In Christofides' Keeping by Abby Green Page A

coat on again and stood in a wide-legged stance, waiting. He’d asked her about a car seat for Lola, and she’d explained that the buggy seat doubled as one. She’d heard him on his mobile phone, barking out what sounded like orders in Greek. Now he just watched her with cold eyes. So unlike the seductive man who had danced with her in that club that night—not that his effect on her was any less now.
    She pushed aside the memory ruthlessly. Her hands were full with bags, and she looked to Lola’s pram.
    Before she’d articulated anything he moved and said, ‘I’ll take her. You lock up.’
    And before Gypsy could protest or say a word she watched as Rico detached the seat from the buggy frame, as if he’d been doing it all his life, and then lifted the seat up with an ease Gypsy envied. Seeing him cradling the seat with Lola in it made something primal and treacherous rush through her. She wanted to snatch her daughter back from him, and yet her eyes pricked ominously. Gypsy forced the tears aside, knowing that to show any emotion to Rico Christofides would show him weakness—and she couldn’t afford to be weak.
    Once the flat door and main door had been closed and locked, Rico let Gypsy go to the car first in the teeming rain, accompanied by the solicitous driver, who held an umbrella over her head. He put her bags in the boot, before helping her into the car. When she was settled, Rico strode forward, Lola protected by his coat. Onceat the car, he handed her in to Gypsy, who was all fingers and thumbs securing the seat belt around the chair. Lola was bone-dry and contentedly sucking her thumb—which made Gypsy feel peculiar inside.
    As the car slowly pulled away from the kerb she remembered something. ‘The buggy!’
    Rico all but ignored her, officiously making sure that her own seat belt was fastened. Gypsy wanted to slap his hands away when she felt them brush against her thigh, hating the shiver of heat that went through her lower body. He was far too close, as she’d had to move to the middle of the back seat to accommodate Lola’s chair. His musky and uniquely masculine scent wound around her, threatening to make all sorts of memories flood back. It was humiliating in the extreme when he clearly didn’t feel the same way, at all.
    And who could blame him? Gypsy thought wearily, knowing that she looked not far removed from a homeless person. The only smart clothes she owned were her work clothes, and they were useless now…
    He finished and straightened up, and said grimly, ‘That pram is the least of your worries. By the time we get to my apartment there will be a new one waiting.’
    Gypsy tried not to let the quiet warm luxury of the car seduce her. ‘You can’t just do this, you know…just because you’re her father.’
    He turned a blistering grey gaze on Gypsy, and she tried not to quail beneath it. The space in the back of the car was claustrophobic. ‘The moment you decided to leave me out of the equation was the moment you started stacking the odds against yourself. I have just as much right to my daughter as you, and now that I know of her existence I will move heaven and earth to ensure that she grows up knowing me.’
    He turned away to look out of the window, his profile austere, jaw clenched.
    Gypsy closed her mouth firmly. She knew that there was no point in remonstrating further right now. Men like Rico Christofides and her father switched off when they weren’t hearing what they wanted or expected to hear.
    Gypsy turned her head too, her stomach in knots, aghast at how easy it was to just stare at him. She looked out of her own window as London slid past in bleak greyness. She just hoped and prayed that when he saw the reality of living with a toddler even for a few hours he’d be all but paying them to go home.
    Before long they were in the much more salubrious area of Mayfair. Clean streets, expensive cars, and even more expensive-looking people. It had stopped raining,