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His jaw had been hard and implacable. Stern. ‘Then dance with me and I’ll let you go…’ The fact that he hadn’t been cajoling, hadn’t been drunkenly flirting, had imbued his words with something too compelling to resist.
Gypsy’s focus came back to grim and grey reality as she was forced to stop by the traffic lights. She didn’t need to recall the pitifully pathetic attempt she’d put up to resist before agreeing—ostensibly to make him let her go.
But it had had completely the opposite effect. After dancing with her so closely that her body had been dewed with sweat and heat and lust, he’d bent low to whisper against her ear. ‘Do you still want to leave alone?’ To her ongoing shame and mortification, she’d shaken her head, slowly and fatefully, her eyes glued to his in some kind of sick fascination. She’d wanted him with a hunger the like of which she’d never experienced in her life.
She’d let him take her by the hand and lead her out of the club, seeing him as somehow symbolic of the cataclysmic events of the day that had just passed, during which she’d finally let go of everything that had bound her to her father.
She’d allowed herself to be seduced…and then summarily dumped like a piece of trash the following morning. She remembered seeing the curt note he’d left, and how cheap she’d felt—as if all that was missing was a bundle of cash on the dresser.
With an inarticulate sound of disgust at herself to be thinking of this now, the fact that she’d let a man like him—a powerful man just like her father—seduce her, Gypsy strode on across the road once the traffic had stopped. With any luck Rico Christofides would have become distracted by the vision of perfection he’d been dining with last night and forgotten all about her. But he remembered you… She realised that any other woman would be feeling an intensely feminine satisfaction that a man like him hadn’t forgotten her, but she just felt panicky. Why on earth did a man like him remember someone like her?
A familiar sense of despair gripped Gypsy as she turned into her road, full of boarded-up houses and disaffected-looking youths loitering on steps. As much as she’d relished her freedom after her father’s death, and as much as she wouldn’t have minded living somewhere like this if she’d only had herself to worry about, it did bother her that her daughter’s first home was in such a decrepit part of London. Even the nearby children’s playground was vandalised beyond use, with just one pathetic swing left.
She sighed heavily, very aware of the irony that, but for her hot-headedness and determination to dissociate herself from her father, she might have been living in much more upmarket surroundings. But then she knew she could never have lived off her father’s money—and she’d never have dreamed that she’d become pregnant after a one-night stand with a ruthlessly seductive—
Gypsy’s heart stopped stone-cold dead in her chest—and it had nothing to do with the faintly menacing-looking youths crowded around the steps of a nearby house and everything to do with the stunning car they were eyeing up.
The gleaming black luxury vehicle with tinted windows should have belonged to one of the gangsters that had a stranglehold on the area, but Gypsy knew immediately it was a world apart from their cars. The gangsters around here could only wish to own a car like this.
And as she drew closer, and saw the back door swing open, her heart picked up speed, so that it was nearly leaping from her chest as she watched a tall, dark and powerfully built figure uncoil like a panther stretching lazily in the sun.
As if she didn’t already know who it was, he turned to face her. Just feet away, and right outside her front door. No escape.
Rico Christofides.
Chapter Two
GYPSY knew she couldn’t run. The very thought was futile—as evidenced by Rico Christofides’ clear determination to find her. Why was he so intent? All Gypsy had to do was picture the woman from last night and the contrast between them was laughable.
Today she was in her habitual uniform of too baggy jeans bought from a local charity shop, layers of threadbare jumpers to block out the January cold, sneakers, a secondhand parka and a woolly hat pulled down low over her ears and too wild hair. He, on the other hand, looked every inch the successful tycoon, in a long, black and expensive-looking coat, with the hint of a pristine suit underneath.
She saw his slaty grey eyes narrow on her as she approached. No doubt he was regretting his impetuous decision to find her. And then her skin prickled as she saw his gaze drop to the pram she pushed, with a sleeping Lola inside, obscured by the rainshield.
His da
ughter—oh, God—could he know?
Gypsy immediately reassured herself there was no way he could know. Why would he assume for a second that Lola was his? She just had to take advantage of the undoubted regret he’d already be feeling at seeking her out and get rid of him. As soon as possible—before he could see Lola and guess.
Even if he didn’t guess she knew that once she told him about Lola he’d move heaven and earth to prove that she wasn’t his—which was what she’d seen him do before. And then, when paternity was proved, he’d set out to control his daughter utterly. Exactly as her father had done to her once he’d had no choice but to accept her.
She knew this because Rico came from her father’s world of powerful men who thrived on being ruthless. Men who dominated those around them.
As soon as she’d heard his name she hadn’t been able to believe she hadn’t recognised him. She even recalled overhearing her father speaking bitterly of Rico Christofides on more than one occasion: ‘If you think I’m ruthless then don’t ever cross Rico Christofides. The man is a cold machine. If I could beat him I would, but the bastard wouldn’t rest until he’d resurrected himself from the dead and ruined me in the process. Some fights just aren’t worth it, but I’d give anything to see his arrogance smashed…’
Her father had been obsessive, and the memory of that almost grudging admiration had blasted away any chance that she might have contacted Rico Christofides before today.
The best that Gypsy could hope for was that that day wasn’t going to be today, and that perhaps she could escape with Lola—go somewhere new, away from London—until such time as she could get her wits about her again and decide what was best for them both.
She was glad now of her plain and dowdy appearance. Rico Christofides must already be forming some escape route of his own. She’d help him along, agree with him that he must have the wrong person, and then he’d get back into his luxury car and be off, out of her life, until such time as she invited him back in, when she was ready to deal with him. With that assurance, she steeled herself and walked forward.
Rico watched the woman come towards him. For a second he faltered. Was this her? The woman approaching slowly looked impossibly plain from a distance, bare of any make-up or artifice. Pale. And her body was all but swamped in clothes that looked as if they’d just been dragged out of a skip.
And she had a child. Something which felt suspiciously like disappointment sent his brain reeling, and he clamped down on that emotion hard. A child was a complication. She came closer, and as he lifted his gaze back to her face he was already trying to come up with some excuse for having come all this way to find her, still doubting that it might be her. Perhaps he had been completely mistaken. Perhaps the name was a freak coincidence.
But then she drew closer, and all thoughts of children and complications fled as his body reacted with a helpless lurch of desire. It was her.
Despite her appearance, he could see the intensity of those huge green eyes now, framed with long black lashes, the delicate bone structure, her lush mouth. And her hair, with its irrepressible curls trailing out from under the tatty hat over her shoulders. It reminded him of the moment he’d first set eyes on her in that club. He’d been cursing himself for having gone at all, hating that he’d given in to weak restlessness, and then she’d walked in. Dressed in snug jeans and a vest top, completely at odds with the glitter of the too coiffed women who’d thronged the place. The expression on her face had been intense, as if she was being driven by inner demons, and it had resonated within Rico.
