Another Man's Baby. Judith McWilliams
they only made Ginny mad. And more determined than ever to stand up to the old tyrant.
Absently, Ginny brushed back a strand of hair that had escaped from her chignon. She’d wait another fifteen minutes on the off chance that Jason Papas’s delay had been caused by traffic, and then she’d leave a message for him at the airline desk and check into a hotel.
Feeling slightly better now that she’d decided on a plan of action, Ginny leaned her head back against the seat and closed her eyes. Within seconds she was asleep.
Philip Lysander pushed back the sleeve of his gray suit jacket and looked down at the thin gold watch on his wrist. He’d kept this Alton woman and the bastard she was trying to trick a sick old man into acknowledging waiting forty minutes now. Long enough to drive home the fact to her that the family considered her entirely insignificant. It was now time to pick her up.
Draining the remainder of his whiskey, Philip set the empty glass back down on the table and left the airport’s bar.
It took him five minutes to locate the lounge where Jason had told him the Alton woman would be waiting. Philip had absolutely no doubt that she would be there. Anyone brazen enough to try to pull off the fraud she was attempting wouldn’t back out at the last minute.
Despite having his opinion confirmed, Philip took no satisfaction from the sight of the woman sitting on the far side of the lounge with a car seat at her feet. He headed toward her, relishing the prospect of telling her that she wasn’t going to get away with her lie. That he knew her for what she was and would never allow her to harm his family.
His lips tightened when he realized that she was asleep. It seemed the final insult to him that she should be blissfully unaware of the fact that he’d kept her waiting.
Philip’s eyes widened in surprise as he got close enough to get a good look at the woman. Instead of the cheap, overblown opportunist that he’d been expecting, she looked...elegant, he finally settled on. Her dark blond hair was the exact shade of the lemon blossom honey his mother used to pour on his breakfast toast when he’d been a child. It even looked like honey, sleek and smooth. Unconsciously his fingers twitched with the urge to stroke her hair and see if it were as silky as it looked.
His gaze wandered lower, down over her face, and his mouth dried under the impact of her beauty. And she was beautiful, Philip reluctantly conceded. Not only did she have classically perfect features, but a flawless complexion, as well. His eyes lingered on the pale rose flush on her cheekbones before dropping down to the soft lusciousness of her full mouth. He swallowed uneasily as an unexpected urge to press his own mouth to hers slammed through him.
He wrenched his gaze away from the lure of her lips with effort, focusing instead on the slight swell of her breasts beneath the severely cut blue suit she was wearing. He frowned at her outfit. It didn’t fit her delectable body. Someone as feminine as she looked should be wearing something soft and clinging and...
He pulled his imagination up short. What was the matter with him? he wondered uneasily. He wasn’t some immature boy to be thrown off balance by the sight of a woman’s body, no matter how beautiful it was. Especially not when he knew that the character behind the beautiful facade was rotten to the core. His features hardened. He couldn’t afford to forget for a moment what she was really like.
Ginny stirred uneasily as a prickly sensation danced over her skin. Confused, she half opened her eyes and checked Damon. He was still sleeping. A soft smile curved her lips at his peaceful expression. She started to yawn and then stopped as she caught sight of a pair of gray-covered legs standing slightly behind Damon’s car seat.
Dreamily, her eyes followed the pants upward over a powerful pair of masculine thighs, up over a flat stomach to a broad chest. Approvingly, she noted the impressive breadth of his shoulders, but she wasn’t so sure about the hard thrust of his jaw. He looked very determined. Ginny watched his long tanned fingers clench spasmodically. His fingers should be wrapped around a spear, she thought whimsically. And instead of a suit, he should be wearing one of those short white skirt things the ancient Spartan warriors wore. No, even better, he should be an athlete. Her stomach twisted in instinctive response to the sudden image she had of him naked. His bare skin was gleaming with the oil that the athletes rubbed on it and...
An icy sensation suddenly ripped through her languid daydreams as her eyes collided with his coal black ones. They seemed to smolder with suppressed emotion. An impression heightened by his tightly compressed lips.
Ginny slowly straightened up, trying not to let him see just how disoriented she was. She’d only found him fascinating because she was so tired, she assured herself. Tired and half-asleep. Under normal circumstances this was not a man who would appeal to her, not for a second. As she quite obviously didn’t appeal to him. She watched the imperious way he was regarding her. As if she were a bad smell that he intended to eliminate as soon as possible.
He couldn’t possibly be Jason Papas. He was far too young. So it stood to reason that he was an emissary of Jason Papas sent to pick her and Damon up like a stray package that had to be dealt with.
Ginny was unable to entirely suppress her feeling of unease as the man’s features hardened even further, reminding her of a painting she’d once seen of a judge at the Salem witch trials. He looked absolutely merciless. But she didn’t want mercy, she bolstered her sagging courage. She wanted justice. Justice for Damon and poor Beth. And this man, no matter who he was, wasn’t going to stop her!
Ginny squared her shoulders and returned his glare, waiting for him to break the brittle silence that stretched between them.
Finally, just when she was starting to feel limp with the strain, he did.
“You won’t get away with it!” His intriguingly accented voice was rasped seductively over her nerve endings.
“And what precisely is ‘it’? For that matter, who are your?”
“I’m here to pick you up.” His voice held a sneer that seemed to insinuate all kinds of things.
Ginny ignored it and simply stared at him, waiting for him to answer her question. Experience had taught her that it was fatal to try to placate men like him. They had to be met with determination.
“Well! Have you nothing to say?”
“I’m still waiting for you to tell me who you are,” she managed a level tone despite the butterflies holding a convention in her stomach. “Or isn’t your command of the English language sufficient to have understood my question?”
Ginny felt a brief flair of satisfaction as his tanned cheeks darkened at her gibe.
“I have a degree in economics from Oxford, and I spend most of my time in London!” he snapped.
“Lovely.” Ginny gave him a bland smile. “But that still doesn’t tell me who you are.”
“Philip Lysander, Creon’s brother-in-law. He was married to my sister, Lydia.”
“Brother-in-law!” Ginny stared blankly at him as a dizzying wave of horror washed over her. Creon had been married! He was even worse than she’d thought, and she hadn’t thought all that much of him in the first place.
Philip’s smile chilled her. “Creon may be dead and unable to defend himself from your lies, but he has family who will.”
And so did Beth, Ginny thought grimly. As Creon’s precious family would find out.
“All right, Philip Lysander, Creon’s brother-in-law. How about if you do what you were sent to do and take me to Jason Papas.”
“Not until we reach an agreement.”
Ginny eyed him warily. “About what?”
“I don’t want my sister hurt.”
Ginny felt a spurt of sympathy for the unknown Lydia, but she determinedly banished it. Philip’s sister had him and her father-in-law and heaven only knew how