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offer Amber was love, and he had said love wasn’t enough. But Tabby valued love much more highly because she hadn’t received it as a child and had often longed for the warm sense of acceptance, well-being and security that a loving parent could bestow. Only time would tell if Amber herself would agree that Tabby had made the wisest decision on her behalf.
    Amber hugged Tabby in the lift on the way up to Acheron’s apartment, the little girl clinging in reaction to Tabby’s increasing tension. Acheron stood poised in the far corner of the mirrored compartment, a comfortable six feet three inches of solid masculine detachment. Tabby studied him in growing frustration, noting the aloof quality in his gaze, the forbidding cool of his lean, strong face. He was so unemotional about everything that he infuriated her. Here she was awash with conflicting emotions, terrified she was doing the wrong thing, putting her feelings rather than Amber’s needs first...and whose fault was that? She had not doubted her ability to be a good mother until Acheron Dimitrakos crossed her path. Now she was facing the challenge of also surrendering her pride and her independence to meet his expectations.
    ‘I don’t think this is going to work,’ she told him helplessly. ‘We mix like oil and water.’
    ‘A meeting of true minds is not required,’ Ash imparted with sardonic bite. ‘Stop arguing about every little thing. That irritates me.’
    ‘A nanny is not a little thing. Who is she?’
    ‘A highly trained professional from a reputable source. I would not put the child at risk.’
    His intense dark eyes challenged her, and she looked away, her cheeks burning, her mouth dry, her grip on Amber still a little tighter than it needed to be. For a split second she felt as though Amber were the only sure element left in the world that he was tearing apart and threatening to rebuild. He intimidated her, a truth that made her squirm. Yet he was willing to help her keep Amber, she reminded herself doggedly, and that should be her bottom line. Whatever it took she should bite the bullet and focus on the end game, not how bad it might feel getting there.
    ‘Won’t the sort of marriage you suggested be illegal?’ she heard herself ask him abruptly. ‘You know, a marriage that’s just a fake?’
    ‘Why would it be illegal?’ he countered with icy cool. ‘What goes on within any marriage is private.’
    ‘But our marriage would be an act of deception.’
    ‘You’re splitting hairs. No one would be harmed by the deception. The marriage would simply present us as a conventional couple keen to adopt.’
    ‘You’re hopelessly out of date. Lots of couples don’t get married these days,’ Tabby pointed out.
    ‘In my family we always get married when it comes to child-rearing,’ Acheron told her smoothly.
    That’s right, remind me that I’m not from the same world! Tabby thought furiously, a flush of antagonism warming her face as embarrassment threatened to swallow her alive. Her parents had not been married and had probably never even thought of getting married to regularise her birth.
    Her gaze strayed inexorably back to him until she connected with smoky dark deep-set eyes that made her tummy lurch and leap and heat rise in her pelvis. There was just something about him, she thought furiously, dragging her attention from him as the lift doors whirred open and she hastily stepped out into a hallway, something shockingly sexy and dangerous that broke through her defences. She did not understand how he could act like an unfeeling block of superior ice and still have that effect on her.

CHAPTER THREE
    T HE NANNY , COMPLETE with a uniform that suggested she belonged to the very highest echelon of qualified nannies, awaited Acheron and Tabby in the spacious hall of Acheron’s apartment and within minutes she had charmed Amber out of Tabby’s arms and borne her off.
    ‘Let’s go,’ Acheron urged impatiently. ‘We have a lot to