Loe raamatut: «Another Man's Baby»

One

Ginny looked around the airport lounge where Jason Papas’s letter had told Beth she’d be met. It was deserted. Ginny sighed. Of course Jason Papas hadn’t bothered to show up. It was entirely in keeping with the rest of her trip. A disaster from start to finish. If there was anything worse than taking a long plane trip with a four-month-old baby, she didn’t want to find out about it.

Being extremely careful not to wake the now-sleeping Damon, Ginny set his car seat down on the floor. To her relief, he didn’t stir.

Wearily she sank down in a seat and checked her watch. Ten-fifteen. Only thirty-five minutes past the time her flight had been scheduled to arrive. Not very late for a flight that had originated in New York.

Where was Jason Papas? Ginny wondered, as annoyance began to nudge aside her tiredness. Damon needed to be changed and fed and put into a proper bed. And she needed a shower. Ginny glanced in distaste at her rumpled blue linen suit with its varied collection of baby stains garnered in the course of the long trip.

Could leaving her cooling her heels here at the airport be a deliberate tactic on Jason Papas’s part? A tactic designed to impress on her the fact that he didn’t think neither she nor Damon was important enough to be met on time?

It was certainly possible. In fact, if Jason Papas was anything like his obnoxious son then it was probable. But while those kinds of tactics would have reduced the gentle Beth to a dithering mass of uncertainty, they only made Ginny mad. And more determined than ever to stand up to the old tyrant.

Absently, Ginny brushed back a strand of hair that had escaped from her chignon. She’d wait another fifteen minutes on the off chance that Jason Papas’s delay had been caused by traffic, and then she’d leave a message for him at the airline desk and check into a hotel.

Feeling slightly better now that she’d decided on a plan of action, Ginny leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Within seconds she was asleep.

Philip Lysander pushed back the sleeve of his gray suit jacket and looked down at the thin gold watch on his wrist. He’d kept this Alton woman and the bastard she was trying to trick a sick old man into acknowledging waiting forty minutes now. Long enough to drive home the fact to her that the family considered her entirely insignificant. It was now time to pick her up.

Draining the remainder of his whiskey, Philip set the empty glass back down on the table and left the airport’s bar.

It took him five minutes to locate the lounge where Jason had told him the Alton woman would be waiting. Philip had absolutely no doubt that she would be there. Anyone brazen enough to try to pull off the fraud she was attempting wouldn’t back out at the last minute.

Despite having his opinion confirmed, Philip took no satisfaction from the sight of the woman sitting on the far side of the lounge with a car seat at her feet. He headed toward her, relishing the prospect of telling her that she wasn’t going to get away with her lie. That he knew her for what she was and would never allow her to harm his family.

His lips tightened when he realized that she was asleep. It seemed the final insult to him that she should be blissfully unaware of the fact that he’d kept her waiting.

Philip’s eyes widened in surprise as he got close enough to get a good look at the woman. Instead of the cheap, overblown opportunist that he’d been expecting, she looked...elegant, he finally settled on. Her dark blond hair was the exact shade of the lemon blossom honey his mother used to pour on his breakfast toast when he’d been a child. It even looked like honey, sleek and smooth. Unconsciously his fingers twitched with the urge to stroke her hair and see if it were as silky as it looked.

His gaze wandered lower, down over her face, and his mouth dried under the impact of her beauty. And she was beautiful, Philip reluctantly conceded. Not only did she have classically perfect features, but a flawless complexion, as well. His eyes lingered on the pale rose flush on her cheekbones before dropping down to the soft lusciousness of her full mouth. He swallowed uneasily as an unexpected urge to press his own mouth to hers slammed through him.

He wrenched his gaze away from the lure of her lips with effort, focusing instead on the slight swell of her breasts beneath the severely cut blue suit she was wearing. He frowned at her outfit. It didn’t fit her delectable body. Someone as feminine as she looked should be wearing something soft and clinging and...

He pulled his imagination up short. What was the matter with him? he wondered uneasily. He wasn’t some immature boy to be thrown off balance by the sight of a woman’s body, no matter how beautiful it was. Especially not when he knew that the character behind the beautiful facade was rotten to the core. His features hardened. He couldn’t afford to forget for a moment what she was really like.

Ginny stirred uneasily as a prickly sensation danced over her skin. Confused, she half opened her eyes and checked Damon. He was still sleeping. A soft smile curved her lips at his peaceful expression. She started to yawn and then stopped as she caught sight of a pair of gray-covered legs standing slightly behind Damon’s car seat.

Dreamily, her eyes followed the pants upward over a powerful pair of masculine thighs, up over a flat stomach to a broad chest. Approvingly, she noted the impressive breadth of his shoulders, but she wasn’t so sure about the hard thrust of his jaw. He looked very determined. Ginny watched his long tanned fingers clench spasmodically. His fingers should be wrapped around a spear, she thought whimsically. And instead of a suit, he should be wearing one of those short white skirt things the ancient Spartan warriors wore. No, even better, he should be an athlete. Her stomach twisted in instinctive response to the sudden image she had of him naked. His bare skin was gleaming with the oil that the athletes rubbed on it and...

An icy sensation suddenly ripped through her languid daydreams as her eyes collided with his coal black ones. They seemed to smolder with suppressed emotion. An impression heightened by his tightly compressed lips.

Ginny slowly straightened up, trying not to let him see just how disoriented she was. She’d only found him fascinating because she was so tired, she assured herself. Tired and half-asleep. Under normal circumstances this was not a man who would appeal to her, not for a second. As she quite obviously didn’t appeal to him. She watched the imperious way he was regarding her. As if she were a bad smell that he intended to eliminate as soon as possible.

He couldn’t possibly be Jason Papas. He was far too young. So it stood to reason that he was an emissary of Jason Papas sent to pick her and Damon up like a stray package that had to be dealt with.

Ginny was unable to entirely suppress her feeling of unease as the man’s features hardened even further, reminding her of a painting she’d once seen of a judge at the Salem witch trials. He looked absolutely merciless. But she didn’t want mercy, she bolstered her sagging courage. She wanted justice. Justice for Damon and poor Beth. And this man, no matter who he was, wasn’t going to stop her!

Ginny squared her shoulders and returned his glare, waiting for him to break the brittle silence that stretched between them.

Finally, just when she was starting to feel limp with the strain, he did.

“You won’t get away with it!” His intriguingly accented voice was rasped seductively over her nerve endings.

“And what precisely is ‘it’? For that matter, who are your?”

“I’m here to pick you up.” His voice held a sneer that seemed to insinuate all kinds of things.

Ginny ignored it and simply stared at him, waiting for him to answer her question. Experience had taught her that it was fatal to try to placate men like him. They had to be met with determination.

“Well! Have you nothing to say?”

“I’m still waiting for you to tell me who you are,” she managed a level tone despite the butterflies holding a convention in her stomach. “Or isn’t your command of the English language sufficient to have understood my question?”

Ginny felt a brief flair of satisfaction as his tanned cheeks darkened at her gibe.

“I have a degree in economics from Oxford, and I spend most of my time in London!” he snapped.

“Lovely.” Ginny gave him a bland smile. “But that still doesn’t tell me who you are.”

“Philip Lysander, Creon’s brother-in-law. He was married to my sister, Lydia.”

“Brother-in-law!” Ginny stared blankly at him as a dizzying wave of horror washed over her. Creon had been married! He was even worse than she’d thought, and she hadn’t thought all that much of him in the first place.

Philip’s smile chilled her. “Creon may be dead and unable to defend himself from your lies, but he has family who will.”

And so did Beth, Ginny thought grimly. As Creon’s precious family would find out.

“All right, Philip Lysander, Creon’s brother-in-law. How about if you do what you were sent to do and take me to Jason Papas.”

“Not until we reach an agreement.”

Ginny eyed him warily. “About what?”

“I don’t want my sister hurt.”

Ginny felt a spurt of sympathy for the unknown Lydia, but she determinedly banished it. Philip’s sister had him and her father-in-law and heaven only knew how many other relatives to help her cope with the situation. Poor Beth only had her to depend on, and Ginny had no intention of failing her.

“You want Jason Papas to sacrifice his grandson so that your sister won’t have to face the type of man she married?”

“The boy isn’t Creon’s son, and you know it!”

Ginny sighed, suddenly feeling tired to the point of numbness. “This conversation is getting us nowhere. My business is with Damon’s grandfather. Please take me to him.”

“Not until you agree to my proposal.”

“What proposal?” she snapped. “So far all I’ve heard is you pontificating about things you know nothing about.”

“Jason and I have discussed this, and we’ve agreed that we will say that you’ve brought the boy to Greece to see me.”

“You!” Ginny’s eyes widened as a powerful flood of tangled emotions twisted through her. Pretend that she had been Philip Lysander’s lover? That she had lain against his naked body? That he had kissed her and... Ginny swallowed against the sudden dryness in her mouth.

“That way people will assume that the boy—”

“Damon,” Ginny corrected. “His name is Damon.”

Philip ignored her. “...is mine, and Lydia will be protected from gossip.”

“No!” Ginny’s instinctive denial seemed to echo around them. She didn’t want to be close to this man. To even pretend to be close. He made her feel very unlike herself, and until she was absolutely certain that her unusual reaction to him was caused by tiredness and worry about Damon and Beth, she didn’t want to risk further exposure to him.

“No,” she repeated in a level tone of voice.

“Then I won’t take you to see Jason.” Philip gave her a smug look that made her want to smack him—hard—and that worried her almost as much as her body’s strange response to him. She was not a violent person. She had nothing but contempt for people who thought that violence was an acceptable form of self-expression.

But thinking about hitting him was not the same thing as doing it, she rationalized. Thinking about it was nothing more than a safety valve for explosive feelings.

Making a valiant attempt to block Philip out of her mind, Ginny stared down at the floor at her feet and tried to think. Despite her best efforts back in New York, she had been unable to locate Jason Papas’s home address. Even Beth had had to send her letter to his company’s headquarters here in Athens. And while she could visit his company, she very much doubted that his employees would be willing to tell her, without his consent, where to find him.

So if she refused to go along with Philip’s charade, then her chances of locating Jason weren’t good. And her trip to Greece would have been a waste of time. Ginny winced at the thought of having to go back to Beth and tell her that she hadn’t even been able to speak to Jason.

Having come so far, she couldn’t fail Beth now. And it wasn’t as if she were some young, naive fool to be overawed by a sophisticated man of the world like Philip Lysander obviously was. She was a highly intelligent, experienced, professional woman of thirty-two. She could cope with him. Even if her weird reaction to him didn’t fade after a good night’s sleep, she could still cope.

“Very well.” Ginny got to her feet. “I will allow the masquerade to stand, but I refuse to tell a direct lie to anyone about who Damon’s father is.”

Philip gave her a scathing look. “Spare me the claim to ethics.”

“I’d just as soon spare you, period! Having anything to do with you wasn’t my idea.”

To Ginny’s shock, Philip suddenly grabbed her and yanked her up against him. She hit his chest with a thump. It was like hitting a wall—hard, with no give whatsoever. Ginny took a deep breath to ask him just what he thought he was doing, but it proved to be a mistake. Her lungs were immediately inundated with the subtle scent of a men’s cologne that made her think of soldiers and horses and...

“Stop it,” she muttered, not sure if she was talking to her own wayward body or to him. Both of them ignored her.

His arms tightened around her, molding her slender frame to his hard curves and making her excruciatingly aware of the basic differences between their bodies.

Ginny looked up at him, and he quickly took advantage of her movement to capture her mouth. His lips were warm and pliable as they pressed against hers. His tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip, and Ginny shivered violently at the sensation.

The urge to open her mouth was overwhelming, but it was the very intensity of her reaction that set off alarm bells deep in her mind. Shoving her hands between them, she tried to push him back, but he didn’t budge. She tried to wiggle out of his arms, but the sharp prickles of pleasure that tore through her as her breasts scraped across his chest distracted her, and he took advantage of her hesitation to bind her even closer to him.

Ginny could see lights flickering behind her closed eyelids as if her exploding emotions were finding a physical release. Lights that... Flashbulbs! She suddenly identified the lights. Someone was taking pictures.

Her eyes shot open, and she found herself staring into Philip’s gleaming black eyes. Wrenching her gaze away, she saw a thin man with a large, professional-looking camera hurrying away from them.

“Who was that, and why did you kiss me?” she demanded, operating under the old adage that a good offense is the best defense.

“One of the paparazzi who hang around the airport and take pictures they hope to sell to the scandal sheets.”

And he’d kissed her to give added weight to the lie that he was her lover and Damon’s father, Ginny realized in dismay. What had she gotten herself into?

Suddenly realizing that she was still pressed up against Philip’s warm body, Ginny hastily stepped back and stumbled over her purse, which was sitting on the floor.

Philip grabbed her, steadying her for a moment against his hard frame. It was long enough for her body to react with a growing sense of urgency.

Desperately, Ginny tore herself out of his grip.

“I’m tired after that long flight.” She muttered the first excuse that came to mind.

“Next time, pick a victim a little closer to home!” Philip snapped as he bent to pick up Damon’s car seat.

As he lifted it, the blanket that had been partially obscuring the child’s face fell back, and an uneasy feeling washed over Philip as he got his first clear look at the child. The boy had the same inky black hair and dark complexion that Creon had had. As he did himself, Philip reminded himself. There were millions of men with dark hair and dark complexions in Greece. That didn’t prove anything.

“Come on,” he flung at Ginny as he headed toward the doors.

“What about my luggage?” Ginny hurried to match his long stride. “And don’t swing that car seat around.” Her voice sharpened. “I don’t want Damon to wake up.”

“I had a porter fetch your luggage and put it in my car.”

So she’d been right. He had deliberately left her waiting, Ginny thought in annoyance.

Knowing that nothing she could say about his unconscionable behavior would bother him, she wisely said nothing, contenting herself with glaring at his broad back as he marched out the door.

She wasn’t the least bit surprised to find his car parked in a no-parking zone. Nor was she surprised to find that no one had done anything about it. Philip was clearly the type of man it wasn’t safe to cross. But someone should have done so long ago, she thought grimly. He’d have developed into a much nicer person if he’d been thwarted occasionally.

Well, it was never too late for him to learn and, while it wasn’t a job Ginny would have normally chosen, she was fast coming to the conclusion that she would be doing her fellow man a distinct service if she were to teach Philip that the whole world didn’t dance to his piping.

Ginny surreptitiously watched Philip while she carefully buckled Damon’s car seat into the back seat of his black Mercedes. He was sitting in the driver’s seat looking at something on the console between the two front seats. There was an absorbed expression on his lean face that bespoke total concentration.