Rags To Riches: Hired For His Satisfaction: A Ring to Secure His Heir / Nanny for the Millionaire's Twins / The Ties that Bind

Alexius levelled forbidding icy-grey eyes on her flushed and anxious face. ‘You’re a virgin?’

‘Not any more,’ she pointed out helplessly. ‘My choice, my decision.’

Alexius gritted his teeth in annoyance. The deed was done. Her choice, not his and not a position he was used to finding himself in. But it was the work of a moment to let the dam of hunger he had rigorously restrained flow free and he buried himself deep in the silken welcome of her hot little body.

Her inner muscles clenched round him as tiny little tremors of pleasure began to course through Rosie. She had feared he might stop; she hadn’t wanted him to stop. Now he began to move, harder, faster, deeper and the excitement returned with an intensity that took her breath away. Raw sensation and energy controlled her now and she tilted her hips and locked her legs round him in instinctive welcome. The pleasure came in an electrifying wave, tingling and burning through her every fibre, and then it peaked as she came in shock at what she was feeling. Alexius shuddered and poured himself into her, on a high of excitement that was new to him. He looked down at her to see that tears had left glistening trails down her cheeks and knew that she had been overwhelmed as she gazed up at him in astonishment. He released her from his weight and, even though he usually rolled away from his lovers the instant he had achieved satisfaction, he pulled her back into his arms and held her close, his heart thudding madly against hers.

‘Are you all right, moli mou?’ Alexius asked, his breath fanning her cheek. ‘Are you in pain?’

‘No.’ Rosie suppressed her embarrassment by burying her face in a strong brown shoulder, drinking in the hot musky scent of him and loving it. She felt both light as air with happiness and exhausted. ‘I’m totally fine, Alex.’

‘Is there anywhere I can get a shower here?’ Alexius enquired, suddenly ill at ease with the way he was holding her to him and in search of a good get-out clause. He lacked the cuddle gene and didn’t even pay lip-service to it, but her tiny body felt surprisingly good nestled close to him, and he discovered that he was ridiculously reluctant to risk hurting her feelings by pushing her away.

‘There’s no hot water at this time of night,’ she muttered uncomfortably. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘It’s not a problem.’ It was a lie: the lack of hot water was one more unnecessary reminder that he was in an unfamiliar environment in an unacceptable situation with a woman he should never have touched. He felt disorientatingly like an accident victim while he tried to work out how he, a guy who was very logical and controlled and a terrific planner, could have ended up in such a position. When had the rot set in? The instant he saw her standing in that office doorway? Little and cute, which had never attracted him before, he ruminated grimly. She didn’t even know who he was and she trusted him. That bothered the hell out of him and he didn’t even know why. The deep, even tenor of her breathing and the relaxed weight of her against him informed Alexius that she had fallen asleep. He eased one leg out of the bed slowly and quietly while edging Rosie back down, covering her with the duvet. And then he got dressed, swiftly and silently, his face set in forbidding lines.

As he stepped out onto the landing something tugged at his trouser leg and growled. He looked down. Bas had a mouthful of his trousers. He tried to shake him off; it was a mistake. Bas took advantage of the defensive movement to sink his needle-sharp teeth into Alexius’s leg instead. Alexius gritted his own teeth in disbelief and then bent down to detach the chihuahua from his flesh. It wasn’t easy because Bas fought back, snarling and growling as if under attack. Finally, Alexius had the writhing little body captured in one big hand. Enraged big brown eyes glared at him from below the ridiculous bat ears.

‘I deserved it … you’re right,’ Alexius breathed, gently opening Rosie’s door and pushing the tiny dog through the gap before quickly closing it again. Baskerville, she had called the dog. Now what was the name of that Sherlock Holmes story? The Hound of the Baskervilles? If the nasty little animal hadn’t bitten him, Alexius would have laughed, for Bas, undersized though he was, had lived up to his name.

A bastard, he reflected, would simply tell Socrates that his granddaughter was a bad bet. That way Rosie would be deprived of a fortune and Alexius would never have to see her again or acknowledge what he had done. But having got to know Rosie in the flesh, Alexius knew he couldn’t do that. He also knew that, having had her once, he already wanted her again. But he couldn’t do that either. An ongoing affair with his godfather’s grandchild was out of the question. Socrates would expect him to marry her and, while Rosie seemed to fire Alexius’s sex drive as no other woman before her, he had no intention of marrying anyone. Sex was literally all he had to offer her and in this particular scenario it wasn’t enough.

He walked downstairs and out of the front door. His protection unit, the four-man team who watched over him everywhere he went, was sitting in a car on the other side of the street. He hailed them. He would get back to his own life and within days it would be as if this strange episode with Rosie had never happened, he thought impatiently. He had made a mistake but everyone made mistakes and there was no point in beating himself up over a one-night stand.

Rosie slept in the next morning and had a frantic rush to get to her maths class in time. It was late afternoon before she had the opportunity to consider the fact that Alex had left during the night without even asking for her phone number or leaving her a note. Her discussions with more experienced friends warned her that that was not unusual behaviour. But once it sank in that she had slept with him on what was virtually the first date, her mood plummeted. Even the magazines warned that men were less keen in those circumstances and more inclined to deem the woman concerned easy and less desirable. Of course, Alex could be simply assuming that he would see her on Monday evening when he was working late again, she reasoned, frantically keen at the hope of seeing him again on her horizon.

Her spirits rose to a bubbling high when she got home that afternoon to find a gorgeous bunch of flowers awaiting her, the gift card signed only with a large letter, ‘A’. He wouldn’t have spent that much money if he wasn’t planning to see her again, would he? She borrowed a vase from one of her housemates and set it in the cramped lounge where everyone could enjoy the flowers.

But when Rosie arrived for work at STA Industries on Monday evening, the office Alex shared was empty. She thought he might be away on a business trip and refused to fret about it, but as the week crept on without a single glimpse of him the optimism roused by the expensive bouquet began to drain inexorably away. Was it possible that he was simply avoiding her? The suspicion made her cringe in mortification. He was a professional man and he had slept with a humble cleaner. Maybe he was ashamed of the fact.

On the Friday, her boss, Vanessa, phoned to tell her that the following week she would be working somewhere else. The job at STA Industries was finished and she would not be returning there. But although that temporary contract was now at an end, STA Industries had offered Vanessa’s cleaning service a more lucrative twelve-month contract at another one of their companies. So that was that, Rosie thought numbly that weekend. She would never see Alex Kolovos again. He had obviously sent her the flowers out of some misplaced sense of guilt while aware that he had no intention of contacting her again.

Wham, bam, thank you, ma’am, she reflected painfully, astonished by how much his rejection hurt and made her question herself. She had taken a risk, had awarded her trust to a man she barely knew and she had suffered accordingly. Let this be a lesson to you, she told herself squarely, exasperated by how torn up she felt about the disrespectful way he had treated her. Alex had only wanted to get her into bed and, having achieved that so easily, he had had no desire to repeat the experience. Now that she knew he had gone for good she allowed herself to recall how disconcerted he had been to become her first lover. Clearly an amateur between the sheets had little appeal for him.

At the end of the second week, Rosie was concerned when her period failed to arrive because she was usually as regular as clockwork in that department. She reminded herself that she was on the pill and very unlikely to be pregnant but the fact that she had slept with Alex still loomed large in her mind. One anxious week after that she made an appointment to see her doctor and was sent straight off for a pregnancy test.

‘But I’m taking the contraceptive pill—I thought I was protected!’ Rosie exclaimed when the doctor broke the news that she had conceived.

The doctor was kind, understanding and he asked her several specific questions, one of which was had she suffered from any stomach upsets. And then she remembered that night she had been ill and her eyes locked with the doctor’s in sudden dismay and comprehension.

‘You probably threw up your pill and that compromised your protection. You should have taken other precautions for the rest of the month,’ he pronounced with a sigh.

Rosie left the surgery in a daze, barely able to believe that what she had been told was true. It didn’t seem possible to her that what she had shared so briefly with Alex could result in an actual child, but there was something very realistic about the numerous leaflets on pregnancy that she had had pressed on her at the surgery. A baby, she thought sickly. How on earth would she ever be able to cope with a baby when she could barely afford to feed and clothe herself?

It occurred to her that Alex Kolovos was equally responsible. Why hadn’t he used a condom? Why had he relied on her precautions? Why should he get away scot-free in ignorance while her life was plunged into chaos? Bitterness scythed through Rosie. Why did she have to be caught the one and only time she had strayed from the straight and narrow? And what chance did the unfortunate little mite she had conceived so carelessly have of a happy life? Rosie had been planning to go to university in the autumn. She had two offers from good universities conditional on the results of her exams, which she was due to sit in a couple of weeks. She wanted to study business management but how was she going to manage that with a baby in tow?

Alex should be told, Rosie decided unhappily that evening while she cleaned offices in another company belonging to the STA Industries group. He had the right to know: it would be his child as well. No doubt he would be displeased, if not downright annoyed. Rosie could not find it within her heart to feel sorry for him on that score. A child would wreak less havoc on his life than on hers.

The next morning before she could lose her nerve, Rosie caught the tube to the headquarters of STA Industries, got into the lift and travelled up to the top floor. The svelte receptionist viewed her with polite curiosity as she uttered her request to see Alex Kolovos.

‘There’s no one of that name working here,’ the young woman responded drily.

‘Oh, there is. I met him two … three weeks ago. He worked late a lot,’ Rosie specified, her cheeks warming as the receptionist frowned at her. ‘I’ll sit down and wait while you track him down.’

‘I can’t track down someone who doesn’t exist,’ the woman retorted crisply. ‘I know every member of staff and there is no one of that name employed here.’

Rosie sank down gingerly on the edge of one of the sleek leather sofas in the luxurious waiting area. She was tense and uncomfortable, conscious that she looked out of place in her jeans and jacket when everyone else, both men and women, wore smart dark suits. Could Alex have lied to her? Given her a false name? My goodness, could that photo on his desk have been his, after all? Was it possible that the man she had slept with was married? Paper-white and sick at that sudden appalling suspicion, Rosie watched the receptionist make a phone call and noticed that she was deliberately not looking in her direction and talking very quietly. Was she the subject of that phone call or was she being paranoid? All of a sudden the woman shot her a startled glance and frowned.

‘Someone is coming to help you with your request,’ the receptionist announced with perceptible discomfiture.

Had she called building security to have her thrown out? Rosie’s face turned red as fire. Was Alex married? Had he given her a fake name?

An older man in a suit strode into Reception. ‘Miss Gray?’

Rosie stumbled upright. ‘Yes? I can show you the office Alex worked in—’

‘That will not be necessary, Miss Gray. Er … Alex is waiting to see you,’ he informed her. ‘Come this way …’

Her smooth brow indenting, Rosie caught the stunned expression on the receptionist’s face and wondered what on earth was going on. Had the receptionist lied to her? She pushed a stray strand of pale hair off her hot face and grabbed her bag to follow the older man down a short corridor she had only vacuumed before, for the door at the end led into the big boss’s office and it, not having been included in the cleaning schedule, had been kept locked while she had worked there.

‘Where are we going?’ Rosie prompted tautly.

Without answering her, he thrust open the imposing door. ‘Miss Gray, sir.’

Rosie stepped into a huge light-filled office and blinked nervously, the tip of her tongue snaking out to moisten her lower lip as her attention fell on the tall male poised beside the glass desk. Behind her the door closed, welding her into the awful buzzing silence.

‘Alex?’ she whispered uncertainly.

He stepped out of the sunlight. ‘My full name is Alexius Kolovos Stavroulakis,’ he drawled. ‘In an effort to be discreet I gave you only part of it. Fortunately, Titos, the head of my security team, recognised the name you gave to the receptionist.’

Stavroulakis? Even Rosie knew that the S in STA Industries stood for Stavroulakis. He wasn’t an employee, he was the boss and a very wealthy and powerful man, yet he had deliberately misled her as to his identity. In the bemused frame of mind she was in, her tension surged so high as that shock hit home hard and she felt horribly dizzy.

‘Stav-vroulakis?’ she stammered almost incomprehensibly as she swayed, fighting off the waves of giddiness assailing her and making it impossible to focus on him. ‘But why would a guy like you come after a woman like me?’

In the stark daylight she was white as a sheet, her eyes pools of shock and uneasiness. He saw her sway and strode forward, but not fast enough to catch her as she dropped to the floor in a heap with a tiny little moan.

With a presentiment of doom unequalled in his experience, Alexius Kolovos Stavroulakis bent down and lifted her slight body up into his arms. He could think of only one reason why Rosie might have taken the trouble to seek him out and he was very much hoping that he was wrong.

CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_4e5422a1-dee7-523e-bdb7-09659ce91971)

ALEXIUS surveyed Rosie where she lay on the sofa in his penthouse apartment. She was coming round again, her slight body shifting, a sigh fleeing her lips. She looked like a doll, a doll dressed as a teenager in jeans, striped sweater and jacket. A woolly hat with a bobble actually stuck out of one jacket pocket. The canvas shoes on her feet were badly worn, the fabric backing showing through in places. Thee mou, what the hell had he been thinking of when he bedded her? And the answer was that he had not been thinking at all. Finally, he let his attention rove to her delicate profile, the lashes fluttering now, faint pink warming her cheekbones as natural colour drove away the extreme pallor she had worn only minutes earlier. Her soft pink mouth pouted and he hardened in a reaction as predictable as a wave hitting the shore, he decided wrathfully. He could still feel the hot tight embrace of her body, but even better did he recall the look of wonder in her eyes afterwards. No woman had ever treated Alexius to a look quite like that. Indeed, for three long, endless weeks, Alexius had been reliving that night, trying to sleep with an erection that wouldn’t quit, dreaming about her, waking up still unsatisfied and still angry with himself.

He had got involved, something he never did with a woman, and it looked as if that error of judgement was going to pay off in spades in record time.

Rosie opened her eyes on a great wall of glass that she didn’t recognise and sat up in dismay to glimpse a rooftop view of London that could only belong to someone who inhabited a hugely privileged world. Her head swam and she grimaced at the discomfort.

‘Don’t try to get up while you’re still feeling woozy,’ Alex advised smoothly.