months are up, to help set you up in employment, help you find somewhere to live…help you get back on your feet. Providing, of course, that I have full and unimpeded access to Lola and a say in her future.’
Her mouth tightened again, and he could see her hands in fists on her lap.
‘And in the meantime you plan on dragging us around the world with you? What kind of a life is that for a small child? She needs a routine, Rico, not a billionaire playboy father. Or are you planning to leave us in a sterile apartment like this one and visit whenever the mood strikes?’
Gypsy looked up at Rico and felt as if her neck might snap. She was so tense. His words were whirling sickeningly in her head, and along with them his obviously smug sense of satisfaction at having got her exactly where he wanted her. She needed space. She had to digest this—even though she knew with fatal certainty that what he said was true: she wouldn’t have a leg to stand on in court, and had no means to get there. And, she had to acknowledge heavily, she only had herself to blame. If she hadn’t taken the decision to keep Lola a secret who knew how things might have developed?
He answered her now, coldly. ‘On the contrary. My main base is in Greece. I live between Athens and the island of Zakynthos. Most of my business is conducted there. This is actually my first visit back to London in…two years.’
The way he said the words, as if he was remembering that night, made the air crackle between them. Feeling claustrophobic, Gypsy blurted out before she could censor her words, ‘You’re not going to…to demand that we get married…?’
Rico looked down at her. He was far too close. He arched one brow. ‘Is that what you’d like, Gypsy? Is that what you’re holding out for? Nothing less than matrimony?’
Before she could say that it was the last thing in the world she wanted he continued. ‘Curiously, I have no desire to marry someone who believes that she has the divine right to play God with a child’s life. Any wife I choose will understand the concept of honesty and trust.’
Standing up, because the feeling of claustrophobia was getting worse, and not liking they way he’d said he had no desire to marry her had impacted her somewhere very secret she bit out, ‘Men like you don’t even know the meaning of trust or honesty. And if I had to go back in time I’d make the same decision all over again.’
Gypsy expected Rico to move back to give her space. But he didn’t. He brought his hands up to her arms and held her. Gypsy tried to pull away but his hold tightened.
Her words had hit a nerve. His eyes flashed, his jaw tightened. ‘I’m not finished. I haven’t told you the other thing I want.’
Gypsy’s whole body was tensed against the inevitable effect of Rico’s proximity. They were practically touching. All she’d have to do was take a deep breath and her breasts would push against his chest. Anger at realising that, and wanting it, made her lash out. ‘What? Haven’t you asked for enough? What more can I give you?’
He looked at her for a long moment, his steel-grey gaze intent, focused. And then he said, with devastating simplicity, ‘You.’
His words sank in, slowly, and with it came an awful trickling of heat through her veins and into her belly. She started to struggle in his arms. ‘No…no…I won’t have it. I don’t want you.’
But Rico just kept on holding her and said, ‘Stop lying to yourself, Gypsy.’
He brought his hands up to her face, fingers around the back of her head, holding it. His thumbs were warm on her jaw. To her utter horror she could hear her breaths coming, hard and shallow. She put her hands over his, as if she could pull them down, and entreated with everything she had, all her secret vulnerabilities where this man was concerned, ‘Rico…please don’t do this.’
He shook his head. ‘I can’t not do this.’
And with his big hands cupping her face and head, crowding her utterly, he lowered his head to hers and took her lips in a kiss of soul-destroying and surprising sweetness. As if all the tension and animosity between them was an illusion. If he’d been hard and forceful it would have been easier to remember to fight, but this…this was something else entirely.
Gypsy emitted a sound that was somewhere between a moan of capitulation and frustration. Rico urged her even closer, and she could feel him taking out her hairband and letting her hair fall, combing through it and twining long strands around his fingers. Her treacherous hands dropped.
And meanwhile his mouth was on hers, getting hotter and harder, opening her to him. He stroked his tongue along hers, enticing her to explore. And Gypsy felt her legs weaken.
In mere seconds the world shifted, and Gypsy found herself straddling Rico’s lap on the chair, facing him, her legs either side of his powerful thighs. His hands were still on her head, allowing no quarter as he brought her face back to his and set about undoing every one of her defences. With a moan Gypsy had to place her hands on his chest, to stop herself falling forward completely, but that action transmitted the heavy beat of Rico’s heart right through to her bones.
His hands came down to her waist, searching for and finding the bare skin between her jeans and top, stroking sensuously. Gypsy was aware that she was arching her back, but couldn’t stop it. She was in another world where time and reality didn’t exist. And, weakly, she resisted reality.
When Rico started to pull her T-shirt up, after only a moment of hesitation Gypsy lifted her arms and let him pull it off. Rico sat up straighter, and a new urgency infused the desire-laden air around them as he pulled her into him and pressed kisses against her neck and throat, down to the valley between her breasts.
Gypsy clutched his head, trembling all over, aching to get closer, and as if Rico heard her silent plea he shifted them subtly, so that the apex of her thighs came into direct contact with his burgeoning arousal.
She gasped and pulled back, and in that moment she realised that Rico had somehow undone her bra and was pulling it down her arms, baring her rosy-tipped breasts to his gaze.
‘So beautiful…’ he breathed. ‘I’ve never forgotten this…I’ve dreamt of this…’
Something about his words melted Gypsy inside, and with her hands spread on his shoulders all she could do was suck in a breath of pure pleasure as he cupped one breast and then brought her forward to his mouth, so that he could lick teasingly around the aureole before flicking his tongue against the hard nub.
The bare skin of her shoulders was incredibly sensitised by her hair, and before Gypsy knew what she was doing she was blindly tearing off Rico’s tie and opening the buttons of his shirt with feverish hands, all while his mouth was wickedly bringing her closer and closer to the edge of delicious sensation.
Finally, with his shirt open, Gypsy spread her hands across his broad chest with its smattering of hair, revelling in his innate strength. Rico broke away from her breast and, heavy-lidded, Gypsy looked down, her eyes roving over the stark planes of his gorgeous face, marvelling that he desired her like this. A burgeoning feeling of something awfully like tenderness rushed through her, disorientating her for a moment. It unsettled her, because she’d felt it the night they’d slept together, and finding him gone in the morning, leaving nothing but that note, had been like a slap in the face.
But he didn’t give her time to dwell on that, to allow it to filter through and break the moment. Bringing her close again, he caught her mouth and kissed her until she was dizzy. One of his hands moved down over her soft belly to flick open her jeans, and she gasped openmouthed into his kiss. His other hand came around and slid down between her jeans and her bottom, caressing the flesh, moving her in even closer, so she could feel how hard he was. In that moment he thrust upwards, and even though their clothes acted as a barrier the sheer memory of his potent size and strength made stars explode behind Gypsy’s eyes.
Instinctively her hips moved, seeking more friction. He was relentless, kissing her, his hot mouth moving down, finding a breast and suckling. One hand kneaded her bottom, pulling her closer, and his