The Sarantos Baby Bargain. Olivia Gates

tried to “acquire” her “golden beauty” as if she were part of their business deal. “The feeling is certainly not mutual.”

      “That would only make you even more enticing in his eyes. Mere men expect the goddess that you are wouldn’t reciprocate their interest, expect you to be haughty and out of reach.”

      Was he speaking as a fellow god who knew how he affected mere women? Not that she could accuse him of exaggerating when he called her a goddess. He’d always lavished praise on her that had surpassed poetry. It had been what had kept her with him for two years through the alienation on all other fronts. That and the sheer perfection of their chemistry.

      He put his phone away. “I now understand the source of your current antipathy toward me. But why is Christos still in the bull’s-eye of your wrath? Your conflict has long been resolved.”

      Strange that he wasn’t taking credit for that, when it had been he who’d gotten Stephanides to relent and then to even do business with her company. They’d done a couple of very lucrative projects together before things had fallen through again, if amicably this time. Not that she was about to thank Andreas for that right now, or for anything else.

      Gathering what felt like her last spark of energy, she sat forward. “Listen, I’m sure you didn’t come here to chat about your money-and image-laundering business buddies, or to exercise your irresistible sexual prowess on me—”

      “I didn’t intend to touch you...not during this meeting. But it seems nothing has changed. It remains impossible for us to be around each other and not ignite.”

      His quiet response shuddered through her. That he claimed she affected him as he did her tipped her beyond endurance.

      “Enough, Andreas,” she groaned. “Whatever you came here for, just spit it out.”

      He gazed at her in silence until she felt her every cell begin to crackle.

      Then, in absolute tranquility, he inclined his head. “As you wish. I’m here to claim Dorothea.”

      Three

      Naomi found herself on her feet, looking down at Andreas. He only tipped his head back as he met her flabbergasted stare, his gaze steady and earnest.

      And she exploded. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

      He rose with the utmost economy and composure, was towering over her before she could take a breath or a step back.

      “It isn’t a joke. When Petros called me—”

      “You didn’t come back.”

      “I didn’t need to. He was calling me to—”

      “I don’t give a damn why he called you, or about anything you’re going to say. Dora is mine.”

      “Dorothea is Petros’s.”

      Naomi’s heart pounded until it felt like a wrecking ball inside her chest. “And my sister’s.”

      But she’d lost Nadine so recently, the loss so overwhelming and fresh, she hadn’t yet started Dora’s adoption process. But she’d been sure there was no rush, that her claim to Dora was uncontestable.

      She said so. “With Petros being an only child, and with his parents dead, Dora has no other family but me. That makes her mine.”

      “Petros wanted her to be mine.”

      Naomi shook her head, trying to stop the world that was suddenly spinning, feeling as if he’d punched her square in the face. “God...every time I think I know what depths you can sink to, I discover there’s no limit to your callousness. But this...this is a new depth, even for you. This is...evil.”

      He moved past her, giving her a sideways glance that froze her blood and started it boiling all at once. “As I said, what you think of me is your prerogative. That doesn’t change the fact that Petros, Dora’s father, wished me to have her.”

      Afraid she’d keel over if she moved too fast, Naomi turned to face him, found him across the coffee table, both hands back in his pockets, staring at her broodingly.

      He wasn’t joking. He meant it. This was real.

      A hysterical giggle burst out of her.

      He only inclined his head in what looked like a nod. “I can understand your shock. I’d hoped I could introduce the subject in a better way, at least gradually. But we couldn’t even establish any semblance of a conversation, with you being so hostile and uncooperative.”

      “Sure, I’m to blame for that. I’m the one who tormented you for six months for laughs, before granting you your freedom. I’m the one who disregarded my dying friend’s plea for me to be there for him in his last hours. I’m the one who’s standing right there pretending I’m willing to take on a baby, when I made it cuttingly clear I never wanted a child.”

      “It doesn’t matter what I want anymore.”

      “But it matters what you can or can’t do. And I’d sooner believe you’d give birth to a baby rather than take one on.”

      He had the temerity to huff in what sounded like amusement.

      But even if all she wanted was to scratch his eyes out, she had to summon all her diplomacy and end this. This was too...huge for her to let it go any further.

      “Listen, Andreas, if you’re suffering from belated guilt, for not being there for Petros when he needed you, and you think you should do something for his daughter when you never did a thing for him, don’t bother. Petros is dead and gone, and nothing you do or don’t do can hurt or help him anymore. If some anomalous sense of duty regarding Dora has been roused inside you, just steer it away until it dies down, as I’m sure it will as soon as this misguided mission is over and you walk out of here. Dora doesn’t need your guardianship and is perfectly safe and happy and provided for with me.”

      “I have no doubt you are an exemplary aunt—”

      “I am more than Dora’s aunt. I gave birth to her!”

      At her cry, it was as if all the air was sucked out of the room. Something fierce reverberated from him in shock waves.

      He didn’t know?

      She rushed to explain. “Nadine and Petros wanted a baby so much, but it was impossible for her to get pregnant or to carry her own baby to term. So I became their surrogate for the baby they made together.” She’d wanted to help them, and also thought it would be the only way she’d ever have a baby. “Dora is my flesh and blood in every way.”

      “I know.”

      His quiet words lurched through her.

      So what had caused that fierce reaction? Or had she imagined it? Probably. Andreas experienced no such reactions.

      He went on. “Not that it makes a difference what you are to her. It’s what Petros wanted me to be to her that’s the issue here.”

      Hanging on to control with all she had, she asked, “When did he even make that so-called last wish? Over the phone? In that call you now claim wasn’t to ask you to come back before he died?”

      “That’s what I tried to say when you interrupted me. He didn’t ask me to come back for him, but for Dorothea.”

      “Wow, this keeps getting better. He asked you that three months ago, and you just got around to it now? If Dora had you to count on, she would have been lost somewhere in the system by the time you deemed it convenient to come for her.”

      “I knew she was safe with you.”

      “So there was no rush, huh? And there will never be one, so you can return to wherever you’ve disappeared for the past four years, and just never come back again.”

      “I can’t and won’t do that.”

      “Don’t