Reluctant Mistress, Blackmailed Wife. Lynne Graham

not imagine why she had once made him seethe with lust.

      Her lashes lifted on languorous eyes as rich and deep a green as moss. His gaze instantly narrowed, increasing in intensity almost without his volition. She shifted position with an indescribably feline movement of slender limbs that made his big powerful frame tense.

      The silence stretched and stretched.

      ‘So…?’ Alexandros prompted, his dark drawl rough-edged as he fought the raw tide of sensual memory afflicting him. She had always smelt of soap and fresh air. The most expensive perfume in the world made her sneeze uncontrollably. He cleared his mind of that frivolous imagery with the rigorous restraint that had been second nature to him from his early twenties. He had learned then how to shut down and shut out unwelcome emotions and reactions. He thought it significant that he had got involved with Katie Fletcher when he had been emotionally off balance. Presumably, and ironically, that had added an extra edge which his encounters had lacked since then.

      ‘What’s this about?’ he asked with level austerity.

      Just watching him, Katie felt her mouth run dry—because he was so incredibly handsome. She found herself tracing the image of her sons in his lean bronzed features, noting the straight dark brows, the definite chin and nose, and the ebony hair that gleamed with vitality. Her little boys were like mini-clones of their father. She lowered her lashes, discomfiture taking over, for what she had to tell him loomed over her like a mountain that shut out the sun. He would soon be wishing that he had never laid eyes on her, she thought painfully. ‘I wish you’d got that letter I sent you…’

      To Alexandros she looked so young at that moment that guilt penetrated even his polished armour of self-containment. What lustful madness had overcome his scruples eighteen months ago? He might as well have seduced a schoolgirl. Every word she spoke underlined the reality that she had been defenceless. The other women he had known wouldn’t write him letters after he dumped them.

      ‘Let’s move on from the letter.’ Alexandros was now taking further note of her shabby clothes, and the fact that the sole was peeling off one of her trainers. Her poverty was obvious and his distrust increased. He could not forget the potential threat with which she had concluded their exchange on the phone. ‘What’s happened to you?’

      Wretchedly aware of his visual inspection, and inwardly cringing from it, Katie muttered tightly, apologetically, ‘I know…I don’t look the same, do I? Life’s been tough over the past year—’

      ‘If you need money, I’ll give it to you. Drama and sob stories are not required,’ Alexandros imparted.

      Her pointed chin came up in a defiant motion, her green eyes full of strain and hurt pride. ‘My goodness, did you think I was about to make you sit through some sob story? Well, then, I won’t try to wrap up the bad news. I’ll just get to the point. You got me pregnant…’

      Astonished by that claim, Alexandros went straight into defensive mode, not a muscle moving on his darkly handsome face.

      Katie was as pale as milk. ‘I wasn’t very pleased either. Well, to be honest, I was just terrified—’

      ‘Is this some kind of sting? It’s a very clumsy one.’

      Her white brow indented. ‘A sting?’ she repeated blankly.

      ‘I don’t believe that I made you pregnant. Why would I only be hearing about it now?’ Alexandros demanded in a smooth, derisive undertone that suggested that what she had said was too stupid for words. ‘How can you expect me to believe this nonsense?’

      ‘The reason that you’re only hearing about it now is that you didn’t give me your address.’

      ‘But I left you a phone number.’

      ‘And I rang it more than a dozen times, and every time I was told you were unavailable or in a meeting!’ Her voice rose as she recalled how her sense of humiliation had grown with every fruitless phone call.

      Alexandros continued to look stonily unimpressed. ‘I don’t accept that. My staff are very efficient—’

      ‘Eventually one of your employees got so tired of my calls that she took pity on me. She explained that I wasn’t on the special list she had. And, as she said, “If your name isn’t on my boss’s list, you won’t get to speak to him this side of eternity!”’ Katie completed rawly.

      Alexandros was frowning. ‘Your name must have been on the list—’

      ‘No, it wasn’t. Why pretend? We both know why my name wasn’t on your fancy VIP list,’ Katie condemned, with a bitterness she could not hide. ‘You didn’t want to hear from me. You had no wish for further contact. That’s fine, that’s okay, but don’t try and criticise me for not telling you I was pregnant when I had no way of contacting you!’

      ‘You’re hysterical…I’m not continuing this conversation with you,’ Alexandros asserted with cold clarity, outrage turning his dark eyes into chips of gold ice because she had raised her voice.

      Katie snatched in a deep, shuddering breath even as she wondered if he remembered her once serving him coffee on her knees to make him laugh. ‘I’m not hysterical. I’m sorry I’m so angry, but I can’t help it. I should’ve known this wasn’t going to work. I shouldn’t have come to your precious bank and I shouldn’t have got into this car—’

      ‘Calm down,’ Alexandros interposed with chilling cool, while he tried to work out her motivation for the tale she was telling so badly. He could not credit that what she was telling him was true. He was willing to admit that with her he had not been one hundred per cent careful when it had come to contraception. There was a very slight possibility that conception could have taken place. He thought it highly unlikely, though, and his usually alert and versatile mind was curiously reluctant to move on from that concrete conviction. He did not recognise his own unresponsiveness as simple shock at the announcement she had made.

      Katie put trembling hands up to her face and covered it. Calm down? Her brow was pounding hard with tension; her tummy was in twisting knots. As he watched her, his lean hands clenched but he remained otherwise motionless.

      On the other side of the glass partition, Cyrus was trying to catch his employer’s eye in the mirror, to work out where to go next. In a sudden decision, Alexandros touched a button to seal the passenger area into privacy. If she cried, he did not want her tears to be witnessed. ‘It’s all right,’ he told her grittily, for gentleness did not come naturally to him and he would not let himself reach across the space separating them to make physical contact with her. ‘You’ll be fine.’

      ‘Nothing’s all right…’ Katie felt as if she was banging her head up against a brick wall. He wasn’t listening. He didn’t believe her. She was wasting her breath. He would probably look at Toby and Connor and find it equally easy to say that they weren’t his. Then what? She bowed her head, exhaustion overwhelming the nervous energy that had powered her into confronting him.

      Alexandros recognised her fragile emotional state. She was desperate and broke. Presumably that was why she had come to him with a foolish story that she had hoped would engage his sympathy. It must not have occurred to her that a fictional tale about a pregnancy that had come to nothing was pointless. But his anger had already ebbed, to be replaced by an effort to understand her predicament that would have disconcerted anyone who knew him well. While he gave freely to a host of worthy charitable causes, he had always avoided situations where anything more personal was required.

      ‘Are you unemployed?’ he asked, deciding to concentrate on practicalities in the hope that those issues would ground her.

      Katie darted a surprised glance at him above her fingers and slowly, carefully, lowered her hands back down on to her lap. ‘Yes.’

      ‘So you decided to approach me for…help. That’s okay.’ Alexandros resolved to offer assistance in every way he could. ‘Where are you living at present?’

      Unsure where this dialogue could be heading, Katie blinked. ‘In