Baby of Shame

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Book: Baby of Shame by Julia James Read Free Book Online
Authors: Julia James
Tags: Romance
yourself again—’
    ‘Where’s Nicky?’ Rhianna demanded desperately. Fear filled her. Cold, terrifying fear.
    Nurse Thompson answered composedly. ‘He’s swimming in the pool with Mr Petrakis.’
    Immediately Rhianna tried to throw off her bedclothes. Nurse Thompson pressed her back.
    ‘This won’t do,’ she said sternly. ‘Nicky is perfectly all right, and perfectly happy. You can see him in just a little while, when you’ve had breakfast. He isn’t going anywhere.’
    But Rhianna only stared up at her with anguished eyes.
    ‘You don’t understand—’
    Nurse Thompson plumped her pillows.
    ‘What I understand is this: if you want to get well, as fast as possible, you simply must not upset yourself like this! You could have fallen quite badly on those steps yesterday, you know. And what help would that have been? Now, eat your breakfast, and then I’ll help you get up.’
    There was nothing Rhianna could do but give in. But even as she forced down her breakfast under the unyielding supervision of Nurse Thompson her head was going round and round.
    Desperately she tried to force her brain to think, to function. Alexis Petrakis could not take Nicky from her. The fathers of illegitimate children had no automatic rights in law. She could deny him access, keep Nicky safe from him, get a family court to keep Alexis Petrakis away…
    But even as her thoughts writhed like snakes a question kept stabbing through her that she could not, could not answer.
    Why? Why did Alexis Petrakis want Nicky? Surely the only reason he’d got him out of foster care and brought him here with her was to stop any scandal breaking?
    But why was he so angry that she had kept him from him?
    Emotion choked in her.
    Dear God, of course she had kept Nicky from him! A man like that, capable of doing what he had to her, saying what he had. If he could use women like that he could do the same to his son. Her son.
    It seemed an age before Nurse Thompson was finally contented by the amount she’d forced herself to eat, and helped her get dressed. Then it seemed an age to get her out on to the terrace.
    ‘I want to be near the pool,’ Rhianna said tersely. She could hear splashing, and Nicky’s childish cries answered by a deeper, accented voice, coming from the direction of the lower terrace, around the other side of the villa, where the pool was.
    Nurse Thompson helped her along with Stavros , Maria’s husband, carrying her chair around the corner. He positioned it so that it overlooked the lower pool terrace. As the pool came into view Rhianna felt her heart crush. Nicky was there, wearing armbands, batting his way across the width. Alexis Petrakis was standing in the water, just in front of him, holding his hands out towards him, calling out encouragement.
    As she watched, breath tight in her chest, Rhianna’s eyes fixed on her son. But another image was burning itself on her retina. That of the man backing slowly towards the edge of the pool, his hair like wet sable, his strong, leanly muscled torso a dark, tanned gold, diamond drops of water caught in the arrow of dark hair from his pectorals to his navel.
    Memory sliced like a knife through her brain. Her hands sliding over the hard, taut cusps of his shoulders beneath the loosened lawn of his shirt, her hips straining up to his, her breath short and frantic with need, sensation pouring through her body, heat exploding through her…
    No! She must not remember! All she must do was see Alexis Petrakis now, as the man who wanted to take her son…
    Emotion shuddered through her.
    He would never do so. Never. No one would ever take Nicky away from her again. No one would ever part her from him.
    Into her head the searing hiss of his words scalded.
    My son will be a permanent part of my life from now on.
    Again, disbelief knifed through her. Why, why did Alexis Petrakis want Nicky?
    Her eyes gazed down on the scene in the pool.
    ‘Kick!’ Rhianna could hear Alexis call out. ‘Kick

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