Mrs. Burbridge nearly ran into him as she hurried around the courtyard doorway.
“Oh! Excuse me, sir.”
He’d been so intent on watching Anna that he hadn’t heard the plump woman come up behind him. He straightened. “My fault, Mrs. Burbridge.”
“I was just going to ask Mrs. Stav—er, Miss Rostoff—” she flushed with embarrassment as she tripped over the name “—if she wanted me to take the baby inside. She didn’t sleep well last night, so I thought perhaps she’d like a bit of a rest.”
“She didn’t sleep well?”
“She has the room next to mine. I heard her pacing. Jet lag, I suppose, poor dear.”
So Anna had slept as badly as he had. Nikos would be willing to bet money it hadn’t been jet lag that had troubled her all night.
His lips curved up in a smile. Perfect. It was all coming together. By the end of the week—by the end of the day, if he was lucky—Mrs. Burbridge would never have to trip over Anna’s name again. She would be Mrs. Stavrakis.
Anna was barely back in the pool with Misha when she saw Mrs. Burbridge standing by the water’s edge. But it wasn’t the appearance of the Scotswoman that set her hackles on edge. It was the man behind her, who was staring at her like an ant under a microscope, as if he’d never seen a woman in a swimsuit before.
“Would you like me to take the bairn, Miss Rostoff?” Mrs. Burbridge asked. “I thought you might like a wee rest.”
Since it was only ten o’clock in the morning, she was sure the “wee rest” was Nikos’s idea. He wanted to get her alone, so he could finish his seduction and convince her to be his bride.
Not in this lifetime.
Anna turned to wade in the other direction, holding the baby close as if she feared the older woman might fling herself in the pool, orthopedic shoes and all, and wrestle Misha away. “No, thank you, Mrs. Burbridge. We’re happy as we are.”
She waited for Nikos to demand that she give up the baby, but to her surprise he didn’t. “Obviously she’s not tired,” she heard him tell the nanny. “I think we’ll just spend some time together as a family.”
Anna heard Mrs. Burbridge leave and looked back, hoping that Nikos had left too. No such luck. He was standing by the pool, watching her with an inscrutable expression. His presence was like a dark cloud over the sun. It made her tense, remembering how easily she’d almost given herself to him last night, how much she still wanted to feel him inside her. The argument between longing and fury had kept her up all night. Twice she’d nearly weakened and gone to his room. It was only by the sheerest self-preservation that she hadn’t woken up this morning in his bed, with a big engagement ring on her finger.
At least then she’d also have woken up with a big smile on her face. She shook the thought away.
“Well?” she said, giving him her haughtiest stare—the one her mother had used to give to other people’s servants when they sneered at their family as “charity cases” and purposefully ruined their meals or their laundry behind their employers’ backs. Until Anna was eighteen, when her father had returned the family to New York and gone into business with Victor, their life had been full of insult and insecurity.
And after that Victor had had power over them. That was why she would never allow herself to be dependent upon someone else for her livelihood again. Better to starve in a garret and have her pride.
At least that was what she’d thought before she became a mother. Now she wasn’t so sure. What was her own pride compared to the safety and well-being of her child?
“What do you want?” she demanded irritably.
Instead of answering, Nikos sat down on the tiled edge of the pool. He folded his legs Indian-style, looking strangely at ease, almost boyish. Her eyebrows rose at the sight of Nikos, in his elegant Italian wool trousers and crisp white shirt, sitting on the dusty tile floor of the courtyard. “I want you to teach me how to be a parent.”
Her jaw dropped ever so slightly. “What do you mean?”
He glanced at Misha. “You know I never had a father. Not a real one, at any rate. I have no idea how to be one. I’m afraid to hold my own son.”
Anna waited for him to point out that it was all her fault for stealing Misha for the first four months of his life, but again Nikos surprised her. He said instead, in a tone that was almost humble, “I need you to teach me how to be a father.”
It’s a trick, she warned herself, but for the life of her she couldn’t see how. She licked her lips nervously. She glanced at the precious babe in her arms. He needed a good father, and, although she was far from a parenting expert, she was at least an expert on her own baby. How could she refuse?