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‘Why not?’ Having followed his natural inclinations and met with a very encouraging response, Leonidas was in no mood to apologise, particularly not when he was stifling a staggeringly powerful desire to simply haul her back into his arms. ‘I think I’m behaving very well. I’m willing to accept responsibility—’
‘You’ve never accepted responsibility for a woman in your life!’ Maribel launched at him with a bitterness she could not conceal.
‘I’m willing to accept responsibility for Elias.’
‘But you’re so busy being a player that you’ve just shown me all over again why I can’t stand the thought of you in my son’s life!’ Maribel slung at him, the raw force of her emotions ringing from her voice. Her entire body was tingling with almost painful sensitivity and a stark sense of what could only be described as deprivation. Shame over her loss of control threatened to choke her.
‘You’ll have to learn to stand it and me, because I have no intention of staying out of my child’s life.’ Hard dark-as-midnight eyes sliced back at her like gleaming rapier blades of warning challenge. ‘Elias is a Pallis.’
‘No matter what it takes, I swear that I will prevent you from gaining access to him,’ Maribel threw back at him with clenched fists.
Leonidas released his breath in a slow, derisive hiss. ‘Give me one good reason why you should behave that way.’
‘Just look at what being born a Pallis did to you!’ Maribel sent him a furious appraisal, because the brazen self-assurance he exuded only reminded her of the dignity she had surrendered in his arms. ‘You’re irresponsible. You have no respect for women. You’re a commitment-phobe—’
Derision engulfed by incredulous indignation, Leonidas growled. ‘That is outrageous.’
‘It’s the truth. Right now, Elias would be a novelty to you like a new toy. You only take business seriously. You have no concept of family life or of a child’s need for stability. How could you after the way you were raised? I’m not blaming you for your deficiencies,’ Maribel told him in a driven undertone. ‘But I won’t apologise for my need to protect Elias from the damage that you could do.’
Leonidas was pale with fury, his bronzed skin stretched taut over his superb bone structure. ‘What do you mean—deficiencies?’
‘Elias is very precious. What have you got to give him but money? He needs an adult who’s willing to put him first, to look after him, but what you cherish most is your freedom. The freedom to do whatever you like when you like would be the first thing you would lose as a father and you wouldn’t stick the course for five minutes—’
‘Try me!’ Leonidas shot back at her in wrathful challenge. ‘Who are you to judge me? You have never lived outside your little academic soap-bubble! By what right do you call me irresponsible?’
Although she was drawn and tense, Maribel lifted her head high. ‘I’ve got more right than anyone else I know. You never once called to ask if I was okay after that night we spent together!’
‘Why would I have?’ Leonidas growled like a bear.
Maribel almost flinched. She refused to allow herself to react in a more personal way and she tucked the hurt of that cruelly casual dismissal away for future reference. ‘Because it would have been the responsible thing to do when you knew there was a risk of a pregnancy,’ she informed him in a wooden tone.
Leonidas swore in vehement Greek at that retaliation and shot her a censorious glance. ‘You walked out on me,’ he ground out.
Maribel thought of what had really happened that morning and inwardly squirmed. Walking out would have been the sensible, dignified option, but it was not actually what she had done. He didn’t know that, though, and she felt that that fact was none of his business so long after the event. She did not have much pride to conserve over the episode, but what she did have she planned to hang onto.
‘It was for you to contact me when you learned that you had conceived,’ Leonidas delivered in harsh addition.
‘You didn’t deserve that amount of consideration,’ Maribel told him without hesitation.
Lethal scorn hardened his darkly handsome features. ‘I didn’t phone—is that what this is all about? So you try to punish me by refusing me contact with my son?’
Maribel looked steadily back at him, her violet blue eyes defiant in the face of that put-down. ‘Don’t you dare try to twist what I said. Be honest with yourself. Do you really want the hassle of a child in your life?’
Only forty-eight hours earlier, Leonidas would have responded with an unqualified negative to that question. Now a whole new dimension had to be considered. He could not get the image of the smiling little boy in the photograph out of his mind. But his other responses were much more aggressive, because when he looked back at Maribel he could never recall feeling more angry or alienated from her. She had judged him and found him wanting and nobody had ever dared to do that before.
