‘OK, OK,’ she murmured soothingly, leaning over the cot to lift him out. ‘Hungry, hmm?’ She smiled down at him as she walked across to the fridge.
Resting Toby in the cradle of one arm, she rocked him while she prepared his bottle, talking softly to him as she did, the routine second nature to her now.
A sound coming from the bedroom doorway made her glance around. ‘Oh,’ she said.
Anton was standing there wearing a pair of white boxers and a short grey robe he had not bothered to close around the hair-shadowed power in his muscled torso. The fact that she had not bothered to pull on a robe before leaving her bedroom plucked at her senses, making her acutely aware of how she must look.
‘He woke me up,’ he said, seemingly oblivious to his own state of undress, covering a yawn with the back of his hand. ‘Where is Martha? I arranged for her to be here to do the inconvenient stuff.’
‘I sent her to bed.’ Turning away, Zoe went back to what she had been doing. ‘She’s swatting for exams and needs her sleep. And taking care of my brother is not inconvenient,’ she added, keeping her voice even because Toby had stopped crying and was listening to her with his dark eyes fixed intently on her face. ‘I love caring for you.’ She smiled down at the baby.
One of those silences he was so good at developing filled the space between them. Zoe wished he would go away but he didn’t. He just remained where he was, leaning now against the doorframe watching her as she continued with what she was doing with one-handed efficiency.
He’d tied the belt on his robe by the time she turned to walk over to the settee. Studiously ignoring him, she curled up in a corner and settled the baby in her arms with his bottle. At last Anton broke the silence by heaving in a breath and shifting his stance.
‘I’m going to make a warm drink, do you want one?’
About to refuse, she realised that her throat felt parched. ‘Thank you,’ she murmured politely. ‘That would be nice.’
He went away and reappeared ten minutes later with a tray containing a china mug filled with what smelled like her favourite, hot chocolate, and another cup containing strong Greek coffee plus a plate with a few home-made cookies on it.
The link Zoe made between the tea and biscuits she’d offered him yesterday morning—was it only yesterday?—put a smile on her lips.
‘Enjoy your drink while it’s hot. I’ll take the baby,’ Anton announced, folding down on the other corner of the sofa then holding out an arm and looking at her expectantly.
Zoe wanted to tell him to leave them alone and take his drink with him back to his bed but she did not want to start another round of arguments. With a shrug, she uncoiled enough to hand Toby over then remained poised like that while she waited to see if he knew what he was doing.
He did, of course. The wretched man was a quick learner. He relaxed into his corner of the sofa with her brother comfortably cradled in a big arm and a pair of very tanned legs stretched out in front of him. What piqued Zoe for a second was that Toby made no show of objection. He just wanted his formula no matter who fed it to him, she acknowledged ruefully as she turned to pick up the china mug then filch a cookie before coiling back into her corner.
This was mad.
Who would have believed that she would be sitting here at one o’clock in the morning with Anton Pallis, eating cookies and sipping hot chocolate while he fed a bottle of formula to a small baby boy?
‘It’s kind of soothing,’ he remarked as if he’d been thinking along similar lines. ‘He’s so small and helpless, he brings out my softer side, the part that makes men want to nurture and protect.’
‘Not every man has it.’
‘I’m surprised that I have it,’ he admitted. ‘I had no idea I was a baby kind of man until I had to take care of him on the flight over here.’
‘Just think how it would ruin your image if this little scene ever got out.’
‘What image?’ Dark-brown eyes speared a look at her.
Zoe felt that look all the way down deep into intimate places. ‘The ruthless tycoon with his focus concentrated on money and power,’ she explained, dipping her eyes so she didn’t have to look at him.
Lifting her cup to her mouth, she decided not to mention his equally ruthless reputation with the women he took as lovers then discarded once the novelty had worn off. On paper, a man like that should run a mile in the opposition direction from a scenario like this one.
‘Having money and power means you have to be ruthless, or some other bright spark with his eye on both will strip you clean at the first glimpse of weakness.’
Zoe took a few seconds to think about that then decided that he was probably right. ‘Well, a helpless young baby—or a child of any size, for that matter—does not go with that kind of ambition. The desire to nurture and protect gets compromised long the way.’
‘Are we talking about Theo and your father now?’ he questioned.
Were they? She hadn’t thought she was thinking of them when she’d said it. ‘Out with the weak one and bring in the stronger one,’ she murmured, leaning forward to put down her cup.
And that, Anton noted, was a strike aimed directly at him and his position in Theo’s life. ‘I am not and I never have been your grandfather’s heir, Zoe.’ He felt compelled to defend himself.
‘No?’ She shrugged as if the statement was irrelevant. ‘You still spent the last twenty-odd years being honed by him into the person you are now.’
‘Is what you are saying that you don’t like that person?’ Relaxed though he seemed with her brother cradled to his chest, she could see that he was starting to get angry with her.
Even with a glimpse of that anger Zoe was not prepared to hold back what she said next. ‘You lied, you cheated and you kidnapped us for a purpose I am still waiting to find out. You tell me what there is there to like.’
‘Just this evening you thanked me for kidnapping you,’ Anton countered dryly.
‘As I also said this evening,’ Zoe parried, ‘I can appreciate the difference between Islington and here. He’s fallen asleep.’
Coolly she shifted the attention back to Toby, slid up off the sofa then bent to take the baby back.
Anton did not try to stop her but, as she carefully eased the sleeping boy from him, their eyes drew level and, without wanting to do it, she glanced up.
It was another one of those moments when everything else just went still, shut down, turned off. His eyes wore a rich dark-brown lustre that spiralled into black and threw her right back into the garden when she’d felt the power of his attraction almost swallow her up. He was so close she could feel his breath feathering her cheekbones, felt a prickling along her nerve ends when he lifted up his hand and gently removed a lock of her hair away from her throat that had slithered forward. Her hands were cupped around the sleeping baby but she was more aware of the backs of her fingers pressing against the hard warmth of Anton’s chest. The sexually aroused pulse coming from him beat all around her so she released a stifled little gasp. Heat flooded her bones and she dragged her eyes away from him, ostensibly to concentrate on collecting her brother safely into her arms, but really she knew she was looking away from what was happening between them. The thing that was growing stronger and less easy to break away from each time it happened now.
Anton watched her lift the boy onto her shoulder then straighten up. She was flushed and there was a slight tremor going on in the hand she used to support the baby’s back. Aware that he was feeling the heavy drag of desire on his body, he remained where he was, watching her as she