Читать книгу Hot Picks: Exotic Propositions - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 14

‘WE NEED to leave. Now.’

Rhiannon sat up in bed, blinking sleep from her eyes, clutching the covers to her chest. Annabel was still asleep, and Lukas stood in the doorway of her suite, fully dressed, his lithe body coiled and tense.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘What I’m talking about,’ he bit out, ‘is the press in front of this resort—thanks to the little stunt you pulled yesterday at the reception.’ He pulled a rolled-up newspaper from his pocket and threw it on the bed.

Rhiannon unfurled it with shaking fingers and a leaden heart.

Secret Playboy? Lukas Petrakides Discovers his Love-child. Furious Mother Booted Out of Newest Resort! the headline screamed. There was even a picture—a grainy shot from a telephoto lens—of the two of them on the beach. The paparazzi photographer had clearly waited for his moment, Rhiannon realised with a sinking feeling. It was towards the end of their conversation yesterday afternoon, when they had clearly been in an argument.

Thank God they hadn’t got a photo of their kiss last night. Just the memory caused a flush to crawl up her throat.

She looked up, met Lukas’s blazing eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘We can discuss this later,’ he informed her tersely. ‘Right now we need to leave. I have a private jet departing in twenty minutes for Greece. You and Annabel will be on it.’

‘Greece?’ Rhiannon repeated stupidly, and he slashed a hand through the air.

‘Yes—to safety! You can’t stay here now the press have wind of this story. Once they know we’ve gone, they’ll give up the chase. For the moment. I don’t want the press hounding the resort’s guests, and I don’t want them finding you or Annabel. The last thing I need is more sordid details.’

That was what she was, Rhiannon thought. A sordid detail. She opened her mouth to reply, but Lukas cut her off before she could frame a syllable.

‘Get dressed. I’ll wait outside the door.’

He flung open the door just as Annabel let out her good-morning howl of hunger.

Rhiannon scooped her up, prepared a bottle with clumsy fingers and a whirling mind. She dressed herself quickly, then found something for Annabel to wear, threw some nappies and the prepared bottle in a bag, and stepped outside.

‘I’m ready.’

‘Good.’ Lukas had been leaning against the wall, arms folded, but now he pushed off and stood back to sweep her with an assessing gaze.

Rhiannon was conscious of her faded jeans and worn tee-shirt. Annabel had already dribbled on her shoulder. Lukas’s mouth tightened as he looked at her, whether in disapproval or displeasure Rhiannon didn’t know, but she forced herself not to care.

‘Someone will bring your bags to the jet. Let’s go,’ he said, and as he strode quickly down the corridor she had no choice but to follow, Annabel screeching in protest.

Lukas sat back in the plane seat and rolled his shoulders, trying to relieve the stabbing tension which had lodged there since he’d seen those damn newspapers this morning.

He knew the news would be all over France, all over Greece, all over the world. His father would have seen it this morning. He would be furious.

Lukas had failed him, failed the family, by allowing such lies to be smeared across papers and television screens.

Yet Lukas dismissed the thought of his father in contemplation of the woman shrouded in misery opposite him. Rhiannon sat with Annabel on her lap, her face averted towards the window.

Lukas felt an unwelcome twinge of unease. He no longer believed Rhiannon was a blackmailer, yet he still didn’t trust her. He couldn’t trust a woman who was willing to give up a child entrusted into her care, no matter what excuse she gave…or what she had convinced herself to believe.

He suspected she’d persuaded herself it was for the best, that she was acting nobly, yet he saw the truth in her hunched position, in the awkward way she held the baby.

She wasn’t used to children, he thought. She probably lived in a chic little flat that wasn’t equipped for infants. No doubt she was eager to get back to her life…her lover. The thought made his expression harden in distaste…and in remembrance.

It doesn’t matter to me. Take him.

He shook his head, banishing the memory, the mocking voice.

This was a different situation, a different woman…even if some aspects seemed the same.

His thoughts shifted to the baby in Rhiannon’s arms. Her dark, curly hair and soulful eyes reminded him of photographs of himself as a baby. She had the look of a Petrakides. If Annabel was indeed Christos’s daughter, which to Lukas now seemed a near certainty, there could be no question of her future. It would be in Greece, with the Petrakides family.

And, he acknowledged with grim certainty, Rhiannon Davies would not fit into that picture at all.

The baby gave a little shuddering sigh, and Rhiannon stroked her downy hair, a tender smile lighting her face. Lukas watched, feeling a now-familiar tightening in his gut. In his heart.

She looked as if she cared for the child, but he couldn’t believe it. Didn’t want to. It would be much easier for everyone, he mused, if there was no emotional attachment between Rhiannon and Annabel. Still, even if there were, he was confident he could convince her to return to Wales, to relinquish through the courts her guardianship of the child. All it took was the right price.

He watched Rhiannon smooth an errant curl back from her forehead, and he was suddenly stabbingly reminded of his own hand in those tangled curls, drawing her to him, tasting her wine-sweetened lips, burrowing himself in the warmth of her.

The kiss last night had been a mistake. A mind-blowing, sense-scattering event, but an error nonetheless. He’d wanted her; he still did. He didn’t completely understand his desire for such a slight, average-looking woman, but he acknowledged the truth of it. Perhaps he had been without a woman for too long; perhaps it was something more.

It didn’t matter. He never gave in to desire, never catered to need.

What mattered was his family, the Petrakides name, and his duty towards it. That was all.

Two hours later the jet landed on the airstrip of the Petrakides private island.

Rhiannon stared numbly out of the window at the sparkling blue-green of the Aegean Sea, at the rocky shore leading up to landscaped gardens and a long, low, rambling villa of whitewashed stone.

‘Come,’ Lukas said, taking her hand as he helped her out of the plane. ‘My father will be waiting.’

Rhiannon transferred a sleeping Annabel to her other shoulder as she stepped out into the sunshine. The air was hot and dry, the sky a hard, bright blue.

She inhaled the dry, dusty scent of rosemary and olive trees, combined with the salty tang of the sea. Annabel stirred, rubbed her eyes with her fists, and then looked around in sleepy wonder.

‘Wait here.’ Lukas stayed her with one firm hand, his countenance darkening with suppressed tension by the second.

A man was striding stiffly towards them. Tall, spare and white haired. Rhiannon had no doubt this was Theo Petrakides, founder of the Petrakides real estate empire. And he looked furious.

She stepped backwards into the shadow of the plane as the two men squared off.

Theo said something in rapid Greek; Lukas replied. A muscle bunched in his jaw but his voice was flat and calm, his posture almost relaxed.

This was a man in control. A man who did not give in to emotions, whims. Desires.

What about last night? Rhiannon shook her head in denial of the question her heart asked but her mind wouldn’t answer.

Last night had been a moment of weakness for both of them and, as Lukas had said, it wouldn’t happen again.

They were still speaking in rapid but controlled tones. Then Annabel let out a squeal as a gull soared low overhead, and Theo Petrakides’s sharp grey gaze swung to her.

Rhiannon froze, her arms tight around a now struggling Annabel. Her heart rate was erratic and fast as the older man walked slowly towards her. He stood in front of her, a flat look in his eyes.

‘This is the child? Christos’s child?’ he said slowly in English.

‘We don’t know yet for certain,’ Rhiannon managed carefully, her voice a cracked whisper.

‘His bastard.’

She jerked back as if slapped, saw the frank condemnation in Theo’s eyes. She glanced involuntarily at Lukas, saw him shake his head in silent warning. Still, fury bubbled up within her, gave her courage.

‘Annabel Weston is in my care,’ she told the man quietly. ‘She is my responsibility, no matter who the father turns out to be.’

He glanced at her, reluctant admiration flickering briefly in his eyes before he shrugged. ‘We shall see.’

Panic rose in her throat, and she tasted bile. Was Theo implying that they would take Annabel away from her if Christos was the father? Lukas had said something similar.

Why had she not considered how this might happen?

Because you wanted the fairy tale.

Theo strode away, and Lukas put his arm around Rhiannon’s shoulders, guiding her towards the rocky path that led to the villa.

‘None of you want her,’ she choked out in a whisper, and Lukas simply shrugged.

‘It’s not a question of want.’

‘But of responsibility, right?’ She shook her head. ‘I wanted more for Annabel.’

‘I’m afraid,’ Lukas said quietly, ‘that what you want is not my primary consideration.’

She glanced at him, saw the grim determination hardening his eyes, his mouth, his words, and felt a stab of fear. She was not his primary consideration…or any consideration at all, she finished bleakly.

An hour later Rhiannon prowled restlessly around her bedroom. It was large and spacious, with a wide balcony overlooking the sea. Annabel sat on the floor, playing happily with some seashells Rhiannon had found in a decorative bowl.

There was a light knock on the door, and with her heart rising straight into her throat she called out, ‘Come in.’

Lukas opened the door. He’d changed from his business attire, was now dressed in jeans and a white cotton shirt open at the throat. Those few undone buttons revealed a tanned column of skin that Rhiannon couldn’t seem to tear her gaze from.

‘Have you found everything to your satisfaction?’ he asked, and she jerked her eyes upwards towards his face.

His hair was damp, brushed back from his face, his eyes sparkling silver as he smiled with a wry amusement that caused her face to burn with humiliated realisation.

He knew how he affected her, and he thought it was amusing. No doubt he had women falling for him all the time, and he obviously had no problem putting them in their place. Rejecting them.

‘Yes, fine,’ she said shortly.

He glanced at her still unopened suitcase by the bed. ‘You haven’t unpacked.’

‘We’re not going to be here for long.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Lukas agreed. ‘But it would be more comfortable, certainly, to enjoy a short stay.’

‘Before I’m booted out?’ Rhiannon interjected. ‘Sorry, I don’t feel like complying.’

Lukas shrugged, ran a hand through his hair. Rhiannon watched as it flopped boyishly across his forehead; she resisted the urge to brush it back with itching fingers.

‘Suit yourself,’ he said. ‘I only thought you might want to be comfortable.’

‘I don’t want to be comfortable,’ she snapped, even though she knew she was being childish.

Lukas’s eyes flashed. ‘You should—at least for Annabel’s sake. Surely it is in her best interests for both of you to be relaxed and comfortable during your stay here? It is, in fact, your responsibility,’ he continued in a harder voice, ‘to be so.’

Rhiannon’s mouth pursed in annoyance. ‘It’s all about responsibility, isn’t it?’

For a half-second Lukas looked nonplussed. ‘Of course it is.’

‘Not love.’

His eyebrows rose. ‘Who am I supposed to love?’

‘Annabel!’ Rhiannon cried, too angry and despairing to be embarrassed that he might have actually thought she meant herself. ‘I came here so she could find her father…a father who would love her!’

‘But I am not her father,’ he reminded her. ‘And I cannot love a child I’ve never even seen before. Not right away.’

‘Especially one that is not yours, I suppose?’ Rhiannon finished, and he shook his head, dismissing her jibe.

‘If Annabel is Christos’s child—which I believe she is—then I will make sure she is cared for. Absolutely.’

Rhiannon’s mouth dried. Absolutely. It was a word that didn’t allow for difficulties, differences. Flexibility. It was a cold, hard, unyielding word, and she didn’t like it. ‘I didn’t want it to be like this,’ she finally said after a moment, her eyes averted.

‘I understand. But this is now how it is. How it will be remains for me to decide.’

‘You,’ Rhiannon said, ‘and not me, I suppose?’

Lukas shook his head. ‘I don’t know what you want from me. If you came to the Petra resort to find Annabel’s father, you succeeded. You did your duty. Now you will leave the rest to us.’

‘I’m not going to leave it up to you,’ Rhiannon protested. ‘Annabel is my ward, not yours. Any decisions that are made will involve me.’ Her voice came out more strident than she intended, and Annabel looked up anxiously. Rhiannon bent down, soothed her with a few hushing motions.

‘The only decision that has been made so far,’ Lukas said, with a deliberate patience that warned Rhiannon he was close to losing his temper, ‘is for you to remain here until the question of paternity is resolved. All I’m asking now is that you stay here, in comfort, not snapping and biting like a fish on a line, and enjoy a few days in what most people consider to be paradise.’

Rhiannon watched Annabel bang two shells together, her eyes wide and round. Lukas’s analogy was dead on, she realised grimly. She did feel like a fish on a line, dangling desperately—and, worse yet, she’d willingly put the hook in her own mouth.

‘A few days—and then what?’

‘That remains to be seen.’ His mouth was a thin line, his eyes dangerously blank, and Rhiannon knew better than to press him now. She wasn’t going to ask questions she didn’t want answers to.

‘Fine,’ she said heavily. ‘Have you spoken to Christos?’

‘No. He is on a friend’s yacht at the moment. I’ve left a message on his mobile, but he probably won’t answer it until he is on shore.’ His mouth twisted, tightened in derision. ‘He doesn’t like his holidays disturbed.’

‘And this is the man you want for Annabel’s father?’ Rhiannon said with a shake of her head.

‘No, this is the man who is Annabel’s father. We cannot change that…if it is proved.’

He glanced down at the baby, frowning as he saw her suck the edge of a shell. ‘Do you think this is an appropriate toy for the child?’ he asked, taking the offending item from a reluctant Annabel, who immediately howled in outrage.

Rhiannon scooped her up, pressed the baby to her body in a defensive gesture. ‘It’s the best I could do. Leanne had few toys for Annabel, and there hasn’t been time…’

‘I will make sure that you are both adequately supplied while you’re here,’ Lukas said, although there was still a frowning furrow on his forehead.

‘We don’t need anything from you,’ Rhiannon protested, as Annabel began to tug rather painfully on her earring.

The look Lukas gave her was swift, searching. Knowing. ‘On the contrary,’ he corrected quietly, ‘there are many things you need from me. That is why you came, is it not?’

Before she could answer, he sketched a brief bow of farewell and left her alone.

‘Ouch!’ Rhiannon disengaged Annabel’s chubby fingers from her earring. ‘Not so hard, sweetheart.’ She set the baby back on the floor, prowled the room once more.

Her heart was racing in time with her thoughts, whirling helplessly, out of reach, out of answers.

After a moment she flung open the doors to the balcony, went outside and breathed in the clean sea air. She needed it to steady her, for her senses were still reeling from Lukas’s presence, his power.

He seemed determined to take responsibility for Annabel. To care for her.

This was what she had wanted—yet not like this. Never like this. With Annabel as discarded goods, unwanted, thrust on someone who believed he needed to do his duty.

Her life would be loveless; she would grow up with the cold knowledge that she’d only been taken in because there had been no other place for her, because no one had wanted her.

As Rhiannon had grown up.

I want her. The words burned in her brain and lit her soul. I want her. She would not give Annabel up so easily. When she’d envisaged giving her up, it had been to a loving home, to a father who wanted her. Who loved her.

A fantasy, she acknowledged now, and perhaps she realised that from the moment she’d spoken to Lukas Petrakides. A fantasy based on what she’d always wanted—always dreamed of—for herself.

But this was not about her, or her lost dreams. It was about Annabel. And she would not condemn the infant to a childhood like she’d had. She’d come to France, to Lukas, to keep that from happening. Now that things had changed she would do what was necessary to keep Annabel from being the burden she herself had been.

She’d thought that meant walking away. Now it meant staying.

‘The girl must go.’

Lukas jerked his contemplative gaze away from the study window and turned to see his father standing still and erect in the doorway. Though his hair was snow white, his face lined, Theo Petrakides was still a handsome and imposing man.

He was also dying.

The doctors had told Lukas that Theo had a few good months left in him—but it would go downhill from there. Theo knew; he accepted it with the grim stoicism with which he’d accepted all the tragedies in his life.

‘I’ll die well,’ he’d said with cold detachment. ‘I’ll do my duty.’

Yes, Lukas knew Theo would do his duty in death—as he had in life.

Just as he would do his. His promise to care for Annabel had not been rash. As soon as the possibility had arisen that Christos might be the father Lukas had known what it would mean. The sacrifice he would have to make.

Caring for a child, he told himself, was hardly difficult. He’d hire a nanny, enlist the best help. It might mean travelling a bit less to be more available to her as a father. That thought, that word, shook him more than he cared to admit.

Still, he would do what needed to be done to provide for the child and, more importantly, to keep the Petrakides name free from scandal or shame. He would do his duty.

‘What girl?’ he asked now, forcing his mind back to the present, to the frowning countenance of his father.

‘That English girl. She has no place in our lives, Lukas.’

Lukas’s palm curled into a fist on the smooth, mahogany-topped desk. Slowly, deliberately, he flattened it out again. ‘She’s Welsh, and her name is Rhiannon. She does have a place in our lives, Papa—she’s Annabel’s guardian.’

Theo’s eyebrows rose at hearing the casual, almost intimate way Lukas referred to both Rhiannon and Annabel.

Lukas realised he’d spoken about Rhiannon as if he knew her, liked her. He shrugged. What he said was still true.

‘For now,’ the older man agreed flatly. ‘But when Christos—damn him!—is shown to be the father, she will have no place at all. You told me she’s not related, just a friend of the mother. We are blood relations, and we will do our duty—even for Christos’s English bastard.’

‘Is that what you plan on telling the child, when she is old enough to hear?’

‘I won’t be around then,’ Theo replied with brutal frankness, ‘so you can do the honours. She can hardly complain if she has been well provided for. No one can accuse us of being ungenerous.’

‘No, indeed,’ Lukas agreed dryly, and Theo frowned.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve a fondness for that English piece?’

‘She’s Welsh, and, no, I have not. But I prefer to speak about any woman with respect.’

‘She will only complicate matters,’ Theo continued, ignoring his son. He strode to the window, watched the waves crash onto the rocky shore. ‘If she isn’t already attached to the child, she will become so, and we cannot have the bad press of a messy custody case. The tabloids would make a meal of this, Lukas. You’ve already seen what they’ve done with these rumours of your mistress and your love-child.’

‘I have,’ he replied tightly. ‘But I believe Rhiannon is willing to be reasonable if we approach her with sensitivity. I don’t want to take her from the child now. Annabel has had a great deal of upheaval in her life, and it would do none of us any favours to send Rhiannon away before she is settled.’

Theo glanced shrewdly at his son. ‘None of us?’ he repeated, and gave a dry chuckle. ‘Oh, very well. If you must have her, have her. You’ve been without a woman too long, haven’t you? You never learned how to be discreet in such matters.’

‘I prefer to be restrained.’ Lukas’s head was throbbing with fury. He knew he should be used to his father’s frank, crass ways—and he knew his father believed duty was a public matter, rather than a private one. As long as people saw what you did was right, it hardly mattered what you thought.

He felt differently.

‘This would be solved,’ Theo continued in a harder voice, ‘if you did your duty to provide me with an heir and marry.’

‘You know I never plan to marry.’

‘Your duty—’

‘I refuse to marry a woman I love,’ Lukas intervened flatly, ‘and I refuse to marry without love. It would not be fair to the woman.’

‘There are plenty of women who would marry without love,’ Theo scoffed.

Lukas suppressed a sigh. They’d had this conversation many times.

‘Scheming gold-diggers or materialistic snobs,’ he dismissed. ‘Hardly suitable material.’ The thought of not providing an heir for the Petrakides empire was an uncomfortable one, but he knew his limits. Marriage was outside of them. As was love.

‘Fine,’ Theo said, willing to let go of this thorny subject for a moment. ‘Still, the English bit goes.’ He stared his son down. ‘And soon.’

Lukas gazed at his father. ‘There is no question that she will leave when the child’s paternity is determined,’ he agreed coolly. ‘There can be no place for her in our lives. But until then it would benefit us all to keep her sweet.’ He busied himself with some papers on his desk. ‘Now, I have work to do, Papa. I will see you at dinner.’

Theo glanced sharply at his son, but with a jerky nod he left the room.

Lukas swivelled to stare out of the window. The aquamarine sea stretched flatly to an endless horizon—yet he knew that only a few miles out there would be boats. Boats disguised as fishing vessels, but filled with photographers and journalists clamouring for an exclusive shot of Lukas with his illicit family. Photographs which would then be sold to tabloids around the world, to make the Petrakides name raked through the mud and the dirt once again.

He sighed, thrusting a hand through his hair. He understood the need to avoid bad press—God knew, the Petrakides family had had enough of it.

He also understood that Rhiannon Davies would have to go. As his father had said, her presence could only complicate matters, and he didn’t want a Petrakides child—any child—attached to a woman whose motives in staying were at best uncertain, at worst suspect.

What did she want? he wondered, not for the first time. She didn’t want to leave the child; she didn’t want to stay. Lukas still wasn’t sure if she was playing a high-stakes game, or if she simply didn’t know what she wanted.

Hardly a woman to trust with a child, he thought in derisive dismissal. With a child’s love.

Still, he had use of her, as did the child. He wasn’t ready to release her just yet.

That night for dinner Rhiannon dressed in the outfit she’d worn yesterday to the reception—now slightly crumpled, but still clean at least.

She’d fed Annabel in the kitchen, under the eye of Adeia, the kindly housekeeper and cook. After giving the baby a bath in the huge tub in her adjoining bathroom, she’d put Annabel to sleep in the middle of the wide bed in her room. There were no travel cots, but Lukas had assured her one would be found by the next day.

Dinner, she’d been informed, was in the villa’s dining room, and she was expected there at half past seven.

Rhiannon drew in a shaky breath and examined her reflection.

Her hair had turned wild and curly due to the moisture in the sea air, and no amount of brushing or spray would tame it. She’d abandoned any pretence at styling it, and settled for a slick of lipstick, a dab of perfume, and her old outfit.

It wasn’t as if she were trying to impress either Theo or Lukas. Though she dreaded seeing the older man again. His words rang in her ears.

Bastard.

That was all he saw Annabel as. What would he think, she wondered with wry bitterness, if he knew she was illegitimate too?

What would Lukas think? Would he judge her an unfit mother? Damn her for the circumstances of her birth, as Theo seemed willing to do?

Rhiannon threw back her shoulders, her mouth hardening into a grim line. That wasn’t going to happen. Because she was going to stick around. No matter what they said. No matter what they did.

After checking that Annabel was deeply asleep—exhausted, no doubt, by the upheavals of the day—Rhiannon headed downstairs. The wide, sweeping staircase led to a tiled foyer flanked with mahogany double doors that led to the villa’s reception rooms.

Lukas came into the foyer from one of the rooms at the sound of her heels clicking on the tiles. He wore a light grey button-down shirt, expensive and well made, and charcoal trousers cinched with a leather belt. He looked comfortable, walking with the innate arrogant grace of someone who was used to being watched, admired, obeyed.

He swept her with a cool gaze that made Rhiannon uncomfortably aware of her unruly hair, her crumpled outfit. Her position weak, helpless.

Hopeless.

Who was she kidding? She might put on a face of bravado, but that was all it was. False courage. If Lukas didn’t want her here, there was nothing she could do to convince him to let her stay.

She swallowed, realising afresh how out of her depth she truly was.

Out of her mind.

Lukas said nothing, merely took her arm to lead her into the dining room.

The table was set, and Theo stood by the wide windows that overlooked the shoreline. The stars were just visible in a lavender sky, and a few lights twinkled on the water.

‘Are there boats out there?’ Rhiannon asked, moving closer to the window to look.

‘Journalists,’ Theo replied flatly. ‘Hoping to get a good photo. They know if they come too close we can prosecute.’ He spoke slowly, deliberately, as if she were stupid. Rhiannon bit her lip, bit down the annoyance at the man’s condescension, and turned to Lukas.

‘Have they followed you out here already?’

‘They’ve followed you,’ Theo interjected. He smiled, but his eyes were hard. ‘Something to do with what you said, I should think. My son’s baby.’

Rhiannon flushed at the condemnation in his tone. ‘I’m sorry. I was desperate, and I didn’t realise the tabloids would make such a fuss.’

Theo looked unconvinced. ‘Didn’t you? Haven’t you read the papers before? The Petrakides family has, alas, been mentioned many times before.’

‘Have they?’ Rhiannon lifted her chin, her eyes shooting amber sparks. ‘I do not read those kinds of papers, Mr Petrakides.’

Theo’s mouth hardened, and he jerked a shoulder towards the table. ‘Shall we?’

He was gentleman enough to wait to sit until she was seated, but Rhiannon didn’t like the way he so quickly and coldly assessed her. Dismissed her. Lukas, she feared, felt the same way. He was simply better at hiding his feelings.

It didn’t matter anyway. She couldn’t let it matter.

Adeia brought in the first course—vine leaves stuffed with rice and herbs, and a separate dish of olives and feta marinated in olive oil.

It looked excellent, and with an audible growl of her stomach Rhiannon realised how hungry she was.

The first course was followed by moussaka, and a rack of lamb with herbs and served with rice.

It was delicious, and by the time dessert arrived—a nut cake flavoured with cloves and cinnamon—she was so full she felt the waistband of her skirt pinch uncomfortably.

She was also aware of Theo’s disapproval of his son. He never said anything outright; in fact he spoke slowly, as if he wanted to use as few words as possible, and even chose those with care.

Still, she saw the disapproval in the tightening of his mouth, the flatness in his eyes, the biting edge of his tone.

Lukas, to his credit, remained mild and relaxed throughout the whole meal, although Rhiannon noticed how his eyes darkened, blanked. His fist bunched on the tablecloth before he forced himself to shrug, nod, smile. Dismiss.

She wondered at the tension in the relationship, what secrets the Petrakides family harboured. What secrets Lukas hid behind the neutral expression, the cold eyes.

This was Annabel’s family. Fear and uncertainty churned in Rhiannon’s stomach as she thought of giving up her ward to these people.

She couldn’t. And she didn’t have to, she reminded herself. Not yet. Maybe never.

After cups of strong Greek coffee, Theo jerkily excused himself to bed. He walked stiffly from the room, leaving Rhiannon and Lukas alone amidst the flickering candles and the remnants of a fantastic meal.

‘That was wonderful…thank you.’ She dabbed at her lips with her napkin, suddenly aware of a palpable tension.

Lukas was rotating his coffee cup slowly between strong, brown fingers, his expression shuttered.

He looked up when she spoke, smiled easily, the darkness of his eyes clearing like the sun coming from behind storm clouds. ‘You’re not going to end the evening so soon?’

‘It’s late…I’m tired…’ She should be tired, but right now her senses were humming in a way that made her feel gloriously awake and alive. She knew to stay, to linger in the dim, intimate atmosphere of the room, would be dangerous for both of them.

For some reason this attraction had sprung up between them—a powerful force that they both had to avoid…for Annabel’s sake.

And for her own.

‘Will you walk with me on the beach?’ Lukas asked. ‘There need not be enmity between us, Rhiannon.’

‘Is that so?’ Rhiannon tried to laugh; it came out brittle. ‘It’s easy for you to say that, Lukas. You’re holding all the cards.’

‘I think,’ Lukas said carefully, ‘we both want what’s best for Annabel.’

‘We might disagree about what that is.’

He nodded in acknowledgement, then shrugged. ‘It’s a beautiful moonlit night. The photographers can’t see us in the dark. A few moments…You haven’t had any fresh air since you’ve been here, and the island is beautiful.’

‘I can’t leave Annabel. If she wakes…’

‘Adeia will listen for her,’ Lukas said. ‘She’d love to.’

Rhiannon hesitated. Perhaps getting to know Lukas would help. It might soften him to her case, to her hopes for Annabel. ‘All right,’ she agreed, not nearly as reluctantly as she knew she should. ‘A few moments.’

Outside the sound of the surf was a muted roar in the distance, and the air was cool and soft. Lukas led her down a paved path to the beach, a stretch of smooth sand that curved around tumbled rocks into the unknown.

He kicked off his shoes, and Rhiannon did the same, enjoying the silky softness between her toes.

They walked quietly down the shoreline for a few minutes, the only sound the lapping of waves.

‘Has this island been in your family long?’ she finally asked, unnerved by the silence that had stretched between them.

Lukas gave a short, abrupt laugh before shaking his head. ‘No, indeed not. Only about twenty-five years or so; the Petrakides fortune is very new.’

‘Is it?’ Rhiannon had not read that in the papers, but then she’d only been looking for salient details regarding the man she’d believed to be Annabel’s father. ‘I didn’t realise.’

‘My father started life as a street-sweeper,’ Lukas stated with matter-of-fact flatness. ‘He worked his way up to becoming landlord of a tenement in Athens, before banding together with a few partners and buying a block of derelict apartment buildings. They renovated them, turned them into modest, affordable housing units. And he moved up from there. Eventually he didn’t need partners.’

‘A real success story,’ Rhiannon murmured, and Lukas acknowledged this with a brusque nod.

‘Yes.’

They walked quietly for a moment, Lukas seeming lost in unhappy thoughts.

Success wasn’t everything, Rhiannon supposed. It couldn’t buy happiness. It couldn’t buy love.

‘Your father doesn’t seem like a happy man,’ she ventured, surprised by her own candour as well as by Lukas’s swift, acknowledging glance.

‘No, he isn’t,’ he agreed after a pause. ‘If he seems in a bad temper, it is in part because he is upset over the press. My father has wanted to prove to everyone that he deserves the wealth and success he has earned. He feels any stain on his reputation is a reflection of where he came from—the street. Although…’ Lukas’s face was obscured in shadow, but there was suddenly a different darkness to his tone. ‘Things have not been easy for him lately.’

Rhiannon’s steps slowed as memories clicked into place. ‘He’s dying, isn’t he?’ she said quietly.

He stiffened, turned in surprise. ‘How did you know?’

‘I should have realised sooner,’ she admitted. ‘I’m a palliative nurse—I work in hospices. I’ve been around a lot of people in his situation.’ She shook her head. ‘I assumed he was speaking so slowly because he thought I was stupid, but it’s because he’s losing his words, isn’t he? What does he have? A brain tumour?’

Lukas nodded stiffly. ‘The doctors have given him at most a few more months. It hasn’t, by the grace of God, affected him too much yet, although he occasionally forgets things. Sometimes it is just a word, other times a whole event.’ He shook his head. ‘It is frustrating, because he knows he is forgetting.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Rhiannon whispered. ‘I know how difficult a dying parent can be.’

‘Do you?’ Lukas’s glance was swift, sharp, assessing, yet there was a flicker of compassion in those silver eyes. ‘Tell me about yourself, Rhiannon.’

She shrugged, discomfited by the turn in the conversation he’d so quickly and effortlessly made. ‘My parents died three years ago,’ she said, as if it were of no consequence. ‘I cared for them until their deaths. It is a difficult thing to do.’

‘Yes…I suppose it is. And in the time since then?’

‘I studied nursing, went into hospice care. It made the most sense after my experience with my parents.’

‘A rather lonely-sounding life,’ Lukas remarked, his tone expressionless, his face in shadow.

‘No more than anyone else’s.’ Irritation prickled at his judgement. ‘I like to think I make a difference. Help people in a time of need that most of us would prefer to ignore.’

‘Indeed, that’s too true. I only meant that spending time with people twice your age no doubt makes it difficult to find friends with whom you can socialise.’

Rhiannon shrugged. She could hardly argue with that. She didn’t have a social life—had never had one. She gazed unseeingly at the dark stretch of water, at the stars strung above in an inky sky like diamonds pricked through cloth.

‘Why did you come here, Rhiannon?’ Lukas asked after a long moment, his voice musing. ‘Most women in your position I believe would not have made such an effort. They would have sent a letter, or gone through a solicitor. But to come to the resort, to the reception, and think you could convince me I was a child’s father—!’ He shook his head, smiling slightly in disbelief, but Rhiannon was only conscious of her own prickling, humiliated response.

‘I admit it was foolhardy,’ she said in a tight voice that bordered on strangled. She was glad the darkness hid her flushed face. ‘I thought a face-to-face confrontation would be the…strongest way to present Annabel to you.’

‘To get rid of her, you mean?’

‘You have a strange way of looking at things,’ she retorted. She stopped to turn and face him. ‘I wanted to give her to her father—her family. I would have been ignoring my responsibility if I hadn’t attempted to find you. Wouldn’t I? To keep her to myself, to make no effort to find a family who might want her, love her…’ She trailed off, shaking her head. ‘That would have been selfish.’

Lukas was silent for a moment. ‘You wanted to keep her?’ he asked in a different voice.

‘Of course I did—do! She’s a baby.’

‘An inconvenience, as you said.’

She glanced sharply at him, unsure if he thought that, or if he simply thought she did. ‘All children are inconveniences,’ she said flatly. ‘If you remember, I said that didn’t mean they weren’t worth it.’

‘So you want her, but you’re prepared to give her up?’ Lukas said musingly.

‘I was,’ Rhiannon emphasised. ‘Now things are different.’ She turned to face him. ‘You should know that I won’t give Annabel up now. I may have been willing to earlier, when I believed you were the father, when I thought you would love her. But I realise now the situation is completely different. I don’t know how I can fit into the family you envisage for her—your family—but I will have some part. I’m not walking out of her life now.’

Lukas regarded her silently for a long moment. Rhiannon’s heart raced and her face flamed, but she met his gaze, stony-faced and determined, her fists clenched at her sides.

‘What about your own life?’ he asked in a mild voice. ‘Your flat, your job, your friends? If Annabel is Christos’s child, her life will be in Greece. Are you prepared to move here?’ He quirked one eyebrow in cynical bemusement. ‘To give up everything for a child that isn’t even yours…for the child of a friend you hadn’t seen in ten years? A child,’ he continued, his voice turning hard, unyielding, damning, ‘that you didn’t really want? A child with a family in place—a family with far more resources than you could ever possibly have?’

Rhiannon’s mouth was dry, her heart like lead. When he framed it in such stark terms her situation seemed bleak indeed. ‘It’s not about resources,’ she said stiffly. ‘It’s about love.’

‘Can you really see yourself in Annabel’s life long-term?’ Lukas persisted. He kept his voice mild. ‘In Greece? Are you prepared to give up your life in Wales to care for a child that is no relation to you?’

His words wound around her heart, whispered their treacherous enticements in her mind. He was trying to dissuade her from staying, she knew. From complicating his life. And yet he made sense.

If she stayed in Greece she would have a half-life at best—the life of someone who lived on the fringes of a family. Again. Yet surely it was no less of a life than she had now.

‘You’ve done your duty,’ he continued. ‘You’ve brought her to her family. When the paternity issue is resolved, you can return to your home, your life, with a clear conscience. Isn’t that what you really want? Wasn’t that what you planned all along?’

His voice was so smooth, so persuasive, and it made Rhiannon realise how impossible a situation this truly was. Could she really move to Greece, ingratiate herself into the Petrakides family…if they would let her?

Yet she couldn’t leave Annabel. Not like this. ‘I don’t…’ Her mind swam, diving for words, and came up empty. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It’s a lot to think about.’

‘Indeed.’ She heard the satisfaction in his voice and realised he thought he’d chipped away at her resolve. And perhaps he had. She wanted to be in Annabel’s life—she wanted Annabel to be loved.

Yet how could it happen? When Lukas had all the power and she had none? When this world—his world—was so foreign to her? So above her?

Could she ever even remotely fit in?

Lukas kept walking, and Rhiannon followed him. The waves lapped gently at their feet.

‘You said all children are inconveniences,’ he remarked after a moment. ‘Is that how you were viewed?’

Rhiannon’s breath came in a hitched gasp. She was surprised at his perceptiveness. She stared blindly out at the ocean, dark and fathomless, a stretch of blackness, a rush of sound.

‘I was adopted,’ she said after a long moment. ‘My parents never quite got over my arrival into their orderly lives.’

‘Many adopted children have loving homes, caring parents. Was that not the case with you?’

She closed her eyes, opened them. ‘My parents cared for me,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. She would not tarnish their memory. ‘In their own way. But I often wondered about my natural parents, and I didn’t want Annabel to be the same—especially if she discovered when she was older that she could have known her father and I never gave her the chance. I wanted to spare her that pain.’

Lukas was silent for a long moment. ‘I see,’ he finally said.

They continued to walk, Rhiannon with sudden, quick steps as if she wanted to escape the confines of the beach, the island, the reach of this man.

He saw too much, understood too much. And yet understood nothing at all.

Lukas grabbed her arm, causing her to stumble before he steadied her, turned her to face him. ‘Who are you trying to escape?’ His voice was soft, almost gentle, but his hands were firm on her arms and they burned.

‘I want to go back to the villa,’ Rhiannon said jerkily.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ His arms moved up to her shoulders, drawing her closer. ‘I was trying to understand.’

‘You don’t understand anything,’ Rhiannon spat. ‘First you judge me as a blackmailer, then as a woman who is willing to give up a child like so much rubbish.’

‘I may have been mistaken in those beliefs,’ Lukas said quietly. There was no apology in his voice, merely statement of fact. ‘I realise now, Rhiannon, that you want what is best for Annabel. You believed that was entrusting her to her family; I think you’re right.’

‘I’ve changed my mind,’ Rhiannon choked, and his hands tightened briefly on her arms.

‘You must trust that I will do my duty by Annabel,’ he said calmly, and Rhiannon let out a wild, contemptuous peal of laughter.

‘That’s the last thing I want,’ she cried. ‘I don’t want Annabel to be bound to someone by duty.’ It came out in a sneer, and Lukas looked at her in surprise.

‘Why on earth not?’

Rhiannon drew in a shuddering breath. He was close. Far too close. So close that in the pale moonlight bathing his face she could see the gold flecks in his eyes, the stubble on his chin.

‘You couldn’t understand.’

‘Not unless you explain,’ he agreed, his voice soft yet firm in the darkness.

‘I want you to let me go,’ she whispered, but it didn’t sound very convincing.

‘I will…’ Yet he was drawing her closer, and closer still, his lips a breath away from hers. Rhiannon let him hold her, let his breath fan her face, let her lips part open.

There was determination in his eyes, a fierce resolve, and Rhiannon knew that, like her, he was fighting against the tide of desire that washed over both of them, threatening to drag them under.

She knew by the light in his eyes, by the way his fingers bit into her shoulders.

And by the way he released her, suddenly, as if she’d scorched him, so she stumbled back in the sand.

‘I’m sorry.’ His voice was low. ‘I didn’t mean to start something here.’

‘To kiss me?’ Rhiannon challenged, irritated at how bereft she felt.

‘I know nothing can happen between us,’ Lukas said flatly. ‘We cannot complicate matters more with a meaningless affair.’

His assessment stung. A meaningless affair? Of course he would never consider her as a worthy candidate for girlfriend, bride, wife.

She was so far below him, his world. All she was worth was an affair. Dirty, cheap. Meaningless.

‘Nothing will happen between us,’ she restated stonily. ‘Because you need to do your damn duty.’

Lukas stared at her for a long moment. ‘I’ve never had someone think so little of me for doing what is right.’

Rhiannon swallowed the guilt that rose up at his quiet words. ‘I want you to want to do what is right,’ she said. ‘Not just do it out of some burdensome sense of responsibility.’

‘You say that as if it’s a dirty word.’

‘It is!’ Rhiannon couldn’t hold back the emotion which caused her voice to tremble, her throat to ache. ‘It is.’

They were standing only a few feet apart, tension binding them together like an invisible wire. Lukas reached out his hands, grabbed her shoulders, and pulled her towards him.

‘This is not about duty,’ he said in a savage whisper before kissing her. It was a hard, punishing kiss—a brand, a seal. When he released her they both were breathing in ragged gasps.

‘But you didn’t want that either, did you?’ Rhiannon said when she finally found her voice.

‘Yes,’ Lukas disagreed flatly. ‘The problem is, I want it too much. But I will not have it.’

He turned away, began striding down the beach. Alone in the darkness, Rhiannon had no choice but to follow him back to the distant lights of the villa.