Tonight Amelia had eaten only half her dinner, unable to fit anything else in a tummy that was already full of knots and butterflies. Each equation she’d performed on the Hayashi Analysis had taken twice the usual time, and she’d even found an error on one when she’d re-read her work. She’d cut short her conversation with Brent, pleading a headache.
But she didn’t have a headache. Amelia had a body ache, deep in the pit of her abdomen, extending through every cell of her being. She was shaking with a need she’d never before experienced. When she closed her eyes, she saw him. When she breathed in, she smelled him. She lay in her bed and remembered the touch of his finger against her lips, the feeling of his body brushing hers. Her fingertips were still trembling as she lifted them to her lips now, feeling the skin there.
He’d been going to kiss her; she was sure of it. She had no experience in such matters but only a fool would have been unable to read the signs. His head had been lowering, his eyes rich with emotion, desire, want, need; he’d looked at her as though he’d been dying of thirst and she the only water for miles.
Something rolled through her, the ache intensifying, her need growing, so that all she wanted was to push out of bed and return to his home, time travel be damned.
And what would he say if she turned up at his front doorstep, dressed like this?
She cast a rueful glance at her pyjamas—bearing the familiar space agency logo on the right breast, they were a size too big, and the dullest shade of grey possible. They were, she decided from her very limited contemplation on the subject, the least seductive things imaginable.
She flopped back against her pillows and continued to stare at the ceiling. She had no doubt he was supremely experienced with women. Had he sensed her inexperience? Had he realised she’d never been kissed, beyond a chaste peck on the cheek? Would he still have looked at her like that if he’d known she was a virgin?
Of course not.
The woman who’d been waiting for him had been the kind of woman he was used to—beautiful, and undoubtedly worldly and experienced. For whatever reason, perhaps he’d assumed Amelia was of that ilk.
But she wasn’t. She was worlds away from that. She needed to put Santos Anastakos out of her mind, once and for all. They were oil and water—they’d never mix.
CHAPTER THREE
THE IDEA HAD come to him in the early hours of Saturday morning. After a short and frustrating evening with Maria—he was far from the perfect companion given his preoccupation with a certain schoolteacher—he’d lain awake brooding over his predicament. He deeply resented anyone trying to run his life—he’d been doing a damned fine job of that since he was sixteen years old—but at the same time her opinion hadn’t been completely unwarranted. On the face of it, he could even admit she had a good point. But staying in England was out of the question—Santos needed to believe there was another way he could live his life and still help Cameron settle into the reality of life without his mother.
And, some time before sunrise, it had struck him: the perfect solution.
A less than ideal weekend with Cameron had cemented the plan in his mind. What had he expected—that he could turn up in Cameron’s life and be instantly accepted? That they would gel immediately? Santos wasn’t close to his own father—he had no real model for parental behaviour—and Cameron was a grieving, troubled boy who seemed determined to keep Santos at arm’s length.
He needed help and Amelia could provide that...all he had to do was convince her of the sense of his proposal.
Santos Anastakos had been born into a fortune but before his sixteenth birthday it had almost all gone—his father’s lifestyle, poor business acumen and belief that each marriage would be ‘everlasting’ had meant he’d failed to sign pre-nups, meaning the fortune had been divided and re-divided enough times to diminish it significantly.
Santos had restored it, piece by piece, investment by investment, so that by his twenty-fifth birthday Anastakos Inc had been the fastest growing brand in the world and his personal fortune was one of the largest. It took skill and determination, and several habits had always guided Santos. He read people and committed their traits to memory but, more importantly, he looked for their weaknesses, things he could exploit to his advantage.
Amelia had shown him her weakness and he had no doubts as to how to exploit it to get exactly what he wanted. The ends justified the means, though—they had to. He was sinking, with no idea what to say or how to behave with his own damned son. For a man who commanded any room he entered, the complete lack of power made him feel impotent. He hated it.
He’d never wanted children; he’d been very careful to avoid having children—or so he’d believed. Nonetheless, Cameron was in existence, a six-year-old boy who was the spitting image of Santos at around the same age. His eyes were unmistakable—it was like looking in a miniature mirror. The DNA test he’d flown to England prepared to organise had been rendered unnecessary from the first meeting. Cameron was his son.
All that was left to do was work out how to be a father. People talked about parenting instincts but Santos had none. He didn’t really like children—they were illogical and emotional, demanding. And yet there was something else, something he hadn’t expected: a kind of soul-deep connection. He looked at Cameron and felt a link to his past, as though a part of himself had been severed from his body and become independent. He also felt an overwhelming fear: fear of ruining Cameron’s life; of hurting him; of making him miserable; and, yes, of compounding the grief he was feeling now; fear that he wouldn’t be the father Cameron needed—that he wasn’t capable of being any kind of father.
He was terrified that his son would come to hate him.
He ruminated on this as he waited in his car, watching the entrance to the school. It was a nice enough school, he conceded, though far from what he might have chosen had he known he was a father. Cynthia had enrolled him in the local comprehensive—because anything else had been beyond her budget. The area was
good, though, the buildings quaint in that English style and the street he was parked in lined with leafy trees.
Something shifted in the periphery of his vision and he responded immediately, training his gaze on the movement: Amelia. He pressed his hand to the door handle, preparing to step out.
But, for just a moment, he watched her. It was another warm day and today she was wearing a dress. Pale grey with an intricate pattern—perhaps flowers—it wrapped around her chest and tied at the waist, drawing attention to her gentle curves, the roundness of her breasts and neatness of her waist, so the same torpedo of attraction was spiralling through him, unwelcome and completely unwanted.
He wasn’t here to notice her damned figure, no matter how tempting he found it. More important considerations were at stake. Cameron had barely spoken to Santos since coming to stay with him, but when he had it had all been about Miss Ashford.
‘Miss Ashford this...’
‘Miss Ashford that...’
‘Miss Ashford makes me feel happy...’
‘Miss Ashford understands me...’