Читать книгу Securing the Greek's Legacy - Julia James - Страница 8

CHAPTER TWO

LYN HAD SAT down at the rickety table in the corner of the living room and got out her study books. Georgy had been fed and changed, and had settled for his afternoon nap in his secondhand cot, tucked in beside her bed in the single bedroom the flat possessed. She was grateful for Georgy’s afternoon sleep, even though if he slept too much he didn’t sleep well at night, for it gave her an hour or two of solid homework time. But today her concentration was shot to pieces—still reeling with what had happened that morning.

Hopefully she had made her position clear and the man who had lobbed a bombshell into her life would take himself off again, back to Greece, and leave her alone. Anxiety rippled through her again. The adoption authorities believed that there was no contact with Georgy’s father or any of his paternal family. But since this morning that wasn’t true any more...

No, she mustn’t think about that! She must put it behind her. Put behind her all the dark, disturbing images of the man whose incredible good looks were such a source of disturbance to her. For a moment his image formed in her mind, overpowering in its masculine impact. She thrust it impatiently aside and started reading her textbook.

Two minutes later she was interrupted. The doorbell had sounded. Imperative. Demanding.

Her head shot up. Who on earth...? No one called on her here.

The bell rang again. Warily, heart thumping suddenly, she went to the door, lifting up the entryphone.

‘Who is it?’ she asked sharply.

‘Miss Brandon—we need to continue our conversation.’

It was Anatole Telonidis.

For a moment Lyn remained motionless. Don’t let him in! The childish, fearful words sounded in her head, but she knew she could not obey them. She had to get this conversation over and done with. Then she could send him away and never see him again—never be troubled again by the existence of Georgy’s father’s family. Nervelessly she pressed the entry buzzer, and a few moments later opened her front door.

He was just as tall and formidable as she remembered. Taller, it seemed, in her poky flat. But it was not just his size and demeanour that pressed on her senses. His physical presence was dominating more than just the space he stood in. It was making her horribly aware all over again of his dark, devastating looks.

Desperately she tried to crush down her awareness of them. It was the last thing she should be paying any attention to right now!

Besides, a vicious little voice in her head was reminding her to think about what he was seeing! He was seeing a plain-faced nobody who was wearing ancient baggy jeans and a thick frumpy jumper, with her hair tied back and not a scrap of make-up. A man like him wouldn’t even look once, let alone twice!

Oh, for God’s sake, what are you even thinking of? Focus—just focus! This is about Georgy and what this man wants—or doesn’t want.

And how quickly she could get rid of him...

She stared at him. He seemed to be looking about him, then past her into the small living room, with its shabby furniture, worn carpet and hideously patterned curtains. Her chin went up. Yes, the place was uninviting, but it was cheap, and it came furnished, and she wasn’t going to be choosy. She couldn’t afford to be—not until she was earning a decent salary. Till then Georgy didn’t care that he wasn’t anywhere nice. And neither did she.

This man who had dropped a bombshell into her life, however, looked as if he cared—and he didn’t like what he was seeing.

‘I hope,’ he said evenly, ‘that you have now had a chance to come to terms with what I told you this morning, and that you understand,’ he continued, ‘how imperative it is that we discuss my cousin’s son’s future.’

‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she replied tightly.

Anatole’s mouth tightened. So she was still taking that line. Well, he would have to disabuse her of it—that was all. In the meantime there was something that was even more imperative. He wanted to see Marcos’s son—see him with his own eyes. He looked around the room.

‘Where is the baby?’ he asked. He hadn’t meant it to sound like a demand, only a question, but it seemed to make the girl flinch. Seeing her now, like this, had not improved her looks, he noted absently. She was still abysmally dressed, without any attention to her appearance.

‘He’s asleep,’ she answered stiffly.

The dark eyes rested on her. ‘I would like to see him.’

It was not a request. It was a statement of intent. His eyes went past her to the half-open bedroom door and he stepped towards it. Inside was a cot beside a bed, and in the cot the small figure of a baby nestled in a fleecy blanket. In the dim light from the drawn curtains Anatole could not make out the baby’s features.

Are you Marcos’s son? Are you the child I’ve come to find? The questions burned in his head. Instinctively he moved to step into the room. Immediately a low-voiced hiss sounded behind him.

‘Please don’t wake him!’

He could hear a note in her voice that was not just a command but a plea. Abruptly, he nodded, reversing out of the cramped room, causing her to back away into the equally small living room.

Once again she felt his presence dominate the poky space.

‘You had better sit down, Miss Brandon,’ he said, indicating the sofa as though he, not her, was the host.

Stiffly, she did so. Somehow she had to find a way to make him go away—leave her and Georgy alone. Then it came to her just why he might be here. What he might be after.

‘If you want me to sign papers saying I forfeit any claim to his father’s estate, I will do so straight away,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t want any money, or maintenance, or anything like that. Georgy and I are fine as we are—we’re all sorted!’ She swallowed again, altering her tone of voice. Her eyes shadowed suddenly. ‘I’m sorry to hear that your cousin is...is dead...but—’ her eyes met his unflinchingly ‘—but it doesn’t change the fact that he was not in the slightest bit interested in Georgy’s existence, so—’

Anatole Telonidis held up a hand. It was a simple gesture, but it carried with it an expectation that she would cease talking.

Which she did.

‘My cousin is...was,’ he corrected himself painfully, ‘the only Petranakos grandson of our mutual grandfather, Timon. Marcos’s parents died when he was only a teenager and consequently...’ Anatole paused. ‘He was very precious to our grandfather. His death has devastated him.’ He took another heavy breath. ‘Marcos’s death came as a viciously cruel blow—he was killed driving the car that our grandfather had given him for his birthday. It was a birthday Timon knew would likely be the last he would see, because...’ Anatole paused again, then finished the bleak saga. ‘Because Timon had himself just been diagnosed with advanced incurable cancer.’

He fell silent, letting the information sink in. Lynette Brandon was sitting there, looking ashen.

‘You will understand, I know,’ he went on quietly, ‘how much it will mean to Timon to know that, although he has lost his grandson, a great-grandson exists.’ He read her expression. It was blank, rejecting. He had to convince her of the argument he was making. ‘There is very little time,’ he pressed. ‘The cancer was very advanced at the point of diagnosis, and since my cousin’s death my grandfather has refused all treatment—even though treatment could keep him alive for a little while longer. He is waiting to die—for with the loss of his grandson he has no reason to live at all. Not even for one single day.’ Then he finished what he had come to say. ‘Your sister’s baby—my cousin’s son—gives him that reason.’

He stood looking down at her. Her face was still ashen, her hands twisting in her lap. He spoke again, his voice grave. He had to convince her of the urgency of what had to happen.

‘I need to take Georgy to Greece with me. I need to take him as soon as possible. My dying grandfather needs to know that his great-grandson will grow up in the country of his father—’

‘No! No, I won’t let you!’ The words burst from her and she leapt to her feet.

Anatole pressed his lips together in frustration. ‘You are overwrought,’ he repeated. ‘It is understandable—this has come as a shock to you. I wish that matters were not as urgent as they are. But with Timon’s state of health I have to press you on this! The very last thing I want,’ he said heavily, ‘is to turn this into any kind of battle between us. I need—I want—your co-operation! You do not need me to tell you,’ he added, and his eyes were dark now, ‘that once DNA testing has proved Marcos’s paternity, then—’

‘There isn’t going to be any DNA testing!’ Lyn shot back at him.

Anatole stopped. There was something in her voice—something in her face—that alerted him. There was more than obduracy in it—more than anger, even.

There was fear.

His antennae went into overdrive. Thee mou, might the child not be Marcos’s after all? Everything about those plaintive, pitiful letters he’d read indicated that the baby’s mother had been no promiscuous party girl, that she had fallen in love with his cousin, however unwisely. No, the child she had been carrying was his. He was certain of it. Timon, he knew, would require proof before he designated the baby his heir, but that would surely be a formality?

His thoughts raced back to the moment in hand. The expression on Lynette Brandon’s face made no sense. She was the one objecting to any idea of taking Marcos’s son back to Greece—if the baby were not Marcos’s after all surely she would positively want DNA testing done!

He frowned. There was something else that didn’t make sense, either. Something odd about her name. Its similarity to her sister’s. Abruptly he spoke. ‘Why is your sister’s name so like yours?’ he asked shortly. He frowned. ‘It is unusual—confusing, as I have found—for sisters to have such similar names. Lynette and Linda.’

‘So what?’ she countered belligerently. ‘What does it matter now?’

Anatole fixed his gaze on her. His antennae were now registering that same flash of emotion in her as he’d seen when he had mentioned DNA testing, but he had no time to consider it further. Lynette Brandon was launching into him again. Her voice was vehement, passionate.

‘Have I finally got you to understand, Mr Telonidis, that your journey here has been wasted? I’m sorry—sorry about your cousin, sorry about your grandfather—but Georgy is staying here with me! He is not going to be brought up in Greece. He is mine!’

‘Is he?’

His brief, blunt question cut right across her. Silencing her.

In her eyes, her face, flared that same emotion he had seen a moment ago—fear.

What is going on here?

The question flared in his head and stayed there, even though her voice broke that moment of silence with a single hissing word.

‘Yes!’ she grated fiercely.

Anatole levelled his gaze at her. Behind his impassive expression his mind was working fast. Since learning that morning about the double tragedy that had hit this infant, overturning his assumption that Marcos’s son was with his birth mother, he had set his lawyers to ascertain exactly what the legal situation was with regard to custody of the orphaned boy—and what might be the outcome of any proposition that the baby be raised in Greece by his paternal family. He had no answers yet, but the baby’s aunt had constantly—and vehemently!—expressed the fact that she had full legal charge in her sister’s place.

But did she?

‘And that is official, is it? Your custody of Georgy?’ His voice was incisive, demanding she answer.

Again there was that same revealing emotion in her eyes, which was then instantly blanked.

‘Yes!’ she repeated, just as fiercely.

He frowned. ‘So you have adopted him?’

A line of white showed on her cheekbones. ‘It’s going through,’ she said quickly. ‘These things take time. There’s a lot of paperwork. Bureaucracy and everything. But of course I’m adopting him! I’m the obvious person to adopt him!’

His expression did not change, but he could see that for the British authorities she would be the natural person to adopt her late sister’s son if she were set on doing so. Which she evidently was! Anatole felt a ripple of respect for her determination to go through with it. Her life could not be easy, juggling studying with childcare and living in penny-pinching circumstances.

But for all that, he still had to find a way to convince her that Marcos’s son just could not be raised by her in such penurious circumstances. It was unthinkable. Once Timon knew of his existence, he would insist with all his last strength that his beloved grandson’s son be brought home to Greece, to be reunited with his father’s family.

Just how, precisely, Marcos’s son was to be raised—how a small baby, then a toddler and a schoolboy was to grow up—was something that could be worked out later. For now, just getting the baby to Greece, for his grandfather to see him—make him his heir—before the cancer claimed Timon was his only priority.

And to do that he had to get this totally impossible intransigent aunt to stop blocking him at every turn!

But how?

A heavy, unappetising thought forced its way forward. His mouth tightened. There was, of course, one very obvious method of attempting to stop any objections to what he was urging. A way that worked, as he knew well from his own business experience, to win compliance and consensus and agreement.

A way he did not want to use here, now, for this—but if he had to...if it worked...?

He must. If nothing else he must attempt it. He owed it to Timon, to Marcos—to all the thousands employed by the Petranakos Corporation whose livelihoods were threatened.

Reluctantly, for what he was about to say went against the grain, he spoke. His tone of voice was measured, impassive. ‘I know full well that Timon will insist on thanking you for your care and concern for his great-grandson—that he will fully appreciate the accommodation you make towards granting his fervent wish for Marcos’s son to grow up with his paternal family—and that he will wish to settle a sum on you in respect of his gratitude and appreciation such that your financial security would be handsomely assured for the future.’

There—he had said it. He had said outright that if she stopped stonewalling him her life of poverty would be over for good. He let the words sink in, not taking his eyes from her.

Her expression was blank, however. Had she not heard what he’d said?

Then she answered him. ‘You want to buy Georgy from me?’ Her voice was as blank as her eyes.

A frown immediately shaped Anatole’s face. ‘Of course not!’ he repudiated.

‘You’re offering me money to hand him over to you,’ the same blank voice intoned.

Anatole shook his head. Did she have to put it in such unpalatable terms? ‘What I am saying,’ he spelt out, ‘is that—’

‘Is that your grandfather will pay me if I let him have Georgy to bring him up in Greece.’ Her voice was flat.

‘No! It is not like that—’ Anatole’s voice was sharp.

Suddenly the blank look in her eyes vanished utterly. She launched herself to her feet, anger blazing in her eyes.

‘It is exactly like that!’ she cried. ‘How dare you? How dare you sit there and tell me you’ll buy Georgy from me? How dare you do such a thing?’ Her voice had risen; her heart was thumping furiously. ‘How dare you come here and offer me money to hand my dead sister’s son over to you? How dare you?’

He was on his feet as well. He filled the room, intimidating and overpowering. But she would not be intimidated! Would not be overpowered! Would not be paid to part with Georgy!

She took a heaving breath, words pouring from her.

‘I swore to my sister on her deathbed that I would never, never abandon her baby! That I would never hand him over to anyone! That I would always, always look after him and love him. Because she was not going to be able to do it! Because she was dying, and she knew she was dying, and she was never going to see her baby grow up, never going to see him become a boy, a man—never, never, never...’

Her voice was hoarse, the words torn from her, from the very depths of her being. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, as if she could—and would—and must—fight off the whole world to keep Georgy with her!

For a second there was silence. Absolute silence between them. Then into the silence came a high, solitary wail.

With a cry of consternation Lyn wheeled about. Oh, no—now she had gone and woken Georgy! With all this awful arguing about what was never going to happen—because she was never giving Georgy up! Never!

The wail came again. She rounded on Anatole. ‘Please go!’ she said. ‘Please—just go!’

She rushed from the room into the bedroom, where Georgy was wide awake, his little face screwed up. She scooped him up with a hushing noise, soothing and rocking him in her arms until he had quietened.

The feel of his strong, solid little body, so familiar, so precious, calmed her too. She took long slow breaths, hugging him tightly, and felt his warmth and weight in her arms like a blessing, a benediction.

How could anyone think to ask her to give him up? She loved this little child more than anyone in the whole world! He was everything to her—and she was everything to him.

Love flowed from her, enveloping and protective, as she cradled him against her, her eyes smarting, her throat tight. Slowly the heaving emotions in her breast, her heart, eased. Georgy was safe. He was in her arms. He was with her. She would never let him go, never abandon him. Her hectic pulse slowed. Cradling him, her hand curved protectively around his back, she crooned soothingly at him, wordless sounds murmuring, familiar and comforting. The rest of the world seemed very far away...

‘May I see him?’

The voice behind her made her spin round. Anatole was standing in the doorway of the bedroom.

But there was something different about him. Something quite different. She’d seen him only as dark and tall and formidable—telling her things she did not want to hear, his very presence a terrifying threat to everything that she held most dear.

Now, as she gazed at him, her expression stricken, across the dimly lit curtained room, he did not seem formidable at all. Or threatening. He seemed merely—tense. As if every muscle in his body were pulled taut. In the dim light the bone structure of his face was stark.

She felt Georgy lift his head from her shoulder, twist his neck so that he could see where the voice had come from. He gazed at the figure in the doorway with eyes just as dark as those which were fixed on him.

For a moment the tableau held all of them immobile. Then, with a gurgling sound, Georgy lurched on her shoulder, his little arms reaching forward towards the man standing in the doorway. The man with eyes like his own.

The man who was kin to the father he had never known. Never would know now....

As if in slow motion, Anatole found his hand reaching inside his jacket pocket, drawing out something he had brought with him from Greece. It was a silver photo frame from his grandfather’s opulent drawing room, displaying one individual alone. Slowly he shifted his gaze down to the photo he held in his hand, then back to the baby cradled so closely in his young aunt’s arms.

‘He is Marcos’s son.’ Anatole’s voice was flat. But there was emotion in it. Powerful emotion. His gaze cut suddenly to Lyn. ‘Look,’ he instructed, holding up the photo.

It was an old one, pre-digital, an informal shot and unposed, but the likeness to the baby in it was unmistakable. The same wide brown-eyed gaze. The same-shaped mouth and head. The same expression.

How was it, Anatole found himself thinking, emotion rising in his chest, that the genes Marcos had carried could be so clearly visible even at this tender age? What was it about the human face that revealed its origins, its kinship? Yet so it was—this scrap of humanity, less than a year old, stared back at him in the baby he himself could just dimly remember from his own boyhood.

‘I couldn’t be sure,’ he heard himself saying. ‘Knew that I must get DNA testing. Knew there would be doubts that necessitated such measures.’ He paused. ‘But I have no doubts—not now.’ His voice changed, and so did his expression. ‘This is my cousin’s son—his only son! The only trace left of him in this life! He must be part of his father’s family.’ He held up a hand as if to pre-empt what he knew would be her response to that unarguable statement. ‘But we must find a way...there must be one—’ He broke off, taking a sharp breath, his focus now on Lyn.

‘I am sorry—sorry that I said what I did just now. It was offensive, and you have every right to be angry.’ He paused. ‘Will you accept my apology?’

His eyes met hers, seeking a way past the stormy expression in them. Slowly, painfully, Lyn swallowed. There was a large stone in her throat, but it was not only from her anger at his vile offer. It was because of the way he’d stared at Georgy...the emotion in his eyes...his voice.

He was seeing his dead cousin in the baby she was holding in her arms...

Just as I see Lindy in him.

She felt her throat close—felt something change, somehow, deep within her. Slowly she nodded, taking a ragged breath.

‘Thank you,’ he said in a low voice.

His eyes went from her face back to Georgy. That expression returned to them, making her breath catch as the same emotion was aroused in herself.

Warily Lyn made her way past him into the living room, heading for the sofa onto which she sank down on shaky legs, her heart rate still ragged. But something had changed. She could feel it—sense it as clearly as if the wind had changed its quarter, as if the tide had turned in the depths of the sea. It was in his voice, his stance, his face, as he sat down at the far end of the sofa.

And it was in her, too, that change. Was it because she was finally accepting that Georgy was more than her dead sister’s son? That he had a family on his father’s side too, to whom he was precious—as precious as he was to her?

She did not want to accept that truth—had tried to fight it—but she had to. Must.

For a moment—just a moment—as Anatole Telonidis lowered his tall frame on to the sofa, he seemed far too physically close to her. She wanted to leap to her feet—away from the intensely physical presence of the man. But even as she fought the impulse she could feel Georgy using his not inconsiderable strength to lean forward, towards this interesting addition to his world. And as he did so, he gave another crowing gurgle, his little arms stretching forward towards his father’s cousin.

And then Lyn saw something quite extraordinary happen.

Before her eyes she saw this tall, dark, forbidding man who had walked uninvited into her world, catalysing her deepest fears with his demands, his assumptions, all the power of his wealth and family, transform. Greek words sounded from his mouth and then slowly, as if he were moving through thick, murky water, she watched him reach a hand out towards the infant. Immediately a little starfish fist closed around the long, tanned finger and tugged it hopefully, if ineffectually, in the direction of his mouth.

‘Hello, Georgy,’ said Anatole. His voice sounded strained, as if his throat weren’t working properly. ‘Hello, little fellow.’

There was, Lyn could see as plain as day, extraordinary though it was, a look of stunned wonder on his dark, formidable face.

She felt emotion stab at her but did not know what it was. Only that it was powerful. Very powerful...

Her eyes could not leave his face, could not stop staring at the transformation in the man. But Anatole had no eyes for her stunned scrutiny of him. He had eyes only for one thing—the baby in her arms who had brought him here. His dead cousin’s child.

Lyn heard him murmur something in Greek. Something that sounded soft and caressing. Something that felt like a warm touch on her skin even though it was not directed at her. It drew a response from her, all the same, and she felt a strange, potent flickering of her senses.

Then Georgy was wriggling impatiently in her arms, tugging on the finger he was clutching. She loosened her hold automatically, so that he could gain his objective, but now he had seen something more enticing to clutch, and he dropped the finger he’d been gripping. Instead he made a lunge at the dark silk tie dangling so tantalisingly close to him as its wearer leant forward. To his own considerable pleasure he made contact, grasped it greedily, and pulled the end into his mouth, sucking vigorously.

A burst of laughter broke from Lyn. She couldn’t help it. ‘Oh, Georgy, you monkey!’ she exclaimed ruefully.

She lifted a hand to disengage the tie, conscious as she did so that the gesture brought her disquietingly closer to the man wearing it. Deprived of his tasty morsel, Georgy gave a howl of outrage. Lyn took his tiny hands and busied herself in remonstrations that enabled her to straighten up, increasing the distance between herself and this most disturbing of men.

‘No, you can’t have it! You little monster, you! Yes, you are! A little monster!’ She nuzzled his nose with an Eskimo kiss and set him laughing. She glanced across at Anatole at what was doubtless a hideously expensive tie now somewhat soggy at the end. ‘I’m sorry about that. I hope it’s not damaged too much.’ Her voice was apologetic, constrained with an embarrassment that was not just due to Georgy’s misdemeanours but also to the awkward self-consciousness of sharing a sofa with Anatole Telonidis.

Anatole surveyed the soggy item. ‘It is of no consequence,’ he remarked.

Then, before Lyn realised what he was doing, he was unfastening his gold watch and offering it to Georgy. Eyes widening in disbelieving delight, Georgy snatched up the shiny treasure and clutched it to his chest, gazing wide-eyed at the giver of such largesse.

‘You’re mad!’ exclaimed Lyn, throwing a shocked glance at Anatole. ‘He’ll try and eat it!’

But Anatole merely looked at the baby. ‘Georgy. No eating. A gentleman does not eat his watch. Understood?’

Georgy stared, his eyes wide in wonder. This stern, deep voice had clearly made a deep impression on him. Dutifully, he made no attempt to ingest the Rolex, contenting himself with continuing to clutch it while staring riveted at this oracle of good advice.

Anatole cast a long-lashed sardonic look at Lyn—a strangely intimate glance that sent a quiver through her. Then the next second his moment of triumph evaporated. With a jerky movement Georgy slammed the watch to his mouth.

‘Georgy—no!’ Both adults moved fast but, alas, Anatole’s belated attempt to remove his watch incited outrage in the infant, whose little face screwed up into angry tears.

Hastily Lyn fumbled in the plastic toy bucket beside the sofa to fetch out Georgy’s favourite—a set of plastic keys—and managed to swap them, with some difficulty, for the precious gold watch. Charily, she handed the latter back to its owner, avoiding eye contact this time, and then busied herself settling Georgy in her lap as he chewed contentedly on his keys. She felt unbearably awkward, and yet she knew that something had changed. Thawed.

Imperceptibly, she felt a tiny amount of the tension racking her easing. Then, into the brief silence, a deep voice spoke.

‘So, what are we to do?’