'Don't try to lie your way out of it, Willow. I was not engaged to anyone.'
'Oh, please, save me!' Willow mocked. 'I answered the telephone call from your fiancée myself, Theo. She wasn't surprised you were still asleep, because she had apparently kept you up in her bed all night the previous evening.'
Theo's hands slackened on her shoulders, and he stared down into her wild blue eyes. She obviously believed what she was saying. Then he remembered the conversation he had had with Anna that fateful morning, nine years ago. Willow had taken the first of many calls from Dianne. He had to admit Willow was right, he had been up all night, but as for the rest. . . His dark brows drew together in a deep, puzzled frown.
But Willow was past noticing, she was on a roll. All the pain and hurt she had buried deep for nine years came ; bursting out. 'The woman you married six months later, Theo, before Stephen was even born. You do remember her, don't you? You rotten, two-timing, lousy bastard. And yet you have the colossal nerve to stand there and try to blame me.' She shook her head, her long hair flying wildly around her shoulders. Lifting her hands, she pushed him in the chest. 'Get out of my house; you make me sick.'
'No.' Theo clasped both her hands in one of his and raised his other to brush his fingers through her curling black hair, tucking it behind her ear. 'Are you trying to tell me you ran out on me nine years ago because you thought I was engaged?'
'Not thought, Theo. Knew,' she said vehemently.
Ignoring her comment, Theo said, almost to himself, 'You lied at the airport about the pill because you assumed I was engaged, and you were jealous.'
'Jealous? Of you? Never! And I never lied,' Willow snapped, trying desperately to hang onto her anger. But the low, husky note in his voice was making it very difficult, and his strong hand keeping her wrists pressed against his hard chest wasn't helping. 'I merely said I had heard of the morning-after pill. How you chose to interpret it was up to you.'
She gave a short, ironic laugh. 'Dear God! I was naive. I would never have mentioned it, except I was absolutely sure I could not possibly be pregnant because you had used protection.' She lifted her eyes to his. 'A sensible precaution with your womanising lifestyle and especially as you were engaged to someone else at the time.' She tried desperately to rekindle her anger by reminding herself that Theo was a devious, cold-hearted love rat, with absolutely no morals.
For a moment Theo had almost felt sympathy for her. She had been very young, and he knew Dianne had always been fond of stretching the truth. But her sneering dig at his supposed lecherous lifestyle banished any of his finer feelings. She was still the woman who had cold-heartedly deprived him of his son. That was all he needed to know.
'Yesterday you said to me, "I try never to dwell on the past but prefer to look to the future. '' Do you remember that?' he prompted hardly, and for a long moment he studied her upturned face. Her smouldering anger mingled with a sensuality she could not disguise and was visible in the depths of her sapphire eyes.
Helpless to tear her gaze from his, Willow could feel the steady pounding of his heart through her palms. She had the wild urge to spread her fingers and trace the perfect musculature of his hard chest; to reach around his strong neck and drag his mouth back to hers again. Shocked by the intensity of her own longing, she swallowed hard. What was it about this man that he could render her speechless and a quivering mass of raw feeling without even trying?
'It is time to take your own advice, Willow, but know this. . .' Theo continued. 'Your future, and that of our son, is with me.' His hard, sensual mouth set in a tough line. Willow could yell at him, deny it as much as she liked, but he could feel the involuntary flexing of her fingers on his chest, could see the pulse beating in her neck, and he knew he only had to bend his head and her mouth was his for the taking.
She oozed sex appeal; she could not help herself. Theo remembered all too well that sex with her had been out of this world. He wondered, with bitter humour, how many more men had possessed her exquisite body since him. She had said only one last night. But he was no fool; in all his thirty-seven years he had rarely met a woman who admitted to having had more than one lover. Experience had taught him that one was the standard response.
But it didn't matter any more; as she was the mother of his son, her love life stopped now. He was not having his son exposed to a parade of uncles as some unfortunate children did in today's world. If she needed sex then he was perfectly willing to accommodate her, married or not, and he deliberately lowered his head.
She knew he was going to kiss her and to her shame her slender body tensed with anticipation. She waited, unable to take the step back her common sense was urging her to do.
CHAPTER SIX
'Coffee, Willow,' a high-pitched voice sounded from the back garden.
'That will be Tess,' Willow murmured and Theo's dark head lifted. In a couple of strides he was leaning casually against the pine dresser at the end of the kitchen just as the back door opened.
'Hi, love, so you are up, then?' Tess put her head around the door. 'I thought I better check on you as it is almost time to collect Stephen. You looked shattered earlier.'
'Yes, thanks, Tess.' Willow smiled shakily at her friend, glad of the interruption—a momentary release of the tension that was binding her to Theo—but a second later she wasn't feeling as sure as Tess walked into the room.
'I was just in the back garden clearing out the shed, and I came across this cool-box,' she said, waving the bright red and white box in her hand. 'I thought it would come in useful for you and Stephen when you go on holiday tomorrow.'
'I'm sure it will,' Willow managed to say before another voice cut in.
'Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend, Willow, darling?' a deep, dark voice drawled.
Tess dropped the cool box in surprise. She hadn't noticed the man standing at the end of the kitchen until Theo strolled forward and slid a possessive arm around Willow's waist.
For a second Willow was too astonished and angry to speak. Theo's mockingly voiced 'darling' sickening her, she tried to shake off his controlling arm. But Tess appeared to notice nothing amiss as she looked up at the tall dark stranger before her, her green eyes sparkling with curiosity and pure female appreciation.
'Well, Willow has kept you quiet,' Tess exclaimed as Theo gave her a brilliant smile. 'I'm Tess, her neighbour.' She held out her hand and Theo took it. But instead of shaking it, he raised it elegantly to his lips before gently releasing it.
'It is a real pleasure to meet you, Tess. I am Theo Kadros, a very old friend of Willow's.' He cast a glittering sidelong glance at Willow's flushed and furious face. 'Isn't that right, darling ?' His fingers digging into her waist dictated her reply.
'Yes,' Willow grated between clenched teeth, knowing that if he said 'darling' once more she would thump him. She didn't know what Theo was up to, but he was up to something and she knew she would not like it. He was quite deliberately giving Tess the impression that they were already intimate friends.