‘Does that reassure you?’ Anatole asked.

No! she wanted to shout. No! Absolutely nothing about this insane idea reassures me!

But what was the point of saying that? Of course the idea was insane and absurd and outrageous—but Anatole Telonidis was taking it seriously. Talking about it as if it were really going to happen.

Am I really going to go through with this? Go through with marriage to a man I never knew existed forty-eight hours ago?

‘Lyn?’

His deep, accented voice interrupted her troubled emotions. She jerked her head up and felt the impact of his gaze, felt the flurry in her veins that came as his eyes rested on her, his look enquiring.

‘Are we agreed?’ he asked.

She bit her lip. She wanted time—time to think, to focus! But how would that help? The longer she delayed, prevaricated, the more likely Anatole Telonidis would get impatient and set his lawyers on to the task of making a formal application to adopt Georgy himself.

She took a breath, ragged and uneven. ‘OK,’ she said. ‘OK, I’ll do it.’

JULIA JAMES lives in England with her family. Harlequin Mills & Boon® were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—’The most perfect landscape after England!’—and considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!

Recent titles by the same author:

PAINTED THE OTHER WOMAN

THE DARK SIDE OF DESIRE

FROM DIRT TO DIAMONDS

FORBIDDEN OR FOR BEDDING?

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

Securing the Greek’s Legacy

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Franny, my dearest friend, in her brave fight against cancer—a fight shared by so many.

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

EXCERPT

CHAPTER ONE

ANATOLE TELONIDIS STARED bleakly across the large, expensively furnished lounge of the penthouse apartment in the most fashionable part of Athens. It was still as untidy as it had been when his young cousin Marcos Petranakos had last walked out of it a few short nightmare weeks ago, straight to his death.

When their mutual grandfather, Timon Petranakos, had phoned his older grandson he had been distraught. ‘Anatole, he’s dead! Marcos, my beloved Marcos—he’s dead!’ the old man had cried out.

Smashed to pieces at twenty-five, driving far too fast in the lethal supercar that had been Timon’s own present to Marcos, given in the wake of their grandfather’s recent diagnosis with cancer.

The death of his favourite grandson, whom he had spoiled lavishly since Marcos had lost his parents as a teenager, had been a devastating blow. Timon had since refused all treatment for his cancer, longing now only for his own death.

Anatole could understand his grandfather’s devastation, his mind-numbing grief. But the fallout from Marcos’s tragic death would affect more lives than their own family’s. With no direct heir now to the vast Petranakos Corporation, the company would pass to an obscure Petranakos relative whose business inexperience would surely, in these parlous economic times, lead inevitably to the company’s collapse and the loss of thousands of jobs, adding to the country’s sky-high unemployment levels.

Though Anatole had his own late father’s business empire to run—which he did with tireless efficiency and a pressing sense of responsibility—he knew that, had Marcos lived, he could have instilled a similar sense of responsibility into his hedonistic young cousin, guiding him effectively. But the new heir—middle-aged, self-important and conceited—was resistant to any such guidance.

Frustration with the fate awaiting the Petranakos Corporation—and its hapless workforce—Anatole started on the grim process of sorting out his young cousin’s possessions. Bleakly, he began his sombre task.

Paperwork was the first essential. As he located Marcos’s desk and set about methodically sorting out its jumbled contents a familiar ripple of irritation went through him. Marcos had been the least organised person he’d known—receipts, bills and personal correspondence were all muddled up, demonstrating just how uninterested Marcos had been in anything other than having a good time. Fast cars, high living and an endless procession of highly temporary females had been his favoured lifestyle. Unlike Anatole himself. Running the Telonidis businesses kept him too occupied for anything more than occasional relationships, usually with busy, high-powered businesswomen he worked with in the world of finance.

Frustration bit at Anatole.

If only Marcos had married! Then there might have been a son to inherit from Timon! I’d have kept the Petranakos Corporation safe for him until the child grew up!

But to the fun-seeking Marcos marriage would have been anathema! Girls had been for casual relationships only. There’d be time later for getting married, he’d always said.

But there was to be no later...

Grim-faced, his honed features starkly etched, Anatole went on sorting through the papers in his cousin’s desk. Official in one pile, personal in another. The latter pile was not large—not in this age of texting and the internet—but one drawer revealed a batch of three or four envelopes addressed to Marcos in cursive Roman script with a London postmark and UK stamps. Only one had been opened.

Anatole frowned. The lilac-coloured envelopes and the large, looping script suggested a female writer. Though Marcos’s dramatic death had been splashed across the Greek tabloids, a British girlfriend might not have heard of it. It might be necessary, Anatole thought reluctantly, for him to let her know of Marcos’s fate. That said, he realised as he glanced at the envelopes’ postmarks, none of these was dated more recently than nine months ago. Whoever she was, the affair—or whatever it had been—was clearly long over.

With a swift impatience to be done with the whole grim business of sorting through Marcos’s personal effects Anatole took the folded single piece of paper from the one envelope that was open. He flicked open the note and started to read the English writing.

And as he did he froze completely...

* * *

Lyn made her way out of the lecture hall and sighed. It was no good, she would far rather be studying history! But accountancy would enable her to earn a decent living in the future and that was essential—especially if she were to persuade the authorities that she was capable of raising a child on her own: her beloved Georgy. But for now, while she was still waiting so anxiously to learn if she could adopt him, she was only allowed to be his foster carer. She knew the welfare authorities would prefer for him to be adopted by one of the many childless couples anxious to adopt a healthy baby, but Lyn was determined that no one would take Georgy from her! No one!

It didn’t matter how much of a struggle it was to keep at her studies while looking after a baby as well, especially with money so short—she would manage somehow! A familiar regret swept over her: if only she’d gone to college sooner and already had her qualifications. But she hadn’t been able to go straight from school because she’d had to stay home and look after Lindy. She hadn’t been able to leave her young teenage sister to the indifference and neglect which was all her mother had offered. But when Lindy had left school herself and gone to London, to live with a girlfriend and get a job, her mother had been taken ill, her lungs and liver finally giving in after decades of abuse from smoking and alcohol, and there had been no one else to look after her except Lyn.

And now there was Georgy...

‘Lyn Brandon?’

It was one of the university’s admin staff.

‘Someone’s asking to see you,’ the woman said briskly, and pointed to one of the offices across the corridor.

Frowning, Lyn walked inside.

And stopped dead.

Standing by the window, silhouetted by the fading light, was an imposing, dark-suited figure. Tall, wearing a black cashmere overcoat with a black cashmere scarf hooked around the strong column of his neck, the man had a natural Mediterranean tan that, along with his raven-dark hair, instantly told Lyn that he was not English. Just as the planes and features of his face told her that he was jaw-droppingly good-looking.

It was a face, though, that was staring at her with a mouth set in a tight line—as though he were seeing someone he had not expected. A frown creased his brow.

‘Miss Brandon?’ He said her name, his voice accented, as if he did not quite believe it.

Dark eyes flicked over her and Lyn felt two spots of colour mount in her cheeks. Immediately she became conscious of the way her hair was caught back in a stringy ponytail. She had not a scrap of make-up on, and her clothes were serviceable rather than fashionable.

Then suddenly, overriding that painful consciousness, there came a jolt of realisation as to just who this clearly foreign man must be—could only be...

The Mediterranean looks, the expensive clothes, the sleekly groomed looks, the whole aura of wealth about him... She felt her stomach constrict, filling with instinctive fear.

Across the narrow room Anatole caught the flash of alarm and wondered at it, but not nearly as much as he was wondering whether he had, after all, really tracked down the woman he’d been so urgently seeking ever since reading that letter in Marcos’s apartment—the woman who, so his investigators had discovered, had most definitely given birth to a baby boy...

Is he Marcos’s son? The question was burning in hope. Because if Marcos had had a son then it changed everything. Everything!

If, by a miracle, Marcos had a son, then Anatole had to find him and bring him home to Greece, so that Timon, who was fading with every passing day, could find instead a last blessing from the cruel fate that had taken so much from him.

And it was not just for his grandfather that a son of Marcos’s would be a blessing, either, Anatole knew. This would persuade Timon to change his will, to acknowledge that his beloved Marcos had had a son to whom he could now leave the Petranakos Corporation. Infant though he was, Anatole would guard the child’s inheritance, keep it safe and prosperous for him—and save the livelihoods of all its employees.

Tracking down the author of the letters had led him first to a council house in the south of the country and then, through information given to his detectives by neighbours, to this northern college, where he’d been told the young woman he was so urgently seeking—Linda Brandon—had recently moved.

But as his eyes rested now on the woman he was addressing he felt doubt fill him. This was the woman he’d trekked to this grim, rainswept northern town to find in a race against time for his stricken grandfather? Marcos wouldn’t even have looked twice at her—let alone taken her to his bed!

‘Are you Miss Brandon?’ he asked, his voice sharper now.

He saw her swallow and nod jerkily. Saw, too, that her entire body had tensed.

‘I am Anatole Telonidis,’ he announced. His voice sounded clipped, but his mission was a painful one—and an urgent one. ‘I am here on behalf of my cousin, Marcos Petranakos, with whom I believe you are...’ he sought the right phrase ‘...acquainted.’

Even as he said it his eyes flicked over her again doubtfully. Even putting aside her unprepossessing appearance, Marcos’s taste had been for curvy blondes—not thin brunettes. But her reaction told him that she must indeed be the person he was looking for so urgently—she had instantly recognised Marcos’s name.

And not favourably...

Her expression had changed. Hardened. ‘So he couldn’t even be bothered to come himself!’ she retorted scornfully.

If she’d sought to hit home with her accusation she’d failed. The man who’d declared himself Marcos Petranakos’s cousin stilled. In the dark eyes a flash of deep emotion showed and Lyn saw his face stiffen.

‘The situation is not as you suppose,’ he said.

It was as if, she realised, he was picking his words carefully.

He paused a moment, as if steeling himself to speak, then said, ‘I must talk to you. But the matter is...difficult.’

Lyn shook her head violently. She could feel the adrenaline running through her body. ‘No, it’s not difficult at all!’ she retorted. ‘Whatever message you’ve been sent to deliver by your cousin, you needn’t bother! Georgy—his son!—is fine without him. Absolutely fine!’

She saw emotion flash in his dark eyes again, saw the shadow behind it. Out of nowhere a chill went through her.

‘There is something I must tell you,’ Anatole Telonidis was saying. His voice was grim, and bleak, as if he were forcing the words out.

Lyn’s hands clenched. ‘There is nothing you can say that I care about—!’ she began.

But his deep, sombre voice cut right through hers. ‘My cousin is dead.’

There was silence. Complete silence. Wordlessly, Anatole cursed himself for his blunt outburst. But it had been impossible to hear her hostility, her scorn, when Marcos lay dead in his grave...

‘Dead?’ Lyn’s voice was hollow with shock.

‘I’m sorry. I should not have told you so brutally,’ Anatole said stiffly.

She was still staring at him. ‘Marcos Petranakos is dead?’ Her voice was thin—disbelieving.

‘It was a car crash. Two months ago. It has taken time to track you down...’ His words were staccato, sombre.

Lyn swayed as if she might pass out. Instantly Anatole was there, catching her arm, staying her. She stepped back, steadying herself, and he released her. Absently she noticed with complete irrelevance how strong his grasp had been. How overpowering his momentary closeness.

‘He’s dead?’ she said again, her voice hollow. Emotion twisted in her throat. Georgy’s father was dead...

‘Please,’ Anatole Telonidis was saying, ‘you need to sit down. I am sorry this is such a shock to you. I know,’ he went on, picking his words carefully again, she could tell, his expression guarded, ‘just how...deep...you felt the relationship was between yourself and him, but—’

A noise came from her. He stopped. She was staring at him, but the expression in her face was different now, Anatole registered. It wasn’t shock at hearing about Marcos’s tragic death. It wasn’t even anger—the understandable anger, painful though it was for him to face it—that she’d expressed about the man who had got her pregnant and then totally ignored her ever since.

‘Between him and me?’ she echoed. She shook her head a moment, as if clearing it.

‘Yes,’ Anatole pursued. ‘I know from your letters—which, forgive me, I have read—that you felt a strong...attachment to my cousin. That you were expressing your longing to...’ He hesitated, recalling vividly the hopelessly optimistic expectations with which she had surrounded her announcement that she was carrying Marcos’s baby. ‘Your longing to make a family together, but—’

He got no further.

‘I’m not Georgy’s mother,’ Lyn announced.

And in her bleak voice were a thousand unshed tears.

For a moment Anatole thought he had not heard correctly. Or had misunderstood what she had said in English. Then his eyes levelled on hers and he realised he had understood her exactly.

‘What?’ His exclamation was like a bullet. A blackening frown sliced down over his face. ‘You said you were Linda Brandon!’ he threw at her accusingly.

His thoughts were in turmoil. What the hell was going on? He could make no sense of it! He could see her shaking her head—a jerky gesture. Then she spoke, her voice strained.

‘I’m...I’m Lynette Brandon,’ Anatole heard her say.

He saw her take a rasping breath, making herself speak. Her face was still white with shock with what he’d told her about Marcos.

‘Lindy...Linda—’ she gave her sister’s full name before stopping abruptly, her voice cutting off. Then she blinked.

Anatole could see the shimmer of tears clearly now.

‘Linda was my sister,’ she finished, her voice no more than a husk.

He heard the past tense—felt the slow, heavy pulse of dark realisation go through him. Heard her thin, shaky voice continuing, telling him what was so unbearably painful for her to say.

Her face was breaking up.

‘She died,’ she whispered. ‘My sister Linda. Georgy’s mother. She died giving birth. Eclampsia. It’s not supposed to happen any more. But it did...it did...’

Her voice was broken.

She lifted her eyes to Anatole across a divide that was like a yawning chasm—a chasm that had claimed two young lives.

Her mind reeled as she took in the enormity of the truth they had both revealed to each other. The unbearable tragedy of it.

Both Georgy’s parents were dead!

She had thrown at Anatole Telonidis the fact that his uncaring, irresponsible cousin wasn’t wanted or needed by his son, but to hear that he had suffered the same dreadful fate as her sister was unbearable. As unbearable as losing her sister had been. Tears stung in her eyes and his voice came from very far away.

‘You should sit down,’ said Anatole Telonidis.

He guided her to a chair and she sat on it nervelessly. His own mind was still reeling, still trying to come to grips with what he had just learnt. The double tragedy surrounding Marcos’s baby son.

Where was he? Where was Marcos’s son?

That was the question he had to have answered now! A cold fear went through him. Newborn babies were in high demand for adoption by childless couples, and a fatherless baby whose mother had died in childbirth might have been just such a child...

Had he been adopted already? The question seared in Anatole’s head. If so, then he would have a nightmare of a search to track him down—even if he were allowed to by the authorities. And if he had already been adopted then would his adoptive parents be likely to let him go? Would the authorities be likely to let him demand—plead!—that they accede to his need for Timon to know that he had an heir after all?

He stood looking down at the sister of the woman who had borne his cousin a child and died in the process. He swallowed.

‘Where is my cousin’s son?’ he asked. He tried not to sound brusque, demanding, but he had to know. He had to know!

Her chin lifted, her eyes flashing to his.

‘He’s with me!’ came the answer. Vehement, passionate.

Abstractedly Anatole found himself registering that when this drab dab of a female spoke passionately her nondescript features suddenly sharpened into life, giving her a vividness that was not drab at all. Then the sense of her words hit him.

‘With you?’

She took a ragged breath, her fingers clutching the side of the chair. ‘Yes! With me! And he’s staying with me! That’s all you need to know!’

She leapt to her feet, fear and panic impelling her. Too much had happened—shock after shock—and she couldn’t cope with it, couldn’t take it in.

Anatole stepped towards her, urgency in his voice. ‘Miss Brandon, we have to talk—discuss—’

‘No! There’s nothing to discuss! Nothing!’

And then, before his frustrated gaze, she rushed from the room.

Lyn fled. Her mind was in turmoil. Though she managed to make her way into her next lecture she was incapable of concentrating. Only one single emotion was uppermost.

Georgy is mine! Mine, mine, mine!

Lindy had given the baby to her with her dying breath and she would never, never betray that! Never!

Grief clutched at Lyn again.

‘Look after Georgy—’

They had been Lindy’s final words before the darkness had closed over her fevered, stricken brain and she had ebbed from life.

And I will! I will look after him all my life—all his life—and I will never let any harm come to him, never abandon him or give up him!

‘Just you and me, Georgy!’ she whispered later as, morning lectures finally over, she collected him from the college crèche and made her way to the bus stop and back home for the afternoon.

But as she clambered on board the bus, stashing the folding buggy one-handed as she held Georgy in the other, she completely failed to see an anonymous black car pull out into the road behind the bus. Following it.

Two hours later Anatole stood in front of the block of flats his investigator had informed him was Lynette Brandon’s place of accommodation and stared bleakly at it. It was not an attractive building, being of ugly sixties design, with stained concrete and peeling paint. The whole area was just as dreary—no place for Timon Petranakos’s great-grandson to be brought up!

Resolve steeling, he rang the doorbell.

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?’

CHAPTER THREE

LYN’S EYES FLEW upwards. Anatole Telonidis was looking at her, and as he did so she knew for sure that something had definitely changed between them. She was still wary, yes—wariness was prickling through her every vein—but that wash of rage and outrage against him had gone. His tone of voice was different too. It was more—open. As if he were no longer simply dictating to her what must happen. As if he were truly asking a question of her.

A question she could give no answer to other than the one she had hurled at his head five minutes ago. She could not—would not—ever give Georgy up!

She gave an awkward shrug, dropping her eyes again. She didn’t want to look at him. Her self-consciousness had soared suddenly, and whereas before she might have found refuge in animosity and resentment and rage against him and his autocratic demands, now she felt raw and exposed.

Anatole watched her sitting there, with the baby on her lap, her attention all on the infant who was busily chewing on his keys and chuntering away to himself. Emotion poured through him, powerful and overwhelming. Even without the formality of DNA testing his heart already knew that this was Marcos’s son. And already he felt a powerful urge to protect and cherish him.

Which is what she feels too! That is what is driving her!

Her obduracy, her angry outburst, were both fuelled by the deepest of emotions—emotions that he understood and recognised.

Love and grief.

She could not give up the child. Not now. Not like this. It was impossible for her to conceive of such a thing. Impossible for her to do anything other than what she had done—rage at the very notion of it! A flicker of a different emotion went through him—one he had not envisaged feeling. One that came again now as he let his eyes rest on her while her attention was on the baby in her lap.

There was something very moving about seeing her attend so tenderly to the tiny scrap of humanity she was engaged with. Her face seemed softer somehow, without that pinched, drained, defensive look that he’d seen in it. The contours of her profile, animated by her smiles of affection for the infant, were gentler now.

He found an irrelevant thought fleeting through his head. If she had her hair done decently, took some trouble over her appearance, she would look quite different—

He reproached himself. What time or funds did she have to pay any attention to her appearance? She was studying full-time and looking after a baby, on what was clearly a very tight budget. And it was obvious, too, from the circles under her eyes, that she wasn’t getting enough sleep.

A sudden impulse went through him.

I could lighten her burden—the load she is carrying single-handed.

But not by taking from her the baby she was so devoted to.

He heard himself speaking. ‘There must be a way we can reach agreement.’

Her eyes flew to his. Back in them, he could see, was the wariness and alarm that he was so familiar with.

‘You’re not taking Georgy from me!’ Fear and the hostility raked through her voice, flashed in her eyes.

He held up a hand. His voice changed, grew husky. ‘I can see how much Marcos’s son means to you. But because he means so much to you I ask you to understand how much he means to his father’s family as well.’ He paused, his eyes holding hers, willing the wariness and resistance to dissolve. ‘I need you to trust me,’ he said to her. ‘I need you to believe me when I say that there has to be a way we can resolve this impasse.’

She heard his words. Heard them reach her—strong, fluent, persuasive. Felt the power of that dark, expressive gaze on her, and the power, too, of the magnetism of the man, the power of his presence, the impact it had on her. She felt her senses stir and fought them back. But she could not fight back the intensity of his regard—the way those incredible eyes were holding hers, willing her to accept what he was saying to her.

He pressed on. ‘I do not wish,’ he said, making his words as clear as he could, ‘for there to be animosity or conflict between us. A way can be found. I am sure of it. If...’ He paused, and now his eyes were more intense than ever. ‘If there is goodwill between us and, most importantly, trust.’

She felt her emotions sway, her resistance weaken.

As if he sensed it, saw it, he went on. ‘Will you bring Georgy to Greece?’ he asked. ‘For a visit—I ask nothing more than that for now,’ he emphasized. ‘Simply so that his great-grandfather can see him.’

His eyes searched her face. Alarm flared again in her eyes.

Lyn’s hand smoothed Georgy’s head shakily. ‘He hasn’t got a passport,’ she replied.

‘That can be arranged,’ Anatole responded promptly. ‘I will see to it.’

Her expression was still troubled. ‘I...I may not be allowed to take him out of the country—?’ she began, then stopped.

Anatole frowned. ‘You are his aunt—why should he not travel with you?’

For a second—just a second—he saw in her eyes again that same emotion he had seen when he had challenged her as to whether she had adopted Georgy or not.

‘You said that the process of adoption is not yet finalised,’ he said. ‘Does that affect whether you can take him out of the country?’

She swallowed. ‘Officially I am still only his foster carer,’ she replied. There was constraint in her voice, evasiveness in the way her gaze dropped from his. ‘I...I don’t know what the rules are about taking foster children abroad...’

‘Well, I shall have enquiries made,’ said Anatole. ‘These things can be sorted.’ He did not want her hiding behind official rules and regulations. He wanted her to consent to what he so urgently needed—to bringing Marcos’s son to Greece.

But he would press her no longer. Not for now. Finally she was listening to him. He had put his request to her—now he would let her get used to the idea.

He got to his feet, looking down at her. ‘It has been,’ he said, and his voice was not unsympathetic now, ‘a tumultous day for you—and for myself as well.’ His eyes went to the baby on her lap, who had twisted round to gaze at him. Once again Anatole felt his heart give a strange convulsion, felt the pulse of emotion go through him.

There was so much of Marcos in the tiny infant!

Almost automatically his eyes slipped to the face of the young woman holding his infant cousin. He could see the baby’s father in his little face, but what of the tragic mother who had lost her life in giving him life? His eyes searched the aunt’s features, looking for an echo of similarity. But in the clear grey eyes that were ringed with fatigue, in the cheekbones over which the skin was stretched so tightly, in the rigid contours of her jaw, there was no resemblance that he could see.

As his gaze studied her he saw colour suffuse her cheeks and immediately dropped his gaze. He was making her self-conscious, and he did not want to add to her discomfort. Yet as he dropped his gaze he was aware of how the colour in her cheeks gave her a glow, making her less pallid—less plain. More appealing.

She could be something...

The idle thought flicked across his mind and he dismissed it. He was not here to assess whether the aunt of the baby he’d been so desperately seeking possessed those feminine attributes which drew his male eye.

‘Forgive me,’ he said, his voice contrite. ‘I can see my cousin so clearly in his son—I was looking to see what he has inherited from his mother’s side.’

He had thought his words might reassure her that he had not been gazing at her with the intention of embarrassing her, but her reaction to his words seemed to have the opposite effect. He saw the colour drain from her face—saw, yet again, that emotion flash briefly in her eyes.

Fear.

He frowned. There was a reason for that reaction—but what was it? He set it aside. For now it was not important. What was important was that he took his leave of her with the lines of communication finally open between them, so that from now on they could discuss what must be discussed—how they were to proceed. How he was to achieve his goal without taking from her the baby nephew she clearly loved so devotedly.

He wanted his last words to her now to be reassuring.

‘I will leave you for now,’ he said. ‘I will visit you again tomorrow—what time would be good for you?’

She swallowed. She had to make some answer. ‘I have lectures in the morning, but that’s all,’ she said hesitantly.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Then I will come here in the afternoon. We can talk more then. Make more plans.’ He paused, looking into her pinched face. ‘Plans that we will both agree to. Because I know now that you will not give up Georgy—you love him too much. And you must surely know that since he cannot be taken from you without your consent, for you are his mother’s sister and so the best person to adopt him, that you have nothing to fear from me. Whatever arrangements we make for Georgy’s future it will be with your consent and your agreement. You have nothing to fear—nothing at all.’

Surely, he thought, that must give her the reassurance that would finally get her to make long-term plans for the infant’s upbringing?

But her expression was still withdrawn. Anatole felt determination steal through him. Whatever it took— whatever!—he would ensure that his Georgy was reunited with his father’s family.

Whatever it took.

He took a breath, looking down at the baby and at the aunt who held him.

‘I will see myself out,’ he told her. ‘Do not disturb yourself.’

Then he was gone.

In the silence that followed his departure the only sound was Georgy contentedly chewing on his plastic keys. Lyn’s arms tightened unconsciously around him. She felt weak and shaky and devastated. As if a tsunami had swept over her, drowning her. Her expression was stark.

An overwhelming impulse was coursing through her, imperative in its compulsive force.

The impulse to run. Run far and fast and right away! Run until she had hidden herself from the danger that threatened her—threatened her beloved Georgy! The danger that was in the very person of the tall, dark figure of Anatole Telonidis.

Fear knifed through her.

* * *

Anatole threw himself into the back of his car and instructed his driver to head back to the hotel. As the car moved off he got out his mobile. It was time—most definitely time—to phone Timon and tell him what he had discovered.

Who he had discovered.

He had kept everything from Timon until now, loath to raise hopes he could not fulfil. But now—with or without DNA testing—every bone in his body was telling him that he had found Marcos’s son.

The son that changed everything.

As his call was put through to his grandfather, and Timon’s strained, stricken voice greeted him, Anatole began to speak.

The effect was everything he’d prayed for! Within minutes Timon had become a changed man—a man who had suddenly, miraculously, been given a reason to live. A man who now had only one overriding goal in his life.

‘Bring him to me! Bring me Marcos’s boy! Do anything and everything you need to get him here!’

Hope had surged in his grandfather’s voice. Hope and absolute determination.

‘I will,’ Anatole replied. ‘I will do everything I have to do.’

But as he finished the call his expression changed. Just what ‘everything’ would need to be he did not fully know. He knew only that, whatever it was, it would all depend on getting Lyn Brandon to agree to it.

As the boy’s closest living relative—sister of his mother—his current caregiver and foster mother, with the strongest claim to become Georgy’s adoptive mother, it was she who held all the aces.

What would it take to persuade her to let Marcos’s son be raised in Greece?

Whatever it was—he had to discover it.

As his mind started to work relentlessly through all the implications and arguments and possibilities a notion started to take shape within his head.

A notion so radical, so drastic, so...outrageous that it stopped him in his tracks.

CHAPTER FOUR

‘ARE YOU SURE he is not cold?’ Anatole frowned as he looked down at the infant sitting up in his buggy.

Lyn shook her head. ‘No, honestly, he isn’t. He’s got lots of layers over him.’

She glanced at the tall figure sitting beside her on the park bench they had walked to. It was a drier day than previously, but spring was still stubbornly far off and she could see why someone used to warmer climes would think it very cold. But it was Anatole Telonidis who had suggested that they take the baby outdoors. Probably, Lyn thought tightly, because a man like him was not used to being in a place as shabby as her flat. Not that this scrappy urban park was a great deal better, but it had a little children’s play area where Georgy liked to watch other children playing—as he was doing now.

Even though they had the bench to themselves, it seemed too small to Lyn. She was as punishingly conscious today of Anatole Telonidis’s physicality as she had been the day before.

How can he be so devastatingly good-looking?

It was a rhetorical question, and one that every covert glance at him confirmed was unnecessary. It took an effort of will to remind herself brusquely that it was completely irrelevant that she was so punishingly conscious of just how amazing-looking he was.

All that matters is that he wants Georgy to go to Greece...

That was all she had to hold in her mind. Not how strange it felt to be sitting beside him on a chilly park bench, with Georgy’s buggy pulled up beside them. A flicker went through her. Others would see a man and a woman in a children’s park with a baby in a buggy.

As if they were a family.

A strange little ripple went through her—a little husk of yearning. She was being the best mother she could to Georgy, her beloved sister’s son, but however much she tried to substitute for Lindy there was no one to do the same for Georgy’s father.

She pushed the thought away. He had her, and that was what was important. Essential. Vital. Whatever Anatole wanted to say to her this afternoon, nothing on earth would change that!

‘Have you given any more thought to what we spoke of yesterday?’ he opened. ‘Bringing Georgy out to Greece to meet his grandfather?’ He paused minutely. ‘I spoke to Timon yesterday.’ Anatole’s voice changed in a moment, and Lyn could hear the emotion in it. ‘I cannot tell you how overjoyed he is to learn of Georgy’s existence!’

Lyn’s hands twisted in her lap. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I just don’t know.’ Her eyes went to the man sitting beside her, looking at him with a troubled expression. ‘You talk about it being just a visit. But that isn’t what you said initially! You said you wanted Georgy to be brought up in Greece! What if you simply don’t let Georgy come back here with me? What if you try and keep him in Greece?’

He could hear, once again, the fear spiking in her voice. Resolve formed in him. ‘I need you to trust me,’ he said.

‘How can I?’ she cried wildly.

Anatole looked at her. Was it going to be like this the whole time? With her doubting everything, distrusting him, fearing him—fighting him? Because he didn’t have time for it—and nor did Timon. Timon had undertaken to talk to his oncologist, to find out whether he was too weak to try the strong drugs that he would have to take if he wanted to keep death at bay, even for a little while. For long enough to see his great-grandson and make him his heir, as Anatole so fervently wanted him to do.

He took a deep, scissoring breath that went right down into his lungs. He had promised he would do whatever it took to get Marcos’s son out to Greece, to ensure his future was there. But with the baby’s aunt resisting him every step of the way, so it seemed, was it not time to take the radical, drastic action that would dispose of all her arguments? All her objections?

It would surely disarm her totally. Yet he was balking at it, he knew. The idea that had sparked in his mind the afternoon before was still alight—but it was so drastic that he still could hardly credit that it had occurred to him at all!

But what else would it take to get her to stop fighting him all the time on what had to happen?

‘I understand your fears,’ he said now, keeping his voice as reassuring as he could. ‘But they are not necessary. I told you—there must be a way to resolve this impasse that does not entail conflict.’

Her eyes were wide and troubled. ‘I don’t see how!’ she exclaimed. ‘You want Georgy to be brought up in Greece, with his father’s family. I want to keep him here with me. How can those two possibly be resolved?’

Anatole chose his words with care. ‘What if you came with Georgy?’ he asked.

She stared at him blankly. ‘Brought him out to visit your grandfather?’

He gave a quick shake of his head. ‘Not just to visit—to live.’

‘To live in Greece?’ she echoed, as if she had not heard properly. ‘Georgy and me?’

‘Why not?’ Anatole’s eyes were studying her reaction.

‘But I’m British!’ she replied blankly, because right now it was the only thing that occurred to her.

The corner of his mouth curved, and irrelevantly Lyn thought how it lightened his expression—and sent a pulse of blood around her veins. Then he was replying.

‘Many British people live very happily in Greece,’ he said dryly. ‘They find the climate a great deal warmer!’ he said pointedly, glancing around at the bleak, wintry landscape.

‘But I haven’t got any accountancy qualifications yet, and even when I do I probably wouldn’t be able to practise out there. And besides, I don’t speak any Greek! How could I make a living?’

Anatole’s eyebrows rose. Had she really just asked that question?

‘It goes without saying,’ he said, and his voice was even drier, ‘that there would be no necessity for you to do so.’

His reply was a flash of her grey eyes that gave animation to her thin face.

‘I’m not living on charity!’ she objected.

Anatole shook his head. ‘It would not be a question of charity!’ he retorted. His tone of voice changed. ‘Timon would insist that you have an allowance.’

Her mouth pressed together. ‘So I’d be Georgy’s paid nursemaid? Is that what you’re saying?’

‘No!’ She was taking this entirely the wrong way, he could see. He tried to recover. ‘How could you be a nursemaid when you are going to be Georgy’s adoptive mother?’

He had thought his words would be reassuring to her, yet for a second there was again that flash of fearful emotion he had seen before in her eyes. His gaze narrowed infinitesimally. ‘Tell me,’ he heard himself saying, ‘is there some problem with your application to adopt Georgy?’

It was a shot fired with a calculated aim to expose any weaknesses in her claim. Weaknesses, he knew with grim resolve, he would have to exploit if she reverted to being as obdurate and uncooperative as she had been yesterday. But surely that would not be so—not now that they had finally reached the stage where they could at least discuss Georgy’s future without her flying into an emotional storm!

He watched her face, saw her expression close. His shot had hit home, he could see.

‘What is it?’ he asked bluntly.

Lyn’s hands twisted in her lap. Unease and fear writhed in her. But she had to reply—that much was obvious.

‘From the moment Lindy died,’ she said, her voice low and strained, ‘the authorities wanted Georgy taken into care and put up for adoption. Adoption not by me but by a childless couple. There are so many desperate for a baby!’

A cold spear went through Anatole. It was just as he had feared the moment Lyn Brandon had said that she was not Georgy’s birth mother!

‘Even now,’ she said tightly, ‘if I dropped my application they would hand him over straight away to a married couple!’

‘But you are his maternal aunt. That surely gives you a priority claim to him!’

The fear darted in her eyes again. ‘They say I’m too young, that I’m a student still, that I’d be a single mother—’ Her voice broke.

For a moment Anatole was silent.

‘But I’m not giving in!’ Lyn’s voice was vehement now. ‘I’ll never give in—no matter what they say or how much they drag their heels! I’ll never give up Georgy! Never!’

Her hands spasmed in her lap, anguish knifing inside her. Then suddenly her hands were being covered by a large, warm, strong hand, stilling their convulsion.

‘There is a way.’ Anatole heard himself speaking but did not quite believe he was doing so. ‘There is a way that could solve the entire dilemma.’

Lyn’s eyes flew to his. He felt their impact—read the fear in them.

‘You say that two of the arguments being used against your adopting Georgy are that you are still a student— unwaged and unmarried,’ he said. Part of his brain was still wondering whether he would truly say what he was about to hear himself saying. ‘What if neither of those things were true any more? What if you became a stay-at-home mother who could devote her days to Georgy—who had a husband to provide for you both and be the father figure that Georgy needs?’

She was looking blank. Totally blank.

‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

Anatole’s hand pressed hers. ‘What if,’ he said, ‘that husband—that father figure—were me?’

For a timeless moment she simply stared at him with huge, blank eyes. Then, with a jolt, she moved away, pulling her hands free from his. They felt cold without his covering clasp, but that didn’t matter. All that mattered was that she say what was searing through her head.

‘That’s insane!’

Anatole gave a quick shake of his head. He had expected that reaction. It was, after all, exactly the reaction he’d had himself when the notion had first inserted itself into his brain yesterday, as he sought for ways to sort out the infernally complicated situation he was in.

‘Not insane—logical.’ He held up a hand. ‘Listen to me—hear me out.’ He took a breath, his eyes going absently to Georgy, who was still, he was glad to see, totally absorbed with chewing on his beloved set of keys while avidly watching the toddlers tottering about on the park’s play equipment.

‘This is what I propose,’ he said, turning his gaze back to Lyn.

She had gone white as a sheet, with the same stark expression in her face he had seen yesterday. It did not flatter her, he found himself thinking. But he brushed that aside. Her looks were not important right now. What was important was getting her to see the world his way—as fast as he possibly could.

‘If we were to marry, it would solve all our problems in one stroke. For the authorities here it would dispose of their objection to you being a single mother, as yet unable to support a child financially. Moreover, in addition to your being Georgy’s maternal aunt, the fact that you would be marrying someone who’s the closest thing to Georgy’s uncle as can be has to be compelling! And finally—’ his voice was dry now ‘—there would be absolutely no question about my ability to support a family financially!’

She was still staring at him as if he were mad. ‘But you’re a complete stranger! I only met you yesterday!’

And you are about as far removed from anyone I am likely to marry as it is possible to be!

That was the consciousness that was burning in her most fiercely, making her feel hot and cold at the same time, overriding all that he had been saying about the logic behind his insane idea!

Anatole gave a shrug. ‘All married couples were strangers once,’ he pointed out. There was still a sense of disbelief within him. Was he really saying this to the girl sitting beside him? Seriously talking about marrying her?

Yet the logic was irrefutable! It was the most effective way of achieving what had to be achieved—getting Marcos’s son out to Greece, to be raised as Timon’s heir.

‘Think about it,’ he urged. ‘I’ll give you time—obviously! —but I beg you to give it serious consideration.’

As he looked at her he thought, privately, that right now she couldn’t give serious consideration to anything short of a tornado heading for her—she was still staring at him totally blankly.

‘I can’t possibly marry you! It’s...it’s just the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard!’ Her voice was high-pitched with shock.

‘It isn’t absurd—’ he began.

‘Yes, it is! It’s completely absurd—and...and...’

She couldn’t go on, was bereft of speech, and he took ruthless advantage of her floundering.

‘The purpose of our marriage would be solely to ensure Georgy’s future,’ he said. ‘Once that has been achieved, then...’ he took a breath, never taking his eyes from her ‘...then there will be no need for it to exist.’

She blinked. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘This is what I envisage,’ Anatole explained. ‘Marriage between us will surely secure Georgy’s adoption—we are the closest living relatives he has—but once he has been adopted then there will be no compelling reason why we have to stay married. We can get divorced.’ His expression changed. ‘Provided Georgy continues to be raised in Greece.’

‘Why is that so important?’ she asked.

‘Timon will insist,’ he answered. He paused a moment. ‘Timon will make Georgy his heir. He will inherit the Petranakos Corporation when Timon dies—just as Marcos would have done, had he lived.’

Lyn frowned. ‘But you are his grandson too,’ she said. ‘Why won’t you inherit?’

Anatole gave a quick negating shake of his head. ‘I am Timon’s daughter’s son—I am not a Petranakos. I have my own inheritance from my late father and I do not,’ he emphasised, ‘seek Georgy’s. What I do seek—’ he took a scissoring breath ‘—are the powers required to run Petranakos until Georgy’s majority.’ His eyes rested on Lyn. ‘I do not need to tell you how very grave the economic situation is in Greece at the moment. Unemployment is rife and causing considerable distress. The situation at Petranakos is...difficult. And it has become more so since Timon’s illness. Worse, when Marcos was killed Timon decided to make a distant Petranakos cousin his heir—a man who, quite frankly, couldn’t run a bath, let alone a multi-million-euro business in a highly precarious economy! If he inherits,’ Anatole said flatly, ‘he’ll run it in to the ground and thousands will lose their jobs! I will not stand by and watch that happen!’

He took another breath and kept his eyes on Lyn, willing her to understand what was driving him. ‘I know exactly what I need to do to get it on track again and safeguard all the jobs it provides. But for that to happen Timon will insist that Georgy grows up in Greece.’

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