“I suppose I could try,” she said reluctantly.
“So you agree?”
“When do you want to start?”
“Now.”
“Get a swimsuit, then.”
“That would take too long.” In a fluid motion, he pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. Kicking off his shoes, he looked at her, and she suddenly realized what he was going to do.
“You can’t be serious!”
“Anna, you know I’m always serious,” he said, and jumped into the pool, trousers and all.
She turned away, protecting the baby from the enormous splash as he landed in the deep end of the pool. When he rose from the water his hair was plastered to his head. He spouted water like a fish, and his expensive Italian trousers were almost certainly ruined, but he was laughing.
Oh, my God. The sound of his laugh. She hadn’t heard that for a long, long time. Nikos’s laugh, so hearty and bold and rare, like a fine Greek wine, had first made her love him.
He swam over towards the shallow end, until his feet touched the bottom, and then he walked towards her, parting the water like a Greek god. He was six feet two inches, and the water only lapped his waistband when he reached her. His muscular torso glistened in the hot sun, and rivulets of water ran down his body. She nervously licked her lips as he put one hand on her bare shoulder and with the other gently caressed their baby’s head.
“Will you show me how to hold him?”
She carefully set Misha in his arms, showing him how to hold the baby close to his chest.
“Hi,” he said, looking down at the baby in his arms. “I know you’ve never had a father. This is my first time being one. We’ll learn how to do this together.”
Carefully, he moved deeper into the pool, until the baby laughed at the pleasurable feeling of the water against his skin. Nikos joined in his laughter as Misha joyfully splashed the water with his pudgy hands.
He kissed the baby’s downy head and whispered, so low that Anna almost didn’t hear, “I will always be here to help you swim, Michael.”
Anna watched with her heart in her throat. She’d thought she was in danger before. But now, watching him with their son, holding him tenderly, she saw in Nikos everything she’d ever wanted. A strong man who wasn’t afraid to be playful.
This was the father she wanted for her child.
The husband she’d always dreamed of for herself.
She tried to push those troublesome thoughts away. It wasn’t the real Nikos, she told himself. He was trying to trick her, to lure her in for the sake of his revenge. He wouldn’t stop until he’d crushed her, heart and soul.#p#分页标题#e#
For the rest of the morning she waited for Nikos to revert to his usual arrogant, cold personality, but he never did.
They were like a happy family. It left her amazed. And shaken.
When she left the pool to go feed and change Misha for his nap, he climbed out behind her. The ruined Italian trousers dripped and sloshed water behind him. She glanced at them with a rueful smile. “Sorry about your pants.”
“I’m not.” He gave her a grin. He looked relaxed and something else…contented? Had she ever seen him look that way before? “Besides, I can get more. I haven’t had that much fun in ages. I felt like a kid again.”
She snorted. “If it was that great, maybe next time in the pool I’ll wear a snowsuit.”
“Please don’t,” he said lazily. “I like the bikini.”
The look he cast over her made her suddenly feel warm all over, in a way that had nothing to do with the hot desert sun.
“You didn’t like my outfit last night.”
“That was different,” he said. “That was for another man.”
She waited for him to lash into her accusingly, demanding that she never see Sinistyn again, but he just turned away to head back into the house. “I’m going to slip into something a little less wet,” he said with a wink. “After Michael’s asleep come see me in the office, will you? I have a proposal.”
A proposal? Thank heavens, she thought as she hurried back to the nursery with her cranky, yawning baby. Nikos’s behavior had been starting to confuse her. But she knew that as soon as she met him in the office he would start tossing out demands. He’d try to kiss her senseless until she agreed to his marriage proposal.
That she could deal with. It was his new playfulness, his kindness and love for his son, that she didn’t know how to handle.
She showed up at the office with a T-shirt and shorts over her bikini, ready for battle. She was so ready, in fact, that she could hardly wait for him to take her in his arms. All the kisses in the world wouldn’t convince her to marry him, but since she’d managed to get through last night unscathed, she was willing—no, eager—to let him try…