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Alexio battled to control the lust that had almost felled him the second he’d laid eyes on Sidonie again. His libido was back with a vengeance. He felt the fragility of Sidonie’s arm under his hand. She’d lost weight—weight she could ill afford to lose. Her face was more angular...giving it a haunting beauty. Her eyes looked huge and there were shadows underneath. She was exhausted. He recognised it well.
He frowned. ‘Aren’t you just leaving work?’
She tried to pull her arm out of his grip but he had an almost visceral fear that if he let her go he’d never see her again. That glorious light golden hair was duller than he remembered, and scooped up into a bun much as it had been when they’d first met. Her neck looked long and vulnerable.
‘I have two jobs—daytime and evening. Now, if you don’t mind, I don’t want to be late.’
‘I’ll give you a lift,’ Alexio said impulsively.
He was still trying to get his head around seeing her again. His conscience pricked hard. She hadn’t taken the money and she was working two jobs. To pay off the debts. Debts that weren’t even hers. Because she had never wanted the money from him in the first place. The ramifications of this, if it were true, made Alexio reel.
This time Sidonie wrenched her arm free. She glared at Alexio and her eyes spat blue and green sparks at him. ‘No, thank you. I do not want a lift or anything else from you. Now, please, go back to where you came from and leave me be.’
She turned and hurried away, her bag slung over her body. She looked very young. Alexio was grim. No way was he going to walk away until he knew what she was up to. The fact that he was clearly the last person she wanted to see only made him more determined.
As Alexio battled not to go and grab her again, and watched her disappear down the steps of a nearby metro station, he took out his mobile phone and made a terse call.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THAT NIGHT WHEN Sidonie left the Moroccan restaurant she felt so weary she could have cried. It wasn’t helped by the state of agitation she’d been in all day after seeing Alexio. She’d kept expecting him to pop up out of nowhere again and she couldn’t forget how he’d looked so drawn. Intense. He hadn’t looked like the carefree playboy she remembered.
Still... She firmed her mouth. She’d done the right thing by sending him away. He had no right to come barging into her life again just because he wanted to solve the riddle of the mysterious uncashed cheque.
She would never forgive him for delving into her private life, seeking out her most painful memory and then throwing it in her face as an accusation. He hadn’t been remotely interested in listening to her protest her innocence because he’d been all too ready to believe she was just as guilty as her mother. Although Sidonie winced slightly when she thought of the misfortune of him hearing that phone call when he had.
As Sidonie approached Tante Josephine’s apartment she saw a familiar low-slung vehicle parked outside. Clearly out of place in this run-down area of Paris.
Her heart thumped erratically. The car was empty. Sidonie looked up and could see the first-floor apartment’s lights blazing. Tante Josephine was usually in bed by now. Sidonie had a horrific image of her beloved Jojo being confronted by a tall, dark, intimidating Alexio and stumbled in her haste to get in.
When she almost fell in the front door she saw an idyllic scene of domesticity. Her Tante Josephine was perched on the edge of a chair, holding a cup of tea, and Alexio was seated opposite her on the couch, drinking a cup of coffee.
Tante Josephine put down her cup and stood up, her small matronly bosom quivering with obvious excitement. Her cheeks were bright pink. Sidonie could have rolled her eyes in disgust. The Alexio charm offensive had struck again.
Her aunt took her hands as she came in and Sidonie shot an accusing look at Alexio, whose face was unreadable. But something in his eyes made her heart jump. It was dark. Hard. As it had been on that day.
‘Oh, Sidonie, your friend called by earlier. I told him he could wait here for you and we’ve been having the most pleasant chat.’
Alexio stood up then and made the small apartment laughably smaller. He looked pointedly at her belly and said, in perfect accentless French, ‘I believe congratulations are in order?’
Sidonie went cold. No. Her aunt couldn’t have... But she was notoriously indiscreet—especially with strangers...
Sidonie looked at her with horrified eyes but Tante Josephine, having the nous to suspect that something had just gone very wrong, fluttered nervously and said, ‘Well, it’s past my bedtime. I’ll leave you young people to catch up.’
And then she was gone, leaving Sidonie facing her nemesis. The air was thick with tension.
Sidonie lifted her chin and waited. It didn’t take long.
‘You’re pregnant?’
She tried not to be intimidated by the murderous look on Alexio’s face. She’d never allowed herself the indulgence of daydreaming about this scenario, but for a man who didn’t even want a relationship, this was pretty close to what she might have imagined.
‘Yes,’ she confirmed starkly, reluctantly. ‘I’m pregnant.’
Alexio went pale under his olive skin. His voice sounded rough. ‘Whose is it?’
Sidonie gaped at him. She’d also never envisaged that he would doubt the baby was his. She started to speak but a flash of anger rendered her speechless again. Incensed, she stalked over to him and planted her hands on her hips, looked up into that remote hard-boned face.
‘Well,’ she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, ‘I did have a threesome shortly after you cast me out of your life like a piece of unwanted luggage, so it could be Tom, Dick or Harry’s baby. But we won’t know until it’s born and we can see who she or he looks like.’ She was breathing hard.
