When Christakos Meets His Match(65)

                Alexio flushed. ‘Why did you agree with me, then, and let me believe that you set out to seduce me?’

                Sidonie’s arms tightened. ‘I told you the truth, but you weren’t interested in listening. Would you have believed me if I’d insisted on protesting my innocence?’

                Remembering the excoriating feeling of betrayal was acute. Sidonie’s emotions were rising and she knew she was too tired to hide them. She stood back and gestured to the door.

                ‘I’d like you to leave now, please. I have to be up early.’

                Alexio’s eyes widened; his nostrils flared. He looked huge and intimidating, and Sidonie hated the impulse she had to run into his arms and beg him to hold her. She gritted her jaw and avoided his eyes.

                Silkily he said, ‘You expect me to just walk away?’

                Sidonie nodded. ‘Yes, please. We have nothing to discuss. You found me, I’m pregnant—end of story. You have nothing else to do here. Please go.’

                Alexio’s voice was tight with anger. ‘We have plenty to discuss if I am your child’s father. And you still haven’t told me why you didn’t take the money.’

                Sidonie rounded on him again, eyes blazing, two spots of pink in each cheek. ‘I didn’t take your damn money, Christakos, because I wasn’t interested in your money. I wasn’t then and I’m not now.’

                Emotion was getting the better of Sidonie, rising, making her shake.

                ‘I will never forgive you for going behind my back and prying into my life. You had no right to judge me on the basis of something my mother did years ago. She paid that due, I paid that due, and so did my father. I want nothing to do with you and I wish I’d never laid eyes on you.’

                She turned and went to the door, opened it.

                Without looking at Alexio she said, ‘I have to be up in five hours. Get out or I’ll call the police and tell them you’re harassing me.’

                Alexio made some sort of sound—half anger, half frustration. To Sidonie’s everlasting relief, though, he came to the door. She didn’t look at him.

                He said, with deadly precision, ‘This isn’t over, Sidonie. We need to talk.’

                ‘Get out, Alexio.’ Sidonie’s voice had an edge of pleading to it that she hated. But finally he left.

                * * *

                For three days Sidonie had refused to talk to Alexio. She stonewalled him if he was waiting for her to come out of the hotel. She walked in the opposite direction if he was there when she emerged from the café. And at night she was tight-lipped if he offered her a lift for the short distance to the apartment after finishing her shift in the Moroccan restaurant.

                Alexio seethed with frustration. He was getting her message loud and clear. She wanted nothing to do with him. She preferred working herself into a lather doing menial jobs rather than turn to him for help. But Alexio had had enough. He’d already set things in motion. Sidonie was pregnant with his child and that changed everything. As he’d watched her for the past three days the knowledge had sunk in more and more.

                He needed to talk to her, though. And even though she looked half dead with exhaustion Alexio’s body burned for her. Even now, from his car, where he was parked outside the restaurant, he let his gaze rake her up and down, taking in the black skirt, sheer tights and black top. The apron that barely disguised the growing swell of her belly. His baby.