The Greek Tycoon's Secret Child (8 page)

‘You know exactly what I mean.'

They stared at one another in silence for a few tense seconds, and Mattie was the first to break it by rising to her feet and swinging around so that she wasn't looking at him. There was a stack of filthy dishes in the sink. She added her mug to them and began washing up, hoping that her hands weren't shaking so much that she would drop something.

‘There's no one else.'

‘You sure about that?'

‘Why have you come here? To drag an apology out of me? You don't have to do that. I've already apologised.'

‘It occurred to me that maybe you and your boyfriend
had plotted behind my back. The man who shares a pillow with a woman is a man who is inclined to be generous with his lover. Maybe you figured between yourselves that if you managed to get me into the sack then it would just be a question of time before you could begin the process of bleeding me for money.' He hadn't considered anything of the sort, but he had to fire her up to anger, had to get her to spill her fury onto him and, in the process, her feelings, because she had been eating away at him for the past week.

Mattie spun around as though she had been struck.

‘That is the most…most…
horrendous
thing you've said to me yet! How dare you?'

She walked towards him with the tea cloth in one hand, glaring. And Dominic just wanted to yank her down onto his lap and kiss the expression off her face.

‘I'm an extremely rich man. Wealth breeds suspicion.'

‘Then I feel very sorry for you indeed!'

‘It wouldn't be the first time that I've been pursued by a gold-digger.'

‘If I
recall
, you were the one doing the pursuing!' She was standing directly in front of him now and leaning towards him in outrage at his suggestion.

‘True. But maybe you're the clever opportunist who seized the chance when it presented itself…'

‘You're…you're…'

‘Someone accustomed to reading motives behind every action…'

‘I'm not interested in your stupid money! And I would
never
hatch a plot like that with anyone!'

‘Not even with the man you defend so eloquently, not even the man you live with and love?'

Dominic stared into the furious face that was pushed towards him.

‘I don't
love
Frankie! I might live with him but I don't
love
him!'

He heard her swift intake of breath as her brain caught up with her admission and he couldn't help himself. He half smiled and then raised both his hands to tangle into her hair and frame her face.

‘And I never believed for one moment that you were a gold-digger…'

‘You tricked me.' Mattie pulled herself out of his grasp and realised that, rather than feeling angry at his verbal cleverness, she felt a certain reluctant admiration. The man had technique, that much had to be conceded. No wonder he was top of his tree.

She sat back down to look at him.

‘So tell me why you're here.'

‘Because…because I can't afford to be anywhere else. No. That's not why. At least, that's not the whole reason.' She threw him that wary, narrowed glance that he was getting used to, the one that crawled under his skin and made him have unholy thoughts of possessing her, peeling away that defensiveness like the outer skin of an onion to reveal all the complex layers underneath.

‘Then what is? Tell me.'

Mattie looked down at her fingers resting lightly on the top of the table and then stole a glance at him.

‘We sort of grew up together, then when we were teenagers we went out. Frankie was always the one the girls fancied. Good-looking, athletic…' She smiled to herself and Dominic felt a tight sensation of rage that even in retrospect this man could command a smile like that.

‘He was going to be a footballer. That was all he'd ever wanted. He'd play for a team in the premier league, earn a fortune, fulfil his dream. Then when he was nine
teen his mum died and he sort of collapsed.' She was still staring at her fingers and half talking to herself, but she could feel those dark, shrewd eyes on her face, watching her.

‘By then, I was thinking of leaving him. I think I'd outgrown him. I still liked him but…' Now, that was something she had never really admitted, not even to herself, but talking was putting everything into perspective.

‘But you wanted to get on with your own dreams?' Dominic inserted the question without disturbing the atmosphere, and he saw her nod slowly.

‘'Course, I couldn't then. Couldn't walk away from him when he needed my support, so I kind of postponed the course I'd applied for and carried on in my job. His mum and dad had bought this house from the council, oh, years ago. We moved in.' Mattie released one long, expressive sigh. ‘I think I could do with a drink,' she said abruptly. ‘Want one?'

Dominic shook his head and watched her open the fridge door, frown, pull out a can of lager.

‘I don't normally drink this stuff,' she said, sitting back down and tugging the tab open. ‘But…' She shrugged and swallowed a mouthful of lager straight from the can, watching him over the rim so that he wondered whether she was doing that just for his benefit. Another little ruse to elucidate that she was not the kind of woman who daintily sipped her lager from a chilled glass or, rather, that she was the kind of woman who drank lager at all.

He had to take his hat off to her. This woman was like none other he had ever met.

‘You moved in…?' he prompted delicately.

‘We moved in. For a while it worked. Then he went
out drinking one night and was involved in an accident. He was the passenger. Nothing serious, no one else involved…'

‘What happened?'

‘Car veered off the road and swung into a tree at the side. Trouble was…one of his legs was damaged.' She had only taken one mouthful, didn't really want any more than that. She had just needed the boost the touch of alcohol would afford her. Besides, she loathed drinking straight from the can. Now she cradled the cold can between her hands and looked at it.

‘Not massively. But sufficient to ensure that he couldn't hope to become a professional footballer.'

‘A tough blow.' He barely needed her to tell him what had followed, although she did, in the same low, thoughtful voice. The inevitable slide downhill, the anger, the frustration, the pity she had felt that had kept her tied to him.

‘So, you see, I'm here for lots more reasons than simply the fact that I don't have to pay any rent.'

‘You could transfer the money you spend on keeping him into paying for something of your own…'

‘And how would Frankie cope?'

It was all Dominic could do not to shake her. ‘Quite ably, I imagine,' he said instead, his voice silky, ‘because he would have to. The need to survive without your help might go a long way to killing off the need to drown his self-pity in drink.'

Mattie stood up and he could see that her shutters were back in place. He was the millionaire and she was the streetwise kid. He had no doubt that she had come across boys from the other side of the tracks when she had been growing up. Had probably been targeted by
one or two of them, with her amazing looks, and had developed a good line in switching off.

‘I'll see you to the door, shall I?' She waited for him to stand up and then preceded him to the front door, where she waited patiently for him to finish his lazy stroll through the house.

‘So there you have it. Now you can go away, safe in the knowledge that you weren't in any danger of being lured into parting with your precious millions by the likes of me.'

‘By the likes of you…' Dominic murmured, leaning against the door and looking down at her. ‘I can see why your boyfriend ended up taking refuge in the bottle…and whatever or whoever else he takes refuge in…but why the chip on
your
shoulder?'

‘I don't have a chip on my shoulder.'

‘Of course you do. A chip the size of a house.'

‘Because I haven't leapt joyfully into bed with you?'

‘Because you keep trying to make me see that the lines between us are inviolable.'

‘They
are
.' Underneath the insistence in her voice she could also hear panic and she hoped that he couldn't as well.

‘Well, your affair with this Frankie character you grew up with didn't work out, did it?'

The question, along with its obvious implications, hung in the air like an accusing finger. Mattie shrugged.

‘He needs me.'

I need you too,
was the first thought that rushed to Dominic's head and it left him shaken.
Need?
Need never entered his relationships with the opposite sex. Lust, yes. Want. Affection. But never need and certainly never love, as he had discovered to his own cost.

‘You're his caretaker.'

‘That's not true!'

‘Of course it is. Clucking around him, overlooking his shortcomings and doing yourself out of a life in the process.'

The accusing finger was doing more than hover now. It was jabbing at her conscience like a knife.

‘I am
not
doing myself out of a life! I've just completed my course!'

‘For which, I presume, your beloved Frankie gave you all the unstinting help and support you wanted?' The answer to that one was written in the delicate blush that invaded her cheeks.

‘He…he has his own personal demons to sort out,' Mattie mumbled, lowering her eyes so that she didn't have to meet the cool comprehension in his. She wished he would move from the door, so that she could pull it open and put an end to this hideous unravelling of her private thoughts, but he obviously was intent on staying put.

Until what? she wondered.

‘And you're going to stay with him until he sorts them out?' Dominic enquired coolly. ‘However long it takes? Make sure he's all right before you give yourself the opportunity to live your life the way you want to? You'd better pray that no further mishap befalls him or else you might find yourself growing old in the company of a man you've forgotten how to love. Pity is no basis for a relationship.'

Mattie looked up at him, ready for a fight. Fighting might take the edge out of the truth that he was forcing her to swallow, as though he had every right.

‘Oh? And what
is
? If you're so clever when it comes to relationships, I'd love to know how come you're not in one.'

Touché,
Dominic thought wryly. He looked at her standing there, and wondered what she would do if he reached out and enveloped her in his arms. Which was what he wanted. That and a great deal more.

‘Is this a case of
I told you my life story, now you tell me yours
?'

‘It's only fair, considering you've spent the past hour preaching to me on what I'm doing wrong in my personal life.'

‘What's my incentive for telling you my life story?' Of course, he had no intention of doing any such thing, but the alternative was to walk out of the front door he was currently managing to barricade, and he had no intention of doing that either.

‘Fair play?'

‘Interesting concept.'

This wasn't the fight she had been hoping for. This was flirting and all the more dangerous because it was subtle. Every nerve-ending in her body was standing to attention. The aggressive
I-can-take-care-of-myself-thanks-very-much
girl she had been at pains to display had taken a distinct back seat to someone she didn't recognise, to a
kiss-me-senseless
creature that made her giddy.

‘I don't confide in people as a rule.' Dominic crashed through her jittery thoughts and his mocking smile made her feel even hotter and more bothered than she was already feeling.

‘No?' Mattie asked faintly.

‘No. People have a nasty habit of storing up confidences and then using them against you at some future date.'

‘There won't
be
any future date between us, so your secrets will be safe with me.'

‘You need to tempt me just a little bit more.'

‘Yes? And how would you suggest I do that?' Stupid question. He had led her with her eyes wide open straight into the little trap he had set. What he wanted her to do was obvious in the dark, slumberous expression in his eyes. And what was even worse was that it matched the hot thread of desire that was surging through her like a toxin.

‘No way. I've told you, I'm not up—'

The sentence was unfinished as his mouth claimed hers and hell, it felt good. She was aware of her half-hearted attempt to push him away, just a formality, then with a muted groan she was returning his kiss with shocking enthusiasm.

Her hands wound upwards, around his neck, and then her fingers were in his hair, pressing him towards her as her mouth responded to his probing tongue.

Their positions altered, with Dominic shifting away from the door, his mouth never leaving hers as he propelled her against the wall by the door, captured her there with his mouth and his hands, which wanted to touch everything even though he knew the wisdom of reining in that particular instinct at this point in time.

He contented himself with just feeling her melt beneath him and hearing her soft little moans that were driving him crazy with desire.

When they finally drew apart, their expressions were equally ragged.

‘Tell me that again,' Dominic demanded, but in a voice that could melt ice. He played with her hair, tucking some behind her ears, twirling strands around his finger.

‘Tell you what?'

‘That you're not up for…grabs? Was that what you were going to say?'

‘You're no good for me,' Mattie murmured. ‘I know you say that lines between people aren't inviolable and maybe they're not. But the way I feel, I would be the waitress to your tycoon and just feeling like that would make anything we had a farce.'