The Volakis Vow: Bride For Real Part 8

Sander rested his brooding gaze to her. 'I realise that this is a difficult situation for you but we are still married.'

Green eyes veiling, she nodded slowly, her temper too uncertain for her to trust herself to speak. She was not prepared to argue about Robert. It was one thing to allow Sander to wonder exactly what her relationship with the other man entailed but quite another to wilfully add to a heated misunderstanding.

Sander released his pent-up breath in a measured hiss. 'Maybe what you need most right now is a break from me.'

Green eyes glinting, her head came up. 'That's very possible.'

'I need to have a face-to-face meeting with a man I'm hoping to do business with in Athens. But that would mean leaving you here in charge of Lili and her new nanny for at least forty-eight hours,' Sander advanced grimly.

'I can handle that,' Tally heard herself claim, sooner than admit that she had not yet worked up sufficient courage to enter the same room as Oleia's child.

His ebony brows drew together, his surprise patent at that response. 'You can?'

'Why not? I'm not so perverse as to hold Lili's parentage against her!' Tally claimed with pride.

'If that's true, you're behaving with extraordinary restraint, moli mou.'

Her cheeks reddened as she was conscious that she had only become more rational about the issue that very same day.

'I mean it.' Sander regarded her with level dark golden eyes. 'I couldn't handle you having a child with Robert Miller. I couldn't handle that at all.'

And his generosity in admitting that fact made her equally generous as she appreciated the concerns that her defiant silence on that subject had caused him. 'As I haven't slept with Robert, the situation could never arise.'

A sudden startling smile flashed across Sander's beautifully shaped mouth, chasing the raw tension from his lean, hard-boned features. His stunning eyes were bright below the fringe of his luxuriant lashes. 'Thank you for telling me that. You didn't have to.'

And Tally was guiltily aware at that instant that Sander would never have had a fight with Robert had he known that her relationship with her business partner was still of the platonic variety. s.e.xual jealousy had fired his aggression. When Sander took his leave an hour later she was working on a pitch for a client. Almost as soon as the helicopter had taken off, she closed her laptop and stood up. It was past time that she met Sander's daughter.

The latest nanny, a capable-looking brunette in her late twenties, was changing Lili in the nursery. Her palms damp with nerves, Tally entered the room and introduced herself as Sander's wife. The angry patches of irritation she could see marring the baby's exposed skin soon banished her self-consciousness.

'No wonder she cries!' Tally exclaimed, dismayed by the extent of Lili's eczema. 'Poor little girl ...'

'Regular ma.s.sage with oil may help,' the nanny remarked helpfully. 'Pure cotton clothing and bedding can help as well.'

'I'll get hold of some,' Tally promised immediately, delighted to have a practical aspect to focus on.

'Would you mind looking after her while I go downstairs and get my lunch?' the brunette asked apologetically.

'Of course not.' In truth Tally was more embarra.s.sed that although it was late afternoon n.o.body had thought to relieve the nanny for a meal break. But then, who was there to think of such things? Sander was struggling with the responsibility and ignorant of what it took to fully look after the needs of so young a child. If Lili was to be tended round the clock by staff alone, a second nanny would have to be employed.

Lili was planted into Tally's arms without fanfare. She was a tiny child, not weighing much at all. As, true to form, the little girl began to cry again Tally drew in a deep steadying breath and reminded herself that she had always liked children and babies in particular. Once the nanny had departed, her reticence evaporated and she rocked the baby and talked to her quietly. Sad little dark eyes looked up at her curiously. Tally took a seat and extended a rattle to Lili to engage her interest. A tiny hand grasped the item. Time ticked on while Tally sat there feeling amazingly calm and enjoying the baby's warmth in her arms in a way she had not realised she would. Lili's lashes gradually drooped, her hold on the rattle loosening, and eventually she drifted off to sleep.

The nanny reappeared and cheerfully removed the slumbering baby to the cot. In a bit of a daze, Tally stood there gazing down at Lili. Her heartstrings had been tugged by the tiny girl's helplessness and unquestioning trust in her. There and then, she promised herself that whatever happened in her marriage she would not blame Oleia's daughter for it. She loved Sander. How could she refuse to accept his child?

That night Tally slept right through without any bad dreams. The next day she travelled up to London in a limousine. She visited her office, met a client at her town house and presented her with a scheme, before she went shopping on Lili's behalf-purchasing pure cotton sleep suits and cot linen that would not chafe the baby's tender skin. Before she headed back to Roxburn Manor, she called in at her apartment and packed a case. The necessities taken care of, she returned to the manor and only then did it occur to her that she should have made an appointment to see her doctor while she was in London. It was time, she recognised, to have a pregnancy test. She rang up and made an appointment.

Although Sander had received several messages from his parents alerting him to the fact that they wanted to speak to him, he had not responded, nor had he visited them while he was in Greece. He knew why they wanted to speak to him but he wasn't a rebellious teenager in need of a lecture about fathering Lili. As far as he was concerned the only person he needed to explain himself to on that score was Tally and he was not entirely sure that Tally would still be at Roxburn Manor when he returned.

'My wife?' he asked Mrs Jones, the housekeeper, barely one step through the front door.

'In the nursery, sir,' the older woman told him.

Sander mounted the stairs two at a time. That Tally might actually be with Lili was more than he had hoped for. Before he reached the second floor he heard Tally's soft voice speaking and when he walked into the nursery he was taken aback to see his baby daughter lying on a towel on Tally's lap being ma.s.saged with oil.

'She's not crying,' he breathed in wonderment.

'She likes this,' Tally told him, dipping her fingers in the tub of emulsified oil and working carefully over a skinny little leg until it glistened.

Sander gazed down at Lili's face, which was turned on its side and more peaceful than he had ever seen it.

'She usually goes to sleep afterwards. After a ma.s.sage session she's much calmer,' Tally advanced, glancing up at her handsome husband and staring, for while she had appreciated the privacy in which to get acquainted with Lili, life without Sander in it was like champagne without the fizz, irretrievably and boringly flat.

'So are you, moli mou,' Sander could not resist telling her.

'Lili doesn't deserve my anger,' Tally whispered, compressing her generous mouth as she gently fed the baby's limbs into a sleepsuit. 'I've made an appointment for her with a new dermatologist. I've been reading a book on eczema and I thought it might be worth getting some allergy tests done in case something she's eating or is in contact with is aggravating the condition.'

His dark, deep set eyes semi-screened by his lashes, he breathed, 'You have no idea how much I appreciate you taking an interest in her.'

'It makes me feel better, so it's selfish as well,' Tally muttered, uneasy in receipt of his praise, because she wasn't proud of the struggle she'd had before her better nature had overcome more selfish promptings.

They dined less formally than usual in a room only across the corridor from the kitchen. The meal was simple but beautifully cooked and presented. Tally had had a chat with the housekeeper and had admitted that she and Sander were not great fans of pomp and ceremony. Mrs Jones had confided that she would need more staff to meet the high standards laid down by Sander's mother and together the two women had agreed a more casual approach for what remained of Sander and Tally's stay.

'Did you visit your parents?' Tally enquired over the meal.

'I ought to have done, but I didn't.' Sander grimaced. 'I wasn't in the mood to be put through a four-act tragedy about Lili.'

He had changed into jeans and a shirt but black stubble still outlined his stubborn jaw line, accentuating the wilful sensuality of his shapely mouth. On several occasions when Tally's mind outran her self-discipline, her attention would linger on his lean, darkly handsome face and that little knot of excitement that Sander could always evoke would tighten low in her pelvis-reminding her of needs and urges she had suppressed since Lili had arrived in their lives. Desire burned through her like a hot knife piercing b.u.t.ter.

It was the nanny's night off and later that evening Tally was giving Lili a bottle when Sander appeared in the doorway. 'I should be doing that,' he stated without noticeable enthusiasm.

'Well, you should know how,' Tally agreed calmly, choosing to take the comment at face value and standing up to indicate that he should take her place.

Put on the spot, Sander breathed in deep as Tally settled his daughter into his arms and showed him how to hold the child and angle the feeding bottle. 'She's so tiny,' he complained, clearly fearful of hurting the baby in some way.

'It's not rocket science,' she told him.

She collided involuntarily with his stunning dark golden eyes and felt a kernel of heat sizzle through her nerve endings. Ready colour warmed her cheeks and she glanced away again, embarra.s.sed by her susceptibility.

'She looks quite cute when she's not crying,' Sander murmured in surprise.

'She's feeding better. When she puts on some weight she'll look more like a baby should. She's always very anxious, as well. I think she's had too many different people caring for her,' Tally commented, smoothing gentle fingertips over Lili's little furrowed brow to soothe her. The baby's flickering dark eyes swivelled to Tally and remained glued to her for the remainder of the feeding session.

Tally settled Lili back in her cot and went to bed, wondering if Sander would join her there. She lay there watching the door, thinking about him, wanting him, willing him. She stayed awake a long time before she accepted that Sander had no plans to share the bed with her. Soon after that the baby listener warned her that Lili was awake and needed settling again. It was the middle of the night before Tally, tired and cross as she was, finally slept.

A sunny day was shining behind the curtains when Sander shook her awake again. Pushing tousled hair out of her eyes, Tally sat up and frowned at him. 'What time is it?'

'Ten. My parents are here-'

A rocket attack could not have got Tally out of bed more efficiently. The very prospect of facing his exquisitely groomed mother without proper notice filled her with panic. 'Oh, my goodness! What do they want?'

Sander's handsome mouth tightened into a hard line of derision. 'Apparently, they want Lili ...'

CHAPTER TEN.

THAT staggering announcement sent Tally careening into the bathroom to wash and dash on some make-up. What had he meant by that outrageous statement? Were the older couple actually offering to step in and bring Oleia's daughter up for Sander? Tally was astonished by the suggestion, for his parents had not impressed her as being particularly fond of children. When she emerged from the bathroom within ten minutes to an empty bedroom, she wasted no time in pulling on jeans and a black tee, reluctant to waste any more time in making herself presentable. Sander had already returned downstairs to entertain his parents.

When Tally joined the three of them in the drawing room, Mrs Jones was serving coffee and biscuits and Eirene Volakis was saying to her son with her usual indifference to the presence of staff, 'If only you had married Oleia when you had the chance. She would have been so perfect for you.'

Her flawless skin staining with colour, Tally came to a sudden awkward halt. Her mother-in-law gave her an acidic smile that acknowledged her presence and no more.

'I don't think so. We split up when we were young because we were completely incompatible,' Sander imparted smoothly.

'We were always very fond of Oleia,' Petros Volakis declared cheerfully. 'That's one reason why we're willing to offer her child a home with us.'

'In the circ.u.mstances your wife can hardly want her,' Eirene contended without embarra.s.sment.

'Lili is Sander's daughter,' Tally declared firmly.

Sander's mother elevated an unimpressed brow. 'The child would be much better off with us. I've always wanted a little girl. When I was carrying Sander, I was convinced I was going to have a daughter,' she admitted, shooting her son an accusing look as if his gender were somehow his fault. 'I was devastated when I had another son instead.'

'That was a source of great disappointment,' Petros agreed, giving his wife a sympathetic look.

Tally could not bite her tongue any longer. 'And neither of you ever got over it, did you? Is that why you always favoured your elder son over the younger? Is that why you never have a good word to say about Sander?' she condemned.

Sander was startled and embarra.s.sed by Tally's spirited intercession on his behalf. Faint colour edged his superb cheekbones. 'Let's not have this conversation.'

'You have no manners,' Eirene Volakis informed Tally icily.

'My wife has excellent manners,' Sander countered crisply. 'From my own point of view, I'm very surprised that you should want to take on the burden of a child at your stage in life and I don't think it's a good idea.'

'We could equip Lili with everything she requires to take her place in the highest stratum of Greek society,' Sander's mother p.r.o.nounced haughtily.

'There are more important things,' Sander replied drily.

'Not to me,' his elegant mother told him. 'She would thrive in our care and why not? She is our first grandchild.'

'Actually my son was,' Tally could not refrain from slotting in.

Sander's father had the decency to give Tally an apologetic look but Eirene treated her to a stony appraisal, unmoved by that reminder.

Tally focused on Sander, recognising the tension hardening his lean strong face, and she wondered if his parents' proposition secretly appealed to him. A knock sounded on the door and Sander strode across the room to open it. The nanny came in with Lili cradled in her comfortable baby carrier.

'It really is time that I became acquainted with my granddaughter,' Eirene Volakis announced in a saccharin-sweet voice as she approached the child.

The older woman then came to a sudden halt and exclaimed, 'What on earth is the matter with her face?'

'Lili suffers from eczema,' Tally explained.

'It's very unsightly,' Eirene said critically, her mouth curling into a little moue of distaste as she studied the patches of inflamed skin that marred the baby's cheek and chin. 'Will it clear up?'

'Some babies grow out of it, others don't, I'm afraid. We can only wait and see,' Tally answered and she fought a protective urge to whip Lili out of the carrier and cuddle her in the face of her grandmother's disparagement.

Sardonic amus.e.m.e.nt flashed through Sander's expressive eyes as his parent drew back from his daughter as though the child's condition might prove to be contagious. 'I'm sorry she's not perfect,' he said with quiet derision.

Stiffening at that scornful note, the older woman frowned. 'She's not a healthy child. Perhaps it would be best if she remained with you.'

'It scarcely matters as I'm not prepared to hand her over to anyone,' Sander a.s.serted quietly. 'Oleia entrusted me with her daughter and I intend to bring her up. How Lili looks makes no difference to me or Tally.'

Eirene Volakis appeared unimpressed but her husband could not hide his embarra.s.sment at the speed with which his wife had withdrawn her plan to give Lili a home. Clearly, only the prettiest little girls might apply for such a position. Tally soothed the baby when she started crying, Lili had been wakened from a nap to be brought downstairs and introduced to her grandparents. Within fifteen minutes, their visitors had departed again, all interest in the child abandoned.

Sander crouched down to restore Lili's rattle to her hand when it dropped and she cried for it, little starfish fingers stretching unavailingly for her lost toy. 'You're stuck with us, Lili. It appears we can't even give you away.'

'Don't say that, even jokingly,' Tally scolded.

'She's not unsightly,' Sander declared, tight-mouthed with annoyance at that remark.

'No, she's not.'

'Were you hoping I'd hand her over to them?' Sander shot the question at her without warning.

Tally tensed at that blunt demand and the keen appraisal that accompanied it and had to admit that only a few days earlier she might have given him a different answer. 'Absolutely not. I don't think your mother is capable of offering a child unconditional love.'

'She never admitted that before-that she had hoped I would be a daughter,' Sander reflected with a sudden frowning shake of his handsome dark head. 'I was the most energetic and noisy little boy. No wonder I was always irritating her.'

And very probably one of the very few disappointments a rich and spoiled woman like Eirene Volakis had ever had to endure, Tally mused, pained by the knowledge that Sander had been so unappreciated as a child. 'No wonder you're independent.'

'Let's go back to London tomorrow,' Sander suggested, dropping the subject of his family at understandable speed. 'Since yesterday, the paps have been chasing a politician caught playing away from his wife. Lili is old news now.'

'It would certainly be easier to get back to work,' Tally conceded.

As she registered that they were talking like polite strangers again Tally's eyes stung like mad, forcing her to blink furiously. In Morocco she had gone to Sander, making the first move to bridge the distance between them, but she was not prepared to go the same route again. He didn't love her. The least she had to do to hold her own in such an unequal relationship was hang onto her dignity. She shrank from the prospect of mentioning her need for a pregnancy test. Those bright happy days at the villa in Morocco when having another child had seemed such a wonderful idea were long gone. Having once before broken such news to Sander when it was unwelcome, she could not face finding herself in a similar position again.

That evening, her father phoned and asked her to meet him for lunch again, but at his hotel rather than at the usual restaurant. Surprised, because it was unusual for her to see or hear from Anatole Karydas so soon after their last meeting, Tally wondered if he was planning to ask her about Lili and hoped that she was wrong. She wasn't ready to talk about the situation. Although she had come to terms as best she could with Lili's existence, she and Sander were still estranged. Yet she had no idea how that had happened in the wake of their happiness in Morocco.

As soon as Lili and her nanny had settled into the town house the next day and Sander had left for the office, Tally went to her father's hotel. Anatole treated her to sandwiches and tea in his hotel suite and from the minute she walked through the door his discomfiture was plain. He began to speak several times and then fell silent again.

'What is it?' Tally finally pressed.

'I'm not very good at apologising,' the older man admitted frankly. 'But I got it wrong with you and Sander. I shouldn't have interfered. I shouldn't have used Crystal's financial difficulties as a means of coercion.'

'No, you shouldn't have done,' Tally agreed with much of his own directness.