Abby Green - Keeping Her Close

Rico folded his arms. ‘Why? Because you’ve got work to go to later?’ He clicked his fingers then, as if remembering something. ‘Oh, but that’s not right, is it? You walked away from your job last night. Not a very responsible thing to do if you’re a single parent, is it?’

Gypsy blanched. She’d forgotten for a moment.

And then, as if thinking of something, Rico asked abruptly, ‘Who was minding Lola last night?’

Immediately Gypsy was defensive. Her hackles rose—he was already sounding far too proprietorial. ‘Mrs Murphy from down the road. She’s a retired qualified childminder who looks after Lola in the evenings for some extra cash.’

He bristled. ‘You leave my daughter with a stranger in this armpit of a street?’

Gypsy bristled right back. ‘She’s not a stranger, she’s a lovely woman, and Lola has always been perfectly safe with her.’ Gypsy’s conscience struck her then. She knew that if she’d had a choice she wouldn’t have been leaving Lola with anyone. ‘And,’ she added hurriedly, ‘Mrs Murphy comes here to mind her, as Lola is usually already down for the night when I go to work.’

‘When you used to go to work,’ Rico amended. He slashed a hand in the air, ‘Here or there, it doesn’t matter. This street is a minefield of drug abuse and gangs. I won’t have you here for one more night.’

Shaking inside, because her worst fears were manifesting themselves, Gypsy said, ‘You can’t just come in here and turn us upside down like this.’

‘Oh?’ Rico sneered. ‘Because you have such a lovely set-up here and such a perfect routine?’ His voice rang with determination. ‘This place is not fit for a dog, much less a small child. You are coming with me and you will stay with me tonight.’

Right then Lola reached up to touch Gypsy’s face, and she could feel how cold her small hands were. Guilt rushed through her. The storage heating still hadn’t come on, and Gypsy knew that even when it did its heat output was not great. Without the supplementary heater things would be bleak, and far colder than usual. It was freezing, it was damp, and she was horribly aware of the leak in the corner—and the fact that Lola had just got over a bad cold.

Rico Christofides couldn’t have picked a worse moment to confront her. Or a better one, she realised bitterly.

‘What’s wrong with her?’ Rico asked sharply, his eyes on Lola, who Gypsy could feel getting heavier in her arms.

Weariness struck Gypsy. ‘She’s tired. She didn’t sleep well last night, and she only got a small sleep in the buggy just now.’

Something even more determined crossed Rico’s face then. ‘I will carry you both out of here bodily if that’s what it takes, Gypsy, don’t think I won’t. We have to talk. You owe me this. And I refuse to stay here a moment longer.’

To her utter shame, Gypsy could feel the fight leaving her. She couldn’t in all conscience deny him the chance to talk things over. ‘Where are you proposing to take us?’

‘To my apartment in town. It’s infinitely more comfortable there. I have a housekeeper who can keep an eye on Lola while we talk.’

Feeling as though she was being carried aloft on white water rapids, with the utmost reluctance, Gypsy finally said, ‘OK—fine. We’ll come with you.’

And then things moved with scary swiftness. Gypsy put a drowsy Lola into her buggy while she got together a bag of essentials. She balked at Rico’s assertion that they wouldn’t spend another night here, and resolved to make him see he couldn’t just waltz in and change their lives, but she packed a small suitcase just in case, knowing well that with a small child she couldn’t afford not to be practical.

Finally she was ready, and saw Rico had his 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. Once at 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, almost as if they’d left the black cloud behind over Gypsy’s dismal street. Distaste curdled her insides; her father had had an apartment here, where he’d housed his various mistresses.