands reaching for T.J. pulled back and Damon spread his palms. “Okay, okay, I get the message! I’ll wait downstairs.” He threw her a hard, glittering look. “Never give an inch, never show any weakness, hmm?”
Rebecca ducked her head, refusing to meet his angry eyes, reluctant to reveal how much the electrical charge of the accidental touch had unnerved her. After a moment Damon’s footsteps retreated, and for a wild instant she felt a sudden stupid sense of loss. Shaking, she hugged T.J. tightly against her breasts and inhaled his special baby smell until her turmoil calmed.
Then she gently deposited T.J. onto the royal-blue sheet and held her breath as he rolled over and gave a short grunt. He didn’t waken. Instead his breathing steadied into the deep rhythm of sleep.
For a minute Rebecca stared at his sleeping face, the soft baby skin, the tousled dark curls, and pride and love stretched her heart to a tender pain.
T.J.
T.J. was her priority now.
Not her career. Not Damon. Not the wild, all-consuming attraction that had once upon a time nearly destroyed her. The most important thing in her life was T.J. And he rewarded her devotion with an uncritical, unconditional love that she would never, ever consider trading for the ferocious and destructive passion Damon had once stirred.
Damon’s narrowed gaze and the sheer, untrammelled intensity emanating from him as he stood legs apart, arms folded, caused Rebecca’s nerve endings to prickle warningly as she entered the living room.
“The boy is sleeping, yes?”
“Yes,” she replied, pausing inside the doorway, more unsettled by his speculative stare than she cared to admit. Her gaze slid away. Took in the tailored suit that accentuated the hard, sleek lines of his body. His trademark white silk shirt was open at the neck, tie gone, the top button undone to reveal a glimpse of his tanned throat. She yanked her gaze back up to his face.
“I’m sorry he is not well. Is it something serious?”
The genuine concern in those devastating eyes forced Rebecca to say, “Just a routine ear infection.”
He frowned. “I understand ear infections can be dangerous—that they can lead to permanent hearing loss.”
Damon was vocalising her worst fears. Only yesterday she’d expressed the very same concerns to T.J.’s doctor—not that she’d ever admit that to Damon. Instead she tossed her head and said casually, “The doctor assured me a course of antibiotics will do the trick.”
“So where is the child’s father?”
The indolent question fell like a heavy rock into a tranquil pool, destroying any pretense of neutrality.
Rebecca stiffened.
“No longer in my life,” she said, deliberately vague, avoiding the blue eyes that she was certain would be blazing with disapproval. The pause that followed stretched until her palms started to sweat. Fighting the urge to steal a fleeting glance at him, she kept her gaze lowered, uneasy with the turn the conversation had taken.
“Do you even know who his father is?”
Her head shot up, her affronted gaze colliding with his, and all at once she was too angry to fret about what she might give away. “What the hell kind of question is that? Of course I know who T.J.’s father is!”
She forced her expression into impassivity. Keep your cool, she counselled herself and then said aloud, “This is my home. I’d thank you to keep your…observations…to yourself. Now what can I do for you?”
“I ask no more than that you arrange Savvas’s wedding,” he replied, echoing her studied civility.
“I’ve already told you—I can’t!”
“Rebecca,” he said through gritted teeth, the false courtesy vanishing, his face darkening. “You know I’m a very wealthy man—”
Rolling her eyes, she interrupted him. “I already told you this morning I can’t do the wedding and I’m not going to accept payment. You’ve done the bribery and corruption thing to death. Cutting the insults would be a good move, too.” She held her breath and waited for him to explode.
His eyes flashed. His chest rose and fell under his crossed arms as he sucked in a deep breath. Then he sighed heavily. Unfolding his arms, he spread them wide. “Okay, whatever it takes to get you to do this damned wedding thing, I’ll do it. So I can get back to Auckland and put my mother’s mind at rest.”
Rebecca blinked, stunned by his sudden capitulation. Damon did not negotiate, he issued ultimatums—and expected them to be met. A fresh wave of guilt rolled over her. Soula had always been kind to her. But helping Soula with the wedding was out of the question.
“What? No clever comeback?” Damon stared at her, his jaw clenched.
All at once, Rebecca recognised the truth of what he’d just said. Years ago, when they first met, she might have reacted to his statement that he’d do whatever it took with a risqué taunt like Kiss me and I might consider it. Comments that had drawn derision, followed by a closed, cold expression that shut her out. Totally.
Contrarily, it had been his very lack of response that had egged her on, demanding his attention by whatever means she could. And then had come the dawning realization that he was interested in Fliss. While Rebecca burned anything she touched, Fliss cooked like a dream—a legacy of her Cordon Bleu training—and Damon had savoured rich slices of Sachertorte with half-closed eyes, his face alive with pleasure. Her heart breaking, Rebecca had watched him smile at Fliss with warm approval, his face reflecting an intent admiration he’d never shown toward her. Pretty, sweet Fliss, who was as different from Rebecca