The Greek Tycoon's Baby. LYNNE GRAHAM
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mirror and suppressed a groan. She had not slept the night before.
A plaintive cry sent her whirling round. Across the room, her baby son was clutching his crib bars in frustration. His toy keys had fallen to the carpet. As she restored the ring to his tiny grasping hand, she smiled as his cross little face cleared like magic.
Ben was six months old. He had silky dark curls, huge melting brown eyes and dimples. His features were still rounded and indistinct but he already bore a marked resemblance to his father in hair, skin, and eye colour, Susie conceded wretchedly.
And there was no denying that she was wretched. Only yesterday, Leos had looked at her with icy hostility. His attitude had really hurt. But then, she and Leos had not parted the best of friends and the pain of that cruel severance remained, biting deepest whenever she looked at the son she adored.
Coping as a single parent had not been easy. Her brother David, who worked abroad, allowed her to live rent-free in his apartment. Without his generosity, she would have been forced to live on welfare. Having Ben cared for in the Devlin Systems day care swallowed half of her salary. What was left over would not stretch to paying a London rent and living expenses as well.
On the bus to work, Susie thought back uneasily to Jayne’s reaction to what she had witnessed.
“Well, you’ve certainly been a dark horse,” Jayne had sniped. “Why didn’t you say that you actually knew Leos Kiriakos?”
So Susie had told part of the truth but not the whole. Although she had a business degree, she’d been working as an office temp when she first met Leos Kiriakos. While he was over on London on business, flu had laid low two of his personal staff. Susie had arrived at his hotel suite, proud to have got the opportunity but secretly quaking in her shoes. She had fallen in love at first sight of his breathtaking smile. In a split second, he had gone from being the intimidating and powerful Greek tycoon, whom she wanted to impress with her efficiency, to being simply the man of her dreams.
When Leos had asked her out to dinner, she had been overjoyed. Six weeks of ecstatic happiness followed before everything began to go wrong …
Susie hurried into the Devlin Systems building and left Ben in the ground floor nursery. As always, leaving him was a wrench. And like every other employee using the excellent childcare facility, she was anxiously wondering whether Leos Kiriakos would keep such a staff luxury.
When she arrived at reception, Jayne pushed a sheet of paper toward her. “Looks like you’re on the way up …”
Susie frowned. “What’s this?”
“Personnel sent it down. You have an interview with Leos Kiriakos tomorrow afternoon.” Jayne’s envy was unconcealed. “You must have made quite an impression the last time you worked for him …”
CHAPTER THREE
AT TEN to three the next day, Susie presented herself on the top floor, dressed in a dark-green skirt suit, with a longer-length jacket, her streaky red-gold curls caught up in a clip, her emerald eyes were strained, the pallor marking her delicate features pronounced.
Two sleepless nights in a row. She had lain awake fretting about whether or not Leos now knew that she had a child. Leos, who had once angrily given forth on the subject of a friend “trapped for the next 20 years by a pregnant woman on the make!”
Had Leos looked at her personnel file? If he had, he would surely have found out that she had given birth to a premature baby, eight months after they broke up!
She was sent straight down the corridor to the managing director’s office. Sick with nervous tension, she knocked on the door and entered.
Leos was on the phone, his hard, chiseled profile intent. He indicated the chair set several feet from his desk and returned to his call. Susie sat down and tried to keep her hands steady. She tried crazily to recall what constituted defensive body language, for Leos was certain to know. As she watched him, an emotional pain that was almost physical held her taut.
He had replaced her with another woman without telling her. But then there had been extenuating circumstances for his behavior. And the truth was, Susie had yet to get over her affair with Leos Kiriakos.
“Sorry about that.” Pushing aside the phone, Leos sprang upright, emanating the megawatt energy that was so much a part of him. “Stop looking at me like a scared little mouse, Susie. I didn’t bring you up here either to sack you or abuse you. Believe it or not, I can take having been dumped without behaving like Neanderthal man!”
Was this the guy who had growled down the phone at her 14 months ago, “no woman dumps me!” Connecting with eyes of stunning tawny-gold clarity set below level ebony brows, Susie was mesmerized, her heart hammering, her bewildered mind blank. Fortunately Leos was still talking, his rich-accented drawl like evocative long-missed music on her ears.
“I need a social secretary for the next month.” Lithe as a jungle cat, Leos strolled over to the tinted windows. “You’re quick, you’re clever. You don’t irritate the hell out of me with stupid questions. When I move on from here, you’ll be an executive assistant on the management team.”
Disconcerted by his every word, Susie just sank deeper into shock. Clearly, she had been over-sensitive on the day of his arrival, mistaking his natural surprise at seeing her as hostility. “Social s-secretary?”
Leos quoted a salary that made her head spin and then glanced at his gold watch with impatience. “If you want the position it’s yours and you start tomorrow. We’ll discuss your duties then. I’m rather pushed for time today.”
“I’ll take it …” she heard herself say, even though his quite shattering indifference to their former relationship pierced her like a knife….
CHAPTER FOUR
LEOS was chairing a board meeting when Susie arrived.
Nervous as a cat on hot bricks, she organized the small office allotted to her. Finally, the phone rang and she was summoned into the boardroom. Leos immediately stood up, provoking a noisy thrusting back of seats as the all-male management team surged to emulate his good manners.
“Not only has Miss Marshall a topflight marketing degree, but she is also fluent in French and Spanish,” Leos said, disconcerting Susie a great deal with that introduction. “What was she doing down on reception?”
Looking aghast, the personnel manager froze.
“A business that fails to place promising staff in a key position is wasteful.” Leos delivered. “I have also taken note of the fact that there are no female managers, an extraordinary achievement in a firm this size.”
On that thought for the day, Leos closed the meeting. Suddenly, Susie understood that there had been nothing personal about his decision to promote her. He had simply used her to highlight his lecture about equal opportunities! A confusing mixture of reluctant admiration, pain and resentment assailed her.
A vision of masculine sophistication in a superb gray business suit, Leos showed Susie into his office. “Last month Devlin Systems settled two charges of sexual discrimination out of court. There will not be a third—”
“I thought you didn’t approve of working women—”
Leos raised a brow. “You were the first working woman I took to my bed and you were often unavailable when I wanted you. What I seek for my own satisfaction in my private life has no relation to my opinions as an employer.”
Hotly flushed in receipt of that blunt clarification, Susie tore her gaze from his and regretted her own over-familiar comment. All those months ago, she had only actually worked for Leos for three days before their passionate affair began and she had moved on to another agency placement.
“I have a long list of tasks for you,” Leos continued without skipping a beat, the heavy silence not seeming to disturb