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‘Distract me...’ she mumbled.
He sat on the edge of the bed, his hand inches above her bright halo of hair, afraid to stroke her head in case he hurt her. Hurting a woman even accidentally was something that his entire being rejected, viscerally rejected.
‘How?’ Remembering her previous request, he kept his voice low.
‘Talk about something nice.’
Nice...Hell, she wanted him to tell her a bedtime story! ‘I don’t know any stories.’
‘Your Greek house, your family lived there...?’
Was she imagining a heritage that went back years? Nothing could be farther from the truth. Kairos, the man he considered his father, was a self-made man, not sentimental or resentful about his humble origins, and his mother’s family had been hippies, her bohemian colourful antecedents had lived a gypsy lifestyle, colour, style, but no money.
They had both thought it odd when he took on the project of a fallen-down, derelict, formerly grand Greek stone house. What did he need a massive place in the middle of nowhere for? Was he planning to start a family? Kairos had joked.
Zac had been unable to explain even to himself. It had made him feel less sceptical when people spoke of instant connections after he experienced the strange sense of familiarity when he had stumbled on the place. The determination to bring it back to life had consumed him.
His family had speculated, the conclusions ranging from he’d lived there in a previous life—from his half-sister, deeply into crystals; he recognised a good investment—Kairos. Any financial gain had been accidental and his mother’s suggestion he was looking for a baby substitute had turned out to be somewhat ironic considering he now had an actual baby.
‘It’s not a family home, it was a wreck that hadn’t been lived in for years when I bought it...’
‘Family?’
‘I have a mother, a stepmother, she’s Norwegian, and four stepfathers, also three half-sisters and four stepsisters,’ he listed, and realised that he had gifted this woman he had known mere hours, and who he was meant to be surveying for character flaws, more personal information than he had trusted anyone with previously.
He hadn’t even been aware of lowering his previously impregnable privacy barriers. How had that happened? he wondered as he watched her pale lips move in a faint smile, which he took to be a promising sign.
‘So many...can I borrow one?’
He stood there in the dark and silence hearing the wistfulness in her voice. Marco or no Marco, at that moment if she hadn’t drifted off to sleep he’d have told her.
Leaving her sleeping, he returned to the nursery. This time it was easier to make himself walk inside and this time when he walked to the cot he found it easier to look at the baby.
He was not asleep and his eyes were open. There was no accusation in them, just trust. Zac swallowed past the aching occlusion in his throat. They were Liam’s eyes.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHENROSEWOKEshe didn’t have a clue where she was, then suddenly it all came flooding back. She shot upright in bed, checked her head was still where it should be and sighed. Other than a muzzy feeling the pain was all gone.
Not the deep embarrassment. A second later as her thought processes cleared the embarrassment was overwhelmed by dismay!The baby!He had been her responsibility and she had dumped him on Zac. Gnawing worriedly on her lower lip, she slid off the bed and, not bothering to put on her shoes or run her fingers through her hair, dashed across the hallway to the nursery.
The blinds in the room were still drawn so she switched on the light and ran to the cot—theemptycot. Trying to stay calm, she ran towards the living area, and, exploding into the room, she stopped dead.
In a cream swivel chair Zac Adamos sat, a baby lying on his chest. The empty feed bottle on the side table spoke volumes.
They were both fast asleep.
Rose swallowed past the emotional lump in her throat. Both looked cute inverydifferent ways. All right, Zac did not look cute, he looked quite unbelievably off-the-scale sexy with his tousled hair, stubble shadow emphasising the sharp angles of his face, and half-buttoned shirt revealing a slab of golden glowing skin. His relaxed sleeping face seemed younger.
Stepping over a trail of discarded ripped disposable nappies, she picked her way across the room to them. Closer, it was even more obvious that Zac, the urbane, sleek, perfectly groomed Zac, looked wrecked, admittedly a very sexy wrecked. His hair was standing up in spikes, his shirt sleeves were rolled up. Her eyes drifted as though drawn by a magnet to the section of deep toasty gold hair-roughened chest.
As she was staring his eyes opened.
‘Good morning.’
She started guiltily. ‘Good morning,’ she whispered back, suddenly ridiculously shy. Last night they had stepped outside their designated roles and going back felt harder than it should have...
Would have helped if you’d combed your hair, Rose.
