SUSAN MEIER - Rags To Riches - Hired For His Satisfaction - A Ring to Secure His Heir / Nanny for the Millionaire's Twins / The Ties that Bind

‘No, you are,’ Alexius corrected, shooting Jason a look of bitter animosity.

‘I’m not going to bother her again,’ Jason protested. ‘I didn’t even know she had a bun in the oven.’

Alexius frowned, that phrase not having come to his ears before. As he registered its meaning along with Jason’s expressive shudder, Bas moaned in pain on the tray and Rosie stroked his little domed head with a tender hand while tears flooded her eyes. ‘I can’t bear anything to happen to Bas … he’s all I’ve got left of Beryl!’

Alexius urged her out of the door, draping the jacket Martha passed him round her narrow shoulders. ‘Beryl?’ he queried, watching in consternation as tears spilled down her cheeks.

‘She was my foster mum,’ Rosie told him unevenly as Alexius grasped the tray and urged her into the back of the limousine waiting at the kerb. ‘I moved in with her when I was twelve. It was the only place I was ever happy. She treated me like family. She really loved me—’

‘Do you still see her?’ Alexius prompted, keen to take her thoughts in a more positive direction for Bas was bleeding from the nose and Alexius wanted to distract her: the dog didn’t look good.

Rosie dashed the tears away irritably. ‘She died when I was twenty. She was ill for a long time with breast cancer. I was fifteen when it was first diagnosed and she got all the treatment but it came back the next year and the doctors couldn’t do anything more … it was terminal. One of Beryl’s grown-up children bought Bas as a surprise for her a few months before she died. I thought it was an insane idea to give her a pet when she was so ill, but Bas gave her an interest … He brightened those last months for her, so I couldn’t let him go after she’d passed.’

The tray on her lap, she stroked the limp little animal’s back with her forefinger. ‘How did you know that Jason followed me home last night? How did you know he was visiting me this evening?’

‘When you left yesterday I arranged for one of my security guards to keep a discreet watch on you to ensure your safety. Just as well with Jason around,’ Alexius pronounced grimly.

‘Why the heck would you have done that? You mean someone’s been following me since yesterday?’ Rosie exclaimed in disbelief.

‘That’s how I knew what Jason had been up to and that he had called to see you today,’ Alexius pointed out tautly.

‘Jason was about to leave quietly when you let in Bas and everything went pear-shaped. I don’t need a security guard,’ she said thinly. ‘What am I? A princess or something? I’ve got nothing worth stealing. Where are we going?’

‘A veterinary clinic where Bas will get immediate treatment.’

Rosie stared down at the chihuahua’s still little body, noticed the blood at his nose and her lower lip quivered. ‘I love him so much it’s ridiculous. He’s not very well trained and Jason teased him so much when I lived with Mel that he hates men.’

‘He bit me as well,’ Alexius volunteered.

‘At least you didn’t kick him,’ Rosie muttered.

Alexius surveyed Bas and suppressed a sigh, wondering if that was all he had in his favour. Saving Bas to bite another day was clearly a priority when the mother of his child was so deeply attached to him. His own mother had had several pet dogs and had appeared fond of them, a great deal fonder than she had ever been of her son. He studied Rosie as she sat next to him, slim as a willow wand and without an ounce of surplus weight. He wondered if it was healthy for a pregnant woman to be so thin, tried to picture that tiny body swollen with his child and was startled by the sudden flush of heat that gave him an instant erection. How could that image be a turn-on? he asked himself in disbelief. Any fool could get a woman pregnant, he reasoned. There was nothing remotely special about it, although the process that brought it about had been pure bliss, he recalled in a helpless surge of sensual recall as the limo reached their destination.

Alexius removed the tray from Rosie and carried Bas into the animal clinic. A veterinary nurse in an overall came forward to collect him and then a burly vet emerged to greet them and ask questions.

‘We need to X-ray him and stabilise him first. He’s got concussion and the leg needs to be treated. If we’re lucky, it may not be more serious than that.’

As the vet spoke Bas suffered a seizure that sent convulsions travelling through his little body and made his three working legs paddle in the air. Rosie gasped in alarm and tried to soothe him.

‘I’m afraid that’s not a good sign but there’s nothing you can do to stop it,’ the vet warned her before he directed them to the waiting room and took Bas into the surgery to check him out.

‘This is one of the most highly acclaimed private animal clinics in the UK,’ Alexius assured Rosie. ‘If Bas can be saved, it’ll happen here.’

Rosie stared into space, trying to imagine life without Bas’s lively loving presence and shrinking from it. Thirty minutes later, the nurse appeared and told them that Bas would have to spend the night under observation because he might yet require emergency surgery on his fractured skull.

‘How on earth am I going to pay the bills for all this?’ Rosie whispered in dismay as Alexius vaulted upright, clearly grateful to be freed to leave. ‘This level of emergency treatment and care must cost a fortune.’

‘I’m taking care of it,’ Alexius fielded, reaching down a hand to draw her out of her chair. She was light as feather and so preoccupied by her pet’s plight and prospects that she was wholly divorced from his presence. Being ignored was, he discovered, a novel experience he didn’t much appreciate, particularly when the woman doing the ignoring was dressed in worn jeans, tacky trainers and an overlarge tee with a garish logo on the front. Somehow her complete indifference to her appearance around him added to his growing sense of affront. He gazed down at her, noticing the way the artificial light burnished her hair to silvery fairness … and her nipples caused little dents in the tee. He tensed, remembering the tormentingly sweet taste of those little buds and her wild responsiveness and had to struggle to get his mind back on the conversation.

‘That’s very generous of you but I don’t like being under an obligation,’ Rosie admitted, almost stumbling on the steps outside the clinic until Alexius grabbed her arm to steady her.

‘Agree to meet your grandfather and I’ll write the debt off,’ Alexius responded, stunning silver eyes framed by lush black lashes and strikingly noticeable in his lean bronzed face.

Rosie was sharply disconcerted by the suggestion and stared up at him in disbelief. ‘But that’s blackmail.’

‘That’s me, moraki mou ,’ Alexius returned without apology. ‘I’m programmed to make the most of any advantage and if I can do your grandfather a good turn in the process, I will do it.’

Rosie breathed in deep and slow, shaken that he could be quite so unashamed of his ruthless and immoral approach to life. So, his generosity had a price? Was she really surprised by the fact? Alexius Stavroulakis wasn’t the kind of guy to do something for nothing. But the source of her concern was very real, for she was convinced that the bill for treating Bas would run into thousands of pounds and there was no way that she could pay any of it back. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be,’ Beryl used to say in warning, and Rosie had always respected that maxim because on a small income if she did not live within her means she risked getting into serious trouble. But how much of a sacrifice would she really be making if she agreed to go to Greece? In the back of her mind she was already coming round to accepting that curiosity alone would have prompted her to meet her grandfather. But in truth, and it was very much a visceral reaction, she did want to meet her father’s father and find out more about the Greek side of her family.