A Reputation For Revenge(78)

She still wanted him.

She still cared for him.

That was her weakness.

Now that he knew, making her suffer would be easier than he’d ever imagined. He’d already begun, by telling her the truth about her worthless excuse for a father. She didn’t want his protection? Fine. He was done protecting her.

He would see her twist and pant helplessly, like a butterfly pinned to a display. He would see the pain in her eyes every day while he mercilessly pounded her heart into dust. Maybe then, someday, she would understand what she’d done to him by stealing his child.

His son was all that mattered now. He was the one who needed Nikos’s protection...and love.

“I waited for you in the nursery,” he heard Lindsey say from down the hall. “When you didn’t come, I gave him to the nanny.”

He turned to see Lindsey leaning against the wall in a sultry pose. “I was delayed,” he replied in a clipped voice.

“That’s okay.” She skimmed a hand over a tanned thigh barely covered by her short skirt, curving her red lips into a smile. “Finding you alone is even better.”

God, no. Another of Lindsey’s clumsy attempts at seduction? He was in no mood.

“I gave you the rest of the morning off,” he said shortly. “The negotiations for the Singapore bid can wait.”

“That’s not why I came looking for you.”

No, of course it wasn’t. Unlike Anna, who’d taken her job so personally, Lindsey would never stick around on a holiday. Her work was barely up to par on regular days.

He hated that he still had Lindsey as his secretary. She wasn’t a fraction of the employee Anna had been. He should have fired her long ago. But firing her would have been like admitting that he’d made a mistake.

“What do you want, Lindsey?” he asked wearily.

She toyed with the slit of her short skirt with her long French-manicured nails, making sure he could see the top edge of her thigh-high stockings. “The question is, what do you want, Nikos?”

It was the most blatant invitation she’d ever tried.

Once, he might have taken her up on her offer, buried his pain in the sweet oblivion of pleasure. No longer. His experience with Anna had taught him that sex could give a worse hangover than tequila and Scotch.

“Just go to the casino office and wait for my call,” he said, walking past her.

Nikos found his son in the nursery, held in the plump arms of his new nanny. The white-haired Scotswoman had recently finished raising an earl’s son from babyhood to university, and Nikos had hired her at an exorbitant rate. His son must have the best of everything. “Good morning, Mrs. Burbridge.”

“Good morning, sir.” She smiled at him, holding up the baby. “Here to hold your son?”

“Of course.” But, looking at the baby, he suddenly felt as if he were facing a firing squad. What did he know about babies? He’d never held one before. Nikos had been an only child, or close enough, and he’d never exactly been the sort of man to ooh and ah over the children of friends.

Feeling nervous, Nikos gathered his child from the nanny’s protective embrace and held him awkwardly underneath the arms.

“No, er...Mr. Stavrakis, tuck him closer to you. Under his bum.”

Nikos tried, but he couldn’t seem to get it right. The baby apparently agreed. He looked up at Nikos, and his lower lip started to tremble. He screwed up his face and started to wail.

“I...I seem to be doing this wrong,” Nikos said, breaking into a cold sweat.

“Don’t take it personally, sir,” Mrs. Burbridge said in her friendly Scottish burr. “The bairn is just tired and hungry. He’ll soon be right again with a bit to eat. Is his mum about? Or should I make a bottle?”

But Nikos could hardly hear her words over his son’s panicked cries. He felt helpless. Useless. A bad father.

“He... I... I’ll come back when he’s not so tired.” He thrust the baby back into Mrs. Burbridge’s arms and fled.

Or at least he started to. Until he saw Anna standing in the doorway of the nursery, staring around the room with an expression of wonder.

“You didn’t change the room,” she breathed in amazement. With apparent ease, she took the baby from Mrs. Burbridge and cuddled him close. His cries subsided to small whimpers as Anna looked from the painting of animals and trees on the wall to the soft blue cushions of the window seat. “I was sure you’d have Lindsey redecorate.”

Lindsey? Redecorate his house? She could barely manage to type his letters.

“Why would I do that?” Nikos said uncomfortably. “Damn waste of time.”