‘His name is Alek Sarantos,’ she blurted out, but not before she had seen a wary look entering the guard’s eyes.
To his credit—and Ellie’s surprise—he didn’t offer any judgement or try to move her on, he simply nodded.
‘I’ll let his office know you’re here,’ he said, and started to walk towards the reception desk.
He’s going to tell him, thought Ellie as the reality of her situation hit her. He’s going to ring up to Alek’s office and say that some mad, overheated woman is waiting downstairs for him in Reception. It wasn’t too late to make a run for it. She could be gone by the time Alek got down here. She could go back to the New Forest and carry on working for the owner of Candy’s Cupcakes—who wasn’t called Candy at all—and somehow scrape by, doing the best she could for her baby.
But that wasn’t good enough, was it? She didn’t want to bring up a child who had to make do. She didn’t want to have to shop at thrift stores or learn a hundred ways to be inventive with a packet of lentils. She wanted her child to thrive. To have new shoes whenever he or she needed them and not have to worry about whether there was enough money to pay the rent. Because she knew how miserable that could be.
‘Ellie?’
A deep Greek accent broke into her thoughts and Ellie looked up to see Alek Sarantos directly in front of her with the guard a few protective steps away. There was a note of surprise in the way he said her name, and a distinct note of unfriendliness, too.
She supposed she ought to get to her feet. To do something rather than just sit there, like a sack of potatoes which had been dumped. She licked her lips and tried to smile, but a smile was stubbornly refusing to come. And wasn’t it crazy that she could look at someone who was glaring at her and still want him? Hadn’t her body already betrayed her once, without now shamefully prickling with excited recognition—even though she’d never seen him looking quite so intimidating in an immaculately cut business suit?
Keep calm, she told herself. Act like a grown-up.
‘Hello, Alek,’ she said, even managing what she hoped was a friendly smile.
He didn’t react. His blue eyes were cool. No. Cool was the wrong temperature. Icy would be more accurate.
‘What are you doing here?’ he questioned, almost pleasantly—but it didn’t quite conceal the undertone of steel in his voice and she could see the guard stiffen, as if anticipating that some unpleasantness was about to reveal itself.
She wondered what would happen if she just came out and said it. I’m having your baby. You’re going to be a daddy, Alek! That would certainly wipe that cold look from his face! But something stopped her. Something which felt like self-preservation. And pride. She couldn’t afford to just react—she had to think. Not just for herself, but for her baby. In his eyes she’d already betrayed him to the journalist and that had made him go ballistic. She couldn’t tell him about impending fatherhood when there was a brick-house of a guard standing there, flexing his muscles. She ought to give him the opportunity to hear the news in private. She owed him that much.
She kept her gaze and her voice steady—though that wasn’t particularly easy in the light of that forbidding blue stare. ‘I’d prefer to talk to you in private, if you don’t mind.’
Alek felt a sudden darkness envelop his heart as the expression on her face told him everything. He tried to tell himself that it was the shock of finding her here which had sent his thoughts haywire, but he knew that wasn’t true. Because he’d thought about her. Of course he had. He’d even wondered idly about seeing her again—and why wouldn’t he? Why wouldn’t he want a repeat of what had been the best sex he could remember? If only it had been that straightforward, but life rarely was.
He remembered the way he’d lain there afterwards, with his head cradled on her shoulder as he drifted in and out of a dreamy sleep. And her fingers—her soft fingers—had been stroking his hair. It had felt soothing and strangely intimate. It had kick-started something unknown inside him—something threatening enough to freak him out. He had felt the walls closing in on him—just as they were closing in on him right now.
He tried to tell himself that maybe he was mistaken—that it couldn’t possibly be what he most feared. But what else could it be? No woman in her situation would turn up like this and be so unflappable when challenged—not unless she had a trump card to play. Not when he’d left her without so much as a kiss or a promise to call her again. Somehow he sensed that Ellie had more pride than to come here begging him to see her again. She’d been strong, hadn’t she? An equal in his arms and out of them, despite the disparity of their individual circumstances.