Page 25 of Billion-Dollar Baby Shock

Tara nodded.When she’d got up this morning expecting to relieve Maria, the other woman had told her she’d agreed to stay until this evening because Elena was due to come back.

Dion continued, ‘Before you came in here to get the results, I talked to Elena.She was due to return to work later but she’s actually resigned.She realised it wasn’t going to work out.’

‘Oh.’

‘So I’m stuck.’

‘I’m his mother, Dion.You’re not stuck.’

His jaw clenched at that.‘If I agree to let you stay here, for now, until I get a replacement for Elena, maybe it’ll give you the opportunity to re-evaluate your priorities.’

Tara gritted out, ‘They don’t need re-evaluating.’

As if she’d said nothing, Dion said, ‘I’ll pay you, of course.’

Tara was immediately incensed.‘You’ll do no suchthing.I’m his mother.I don’t expect payment to watch my own son.’

Dion shrugged.‘Fine.’

She could stay.For now.Be Niko’s mother.Let it sink in.She sat back down again as the enormity of it all washed over her.

‘Are you okay?’

Tara looked at Dion and a tremulous smile she couldn’t stop rose up with the emotion inside her.‘I just… I’m so happy that he’s mine.’And now he would have at least one parent who would lavish him with love and not hold him at arm’s length.

But then Tara thought of the previous night and how she’d seen such vulnerability in the way Dion had changed Niko’s nappy.And how he’d been holding him when she’d come back into the room.As naturally as if he’d been doing it all along.Father and son were already changing.

Dion said, ‘I have to go to the office today.Feel free to make yourself at home.Thea, my housekeeper, and the rest of the staff are back today.She’ll provide whatever you need.I’ll be out this evening again.’

He went over to the desk and scrawled something down on a piece of paper and handed it to her, ‘My personal mobile phone number in case you need to contact me.’

Tara took it and felt an absurd urge to giggle.She’d already slept with this man and they were parents to a six-month-old baby boy and they were only now exchanging numbers.

‘What’s funny about that?’he asked sharply.

Tara shook her head and swallowed down the giggles.‘Nothing…’ Before she left the room she looked at Dion and said, ‘You know, it mightn’t be the worst thing in theworld for Niko to have his mother.’And then she left before Dion could sour her mood with his own.She was going to spend time getting to know her son and try to ignore the fact that his father actively wanted her gone from their lives.

* * *

You know, it mightn’t be the worst thing in the world for Niko to have his mother…

Dion scowled at the words that had reverberated in his head all day and evening as his car stopped outside the villa later that night.The business dinner he’d just endured had been interminable.He’d felt restless to get back home and check on Tara and Niko.

She was Niko’s mother.

As improbable as that might be.He had to admit uncomfortably that her story did stack up.She’d come to Athens looking for him and hadn’t known who he was at that party, not helped by them agreeing to remain anonymous.And yet, would he have given up that night—the most erotic of his life—for having known who she was earlier?

His body answered him emphatically:no.

The fact that he still wanted her was inconvenient in the extreme.As much as her words had dominated his thoughts all day and evening, so had the image of her.That lithe body, dressed in just jeans and a T-shirt.Hair messy.No make-up.Pale skin.Tantalising freckles.He already had a sense of regret for not taking more time that first night…for not spending hours exploring her body with single-minded dedication.Maybe if he had, he would have exorcised her from his system.

Dion’s head was so full of Tara as he walked throughthe darkened silent villa to his bedroom that when he saw her coming out of Niko’s room and pulling the door behind her, he almost wasn’t surprised.After all, she was filling in for Maria, after the other woman’s double shift.But that wasn’t the reason.Somehow, he expected to see her now.Wanted to see her.

His gaze devoured her.She was wearing a short robe and her long legs were bare.Hair down her back and a little wild and messy.Copper, even in this light.

Annoyed for noticing her before thinking of his son, he asked in a low voice, ‘Is Niko okay?’

Tara whirled around.She glared at him.‘Would you stop doing that?’