The Greek Bachelors Collection. Rebecca Winters
kept a hand in the middle of her paramour’s chest. No, not on his chest. As she shifted, Theo saw the baby trustingly clutched in the man’s curved arm.
Don’t drop Evie, Theo reminded himself, but the sight of that mite with black hair, dusky skin and curious brown eyes was a kick in the gut. He was Jaya’s. There was no mistaking the maternal protectiveness in her hand on the baby boy’s tiny blue T-shirt.
Time stood still as he processed all of them standing there with babies in their arms, Quentin with his rumpled suit and grim expression, he and Jaya practically naked with towels around their waists. Yes, this was good and humiliating to meet the father of her child with his pants proverbially around his ankles and his ineptness with children on full display.
“Quentin is my cousin’s husband. I told you about Saranya when I was leaving Bali. Do you remember?” Jaya asked.
“Of course.” Not the father then. His mind cycloned as he attempted to process this new information. If Quentin wasn’t the father, who was? To hide his inner chaos, he fell back on the scrupulous manners drilled into him as a child. “How is she?”
“Dead,” Quentin said flatly.
Nice. Theo surprised himself by thinking he might understand Quentin’s bitterness a little, given how agonized he was at the mere thought of Jaya not being available to him. He couldn’t imagine how he’d react if she were beyond his reach in a grave.
“I’m sorry,” he offered, aware how useless the words were, but it’s what you said.
“You should be,” the German growled.
I didn’t kill her, Theo bit back, able to curb the desire to be cruel because Quentin wasn’t involved with Jaya, but if he wasn’t the man in her life, who was?
His gaze returned to the bright brown eyes that were almost familiar, yet not like Jaya’s nearly black irises. A hit of déjà vu accosted him because he could have sworn he’d looked into those eyes earlier today...
The air dried up around him. His heart began to pound with thick hammer blows inside his chest. The kicked feeling in his gut tightened around a serrated blade that turned low and without mercy. If he had bones, they’d vaporized.
Don’t. Drop. Evie. He rather desperately tried to recollect if Demitri had been to Bali or had business in Marseille last year.
“Will you please let me handle this?” Jaya’s voice seemed to come from far away. She tried to take the baby from Quentin, but she already held Androu.
For the life of him, Theo couldn’t approach and take his nephew, even though he knew he should.
“Let you play house?” the German grumbled. “For how long? There’s a reason you and Saranya were always railroaded by the men in your family. You let them.”
“So if I tell you to butt out and leave, you will?”
Quentin gave her a stern look, but followed it with a resigned sigh that ended in a kiss on her cheek. He transferred the baby into her arms and straightened to throw another bitter glare at Theo.
The animosity in that look told Theo who the father was. Not Demitri. Hell, he didn’t know if he should be relieved or not. How he stayed on his feet, he’d never know.
“Call me if you need me,” Quentin said to Jaya and walked out.
Jaya took a shaken breath as the door closed, then turned to face him. The two boys she held weren’t far apart in age and despite the slightly darker skin tone on the smaller one, and the black hair where Androu’s was brown, their eyes and mouth were mirror images.
The sensation of dissolving from the inside out continued to assault Theo. He couldn’t form a proper thought. He tried, but this was more than he could grasp. More than he wanted to believe.
“This is Zephyr,” Jaya said, voice strained, but firm and a trifle defiant. “My...our...son.”
THEO STARED AT her like she was a stranger. His wide tanned chest didn’t seem to rise and fall at all where he clutched Evie in a towel against it. His lips were white and severe, his stillness frightening.
Accusation sharpened his level glare.
“I tried to tell you,” she began, then thought, No. No remorse. He hadn’t returned her calls. That’s why this was a shock to him. If she hadn’t found the right time to bring it up in the past hour, well, he’d had plenty of opportunities in the past year.
Nevertheless, a vision of the striped scars on his back flashed into her mind’s eye. Her indignation deflated and their situation became a tangle again. How had they even got here, staring like a pair of cowboys waiting for the other to draw?
Her arms ached worse than her head, but not as bad as her heart.
“They’re heavy,” she said. “Can we move into the lounge?”
“Of course.” He stepped forward and lifted Androu from her, averting his gaze from Zephyr’s shy smile.
Zephyr was an engaging little chap, happy as anything, and Theo’s turning away from him struck at the very core of her, setting her blood to boil.
Hugging her baby’s tiny frame into her wet swimsuit, she told herself to turn around and walk out, leave Theo to his “real” family.
Zephyr’s connection to the other children stopped her. Without her own cousin’s love and support, her life would be very different right now. Those sorts of ties were sacred to her and Zephyr wasn’t likely to enjoy many of them with her side of the family. Her parents and siblings were even less inclined to speak to her now that she had a bastard soiling the family name.
Was Theo really as narrow-minded as they were, capable of rejecting a boy who hadn’t done anything except have the gall to come to life inside her?
“Did you seriously just wet through this towel onto my arm?” Theo asked Androu in an aggrieved tone. “This kid hates me.”
“He’s a baby. They don’t know how to be malicious.” So don’t blame Zephyr if you’re angry at me, she added in a silent bite.
A tense twenty minutes passed as she took Evie and Zephyr into her bedroom to dress the girl and herself, leaving Theo charged with Androu. When she emerged, Theo wore a more truculent expression than any toddler. He held a naked Androu and a disposable diaper that looked worse for wear.
“This is why I’m not cut out to be a father,” he charged. “I can’t even manage the basics.”
“Well, you are a father, so I guess you’ll have to learn, won’t you?” she shot back, heart wobbling in her chest at her own audacity. But this was one thing she wouldn’t let the implacable Theo Makricosta block out. It was too important, and not just to Zephyr.
“I wasn’t supposed to be. You promised. You said it would be a disaster—”
“Zephyr is not a disaster. Do not—” She cut herself off from raising her voice, looking away for a second to gather herself, afraid she’d frighten the children if she gave in to the press of emotions strangling her. Tears were right behind the anger so she swallowed hard, trying to keep it all from releasing.
“We’re all frazzled and hungry,” she managed in a croaking voice. “I called room service while we were changing. I’ll dress Androu and once we feed the little ones and they’re settled, I’ll explain. All right?”
He glared, but didn’t argue. An hour later, as she scrubbed faces and hands, he washed his own hands and grumbled, “I’m wearing more than they ate.”
“It’s better than wearing what they ate,” she countered, not sure how they’d managed to be such a well-coordinated team when they were barely speaking. He’d let