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Alexis focused every last ounce of attention on the approaching man.
From the marked resemblance, he had to be Christos’s father.
Father and son stared at one another for a tight moment before, jaw clenched tight, Christos said, ‘What do you want?’
Bleakness flashed across the older man’s face before it turned as neutral as his son’s. ‘To have a cordial conversation. It is a party, after all.’
If anything, the icy anger vibrating off Christos multiplied by a thousand. ‘Cordial?’ he bit out. ‘I highly recommend you double-check the definition of the word before you apply it to yourself, Pateras.’
A tight little smile curved his father’s lips. ‘At least you still call me Father. I suppose that is a small blessing.’ His gaze shifted to her, then back to his son. ‘Are you going to introduce me?’ he asked.
Tense silence fell. Then, ‘No.’
His father’s gaze returned to hers. ‘I’m Agios.’
Once again she found herself holding out her hand to a relative of Christos’s she wasn’t sure she liked very much. ‘Alexis... Drakakis,’ she added at the last moment, the weight of it shaking through her.
This time she felt a different energy emanating from Christos. Felt his ferocious gaze on her face for one monumental second before he faced his father again. ‘You’ve made a show of yourself to the crowd. Feel free to leave.’
A hard, combative light filled his father’s eyes, then it died just as swiftly, leaving him a shadow of himself. ‘Five years I’ve been trying to get you to talk to me. I’d hoped tonight you would spare me a few minutes.’
That bit of news surprised Alexis. Everything she’d learnt of Agios so far had suggested father and son were mutually estranged. A quick glance showed Christos’s granite-hard face gave no indication of softening. ‘You were wrong. Excuse us.’
The fingers linking hers were stiff, his grip tight. Reeling from the twin bombshells, she allowed Christos to march her away, her surroundings blurring as stomach-hollowing possibilities filled her mind.
Once again she found her back pressed against a wall, a short distance away from the party. But where there’d been torrid passion in his face, now there was a rabid watchfulness, as if he wanted to mine the answers from every hidden corner inside her.
‘Is there something we need to talk about?’ he breathed. The same energy vibrating through him, the one that felt like a mixture of earthquake, lightning and nuclear explosion held together by the thinnest rope, unravelled inside her.
Her eyes darted over the guests, attempting to find something...anything to ground her. Because the no that should’ve fallen firmly from her lips was lodged in her throat.
‘Alexis.’ It wasn’t a question. More of a dire warning. And something else...
Something earth-shattering in its ferocity. And even though she knew it was the epitome of folly to look into his eyes in that moment, Alexis raised her gaze, met a cyclone of gr
ey shot through with blinding, unholy light.
‘I... I don’t know.’
His face clenched hard before he exhaled. ‘I accept that I share responsibility for this...state we find ourselves in, but I need a better answer than that.’
‘That’s all I can give you right now. I’m not on the pill, and my period is...erratic at best,’ she confessed.
He seemed transfixed. ‘Thee mou,’ he breathed. ‘So you could be pregnant?’
‘Not necessarily. The odds are low,’ she said, mentally calculating frantically.
A look passed through his eyes, gone as quickly as it arrived. ‘When will you know?’
‘A week. Maybe less.’
Another eternity passed as he stared at her. Then his gaze dropped to her belly. Whatever thought went through his mind evoked a faint trembling in the fingers that raked through his hair a moment later.
‘It could be nothing, Christos.’
‘Or it could be...the opposite,’ he countered tightly. Laughter and the clink of glasses nearby intruded on their bubble. Mouth firming, he took a step back. ‘This isn’t the right moment to discuss it.’
They returned to mingle with a new, jagged awareness vibrating between them. Christos barely left her side throughout the long evening. He introduced her to guests with a hand around her waist, which lingered until, the yearning it created unbearable, she found an excuse to pull away.
