Rhiannon froze, her arms tight around a now struggling Annabel. Her heart rate was erratic and fast as the older man walked slowly towards her. He stood in front of her, a flat look in his eyes.
‘This is the child? Christos’s child?’ he said slowly in English.
‘We don’t know yet for certain,’ Rhiannon managed carefully, her voice a cracked whisper.
‘His bastard.’
She jerked back as if slapped, saw the frank condemnation in Theo’s eyes. She glanced involuntarily at Lukas, saw him shake his head in silent warning. Still, fury bubbled up within her, gave her courage.
‘Annabel Weston is in my care,’ she told the man quietly. ‘She is my responsibility, no matter who the father turns out to be.’
He glanced at her, reluctant admiration flickering briefly in his eyes before he shrugged. ‘We shall see.’
Panic rose in her throat, and she tasted bile. Was Theo implying that they would take Annabel away from her if Christos was the father? Lukas had said something similar.
Why had she not considered how this might happen?
Because you wanted the fairy tale.
Theo strode away, and Lukas put his arm around Rhiannon’s shoulders, guiding her towards the rocky path that led to the villa.
‘None of you want her,’ she choked out in a whisper, and Lukas simply shrugged.
‘It’s not a question of want.’
‘But of responsibility, right?’ She shook her head. ‘I wanted more for Annabel.’
‘I’m afraid,’ Lukas said quietly, ‘that what you want is not my primary consideration.’
She glanced at him, saw the grim determination hardening his eyes, his mouth, his words, and felt a stab of fear. She was not his primary consideration…or any consideration at all, she finished bleakly.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER Rhiannon prowled restlessly around her bedroom. It was large and spacious, with a wide balcony overlooking the sea. Annabel sat on the floor, playing happily with some seashells Rhiannon had found in a decorative bowl.
There was a light knock on the door, and with her heart rising straight into her throat she called out, ‘Come in.’
Lukas opened the door. He’d changed from his business attire, was now dressed in jeans and a white cotton shirt open at the throat. Those few undone buttons revealed a tanned column of skin that Rhiannon couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from.
‘Have you found everything to your satisfaction?’ he asked, and she jerked her eyes upwards towards his face.
His hair was damp, brushed back from his face, his eyes sparkling silver as he smiled with a wry amusement that caused her face to burn with humiliated realisation.
He knew how he affected her, and he thought it was amusing. No doubt he had women falling for him all the time, and he obviously had no problem putting them in their place. Rejecting them.
‘Yes, fine,’ she said shortly.
He glanced at her still unopened suitcase by the bed. ‘You haven’t unpacked.’
‘We’re not going to be here for long.’
‘Perhaps not,’ Lukas agreed. ‘But it would be more comfortable, certainly, to enjoy a short stay.’
‘Before I’m booted out?’ Rhiannon interjected. ‘Sorry, I don’t feel like complying.’
Lukas shrugged, ran a hand through his hair. Rhiannon watched as it flopped boyishly across his forehead; she resisted the urge to brush it back with itching fingers.
‘Suit yourself,’ he said. ‘I only thought you might want to be comfortable.’
‘I don’t want to be comfortable,’ she snapped, even though she knew she was being childish.
Lukas’s eyes flashed. ‘You should—at least for Annabel’s sake. Surely it is in her best interests for both of you to be relaxed and comfortable during your stay here? It is, in fact, your responsibility,’ he continued in a harder voice, ‘to be so.’
Rhiannon’s mouth pursed in annoyance. ‘It’s all about responsibility, isn’t it?’
For a half-second Lukas looked nonplussed. ‘Of course it is.’
‘Not love.’
His eyebrows rose. ‘Who am I supposed to love?’
‘Annabel!’ Rhiannon cried, too angry and despairing to be embarrassed that he might have actually thought she meant herself. ‘I came here so she could find her father…a father who would love her!’
‘But I am not her father,’ he reminded her. ‘And I cannot love a child I’ve never even seen before. Not right away.’
‘Especially one that is not yours, I suppose?’ Rhiannon finished, and he shook his head, dismissing her jibe.
‘If Annabel is Christos’s child—which I believe she is—then I will make sure she is cared for. Absolutely.’
Rhiannon’s mouth dried. Absolutely. It was a word that didn’t allow for difficulties, differences. Flexibility. It was a cold, hard, unyielding word, and she didn’t like it. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this,’ she finally said after a moment, her eyes averted.
‘I understand. But this is now how it is. How it will be remains for me to decide.’
‘You,’ Rhiannon said, ‘and not me, I suppose?’
Lukas shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you want from me. If you came to the Petra resort to find Annabel’s father, you succeeded. You did your duty. Now you will leave the rest to us.’
‘I’m not going to leave it up to you,’ Rhiannon protested. ‘Annabel is my ward, not yours. Any decisions that are made will involve me.’ Her voice came out more strident than she intended, and Annabel looked up anxiously. Rhiannon bent down, soothed her with a few hushing motions.
‘The only decision that has been made so far,’ Lukas said, with a deliberate patience that warned Rhiannon he was close to losing his temper, ‘is for you to remain here until the question of paternity is resolved. All I’m asking now is that you stay here, in comfort, not snapping and biting like a fish on a line, and enjoy a few days in what most people consider to be paradise.’
Rhiannon watched Annabel bang two shells together, her eyes wide and round. Lukas’s analogy was dead on, she realised grimly. She did feel like a fish on a line, dangling desperately—and, worse yet, she’d willingly put the hook in her own mouth.
‘A few days—and then what?’
‘That remains to be seen.’ His mouth was a thin line, his eyes dangerously blank, and Rhiannon knew better than to press him now. She wasn’t going to ask questions she didn’t want answers to.
‘Fine,’ she said heavily. ‘Have you spoken to Christos?’
‘No. He is on a friend’s yacht at the moment. I’ve left a message on his mobile, but he probably won’t answer it until he is on shore.’ His mouth twisted, tightened in derision. ‘He doesn’t like his holidays disturbed.’
‘And this is the man you want for Annabel’s father?’ Rhiannon said with a shake of her head.
‘No, this is the man who is Annabel’s father. We cannot change that…if it is proved.’
He glanced down at the baby, frowning as he saw her suck the edge of a shell. ‘Do you think this is an appropriate toy for the child?’ he asked, taking the