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

free spirit image she’d projected when he’d first seen her, which had pulled him to her like a magnet. It made him think for an uncomfortable moment that perhaps she was someone who wouldn’t be influenced by his wealth.
    He steeled himself and reminded himself of exactly what she’d done to him. The worst thing possible. Distaste and disgust for the type of woman she was, for the type of mother she was, rose up within him and he welcomed it. On the evidence of her reluctance to inform him about Lola she might not be a gold-digger, but she was something worse. She was the kind of woman who wouldn’t hesitate to marry another man and have him bring her daughter up as if she were his own, uncaring of the cataclysmic fall-out that would ensue.
    He reacted to the way she was still looking at him, with trepidation mixed with a kind of defiance. ‘You do know that I’ll never forgive you for this, don’t you?’

Chapter Six
    ‘Y OU do know I’ll never forgive you for this, don’t you?’
    The words resounded in Gypsy’s head as she lay wide awake in the softest bed imaginable much later that night. It had taken ages to put Lola down after she’d been fed, bathed and changed. The penthouse was far too exciting for her—plus the attention of not only Rico but a clearly besotted Mrs Wakefield, who had been the soul of discretion even though Gypsy had seen her looking assessingly from Lola to Rico.
    To see Lola running around the cavernous rooms had made Gypsy’s chest ache, very aware of how cramped their own space was…
    Mrs Wakefield had shown Gypsy around the entire apartment, and brought her to an enormous suite where a cot had been set up by the king-sized bed. An impromptu nursery had been made in the dressing room. A huge bathroom completed the suite, and Gypsy had seen from a brief look into Rico’s own rooms, stamped with his masculine touch, that he had an even larger suite.
    The housekeeper had told her how to get around the kitchen, and shown her where everything was. Gypsy had been bemused more than shocked to see the fridge and cupboards were already stocked high with an assortmentof baby food, and the formula she’d requested. There had even been baby monitors, so that Gypsy could keep one with her as she moved about the apartment in case she didn’t hear Lola wake.
    Lola slept nearby now, and Gypsy could hear her baby breaths, light and even. Usually the sound comforted her, but her stomach hadn’t unclenched all evening—or, in truth, since she’d seen Rico just last night. Just last night. It was hard to believe that within the space of twenty-four hours she was ensconced in his apartment. But then, she surmised grimly, she’d feared exactly this kind of autocratic takeover all along.
    And yet her conscience niggled her. While he was being just as controlling as her father had been, she couldn’t deny the fact that, unlike her father, Rico was showing nothing but signs of accepting Lola.
    He’d come into the kitchen where she’d been making herself some cocoa after putting Lola down for the night and said coolly, ‘I’ve arranged for my doctor to come in the morning. He’ll take swabs from Lola and I, and we’ll have paternity proved within the week.’
    Without giving her a chance to say a thing, he’d continued relentlessly, ‘I don’t see any point in your going anywhere until we have the results of the paternity test, so you will remain here for the week. Once it’s established that I’m Lola’s father, the first thing we will see to is amending the birth certificate so that my name is added.’
    Utterly remote and cold, he’d inclined his head then, and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me? I have some work to attend to in my study. I trust you know your way around now?’
    Gypsy had nodded, intimidated by this ice-cold man. ‘Mrs Wakefield was more than helpful.’
    ‘Good.’ And without another word he’d strode out of the kitchen.
    Gypsy had heard a sound then, on the baby