Read Online In Christofides' Keeping by Abby Green - Free Book Online Page A

with someone like him. Better to indulge him, let him play out his father role, and wait for him to get bored. She had no doubt he would—especially with red-haired beauties like the one last night waiting in the wings. At the thought of him sleeping with her something even darker clenched in Gypsy’s gut.
    Just then Mrs Wakefield bustled back into the room, with tea and sandwiches, and Lola woke up, struggling out of her makeshift bed. Gypsy rushed to help her off the couch, and automatically lifted her away from the hazardous glass coffee table. Lola slipped out of her hands again, like a wriggling eel, and toddled over to the huge window, fascinated by the staggering view.
    She pointed when a bird flew past and exclaimed, ‘Birdy!’
    Mrs Wakefield finished putting out the tea and went over to make friends with a clearly delighted Lola. After a few minutes of largely nonsensical but earnest chatter from the toddler, she turned to Gypsy, ‘She’s a sunny one, isn’t she?’
    Gypsy smiled wryly, glad of the momentary distraction. ‘Most of the time, yes. But woe betide anyone who gets close when she’s tired or hungry…’
    Mrs Wakefield held out a hand, and Lola took it trustingly. ‘Why don’t we go off for a little exploring and let Mum and Mr Christofides have their tea?’
    Before Gypsy could protest Lola was happily toddling out of the room with Mrs Wakefield, not a care in the world at leaving her mother behind. And while Gypsy felt proud, because it was a sign of a happy and secure child, she also felt absurdly hurt.
    When she turned around Rico was holding out a chairat the larger table for her to sit down, and he said mockingly, ‘Don’t worry. She’s not going to kidnap her or spirit her away.’
    Gypsy said nothing, just sat down, still a little shocked at what had spilled out of her mouth only moments before. Clearly she was feeling far too volatile at the moment to be sure of remaining calm and rational. With grim reluctance she finally slipped off her coat, knowing they wouldn’t be returning to her flat any time soon.
    Rico poured tea and pushed some sandwiches towards Gypsy. She was avoiding his eyes again, and he was still reeling slightly at her outburst. The fact that she was projecting something deeply embedded within her onto him was obvious. He suspected it was the same thing that had stopped her from automatically telling him about her pregnancy. But what?
    His interest piqued, he vowed, among everything else he’d already set in motion, to look into Gypsy Butler’s life for clues. The fact that he knew nothing about the mother of his child did not sit well with him. If he had ever contemplated having a child with anyone, he knew he was the kind of person to have chosen someone based on cool logic and intellect. The mother of his child would not be left to fate and circumstance, the child would not be conceived in a moment of blind passion—His stomach clenched. But that was exactly what had happened…
    But, he reassured himself, he had the means to control that. To control her. He watched her eat the sandwiches with relish, and wondered how long it had been since she’d eaten properly. Her baggy shapeless clothes hung off her petite frame, and that slightly plump litheness he remembered so well was gone. Even so, he concededreluctantly, it did nothing to diminish her appeal or douse his desire.
    Abruptly he stood, cup in hand, and went to look out of the window. He didn’t like the way she could rouse him so effortlessly, or the way he cared even for a moment that she’d grown thin. And especially he didn’t like the way he felt inclined to do everything in his power to restore that vivacious health.
    He turned to face her and she was looking at him with big wary eyes. Very like the way Lola had been looking at him in the flat. Her hand was clenched around her cup, a tiny crumb at the corner of her mouth. Her wildly curling hair lay around her shoulders, reminding him of that