Contrarily, she missed the warmth of his body as a slight autumn breeze caught the strands of her chin-length hair and lifted them to chilling effect. She shivered.
“You are cold. We should talk inside.”
Where someone might hear? “No. It was just a breeze.”
He shucked out of his coat and tucked it around her shoulders before she knew what was happening. She tried to shrug it off, but he held it in place by the lapels. “Do not be stubborn.”
His nearness was doing something to her hard won emotional distance so she agreed in order to get him to back off. It didn’t do a lot of good. The coat carried his scent and warmed from his body, it was like having his arms closed protectively around her. Stifling the image that thought provoked, she focused on getting down to business.
She smoothed her oversized, sage green cable knit sweater over the baby, reminding herself that possession was nine-tenths of the law and no one could deny that right now, she was the one in possession of their baby. “What is it exactly you think we have to talk about?” she asked, going on the offensive.
He looked her in the eye, his blue gaze dark with purpose. “I want my child.”
CHAPTER FOUR
HE wanted her baby.
She had suspected it since her call to the Paris apartment, but hearing him say it was like being tossed into a black hole and having all the air sucked out of the universe at one time.
She put her hands protectively over her tummy as if by doing so she could somehow prevent him from carrying through on his monstrous plan. “You can’t have him.”
“You say him. Do you mean to say you know he is a boy?”
Should she lie? Would he fight any less ruthlessly for a daughter? The implacable expression on his face said not.
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“I had an ultrasound at four months.”
An expression of dawning understanding came over his hardened features. “That’s why you called the apartment.”
She refused to answer.
His hands fisted against the Italian suit wool covering his thighs. “You were going to tell me our baby was to be a boy.” He sounded astonished by the fact.
Why shouldn’t he be? He’d treated her like the lowest of the low, denied his paternity, ditched her to marry another woman and evicted her from their apartment like a bad tenant ninety days past lease. And she’d called to tell him the sex of their child. How stupidly sentimental could any one woman be?
An expression like grief passed over his face, though what he had to grieve about, she could not imagine. “And you spoke to Phoebe.”
Why bother answering? He knew the details already.
“You refused to tell her where you were.”
“Do you blame me?”
His jaw clenched. “Funnily enough. Yes. I can blame you. Phoebe begged you to tell her where you were and you refused. I’ve spent months of fruitless searching and hired no less than five world-class detective agencies, only to be told by all of them that Xandra Fortune ceased to exist.”
“They were right.”
“Yet, here you are.”
“No. Here you see Alexandra Dupree. I will never be Xandra Fortune again.” She would never allow herself to be vulnerable to the man she had loved as Xandra again, either.
“You told me you were an orphan.”
She felt her mouth twist cynically. “No. That is what your agency told you when you had me investigated as a suitable candidate to be your lover. I just never denied it.”
“You created an entire persona for yourself.”
“Yes.”
“You lied to me every day of our association.”
Association? Was that anything like a relationship gone sour? “I did not lie to you.”
“You let me call you Xandra.”
“Many models use a working name.”
“Only you lived a life completely separate from this reality I now find in a New York apartment. That woman, Madeleine, she is your sister?”
“Yes. Hunter is her husband.”
His brows rose in mockery. “I had figured that out.”
She clenched her fists so she wouldn’t hit him.
He laughed, but it was a sound without mirth. “Don’t try it. Your sister already slapped me.” He lifted his plastered hand as a silent indicator of that wound. “I’m in no mood to sustain further injury.”
“Poor you,” she jeered.
“Keep pushing it and my temper will override my patience.”
Remembering the inimical fury he’d exhibited the day she told him of her pregnancy, she shivered. “I used to think you were such a cool guy, no scenes, no temper tantrums, all sleek sophisticated Greek male.”
“Do not forget rich.”
“I don’t care about your filthy money. I never did.”
“Yet it will be difficult for you to win against it, should you attempt to withhold my child from me.”
Fear tried to take hold, but she refused to give into it. “You don’t scare me. This isn’t Greece. You can’t take my baby away from me just because you’re rich and male. United States family law is heavily balanced in the mother’s favor.” She’d looked into it as soon as she’d hit New York. She’d known even then that if Dimitri ever decided to claim her child, she would be facing difficulties ahead.
“Perhaps, but can you afford the constant legal battles? The draining expense of hiring top-notch lawyers to plead your case.”
The picture he painted was a bleak one. “I’ll do whatever it takes to keep my child.”
“Anything?”
“Yes! Anything.”
“Then come with your baby to my home.”
That sent her to her feet in a hurry. “You arrogant toad! Do you honestly believe I would go anywhere with you after everything that has happened?”
Her stomach churned. Did he think she was such a dope that she would let him set her and their son up somewhere convenient while he lived happy families with Phoebe? Another ugly thought followed the last one. “I won’t be your mistress,” she hissed with enough venom to slay him.
He too shot out of his chair. “I’m not looking for a mistress.”
“Good, because I won’t be one. Not ever. I learned all I wanted to know about having uncommitted sex with a guy so primitive he should be in a museum. The next time I have sex with a man, I’m going to have a ring on my finger and an avowal of love to go with it!”
“Just who is this man?” he demanded in a near roar.
“I don’t know, but when I find him, he won’t be anything like you!”
“You think not?” Then he reached out and grabbed the lapels of his suit jacket again, yanking her to him. “I think this mythical man will be just like me because he will be me. No other man touches the mother of my child.”
He’d said the words a breath above her lips and then closed the distance. And the electric current of desire was there, waiting, lurking in her deepest subconscious to come to the fore with the first touch of his mouth to hers.
She went under so fast, she didn’t even have time to despise herself for her weakness. His mouth moved over hers with truly possessive passion and she responded like a woman deprived of physical intimacy for years.
Her hands locked around his neck, her body stretched to press itself to his and her mouth opened in serious invitation. He took it and deepened the kiss even as his hands caressed her back, pressing her closer to him, letting her feel his heat and his excitement. Blatant evidence of that excitement brought her to her senses and she shoved herself away from him so fast and so hard, she stumbled backward and fell flat on her bottom.
He was on his knees beside in her in a second. “You foolish woman! You could have hurt yourself. Are you trying to kill our son? Are you all right?” His hands were doing a hasty examination of her and her body was getting the wrong message entirely from those impersonal touches.
She slapped his hands away. “Stop it. I’m fine.” Her bottom was sore, but she wasn’t about to tell him that. “Babies are resilient. I’m not going to lose him from such a small fall.” Oh Lord, please let that be true.
“You would take such a risk?” He glared at her. “What other risks have you taken with our child?”
If she’d had a gun, she would have shot him, or at least at him…to scare him a little and wipe that condescending look of censure off his face. “It’s not my fault you acted like a lecher and kissed me. What was I supposed to do, tolerate it?”
He swelled with affronted pride. “You have never merely tolerated my kiss in your life.”
She had no argument to that, so she didn’t try making one. “Married men are not supposed to kiss women other than their wives,” she said instead.
He shrugged. “I agree. Does this worry you?”
Was he for real? Of course it worried her. He was married to Phoebe and he’d just soul-kissed Alexandra. “Am I crazy, or are you?” she asked, feeling helplessly bewildered.
His mouth twisted in a grimace. “I have been crazy since the first report from the private investigators trying to locate you. They had not a single lead and you had disappeared in one of the largest cities in the world.”
He tucked the suit coat around her slender shoulders once again, then leaned down and lifted her in his arms. Was there something about imminent fatherhood that made the male of the species go all basic? She could remember only one other time he’d carried her during their year together and that had been one night she’d had a little too much champagne and fallen asleep in the car on the way home.