Adoni was tempted to probe about what came more recently, her years as David Bannister’s live-in mistress. But that wasn’t the point. The point was this child and securing the future Adoni wanted for it.
‘You didn’t have a happy childhood?’ Her expression softened though she still looked wary.
‘It was okay, with a workaholic father and a mother whose passion was shopping rather than family.’ He shrugged. ‘After she died my father married again and my stepmother was pleasant enough.’
Alice frowned. Clearly she deemed ‘pleasant enough’ unsatisfactory. Which was a good thing, he decided. If he was seeing the real Alice, then surely it meant she’d aim to do far better for their child.
Their child.The idea, so outlandish still, unnerved him.
He, Adoni Petrakis, a father!
His actions now would set the tone for their relationship and, most importantly, his child’s future.
It was time to win Alice’s trust, even if it meant breaching the barricades of his reserve. For trust didn’t come easily to him any more. Not since he was nineteen.
Not even Chryssa, his ex-fiancée, knew the reason he’d been disinherited. But after years of reticence Adoni no longer cared who knew this particular truth. It was no reflection on the man he was. The only one whose pride would be punctured if the revelation became public was Vassili Petrakis.
Adoni’s lips curved. It would be almost fitting if Alice Trehearn took the story to the media. But he doubted she would. He was beginning to suspect she wasn’t the woman on the make he’d accused her of being.
He wanted to believe in her. That, in itself, rang warning bells. For there was no empirical evidence he was wrong about her. Why would Dawlish tell outright lies about her? Adoni didn’t like the man but that didn’t negate his claims. Besides, Adoni had learned enough to know extreme wealth attracted clever, unscrupulous women.
‘Tell me then.’ Alice put down her mug and folded her arms across her chest, presumably unaware of the way it plumped her breasts against her shirt. ‘What do you think excuses your attitude to me in your office? Or, for that matter, your arrogance in having me investigated?’
* * *
Instead of being annoyed by her questions, Adoni nodded, as if acknowledging her right to ask. The hard stare, guaranteed to shrivel impertinence, had disappeared. Yet Alice was sure she read tension in the set of his jaw and the fast tic of his pulse at the base of that strong, bronzed throat.
‘How about the fact that’s exactly what my mother did?’
Alice frowned. ‘Sorry? I don’t understand.’
He leaned back on hands splayed wide on her bed. He looked far too at home on the thin mattress. Alice was distracted by the realisation she’d be haunted by the memory of him there when she tried to sleep later.
He’d stalked into her home and completely filled it with his presence. Even the air smelled different, spiced with an exotic tang that lingered in the nostrils, teasing with the hint of warm male skin and testosterone.
Adoni shrugged, the movement dragging her attention to those powerful shoulders then back to that lean, sculpted face. ‘My mother got pregnant. She then went to a very rich man, the sort of man who could provide for her and her baby multiple times over, and seduced him, persuaded him the baby was his. He married her and brought up the baby, believing it was his.’
Alice felt her mouth sag in astonishment. She didn’t know what she’d expected but it wasn’t this. It sounded so callous, so ruthless. So scheming.
Thatwas why he’d accused her of being afemme fatalewho lived off men? Because his own mother—?
‘For years no one knew the truth. Till one day the old man had a hospital procedure. In the process he discovered from his blood type that his eldest son couldn’t possibly be his son.’
Alice’s eyes felt round as saucers. Adoni was talking about himself, not a sibling. She knew from her recent research that he was the eldest son in the family, his younger half-siblings being around a decade younger.
She tried and failed to imagine what it would be like, having that bombshell dropped on you. To discover everything you knew about yourself and your family was a lie.
‘Your mother? Did she explain?’
Adoni shook his head. ‘We only discovered the truth when I was nineteen. My mother was dead by then and no, she never told me the truth. So, you see, all we know for sure is Vassili Petrakisisn’tmy father. She lied to us both and took my real father’s identity to the grave. I have no idea whose bastard I am. It’s too late to revisit history and try to discover who she slept with.’
Adoni’s thin lips stretched up in a smile that looked as affable as a hangman’s noose. ‘In the circumstances, I think it quite reasonable I’m wary of a woman I barely know telling me I’m about to become a father.’
Alice’s breath was an indrawn hiss. Of course he was wary. Her revelation must have seemed like history repeating itself or, judging from his eyes, like blows to an unhealed bruise. For, despite the adamantine strength of his jaw and the assured tilt of his head, Alice saw a flash of something else in his expression. Something akin to pain. It was gone in a second and she’d never have noticed it except she’d seen its echo in the mirror from time to time when her resilience cracked and grief welled.
Looking at Adoni now, she read only assurance. No hint of distress.
‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what to say.’