Modern Romance February Books 5-8. Jane Porter

left it behind and Daddy said he’d take us to see it.’

      Teddie frowned. She had some vague memory of Aristo talking about pirates when they were eating breakfast that morning, but she’d been only half paying attention, she thought guiltily. Most of her head had still been spinning from that almost-kiss they’d shared last night.

      ‘Okay—well, we can do that. I was just going to tie my hair back.’ Leaning forward, she gave him an impish grin. ‘But I’ve had a much better idea!’

      Ten minutes later she was walking through the villa with George scampering by her side. Both of them were wearing blue and white striped T-shirts and Teddie had drawn a moustache and stubble on their faces.

      ‘Shall we scare him?’ George whispered, accelerating into a little run.

      He seemed giddy with excitement at the prospect, and Teddie nodded. But as they crept out onto the terrace the giggle she’d been holding back subsided as she saw that the pool was empty.

      ‘Where is he?’ George’s hand tightened around hers and instinctively she gave it a squeeze.

      ‘He’s probably getting changed.’ She gave him a reassuring smile.

      Ten minutes later, though, they were still waiting by the pool.

      ‘Do you think he’s forgotten?’ George whispered.

      He was starting to look anxious, and she couldn’t stop a flicker of uncertainty rippling down her spine.

      She shook her head. ‘No, of course not,’ she said firmly. ‘Why don’t we give it another five minutes and then we’ll go and look for him? I’m sure he’ll be here any moment.’

      But Aristo didn’t arrive. Finally, Teddie took George’s hand, and they walked back into the villa just as Melina came rushing towards them.

      ‘I was coming to find you! I completely forgot Mr Aristo said that he was going to be in his office. He has a very important work call.’

      Nodding, Teddie pinned a smile on her face, but inside she could feel a rising swell of angry disappointment as she asked Melina to take George to the kitchen. Disappointment and relief—for hadn’t she been expecting this to happen?

      She bit down on her misery. An important work call! No, scratch that, a very important work call, she thought bitterly. Her throat tightened. Had she really thought that things could be different? Or that Aristo could change? She should have realised how this holiday was going to pan out that first morning, when she’d spotted his laptop crouching like some alien in the blazing Mediterranean sunshine. But, idiot that she was, she’d assumed it was a one-off.

      Aristo’s office wasn’t hard to find, and his voice was clearly audible as she walked stiffly up to the open door.

      ‘No, we need total transparency. I want total transparency—exactly.’

      He was standing by his desk, his phone tucked against his ear, the tension in his body at odds with the casual informality of his clothing. She stepped into the room, her heartbeat ringing in her ears as he looked up from his laptop, his frown of concentration fading.

      ‘I’m going to have to call you back, Nick,’ he said quietly. Hanging up, he stared at Teddie impassively. ‘So you got my message?’

      ‘Loud and clear,’ she snapped. Stalking into the room, she stopped in front of the desk. ‘I was a bit stunned at first, but I suppose it wasn’t that much of a surprise. You put work first during the whole of our marriage, so why should a holiday to get to know your son be any different?’

      His face creased into a frown. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s one call—’

      Her response to his words was instant, visceral, making her heartbeat accelerate, emotion clog her throat. It was everything she’d dreaded—only it had happened so much more quickly than even she had thought possible. Literally within hours of him claiming that he wanted to be there for her and George.

      But how many times had her father made just such a claim?

      ‘I’m talking about this,’ she interrupted him. ‘About you, sneaking off to close some deal—’

      She broke off abruptly. The misery inside her chest was like a block of ice and she was starting to feel sick.

      Aristo felt the pulse of anger start to beat beneath his skin. Ever since they’d told George that he was his father Teddie had been acting strangely, oscillating between a suspended tangible hunger and a maddening aloofness, but this—her anger, her baseless accusation—was so unexpected, so unfair.

      And she was dressed as a pirate—although clearly she had forgotten that fact.

      Just at that moment his phone started to ring and, glancing up at the ceiling, she rolled her eyes in a way that made him want to find a plank and make her walk it.

      ‘I’m not going to answer that,’ he said coolly. ‘And I wasn’t sneaking anywhere. Something important came up and I needed to deal with it. I told Melina to give you a message, and she did.’

      Why was this so hard for her to understand? He’d taken a week off work, but that didn’t mean his business was on hold. And who did she think he was doing all this for—and why? Women might talk about needing love and being loved, but what that translated into was a relentless desire for money and status—as his mother had proved.

      His phone was still ringing and her green eyes narrowed like a cat’s. ‘We’re not some junior members of your staff you can just fob off.’

      ‘I wasn’t fobbing you off.’

      She stared at him incredulously. ‘George is three years old, Aristo. He was so excited.’ Her voice quivered and she paused, then straightened her shoulders determinedly. ‘You didn’t even give him a second thought, did you? But the thing about three-year-olds is that if you say you’re going to do something then you have to do it. You can’t lie to him.’

      His phone had finally stopped ringing, but his chest felt suddenly so tight that he couldn’t breathe.

      ‘That’s rich—coming from you.’

      He watched the colour drain from her face, but he told himself that she deserved it.

      ‘You lied to him from the day he was born. And you lied to me too.’ He shook his head dismissively. ‘All those years, and not once did you consider telling me the truth.’

      ‘That’s not true.’ Her face blazing with anger, Teddie took a step forward. ‘I did try and tell you.’

      ‘Don’t give me that.’ The coldness in his eyes made her stomach churn. ‘You could have contacted me in any number of ways.’

      ‘I did,’ she said flatly, the flame of her anger dying as quickly as it had ignited, smothered by the memory of the phone calls she’d made to his various offices around the globe, and the polite but cool indifference of the Leonidas staff.

      ‘I tried them all. By the time I realised I was pregnant, you’d left America, so I tried calling you, but you blocked me on your phone, so then I called your offices and left messages with your staff asking you to call me back but you never did. And I wrote to you, every year on George’s birthday but I never got a reply.’

      There was a long silence.

      Aristo could feel his heart pounding, the shock of her words pricking his skin like bee stings. She was telling the truth. He could hear it in the matter-of-fact tone of her voice. And yes, he had blocked her number, told his staff not to bother him with any kind of communications from Teddie… And they had done what they’d been told. But he’d been angry and hurt—and also scared that if he even so much as heard her voice he would do something stupid, like listen to his heart…

      He’d just wanted to put it all behind him—to forget her and his marriage—