Another Man's Baby

But thinking about hitting him was not the same thing as doing it, she rationalized. Thinking about it was nothing more than a safety valve for explosive feelings.

Making a valiant attempt to block Philip out of her mind, Ginny stared down at the floor at her feet and tried to think. Despite her best efforts back in New York, she had been unable to locate Jason Papas’s home address. Even Beth had had to send her letter to his company’s headquarters here in Athens. And while she could visit his company, she very much doubted that his employees would be willing to tell her, without his consent, where to find him.

So if she refused to go along with Philip’s charade, then her chances of locating Jason weren’t good. And her trip to Greece would have been a waste of time. Ginny winced at the thought of having to go back to Beth and tell her that she hadn’t even been able to speak to Jason.

Having come so far, she couldn’t fail Beth now. And it wasn’t as if she were some young, naive fool to be overawed by a sophisticated man of the world like Philip Lysander obviously was. She was a highly intelligent, experienced, professional woman of thirty-two. She could cope with him. Even if her weird reaction to him didn’t fade after a good night’s sleep, she could still cope.

“Very well.” Ginny got to her feet. “I will allow the masquerade to stand, but I refuse to tell a direct lie to anyone about who Damon’s father is.”

Philip gave her a scathing look. “Spare me the claim to ethics.”

“I’d just as soon spare you, period! Having anything to do with you wasn’t my idea.”

To Ginny’s shock, Philip suddenly grabbed her and yanked her up against him. She hit his chest with a thump. It was like hitting a wall—hard, with no give whatsoever. Ginny took a deep breath to ask him just what he thought he was doing, but it proved to be a mistake. Her lungs were immediately inundated with the subtle scent of a men’s cologne that made her think of soldiers and horses and...

“Stop it,” she muttered, not sure if she was talking to her own wayward body or to him. Both of them ignored her.

His arms tightened around her, molding her slender frame to his hard curves and making her excruciatingly aware of the basic differences between their bodies.

Ginny looked up at him, and he quickly took advantage of her movement to capture her mouth. His lips were warm and pliable as they pressed against hers. His tongue darted out to lick her bottom lip, and Ginny shivered violently at the sensation.

The urge to open her mouth was overwhelming, but it was the very intensity of her reaction that set off alarm bells deep in her mind. Shoving her hands between them, she tried to push him back, but he didn’t budge. She tried to wiggle out of his arms, but the sharp prickles of pleasure that tore through her as her breasts scraped across his chest distracted her, and he took advantage of her hesitation to bind her even closer to him.

Ginny could see lights flickering behind her closed eyelids as if her exploding emotions were finding a physical release. Lights that... Flashbulbs! She suddenly identified the lights. Someone was taking pictures.

Her eyes shot open, and she found herself staring into Philip’s gleaming black eyes. Wrenching her gaze away, she saw a thin man with a large, professional-looking camera hurrying away from them.

“Who was that, and why did you kiss me?” she demanded, operating under the old adage that a good offense is the best defense.

“One of the paparazzi who hang around the airport and take pictures they hope to sell to the scandal sheets.”

And he’d kissed her to give added weight to the lie that he was her lover and Damon’s father, Ginny realized in dismay. What had she gotten herself into?

Suddenly realizing that she was still pressed up against Philip’s warm body, Ginny hastily stepped back and stumbled over her purse, which was sitting on the floor.

Philip grabbed her, steadying her for a moment against his hard frame. It was long enough for her body to react with a growing sense of urgency.

Desperately, Ginny tore herself out of his grip.

“I’m tired after that long flight.” She muttered the first excuse that came to mind.

“Next time, pick a victim a little closer to home!” Philip snapped as he bent to pick up Damon’s car seat.

As he lifted it, the blanket that had been partially obscuring the child’s face fell back, and an uneasy feeling washed over Philip as he got his first clear look at the child. The boy had the same inky black hair and dark complexion that Creon had had. As he did himself, Philip reminded himself. There were millions of men with dark hair and dark complexions in Greece. That didn’t prove anything.

“Come on,” he flung at Ginny as he headed toward the doors.

“What about my luggage?” Ginny hurried to match his long stride. “And don’t swing that car seat around.” Her voice sharpened. “I don’t want Damon to wake up.”

“I had a porter fetch your luggage and put it in my car.”

So she’d been right. He had deliberately left her waiting, Ginny thought in annoyance.

Knowing that nothing she could say about his unconscionable behavior would bother him, she wisely said nothing, contenting herself with glaring at his broad back as he marched out the door.

She wasn’t the least bit surprised to find his car parked in a no-parking zone. Nor was she surprised to find that no one had done anything about it. Philip was clearly the type of man it wasn’t safe to cross. But someone should have done so long ago, she thought grimly. He’d have developed into a much nicer person if he’d been thwarted occasionally.

Well, it was never too late for him to learn and, while it wasn’t a job Ginny would have normally chosen, she was fast coming to the conclusion that she would be doing her fellow man a distinct service if she were to teach Philip that the whole world didn’t dance to his piping.

Ginny surreptitiously watched Philip while she carefully buckled Damon’s car seat into the back seat of his black Mercedes. He was sitting in the driver’s seat looking at something on the console between the two front seats. There was an absorbed expression on his lean face that bespoke total concentration.

Was he married? Ginny wondered as she studied the slight frown between his dark eyebrows. A sudden urge to smooth the worry line away gripped her and, shaken by the impulse, she turned back to Damon. She didn’t understand her almost compulsive physical attraction to Philip. She was far more aware of him than she had ever been of any male, and that was on the basis of a half hour’s acquaintance. Even, Ted whom she’d seriously considered marrying a few years ago, hadn’t affected her like this. But why? The question reverberated through her tired mind, demanding an answer.

Probably because of the intense emotions behind their meeting, she rationalized. And when she added to that the fact that she was exhausted, it was no wonder that she was acting out of character. With any luck at all, she’d be back to normal by morning and she’d be able to see Philip as nothing more than the ruggedly handsome, gorgeously built, smugly self-righteous man he was. Till then, she’d simply have to be careful not to do or say anything to let him guess just what she was feeling, because one thing she’d bet her last dollar on was that Philip was a man who would ruthlessly exploit any advantage he could get.

Dropping a gentle kiss on Damon’s petal-soft cheek, Ginny got into the front seat.

“Buckle your seat belt,” Philip ordered.

Ginny blinked and reached for the ends of the belt. She really was tired, she thought ruefully, to have forgotten something that basic.

“A miracle,” Philip muttered as he pulled away from the curb. “She actually did as she was told without an argument.”

Ginny ignored the comment. She had the disheartening feeling that she was going to be ignoring a lot of things in the next few days.

“Where does Damon’s grandfather live?” she asked as Philip wound his way through the brilliantly lit streets of Athens.

“I have no idea,” he shot back, “but Jason Papas lives in Glifadha, but we aren’t going there tonight.”

Ginny froze as, for one mad second, images of being driven into the hinterlands and abandoned filled her mind. No, she assured herself. Creon might have been selfish enough to have tried that type of intimidation, but she didn’t think that was Philip’s style.

“Then where are we going?” Ginny was pleased at the evenness of her tone.

“My apartment.” He accelerated around a slow-moving tourist bus and then turned left in front of a speeding taxi.

Ginny gasped and cast a worried look over her shoulder at Damon. He was still sleeping peacefully. “I can see why you want your passengers to wear seat belts,” she muttered. “You have a death wish.”

Philip gave her a quick grin that sent an unexpected rush of pleasure through her. For one moment, he had looked young and carefree and someone she...

Stop it! Ginny hastily pulled her imagination up short because that was all it was. Imagination. She absolutely couldn’t fall into the trap of assuming Philip had the qualities she wanted him to have.

“Let me guess.” she said dryly. “You have an etching you want to show me?”

Philip looked confused. “The only etchings I have are four by da Vinci, and they’re in my London house.”

Ginny stared at him, mentally revising her estimation of his wealth upward by quite a few million. Da Vincis were not cheap and for him to own four...

“Are you an art lover, besides a blackmailer?” he asked.

Ginny determinedly ignored the slur. Hopefully, if she refused to respond to his provocation, he’d lose interest in baiting her. “Sorry, I forgot you were a foreigner and wouldn’t know that ‘looking at etchings’ is an American expression.”

“I am not a foreigner. I am Greek, this is Greece. Therefore, you are the foreigner.”

“Great,” she muttered. “Just what I need. A literalist.”

“And what does inviting someone to see your etching mean?” he persisted.

Ginny stared into his face, watching the way the light from a pink neon restaurant sign engulfed him in a colorful glow. Could he really not have run across the expression before? But it didn’t really matter because if she refused to answer him, he’d realize that she found discussing sex with him unsettling. And no doubt use the information to torment her at some future date. Her only viable option at this point would be to act nonchalant. Or at least try.

“It means that a man is asking a woman to his apartment in the hopes of convincing her to have sex with him,” she finally said.

“Have sex?” He shot her a quick, calculating glance that made her very leery. “And would you have sex with me, Ginny Alton? Would you let me kiss you the way a lover kisses a woman? Would you let me strip that sterile-looking suit off you? Would you let me take your breasts in my hands and explore their texture? Would you let me kiss your breasts and suckle—”

“Stop it!” Ginny choked out, giving up trying to ignore him. Philip was treating her as he would a woman that he’d picked up for one purpose and one purpose only, and she wasn’t going to allow it.

He momentarily took his eyes off the road to glance at her flushed face. He could almost believe she was embarrassed, but that made no sense. His words hadn’t been all that explicit. Certainly not explicit enough to make a blackmailer with an illegitimate child blush. So why had she? He didn’t know but he fully intended to find out. By the time he was through with Ginny Alton she wouldn’t have a secret left.

“Or...or I’ll tell your wife,” Ginny finally threatened.

He chuckled. “I have no wife. You could always threaten to tell my mother, not that you’re likely to meet her. I try to protect her from the seamier side of life.”

Ginny ignored the insult as well as the strange spurt of pleasure she felt at his bachelor state. Instead, she turned her head and stared out the car window at the quiet, residential neighborhood he was driving through. Closing her eyes, she tried to employ one of the relaxation techniques she’d learned to use when her clients were being more exasperating than usual.

As it was in the beginning, is now and ever will be, she doggedly repeated to herself. But instead of evoking a feeling of peace as it was supposed to, all she could think about was how perfectly it appeared to describe Philip’s flat refusal to even consider the truth of what she was saying. But why wouldn’t he consider it? she wondered. Granted, he wanted to protect his sister, but hiding the truth from her wasn’t much protection.

For that matter, why hadn’t he stopped his sister from marrying Creon in the first place? It had only taken her one date to realize that Creon was bad news. Philip should have been able to figure it out, too.

Maybe because Philip didn’t see anything wrong with a man carrying on affairs on the side as long as his wife didn’t find out about it? She found the idea depressing.

“You get the boy.”

Ginny looked around, realizing that Philip had parked the car in front of a tall, ultramodern apartment building. It looked expensive, exclusive and totally unwelcoming. As if it were nothing more than a stage prop. She wouldn’t want to live there. But then she wasn’t being asked to, she reminded herself as she scrambled out of the car.

Ginny bumped Damon’s car seat against the front seat as she was pulling it out of the car. The jolt woke the baby, and he glared at her, for one eerie moment looking exactly like Philip.

“Don’t do that, love.” She gave him a kiss.

Damon was not soothed. He opened his small mouth and emitted a bellow that could be heard for a block in either direction.

“Ah, he must be a boy with lungs like that.” The doorman nodded approvingly at Damon as he opened the lobby door for them. Ginny ignored the man.

“Don’t cry, sweet’n. Just as soon as we get inside, I’ll give you a bottle.”

Damon stuck out his lower lip as if considering whether or not to accept her offer.

Philip handed the doorman his car keys. “Have someone bring the luggage in the trunk.” He started toward the bank of elevators.

Ginny trailed after Philip, trying to ignore the speculative stares she was getting from the people in the lobby. She breathed a sigh of relief when the elevator doors finally opened, but her relief didn’t last long. A young woman wearing five-inch heels and a superbly cut, slinky black sheath dress hurried into the elevator after them.

“Why, Philip, I didn’t know you were back in Greece. Who’s this?” The woman gestured toward Ginny.

To Ginny’s shock, Philip put his arm around her waist and pulled her up against his hard side. She could feel him pressing into her hip and the heat from his body was crowding her, forcing her out of her comfort zones. But she wasn’t the only one disconcerted by Philip’s actions, Ginny realized, when she saw the incredulous look on the woman’s face.

“This is Ginny Alton.” Philip’s voice deepened as if with a hint of some deeply held emotion. “Ginny, this is Thera Spirios, an old friend of my sister Clytie.”

“Not Clytie, Philip. Sophie.” The woman’s features sharpened in annoyance. “Clytie is years older than me.”

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Ginny lied.

The woman nodded impatiently at Ginny and turned back to Philip. “You are coming to the reception at the French embassy this evening, aren’t you, Philip?”

“No.” Philip gave Ginny a smoldering look that implied he intended to spend his evening making love to her. Even though Ginny knew the look was strictly for show, it still sent an involuntary shiver of anticipation through her.

Why couldn’t Philip have been more like Creon? she thought in dismay. She had had no trouble resisting that philanderer. Why was Philip different?

“Who’s that?” Thera peered closer at Damon who reacted to the unfriendly face by shrieking.

To Ginny’s relief, the elevator doors slid open before Philip could answer Thera. Not waiting for him, Ginny hurried through them into the spacious hallway beyond.

Philip paused a moment to say something to Thera that Ginny couldn’t quite catch. But whatever it was, it didn’t sit well with the woman. Her face turned an unbecoming shade of red, and her thin lips twisted as she stared in impotent frustration as Philip walked out of the elevator.

A discarded girlfriend? Ginny wondered, but had better sense than to ask. Instead, she jiggled the wailing Damon as she waited for Philip to unlock his apartment door.

Ginny followed Philip inside, looking around curiously. The apartment was expensively decorated and very spacious, but it was also strangely impersonal. It looked more like a luxury hotel suite than a private home.

Damon’s howls increased, and Ginny set his car seat down and struggled to unbuckle his squirming body.

“You’re doing that wrong.” Philip brushed her fingers away and deftly unfastened the buckles.

“Fine. Since you know so much, you can take care of him while I heat his bottle.”

Rather to her surprise, he didn’t refuse. Instead, he picked Damon up, holding him out in front of him as if he were a live grenade that might explode at any minute.

“Don’t hold him like that,” Ginny ordered as she rummaged through Damon’s diaper bag for a bottle of formula. “Babies need to feel secure. Where’s the kitchen?”

“Through there.” He nodded toward the right with his head as he gingerly put Damon on his shoulder. “He squishes!” Philip’s eyes widened in horror.

Ginny gave him a limpid smile. “So change him. There’s plenty of diapers in the bag.”

Grateful that Damon was too young to understand the meaning of some of the words Philip was muttering, Ginny headed toward the kitchen.

It didn’t take her long to heat the bottle. She was testing the warmth of the formula on her wrist when she heard Philip bellow. It was immediately followed by Damon’s shriek.

For a moment, she was tempted to leave Philip to solve whatever mess he’d managed to get himself into. Or that Damon had managed to create. But she finally decided that poor Damon had had to put up with enough today.

Ginny followed the sound of Damon’s crying to a large bedroom that was dominated by a huge bed. She gulped as her skin began to tingle. Grimly she tried to squash the unwanted reaction, but it simply burrowed deeper into her chest, raising all sorts of longings. She felt rattled and uncertain—like an adolescent who’d unexpectedly found herself alone in a bedroom with a boy, and she didn’t like the feeling one bit.

“What are you doing?” Her voice was curt with the effort she was making to control her emotions.

Philip raised his head and gave her an agonized look. “The boy...” He gestured from the baby to his chest.

Ginny frowned and then grinned as she suddenly realized what must have happened. When Philip had taken Damon’s wet diaper off, the baby had reacted to the room’s air-conditioning by urinating. All over the front of Philip. Her lips twitched at the thought of the ultrasophisticated Philip being caught unawares. She tried to swallow her laughter, but a giggle escaped.

“I’m sorry,” she choked out with far more politeness than sincerity. “But you...” She completely lost her attempts to control her mirth.

The warm, happy sound of her laughter rolled over Philip’s annoyance, vanquishing it. Intrigued, Philip watched the way her soft lips quirked at the corners. He wanted to take her in his arms and press his mouth against her quivering lips. To absorb her laughter into his own body.

If this was the side of her personality that she’d shown to Creon, it was no wonder that he’d... No! Philip emphatically banished the traitorous thought.

“You finish the boy. I’m going to take a shower.” He stalked toward his bathroom, angry at himself for even considering that she might be telling the truth. Creon wouldn’t have done such a despicable thing to Lydia, and he was dishonoring Creon’s memory by even considering the idea.

Philip’s abrupt exit successfully stilled Ginny’s mirth, and she hurried over to the bed before Damon rolled over and fell off.

“Poor little angel,” she murmured soothingly as she deftly diapered him. “Don’t you worry. I don’t hold it against you. Come on, love. Let’s get some food into your tummy and then you can go to sleep.”

Picking Damon up, she went back to the living room and, sitting down on the very comfortable sofa, popped the nipple into Damon’s mouth. He began to gulp the formula down as if he were in imminent danger of starvation.

Damon polished off his bottle in record time, and Ginny was trying to coax a burp out of him when the phone suddenly rang. She glanced from the phone on the end table to the hallway that led to Philip’s bedroom. Was he still in the shower? Would he want her to answer it?

But even if she did answer it, the person calling might not speak English.

“Should I answer it?” Ginny asked Damon, who wrinkled his button nose and then emitted a huge burp. She chuckled and kissed his downy head. “My sentiments exactly. We’ll...”

She turned at the muffled sound of footsteps on the thick carpeting behind her.

Two

Ginny tensed as she watched Philip stride across the living room. He was wearing a short, white towel wrapped around his lean waist, and nothing else. She stared at his broad chest in fascination. It was covered with a thick pelt of dark hair that intrigued her. She wanted to run her hands over it and see what it felt like. To find out if it were soft and silky or crisp and abrasive.

Mesmerized, Ginny watched the supple movement of the muscles beneath his tautly stretched skin as he picked up the phone. There wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. Anywhere. Her eyes drifted lower, down over his flat hips and strong legs. Her mouth dried as she watched water droplets trickle down his legs. Slowly, enticingly, the drops caressed his flesh as they meandered downward. She wanted to follow their path. To trace over it with her fingertips and then with her lips.

Philip gestured emphatically as he responded to something his caller had said, and Ginny shivered as Philip’s towel momentarily parted, giving her a tantalizing glimpse of his masculinity. Her eyelids felt heavy, and a tightness was wrapping itself around her chest, making it difficult to take a deep breath.

This was crazy! She made a valiant effort to regain control of her wayward responses. How could she be sitting here all but drooling over a man that she barely knew, and what little she did know she didn’t like? It made no sense.

Ginny tried closing her eyes to shut out the temptation, but it didn’t help. She found Philip’s powerful body clearly imprinted on the back of her eyelids.

Flustered, she opened her eyes and tried concentrating on Damon, but it didn’t help. All she could think about was how closely the color of Damon’s hair matched Philip’s.

It’s only a mindless chemical reaction, she assured herself. Purely physical. The kind of thing that writers had been immortalizing in song and legend since time immemorial. And the very ferocity of her attraction guaranteed that it would quickly consume itself and burn out. A seed of doubt floated through her mind, but she refused to allow it to take root. She was a competent, modern woman who was more than capable of handling an unwanted sexual attraction, starting right now. She would look at him and see nothing but a superb physical specimen.

Ginny slowly raised her head and looked at Philip. Only a superb physical... Her determination wavered as he raised his hand and the muscles in his chest rippled. She found herself wondering what it would feel like if he were to hold her close to his chest. Close enough to feel the movement of those muscles. Close enough...

“No, I don’t think the boy is Creon’s.”

Philip’s curt words ripped through the sensual fog that had entrapped her, and her arms tightened protectively around Damon’s defenseless little body. Grimly, Ginny bit back a furious retort. Yelling at him wouldn’t help Beth. It would only make Philip feel justified in his pigheaded opinion. Besides, what Philip Lysander thought wasn’t all that important in the final analysis, she reminded herself. It was what Jason Papas thought that counted.