‘Look...’ While Stevos was engaged in giving Ash an alarmed look at that sudden uncharacteristic swerve of his into child-welfare territory, Tabby had folded her arms in frustration and she was glowering at the two men. ‘If you two are going to keep on chatting in a foreign language and acting like I’m not here—’
‘If only you were not,’ Ash murmured silkily.
Tabby’s hands balled into fists. ‘I bet quite a few women have thumped you in your time!’
Shimmering eyes dark as sloes challenged her, his lean strong face slashing into a sudden smile of raw amusement. ‘Not a one...’
Amber, Tabby reminded herself with painful impact, her heart clenching at the thought of the child she adored. She was here to ask for his help for Amber’s sake, and Amber’s needs were the most important consideration, not how objectionable she found the despicable man. His charismatic smile struck her like a deluge of icy water. He was incredibly, really quite breathtakingly, handsome and the fact that he found her amusing hurt. Of course, Tabby had never cherished many illusions about her desirability factor as a woman. Although she had always had a lot of male friends, she’d had very few boyfriends, and Sonia had once tactfully tried to hint that Tabby could be too sharp-tongued, too independent and too critical to appeal to the average male. Unfortunately, nobody had ever explained to Tabby how she could possibly have survived her challenging life without acquiring those seemingly unfeminine attributes.
‘You want to meet the child?’ Stevos stepped in quickly before war broke out again between his companions and wasted more time.
A sudden smile broke across Tabby’s face like sunshine, and Acheron studied her intently, scanning her delicate features, realising that there could be an attractive female beneath the facade of bolshie belligerence. He liked women feminine, really, really feminine. She was crude and unkempt and the guardian of Olympia’s granddaughter, he reminded himself doggedly, striving to concentrate on the most important element of the equation. And that was the child, Amber. He cursed the fact that he had not known of the connection sooner, cursed his own innate aversion to being tied down by anything other than business. He had no relatives, no loving relationships, no responsibility outside his company and that was how he liked his life. But not at the expense of basic decency. And his recollection of Olympia, who had frequently been kind and friendly to a boy everyone else had viewed as pure trouble, remained one of the few good memories Ash had of his childhood.
‘Yes. I want to see the child as soon as possible,’ Acheron confirmed.
Tabby tilted her head to one side, taken aback by his change of heart. ‘What changed your mind?’
‘I should have personally checked into her circumstances when I was informed of the guardianship,’ Acheron breathed grimly, angry with himself for once at the elaborate and very protective support system around him that ensured that he was never troubled by too much detail about anything that might take his mind off business. ‘But I will take care of that oversight now and be warned, Miss Glover, I will not support your application to adopt the little girl unless I reach the conclusion that you are a suitable carer. Thank you for your help, Stevos, but not for that last suggestion you made...’ Sardonic dark eyes met the lawyer’s frowning gaze. ‘I’m afraid that idea belongs in fantasy land.’
‘I COULD’VE DONE with some advance warning before you came to visit,’ Tabby remarked thinly, after giving the uniformed chauffeur the address of the basement flat where she was currently staying, courtesy of her friend, Jack.
Jack, Sonia and Tabby had become fast friends and pseudo-siblings after passing their teenaged years in the same foster home.
Tabby eased slowly into the leather upholstered back seat of Acheron’s unspeakably fancy limousine and studiously avoided staring starstruck at her surroundings but, dear heaven, it was a challenge not to stare at the built-in bar and entertainment centre. She had, however, enjoyed a mean moment of glorious one-upmanship when she sailed out of the front doors of the DT building with the doors held open by the same security guards who had, the hour before, manhandled her on the top floor.
‘Obviously a warning would’ve been unwise. I need to see how you live without you putting on a special show for my benefit,’ Acheron responded smoothly, flipping out a laptop onto the small table that emerged at the stab of a button from the division between front and back seats.
Tabby gritted her teeth at that frank admission. Any kind of fake special show was not an option open to her in the tiny bedsit that she was currently sharing with Amber. It was purely thanks to Jack, who was a small-time builder and property developer, that she still had Amber with her and had not already been forced to move into a hostel for the homeless and give up Sonia’s daughter. It hurt that her long-term friendship with Sonia counted for nothing next to the remote blood tie Acheron Dimitrakos had shared with Troy. What had they been? Troy’s gran had been a cousin of Acheron’s mother, so Acheron was what...a third cousin or something in relation to Amber? Yet Tabby had known and loved Sonia since she was ten years old. They had met in the children’s institution where they were both terrorised by the older kids. Tabby, having grown up in a violent home, had been much more used to defending herself than the younger girl. Sonia, after all, had once been a loved child in a decent family and tragically orphaned by the accident in which her parents died. In comparison, Tabby had been forcibly removed by the authorities from an abusive home and no longer knew whether her parents were alive or dead. There had been a few supervised visits with them after she was first taken away, many attempts to rehabilitate her mother and father and cobble the family back together, but in reality her parents proved to be more attached to their irresponsible lifestyle than they had ever been to their child.
Acheron Dimitrakos worked steadily at his laptop, making no effort to start up a conversation. Tabby compressed her generous mouth and studied him. She knew he had already decided that she was a rubbish person from the very bottom of the social pile. She knew he had taken one look and made judgements based on her appearance...and, doubtless, her use of bad language, she conceded with a sneaking feeling of shame.
But then she doubted he knew what it felt like to be almost at the end of your tether. He was so...self-possessed, she decided resentfully, her violet gaze wandering over his bold bronzed profile, noting the slight curl in his thick black hair where it rested behind his ear and the extraordinary length of his dense inky-black eyelashes as he scrutinised the screen in front of him. Imagine a boyfriend with more impressive lashes than you have yourself, she ruminated, unimpressed, her soft mouth curling with disdain.
It annoyed her that he looked even more gorgeous in the flesh than he had in the magazine photographs. She had believed the photos must’ve been airbrushed to enhance his dark good looks but the evidence to the contrary was right before her. He had high aristocratic cheekbones, a perfectly straight nose and the wide, sensual mouth of a classic Greek statue. He was also extremely tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped and long-legged—in fact, he was graced with every attractive male attribute possible.
Not a nice, caring person though, she reasoned staunchly, determined to concentrate on his flaws. Indeed, thinking of how he had outright refused to take any interest in Troy and Sonia’s daughter, it was a challenge to understand why he should be suddenly bothering to come and see Amber now. She decided that she had made him feel guilty and that, after all, he had to have a conscience. Did that mean that he would support her application to adopt Amber? And even more importantly, would his opinion carry any weight with Social Services?
* * *
Acheron could not concentrate, which annoyed the hell out of him. Tabby Glover never sat still, and the constant movements of her slight small body on the seat beside him were an irritating distraction. He was too observant, he thought impatiently as he