Modern Romance November 2019 Books 5-8. Dani Collins

on the sofa a short while ago. Had things really got out of hand so quickly? My body still hummed with unspent energy, and my heart hadn’t quite settled into its steady cadence.

      ‘I’ll come with you to visit my son.’

      The throb of possessiveness in his voice sent my senses flaring wide with warning. What exactly that warning was refused to surface as we left his suite.

      As it turned out it wasn’t necessary to return to the ground floor. Sophia was carefully navigating the stairs, with a sleepy Andreos in her arms. We followed her as she entered the opposite wing of the villa, where a nursery had been set up by a team of designers on the first day of my return.

      Seeing us, she smiled. ‘We played for a while, but I think he’s ready for his nap, kyria,’ she said softly.

      The sight of Andreos fighting a losing battle to stay awake drew a smile from my heart. Handing him over to Sophia even for such a short while had made my heart ache. I knew it would be a million times worse when I had to leave, but somehow I trusted Axios with his care. Sophia’s clear devotion to him was an added bonus.

      I reached out for him but Axios stepped forward.

      ‘Do you mind?’ The demand was gruff but gentle.

      In stunned surprise I nodded. Still smiling, Sophia handed son over to father and discreetly melted away.

      The sight of Axios holding his son for the first time shouldn’t have brought a thick lump to my throat. The sight of his strong, powerful arms carefully cradling my baby, his throat moving in a convulsive swallow, shouldn’t have fired a soul-deep yearning through my body. A yearning for things to be different. For fate not to be so cruel.

      Why? Did I wish for things to be different between Axios and I?

       Absolutely not.

      As for other yearnings—hadn’t I already been granted more than enough? I’d prayed for a healthy son and been given the child of my heart. I’d prayed for a little more time and had enjoyed almost four beautiful months.

      But the thought of leaving him, even to fight for my health—

      ‘What’s wrong?’

      I jumped, my gaze rising to see Axios watching me.

      ‘Am I holding him wrong?’

      The touch of uncertainty in his voice caught a warm spot inside me and loosened another smile from me as I approached, unable to stop myself from reaching out, kissing Andreos’s forehead and cheek, breathing in his sweet and innocent scent.

      ‘No, you’re not doing anything wrong.’

      Grey eyes so very similar to his son’s dropped to the now sleeping Andreos, and his chest slowly expanded in a long breath before he headed over to the brand-new, state-of-the-art cot set out for our baby.

      With the utmost care he transferred Andreos from his arms to the cot, barely eliciting any protest from him. Arms thrown up beside his head in angelic abandon, Andreos slept on as his father draped a soft cotton blanket over him, drew a gentle finger down his cheek and straightened.

      Still smiling, I glanced over at Axios—and my heart leapt into my throat. Gone was the gentle look he’d bestowed on his son. In its place was a bleak visage full of loss and yearning that made me gasp. Made that pulse of guilt rise again.

      The sound drew his attention to me. When he took hold of my arm and steered me out of earshot I tried to think past the naked tingles his touch brought. To think how I could contain the relentless waves of turbulent emotion bent on consuming us.

      ‘I’d like answers to a few questions, Calypso. If you feel so inclined?’ he rasped.

      Seeing no way to avoid it without collapsing the agreement I’d struck, I nodded.

      His hand dropped to my wrist. ‘We’ll discuss this further over lunch.’

      Lunch was an extensive selection of meze fit for a small banquet—not the intimate setting for two laid out on one of the three sun-splashed terraces.

      Axios must have spotted my surprise as he pulled out my chair because he shrugged. ‘I didn’t know your preferences so I instructed the chef to prepare a large selection.’

      ‘Oh…thank you.’

      His gaze rested on me as he lowered himself into his own chair. ‘Again, you sound surprised. Believe it or not I want things to go as smoothly as possible for both of us.’

      The knowledge that this included simple things such as what I ate widened the warm pool swelling inside me. Even cautioning myself that it was foolish to entertain such a sensation didn’t do anything to stem it as I helped myself to pitta bread and tzatziki, feta cheese and chickpea salad and succulent vine leaves stuffed with lamb and cucumber.

      ‘Where was Andreos born?’

      His deep voice throbbed with one simple emotion—a hunger to know. And for the very first time since my decision to live life on my terms, twelve long months ago, I experienced a deep stirring of guilt.

      But along with that came a timely warning not to divulge everything. Knowledge was power to men like Axios. Men like my father. And every precious uninterrupted moment with my son was as vital to me as the breath in my lungs.

      Although in the past four days since my return, Axios had seemed a little more…malleable. While the man who’d laid down the law and walked away from me in Agistros still lurked in there somewhere, this Axios tended to ask more and command less.

      But still I carefully selected the bits of information that wouldn’t connect too many dots for him and replied, ‘He was born in a small clinic in Kenya, where I was volunteering. He came a week early, but there were no complications and the birth was relatively easy.’

      He didn’t answer. Not immediately. The glass of red wine he was drinking with his meal remained cradled in his hand and his expression reflective and almost…yearning as he stared into the middle distance.

      ‘I would’ve liked to be there,’ he rasped. ‘Very much.’

      The warm pool inside me grew hotter, turning into a jet of feeling spiralling high with emotions I needed to wrestle under control before they got out of hand.

      But even as the warning hit hard I was opening my mouth, uttering words I shouldn’t. ‘One of the nurses filmed the birth…if you’d like to see it?’

       What are you doing sharing your most precious moments with him?

       He’s Andreos’s father.

      Axios inhaled sharply, the glass discarded as he stared fiercely at me. ‘You have a video?’

      I jerked out a nod. ‘Yes. Would you—?’

      ‘Yes.’ The word was bullet-sharp, and the cadence of his breathing altered as his gaze bored into me. ‘Yes. Very much,’ he repeated.

      For the longest time we remained frozen, our gazes locked in a silent exchange I didn’t want to examine or define. Soon it morphed into something else. Something equally intimate. Twice as dangerous.

      Perhaps it was in the molten depths of his eyes, or in the not so secret wish to relive what had happened upstairs ramping up that ever-present chemistry. Whatever it was, we’d brought it alive on that sofa and now it sat between us, a writhing wire ready to sizzle and electrify and burn at the smallest hint of weakening.

      Forcing my brain back on track didn’t help. Hadn’t we been discussing childbirth? The product of what had happened in a bedroom the last time we were both present in one.

      ‘I’ll let you have the recording after lunch,’ I blurted, then picked up my water glass and drank simply to distract myself.

      From the corner of my eye I watched him lounge back in his seat, although his body still held that coil of tension that never dissipated.