The billionaire is back...

And he will legitimize his secret heir!

Finding himself at Anna Moore’s door after tracking down the mysterious beauty is the least shocking part of Dimitri Kyrakiou’s day. Because discovering the consequence of their one spectacular night has floored him! To secure his child, ruthless Dimitri must make Anna his wife. But the only thing harder than convincing Anna to be his convenient bride is trying to ignore their red-hot attraction...

Lose yourself in this intense secret baby story!

PIPPA ROSCOE lives in Norfolk near her family and makes daily promises to herself that this is the day she’ll leave the computer to take a long walk in the countryside. She can’t remember a time when she wasn’t dreaming about handsome heroes and innocent heroines. Totally her mother’s fault, of course—she gave Pippa her first romance to read at the age of seven! She is inconceivably happy that she gets to share those daydreams with you. Follow her on Twitter, @PippaRoscoe.

Also by Pippa Roscoe

Conquering His Virgin Queen

The Winners Circle miniseries

A Ring to Take His Revenge

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

Claimed for the Greek’s Child

Pippa Roscoe

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-08752-0

CLAIMED FOR THE GREEK’S CHILD

© 2019 Pippa Roscoe

Published in Great Britain 2019

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Laurie,

Who put up with me in New York for six weeks while I disappeared off to my writing table on the roof of our apartment at stupid o’clock in the morning, with my rocket fuel coffee, a fan instead of air-conditioning and a dental crisis!

Although Pin-Up Girl cocktails, an American Football game, incredible food, a trip to Boston and Christmas decorations at Macy’s hopefully made up for it!

New York, and this book, wouldn’t have been the same without you. Xx

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

PROLOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

EPILOGUE

Extract

About the Publisher

PROLOGUE
Three years ago

‘MR KYRIAKOU? WE’LL be landing in about twenty minutes.’

Dimitri gave a curt nod to the stewardess on board the Kyriakou Bank’s private jet. He wasn’t capable of more than that. His jaw was clenched so tightly it would have taken a crowbar to pry it open. The only thing that had successfully passed his lips since his boarding the plane had been a whisky. Only one. That was all he would allow himself.

He glanced out of the window and, although he should have been seeing the soft white clouds that hovered above the English Channel, instead he saw the slope of a beautiful woman’s shoulder. Naked, exposed...vulnerable. Beneath the palm of his hand he could feel the silky texture of her skin. His fingers twitched at the memory.

He ran a hand across his face, rubbing at the exhaustion of the last year, allowing the stubble of his jaw to scratch at the itch that made him want to turn the plane around. To go back to the bed where the beautiful woman lay—probably still asleep. He’d snuck out like a thief. An analogy that caught in the back of his throat, and for an awful moment he thought he might actually choke.

He couldn’t fathom what he’d been thinking. But that was the problem. He hadn’t been. Despite the knowledge that this day had been coming, the knowledge of exactly what would greet him the moment the plane touched down in the States, Dimitri had needed one night. Just one night...

Yesterday, he’d left Antonio Arcuri and Danyl Nejem Al Arain—his best friends and fellow members of the Winners’ Circle Racing Syndicate—behind at the Dublin Race Series and allowed instinct to take over. As he’d slid into the driver’s seat of the powerful black supercar the thrust of the engine met the need for freedom coursing through his veins. He’d followed the road out of the small city, past the huge doors of the Guinness brewery, through dark streets, along roads that slowly found their way into rolling green countryside. It was only then that he’d felt able to breathe. Only then that he’d been able to block out what was to come.

Unconsciously he’d manoeuvred the sleek, dark car down impossibly windy roads, allowing only the thrill of the powerful machine beneath him to fill his senses. Something was driving him—he wasn’t willing to give it a name.

Dimitri had slowed only when the car’s petrol light came on. He’d found himself in a small village and, if it had had a name, he hadn’t noticed. An old pub with a black sign and peeling paint defiantly stared down an even older church at the opposite end of the one street that divided the village. He followed the road to the end, where, instead of finding a petrol station, he came to a large gravel drive in front of a small bed and breakfast.

To Dimitri the Irish were known for two things: hospitality and whisky. And he was in great need of both. As he turned off the ignition he was hit with a wave of exhaustion so intense he wasn’t entirely sure that he could make it out of the car. He sat back and pressed his head angrily into the back of the seat. He’d run and he hated himself for it. All this time, this planning... Frustration at the shame he was about to bring to Antonio and Danyl... It hurt Dimitri in a way he hadn’t imagined, hadn’t thought possible after all he’d endured in his thirty-three years.

He allowed that anger to propel him from the car and over to the door of the bed and breakfast, the sound of his fist pounding on the door jarring even to his own ears. He glanced at his watch for the first time in what felt like hours and was surprised to find that it was so late. Perhaps the proprietor was asleep. He looked back to the car, wondering how much further it would get, wondering whether he should turn back, when the door opened.

The moment he caught her large green eyes looking up at him he knew he was doomed.

She let him in, quietly, one finger to her lips and the other hand making a ‘gently, gently’ motion. She beckoned him through to a small seating area decorated with just about everything that he’d expected a small Irish bed and breakfast to have, but his gaze narrowed on the small wooden, clearly well-stocked bar.

‘You’re after a room?’ she almost whispered.

Was he?

‘Just for the night.’

Her eyes assessed him, but not in the sexual way he was used to from beautiful women. It was as if she were doing mathematics—on his expensive clothes, a watch that was probably worth half a yearly intake for this place, the car outside. He wasn’t offended.

Dimitri took out his wallet and removed all the euros he had in it. What did it matter to him? He couldn’t take them where he was going. He placed the thick bundle of notes on the bar.

‘No, sir. That’s not...that’s not necessary. It’ll be sixty euros for the night, an extra five if you’d like breakfast.’

The Irish lilt to her voice was a little surprising to him. Her skin wasn’t the light, freckled complexion that had populated the racecourse back in Dublin—it was closer to his own Greek colouring, only without the benefit of the sun she seemed pale. For a moment he allowed himself to imagine this woman on a Greek island, sun-kissed and glorious, the sun’s rays deepening the natural promise of her skin tone. Long, dark tendrils of hair had been swept up into a messy ponytail that should have made her look young, rather than chaotically beautiful. Loose tendrils from a grown-out fringe played along her jawline, accentuating her cheekbones and contrasting with the lighter golden tones in hauntingly emerald-coloured eyes.

Forcing his attention away from her, he looked at the bottles behind the bar. Scanning them, he was slightly disappointed. If he’d had a choice, none of them would have been it. But beggars couldn’t be choosers.

‘No breakfast. But I’ll take a bottle of your best whisky.’

Again, her eyes were quick and assessing. Not calculating. That was it. That was what was different about her. There wasn’t anything selfish in her gaze, nothing judgemental. She was simply trying to figure him out. As if making up her mind, she slipped behind the small bar, not even looking at the obscene amount of money she was yet to touch, and she pulled down two cut crystal glasses housed in a hidden shelf above the counter. The way she resolutely ignored the money made him wonder if he’d offended her and a shadow of guilt stirred within him.

She placed the two glasses on the wooden bar top, waiting for his reaction, to see if he would object to her joining him. It was his turn to assess. She’d barely said two words to him. She looked to be in her early twenties. The white shirt she wore as a uniform was ill-fitting, as if made for someone bigger than her. The worn name tag sewn onto the shirt pocket said ‘Mary Moore’. She didn’t look much like a Mary. But he skimmed over these small details in preference of one: there was something behind her eyes. Something that called to him.

He nodded, allowing her to proceed. Instead of reaching for one of the bottles behind her, she bent beneath the bar and pulled out one that was more expensive. The good stuff saved for special occasions. Well, he supposed this was a special occasion.

She poured the amber liquid into each glass and, when finished, pushed one glass towards him and picked up the other.

‘Sláinte,’ she had said.

‘Yamas,’ he’d replied.

And they both drank deeply.

The plane banked to the right as it prepared to come in to land. Whether it was the drink from the night before, or the one from two hours ago, he could still taste whisky on his tongue, he could still taste her. As the plane descended towards the runway, images flashed through his mind. The first taste of her lips, the feel of her heart beating beneath the palm of his hand, her perfect breasts, her thigh as he moved it apart from the other. The feel of her wrapped around him and her thrilled cry as he sank deeply into her. The ecstasy he found as they climaxed together, swathed in each other. The memory of the scream he’d silenced with an impassioned kiss was drowned out by the roar of the backward thrust of the small jet engine as they came in to land at JFK.

Even the air stewardess seemed reluctant to open the cabin door. Her smile was sad as he disembarked, as if she too knew what was about to happen. But she couldn’t. Only he, and perhaps two others in the whole world, did—the lead investigator, and whoever it was who had really perpetrated the crime.

At the bottom of the small metal steps stood about twenty men in blue windbreakers with yellow initials marking them to be FBI agents. Gun belts with handcuffs and batons carefully held in place sat heavily around each man’s waist.

He stepped down towards the tarmac. Looking straight into the eyes of the lead agent, Dimitri Kyriakou, international billionaire, held out his hands before him—as he’d seen done in movies, as he’d known he would have to do long before this flight, long before last night—and as the steel handcuffs were clasped around his wrists he forced his head to remain high.

CHAPTER ONE
Present day

Dear Dimitri,

Today you found me.

DIMITRI GUIDED THE car down roads he’d travelled only once before. Headlights pierced the night, picking out slanting sheets of rain and wet shrubs lining the road. His mind’s eye, however, ran through images of his now very much ex-assistant’s horrified face as words like ‘Sorry’, ‘I didn’t know’ and ‘It was for the best...for the Kyriakou Bank’ stuttered from the man’s lips.

Fury pounded through Dimitri’s veins. How had this happened? How?

In the nineteen months since his release from that godforsaken American prison, he’d sweated blood and tears to try and find the culprit responsible for setting him up to take the fall for one of the most notorious banking frauds of the last decade. Not only that, but also to bring his—his father’s—family-owned bank back to its former glory.

And finally, one month ago, after the arrest of his half-brother, Manos, he’d thought all his troubles had ended. He’d thought he could put everything behind him and focus on the future. He thought he’d be finally able to breathe.

Until he’d received notification of unusual activity on a small personal account he’d not looked at in years. He’d set up the alerts the moment he’d resumed his position on the board of governors and had hoped that he’d never receive one.

But two days ago he had.

And he’d been horrified to discover that, unbeknownst to him, his assistant had arranged payment to a woman who had claimed Dimitri had a daughter. It had happened before, false accusations seeking to capitalise on his sudden unwelcome and erroneous notoriety after his arrest, demands for impossible amounts of money from scam artists. But this time...

Was it some perverse twist of fate that this discovery had coincided with the second leg of the Hanley Cup? That he should be drawn back to Dublin not only for the Winners’ Circle, but also because his assistant had transferred the ridiculous sum of fifty thousand euros to a money-grabbing gold-digger who had—

The sound of his phone ringing cut through his thoughts like a knife.

‘Kyriakou,’ he said into the speaker set in the car.

‘Sir, I have the information you...for...’

‘Yes?’

‘It’s...rush... So I cannot guarantee...disclosure.’

‘You’re breaking up, Michael. The signal out here is terrible,’ Dimitri growled, his frustration with this whole mess increasing. ‘Can you hear me?’

‘Yes, sir... Just about.’

‘Look, you can email me the file and I’ll look at it later, but for now, just top-line thoughts will do.’

‘Mary Moore...years old... One daughter—Anna, no father on the...certificate. Arrests for drunk and disorderly...disturbing the peace.’

Dimitri let out a curse. He couldn’t believe it. The woman who had come apart in his arms was a drunk? Had a criminal record? Dammit.

‘Okay. I’ve heard enough. Get me your invoice and I’ll ensure the payment is—’

‘Wait, sir, there’s...you need...’

‘The signal’s breaking up now. I’ll read the full file when I can access emails.’

With that, Dimitri ended the call, not taking his eyes from the road once. If he thought he’d been angry before, it was nothing compared to the fury now burning through his veins. He glanced at the man sitting silently in the passenger seat of the car—the only man outside of the Winners’ Circle he trusted. David Owen had been his lawyer for over eighteen years.

‘Legally, at this moment, there’s actually very little you can do,’ David said without making eye contact. ‘All you have is the request for fifty thousand euros and a grainy black and white photo of a little girl.’

And it had been enough. Enough for Dimitri to recognise that the little girl was his. He’d looked exactly the same at her age—thick, dark, curly hair, and something indescribably haunted about her large brown eyes. Dimitri acknowledged that that might have been fanciful on his part. But surely, with an alcoholic criminal as a mother, that was a given.

‘You have no actual proof that the child is yours.’

‘I don’t need it. I know it. Know that she is my blood. The timing fits, and, Theos, David, you read the email, you saw that picture too.’

David nodded his head reluctantly. ‘We could engage Social Services, but that would cause publicity and scandal.’

‘No. I will not have any more scandal attached to the Kyriakou name. Besides, it would take too long. The reason you’re here is to help me get what I want without any of that. I can’t afford for the press to find out about this yet. The mother is clearly only in it for the money. A little legal jargon will help grease the wheels, so to speak.’

The satnav on his phone told him to take the next left. How on earth Dimitri had found his way to that little bed and breakfast three years before, he had no idea.

‘Are you sure you want to do this? As I said, legally your position is not the strongest.’

‘She lost her right to any legal standing when she tried to blackmail me,’ Dimitri bit out.

How could he have been so deceived? Again? How could he have let that happen?

Throughout his wrongful imprisonment, fourteen months incarcerated and locked behind bars like an animal, he’d held up the memory of that one night, of her, as a shining beacon in the darkness. A moment completely for him, known only to them. He’d lived off the sounds of her pleasure, the cries of ecstasy and that first, single moment—the moment when he’d been shocked, and ever so secretly pleased, to find that she had been a virgin—he’d drawn it deep within him, hugged it to him and allowed it to get him through the worst of the time he’d spent in prison.

Had he been deceived by her innocence? Had she really been a virgin? But even he had to acknowledge that thought as inherently wrong. It may have been the only true thing about Mary Moore. But the rest? She’d lied. She’d kept a secret from him. And she’d live to regret it for the rest of her life. Because nothing would prevent him from claiming his child.

* * *

Anna gasped as the rain pelted down even harder. It snuck beneath the neck of the waterproof jacket she’d slung around her shoulders the moment she got the phone call. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring an umbrella though. She dug her hand into the pocket and pulled out the only protection she had with her against the elements. And the irony of that was enough to poke and prod at the miserable situation she was in.

She pulled the large, thin envelope from her pocket and held it over her head as the paper ate up the rain in seconds, and water dripped down her jacket sleeve and arm, to eagerly soak the cotton of her T-shirt.

It didn’t matter if the letter got wet. She knew it word for word by now.

We regret to inform you...owing to late payments...as per the mortgage terms...right to repossess...

She was about to lose the small bed and breakfast she’d inherited from her grandmother, the place where both she and her mother had been born and had grown up. It might never have been the future that she had imagined for herself, but it was the only one she could cling to in order to support her child. How had her mother managed to keep this from her? Mary Moore was barely functioning as it was. But—Anna supposed—that was the beauty of being an alcoholic. Even in her worst state, her mother managed to hide, conceal, lie.

Through the pounding of the rain, Anna could hear the raucous sounds of music and shouts coming from the only building with signs of life on the road. Light bled out from the frosted windows, barely illuminating the wet benches in the courtyard. Anna braced herself for what was guaranteed to be a pretty bloody sight.

She pushed open the door to the pub, and the men at the bar stopped talking and turned to stare. They always stared. The colour of her skin—the only thing her Vietnamese father had left her with after abandoning them before her birth—had always marked her as an outsider, as a reminder of her mother’s shame. She shook out the letter, put the sodden paper back into her pocket and ran a hand through her hair to release the clusters of raindrops still clinging to the fine strands. The smell of warm beer and stale cigarettes defiantly smoked even after the ban hung heavy on the air.

She locked eyes with the owner, who stared back almost insolently.

‘Why did you serve her?’ Anna demanded.

The owner shrugged. ‘She had the money.’ As if in consolation, Eamon nodded in the direction of the snug.

She could hear sniggers coming from the men who had turned their backs to her and anger pooled low in her stomach. It was a hot, fiery thing that moved like a snake and bit like one too.

‘What, you’ve never seen a drunk woman before?’ she demanded of the room.

‘She’s not a woman, she’s a—’

‘Say that word and I’ll—’

‘That’s enough,’ Eamon interrupted, though whether for Anna’s sake or for his peace and quiet, she couldn’t tell.

She stepped through to the snug. Her mother was sitting alone in the empty room, surrounded by round wooden tables. She looked impossibly small, and in front of her, next to a newspaper, was a short glass filled with clear liquid—probably vodka. Anna hoped for vodka; gin always made it harder. She took a seat next to her and pushed down her mounting frustration. Anger never helped this situation.

Mary looked worse than the last time she’d seen her. From the day Amalia was born, Anna knew she couldn’t allow Mary to continue to live with them. She wouldn’t take the risk that her drunken outbursts could harm her daughter. She’d arranged for her mother to live with one of the only family friends Mary Moore had left. And their exchanges ever since had been loaded and painful.

‘What happened, Ma? Where did the money come from?’ Anna hated the sadness in her voice.

‘I thought I’d be able to pay off some of the mortgage... I thought...just one drink... I thought...’

‘Thought what, Ma?’ Anna couldn’t imagine what her mother was talking about, but she was used to the circulatory nature of conversations when she was in this state. The small flame of hope she’d nursed in the last few weeks as her mother had stayed sober and even talked of rehab spluttered out and died on a gasp.

‘Even when he got out of prison, I thought he was guilty...but when they arrested his brother...’

Oh, God. She was talking about Dimitri.

Her mother nudged at the newspaper. Beside the main article was coverage of the forthcoming Dublin Horse Race, with a black and white picture of three men celebrating a win in Buenos Aires. Her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn straight to one man: Dimitri Kyriakou.

‘And he has all that money...so...’ Mary Moore’s words were beginning to slur a little around the edges. ‘So I did what you never had the courage to do.’

‘What did you do, Ma?’

‘A father should provide for his child.’

A million thoughts shouted in her mind. She, more than anyone, knew the truth of her mother’s statement. But she had tried to garner his support...she had tried to tell him once about his daughter: nineteen months ago, on the day she, along with the rest of the world, discovered his innocence. She’d called his office and had been met with a response that proved to her that the man she’d spent one reckless night with, the man to whom she had given so much of herself, her true self, had been a figment of her fevered imagination.

‘Ma?’

‘At least you picked one with money...he was willing to pay fifty thousand euros in exchange for our silence.’

Sickness rose in Anna’s stomach. Pure, unadulterated nausea.

‘Jesus, Ma—’

The slap came out of nowhere.

Hard, more than stinging. Anna’s head rang and the buzzing in her ears momentarily drowned out the shock.

‘Do not take His name in vain, Anna Moore.’

In that one strike, years and years of loneliness, anger and frustration rose within Anna. She locked eyes with her mother and watched the righteous indignation turn to guilt and misery.

‘Oh, Anna, I’m so—’

‘Stop.’

‘Anna—’

‘No.’ Anna put her hand up, knowing what her ma would say, knowing the cycle of begging, pleading and justification that would follow. But she couldn’t let it happen this time.

Had Dimitri really paid a sum of money to reject their daughter? A hurt so deep it felt endless opened up in her heart. The ache was much stronger than the throbbing in her cheek.

Anna rubbed her chest with the palm of her hand, trying to soothe the pain that she knew she would feel for days, possibly even years. This was what she’d wanted to avoid for her daughter—the sting of rejection, the feeling of being unwanted...unloved. She wouldn’t let her daughter suffer that pain. She just wouldn’t.

Anna looked at her mother, seeming even smaller now that she was hunched in on herself. The sounds of familiar tears coming from her shaking body.

Eamon poked his head around the entrance to the snug. There was pity in his eyes, and she hated him for it. She hated this whole damn village.

‘I’ll make sure she’s okay for the night.’

‘Do that,’ Anna said as she walked out of the pub with her head held high. She wouldn’t let them see her cry. She never had.

Anna didn’t notice that the rain had stopped as she made her way back to the small family business she had barely managed to hold on to through the years. All she could think of was her little daughter, Amalia. Her gorgeous dark brown eyes, and thick curly hair. Sounds of her laughter, her tears and the first cries she’d made on this earth echoed in her mind. And the miraculous moment that, after being placed in her arms for the first time, Amalia opened her eyes and Anna had felt...love. Pure, unconditional, heart-stopping love. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her daughter.

The day she’d discovered that she was pregnant with Dimitri’s child was the day that his sentence had been handed to him by the American judge. She’d almost felt the gavel fall onto the bench, as if it had tolled against her own heart. She’d never wanted to believe him guilty of the accusations levelled at him, the theft of millions of dollars from the American clients of the Kyriakou Bank, but what had she known of him then? Only that he was a man who liked whisky, had driven her to the highest of imaginable pleasures and left her bed the following morning without a word.

Hating to think that her child would bear the stigma of such a parent, she’d determined to keep the identity of Amalia’s father to herself. But when she’d heard of his innocence? And tried to get in touch with him? Only to hear that she was just one of several women making the same ‘claim’? She practically growled at the memory. Her daughter wasn’t a claim. Amalia had been eight months old, and from that day she’d promised to be both mother and father to her child. She’d promised to ensure that Amalia would be happy, secure and know above all that she was loved. She wanted to give her daughter the one thing she had never had growing up after her own father had abandoned his pregnant wife.

As she walked up the path towards the front of the bed and breakfast she could see a small minibus in the driveway. The three customers who had checked in earlier that day were stowing their bags in the back.

Mr Carter and his wife saw her first.

‘This is absolutely unacceptable. I’ll be adding this to my review.’

‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, her interruption momentarily stopping Mr Carter’s tirade.

‘We booked with you in good faith, Ms Moore. I suppose the only good thing is that we’re upgrading to the hotel in town. But really. To be kicked out with no explanation at ten thirty at night... Not good, Ms Moore. Not good.’

Before Anna could do anything further, her customers disappeared onto the bus. She jumped out of the way as it backed out of the drive, leaving only one man standing in front of the door to her home.

Dimitri Kyriakou. Looking just as furious as she felt.

* * *

Dimitri had been pacing the small bar where he’d first met Mary Moore. Somewhere in the back of the building a member of Mary’s staff was holding his daughter in her arms and looking at him as if he were the devil.

From inside, he heard the irate conversation from one of the customers. She’d returned.

In just a few strides Dimitri exited the bar, passed along the short hallway and out through the front door, just in time to see the bus departing.

He’d let anger drive him out here, but he was stopped in his tracks the moment he caught sight of the woman who had nearly, nearly, succeeded in separating him from his child.

Tendrils of long, dark hair whipped around her face, her green eyes bright with something he could recognise. Anger was far too insipid a word for the storm that was brewing between them. She looked...incredible. And he hated her for it. She was better than any of his imprisoned dreams could have conjured. But wasn’t that how the devil worked? Looking like the ultimate temptation whilst cutting out a soul?

‘What are you doing here? And what have you done to my guests?’ she demanded.

The hostility in her tone was nothing he’d ever imagined hearing from her lips. But he was happy to hear it. Happy to have it match his own.

‘We need to talk; they were in the way. I got rid of them.’

Money was an incredible thing. It had been both his saviour and his destroyer, but this time he was going to use it to help him get what he wanted...what he needed.

The woman holding his daughter moved into the hallway behind him, drawing Mary’s attention. He watched as the mother of his child rushed past him, forcing him to back out of her way, and swept their daughter up in her arms.

They made a striking image, Mary’s dark head buried in the crook of their daughter’s neck. He’d so desperately wanted to hold his child the first moment he set eyes on her. But the woman employed by Mary had raged that she wouldn’t let her be held by a stranger. Christe mou, was this how he started as a father? Being denied the right to hold his child? Anger crushed his chest.

‘Thank you, Siobhan. You can go now.’

‘If you’re sure?’ the young girl asked, casting him a doubtful look. After a quick nod of reassurance from the woman holding his child, the girl brushed past him, letting loose a low tut as she did so.

Dimitri locked his gaze with Mary’s. If looks could kill...

* * *

It was all Anna could do to take him in. Dimitri filled the entire doorway, looking like the devil come to collect his dues. Tall, broad and mouthwatering. Anger slashed his cheeks and made a mockery of the taut bones of his incredible features. The long, dark, handmade woollen coat hung almost to his knees, covering a dark blue knitted jumper that, she knew, would stretch across his broad shoulders perfectly. Broad shoulders that she’d once draped with her hands, her fingers, her tongue. Even the sight of him drove away the bone-deep chill that had settled into her skin from the rain. Her body’s betrayal stung as it vibrated, coming to life for the first time in three years, just from his proximity. Desire coated her throat while heat flayed her skin.

He looked as if he’d just stepped from the pages of a glossy magazine. And there she was, soaking wet, an old, hideous luminous-green waterproof jacket covering ill-fitting jeans and a T-shirt that was probably indecently see-through from the rain. But it was his eyes, shards of obsidian and hauntingly familiar, so like the ones she’d seen every single day since her daughter had been placed in her arms. Though they had never been filled with such disdain.

‘You have five minutes.’ His voice was harsh and more guttural than she remembered. Cursing herself silently, she forced her brain into gear.

‘For what?’ Anna asked, thinking that this was an odd way to start the conversation she’d spent years agonising over.

‘To say goodbye.’

‘Goodbye to who?’

‘Our daughter.’

CHAPTER TWO

Dear Dimitri,

I didn’t mean for it to be like this.

INSTINCTIVELY ANNA CLUTCHED Amalia tightly to her chest.

‘I’m not saying goodbye to my daughter!’

‘Don’t play the put-upon mother now.’

Dimitri had taken a step towards her and Anna took a step back.

‘You,’ Dimitri continued, ‘who only two days ago blackmailed me with news of her. The transfer has been made, but I’ve come to collect. Because there’s no way I’m leaving my daughter in the care of an alcoholic, debt-ridden liar and cheat.’

Anna’s head spun. So much so, it took her a moment to realise that he had somehow mistaken her for her mother.

‘Wait—’

‘I’ve waited long enough.’

Anna watched, horrified, as another man appeared in the doorway. A man who had ‘legal’ stamped all over him. It didn’t make a dent in Dimitri’s powerful tirade.

‘Mary Moore of Dublin, Ireland. Mortgaged up to the hilt, with three drunk and disorderlies, one child and no father’s name on the birth certificate. You should have been on the stage,’ Dimitri spat, his anger infusing his words with misplaced righteousness. ‘The woman I met that night three years ago was clearly nothing more than a drunken apparition...with consequences. That consequence—’

‘Don’t you dare call my child a consequence,’ she hissed at him, struggling not to raise her voice and disturb Amalia, who was wriggling in discomfort already.

‘That consequence is why I am here,’ he pressed on. ‘Now that I am aware of her existence, I shall be taking her with me. If it’s money you need, then my lawyer here will draw up the requisite paperwork for you to sign guardianship over to me. Though I wouldn’t normally pay twice for something, I will allow it this time.’

‘Pay twice for something? You’re calling my daughter “something”?’ Anna demanded furiously.

His words provoked her beyond all thought. Blood pounded in her ears; injustice over his awful accusations sang in her veins; fury at his arrogance, anger at his belief that she would do just as he asked lit a flame that bloomed, crackled and burned.

‘I am sure that it would be possible, Mr Kyriakou, almost easy for you, even, to have your lawyer draw up paperwork, to hand over ludicrous amounts of money, money that would be yours, I’m sure, not taken from the clients of the Kyriakou Bank...’ she paused for breath, ignoring how his darkened eyes had narrowed infinitesimally, before continuing ‘...were I Mary Moore.’

His head jerked back as if he had been slapped.

‘Mary Moore is guilty of all the things you have lambasted her for. She is the one who contacted you demanding money for her silence. But I. Am. Not. Mary. Moore. I’m Anna Moore. And if you raise your voice to me in front of our daughter one more time, I’ll throw you out myself!’

In her mind she had been shouting, hurling those words against the invisible armour he seemed to wear about him. But in reality she had been too conscious of her daughter, too much of a mother to do anything that would upset her child. But she had caught Dimitri on the back foot—she could see that from the look of shock, then quick calculation as he assessed the new information. And she was determined to press her advantage.

‘I will call the police if I have to,’ Anna continued. ‘And with your record—even expunged—I think you’ll find that they’ll side with me. At least for tonight.’

The smirk on his cruel lips infuriated her.

‘My lawyer would have me out in an hour.’

‘The same lawyer that told me he’d pay me off, “just like the last one”, when I tried to tell you of our child’s birth?’

Dimitri spun round to look at David in confusion. But David seemed just as confused as he. ‘It wasn’t me,’ his friend said, shaking his head. ‘I don’t know anything about that.’

‘What? When did this happen?’ he demanded, already beginning to feel unsteady on the shifting sands beneath his feet.

‘When you were first freed from prison nineteen months ago, I called your office. You may like to think that I purposefully kept my daughter from you, but I did try to reach out to you,’ Mary—Anna—said from over his shoulder. Reluctantly he turned back round to look her in the eye, needing to see the truth of her words. ‘He referred to himself as Mr Tsoutsakis. It’s not something I’m likely to forget.’

‘Theos, that was my ex-assistant and, I assure you, he will never work again,’ Dimitri swore, still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Anna had tried to reach him for something other than bribery or money.

‘I don’t care who it was. I was told, in rather specific terms, that I would be paid off, just like the other hundred or so women calling to claim they had carried the heir to the Kyriakou Bank. I had—and still have—no intention of taking money from you, or depriving whatever number of illegitimate children you fathered before, or since, your imprisonment of any child support.’

‘There are no other children,’ he ground out. ‘When I...when I was arrested certain...women sought me out, claiming that I had fathered numerous children unrelated to me.’ Their sordid attempts at extortion had snuffed out the last little flame of hope he’d had in human decency. To use a child in such a way was horrific to him. In total four women had jumped on the wrong bandwagon, assuming he’d pay for their silence. But none of them, neither his two ex-girlfriends nor the two strangers who had claimed an acquaintance with him, had realised that he would never, never let a child of his disappear from his life. Dimitri resisted the urge to reach out to Anna. ‘I swear to you. There were no other women, no other children.’

‘And I’m supposed to just believe you?’ Her scorn cut him to the quick. ‘So, this is your lawyer? Tell me, Mr Lawyer, what would the courts say to a man who turns up at ten thirty at night making false accusations of alcoholic behaviour, costing me three bookings and irreconcilable damage to my professional reputation, threatening to take my daughter away from me and trying to blackmail me?’

And, finally, it was then that their daughter started to cry.

‘You’re making her upset,’ Dimitri accused.

‘No, you are,’ she returned.

Feeling the ground beneath him start to slip further, Dimitri pressed on, ignoring his own internal warning bell.

‘It’s neither here nor there. You need to pack. Get your things—we’re leaving,’ he commanded. Even to his own ears he sounded obtuse. But he couldn’t help it. It was this situation...his childhood memories clawing their way up from the past and into the present making him rash, making him desperate.

‘I’m not going anywhere and I really will call the police if you try to force me. You clearly don’t know the first thing about parenting if you’re expecting it to be okay to just upend a child at ten thirty at night.’

‘And whose fault is that?’ he heard himself shout, immediately regretting his loss of control. Nothing about this situation had gone as he’d intended and that there was a grain of truth in her last accusation struck him deeply.

David shifted in the hallway, drawing their attention.

‘My recommendation is to sleep on this a little. Clearly there has been a series of misunderstandings and we each need time to reflect on the new information we all have. Dimitri, we should take the car back to Dublin and return in the morning.’

‘I’m not leaving my daughter,’ Dimitri growled.

‘Ms Moore, is this something that you are happy to accommodate?’

Dimitri almost couldn’t look at her, didn’t want to gauge her reaction. When he’d walked into this, he’d been so sure. Sure of his plan, of his information, of the situation. Yet the moment she’d revealed that she wasn’t Mary, but Anna, he knew she wasn’t lying. He’d felt the truth of it settle about his shoulders and, looking at it now, he was relieved. The woman who had given birth to his daughter wasn’t an alcoholic. Hadn’t been arrested. The woman he’d slept with and spent years dreaming about... Layers and layers of cloudy images began to shift, and when he opened his eyes he looked at Anna and they became clear.

Anna was looking down at her daughter, rocking her gently in her arms as she settled their child, making soothing noises that seemed to satisfy the girl...his daughter. And he held his breath before her pronouncement. He felt, rather than heard, her sigh.

‘I’ll put him in one of the recently vacated rooms. I’m not comfortable with the way he’s done things.’ It irked him that she was directing her conversation to David rather than him, but he had to be fair. It was justified after the accusations he’d hurled at her. And Dimitri knew a thing or two about wrongful accusations. ‘But we do,’ she continued, ‘need to talk and figure out where we go from here.’

Dimitri followed David out to the car, assuring David that he wasn’t such a monster as to cause harm or fear to his daughter or the mother of his child, especially given that she was clearly not the woman he had thought from the report. He took several deep breaths of cool night air before returning to the small bed and breakfast. Peeking into empty rooms on the ground floor, he felt like a trespasser in his daughter’s home and hated it.

He followed the soothing sounds of a gentle lullaby that contrarily only fuelled the anger within him. How many nights had he missed the simple pleasure of putting his daughter to bed, knowing that she was safe, cared for...loved? He paused on the threshold of a dusky-pink room, gently lit by a softly glowing night light.

Dimitri looked at the nearly sleeping child in the crib. She was peaceful and angelic. He knew that was a cliché, but he couldn’t think of any other words to describe his daughter. It was the first time he’d really seen her, not hidden by the shoulder of a stranger or buried in her mother’s arms. Her skin was dark, like both her parents’, but the eyes—they were his. He knew that Anna hadn’t seen him yet, her body hadn’t stiffened the way it had every single time he’d come within a foot of her. But she was far from relaxed, and he deeply regretted that their adult emotions had come to interfere with his child’s sleep.

* * *

How had this mess happened? She’d been shocked by Dimitri’s accusations, his presence...all of it. For nineteen months, she’d forced herself to abandon the hope that he might come for her. The hope that her daughter wouldn’t grow up feeling that same sense of rejection that felt almost a solid part of Anna. But that was the thing—Anna’s father hadn’t just been absent, it wasn’t a passive thing...he had walked away. Had actively chosen to leave her and her mother behind.

She pushed at the adrenaline still pounding through her veins, desperately fighting the need to flee. Instead, she clung to the words she’d spoken to the lawyer. They really did need to find a way forward, now that he knew about Amalia, now that he claimed to want their child. Wasn’t that what she’d dreamed of when she first reached out to him? Never would she have chosen to raise her daughter without a father in her life...the way she had been raised.

As Anna watched her daughter in the crib, she marvelled at how she’d got so big. She was twenty-seven months old and before lying down on the soft mattress Amalia had held on to the bars and looked at Anna with big brown eyes. Anna had reached out and smoothed a soft curl of hair from Amalia’s forehead. She’d bent down and whispered a promise to her child.

‘It will be okay, sweetheart. It will.’ She’d hoped that she wasn’t lying.

Anna waited until she heard the sounds of her daughter’s breathing slow. She waited until she knew she couldn’t put it off any more and turned to leave the room.

But Dimitri stood in the doorway.

How many times had she imagined him standing there? How many times, during Amalia’s sleepless nights, the teething, the crying...the times when Anna had been so exhausted she couldn’t even weep? What would she have given to see him standing there, a support, a second hand, anything to help take away some of the weight of being a single parent?

But when she’d heard the lawyer—the assistant, as she now knew—dismiss her claims as one of the many women who had called Dimitri, she’d realised that she hadn’t known Dimitri at all. The disbelief and incredulity in Tsoutsakis’s voice had been the reminder she’d clung to each and every night that she had been right to hang up the phone, to end the conversation before she could reveal any more of herself, of her daughter.

But now? What did it all mean? That it hadn’t been Dimitri who had outright rejected his daughter. That he was innocent of the imprisonment that had made her sure she couldn’t let a criminal be the father of her child. Now that he was here, standing before her.

‘I don’t even know her name.’ Anna read a whole host of emotions in that one sentence: pain, regret...anger.

‘Amalia. Her name is Amalia.’

For a second, he looked as if he had been punched in the chest... He closed his eyes briefly but when they opened he wore a mask.

‘She’s mine.’ It was a statement rather than a question. But for all his seeming arrogant certainty, she could tell that he needed to hear it from her. It was as if he was holding his breath.

For just a moment, Anna considered lying. It would all go away. Dimitri would leave and go back to Greece, or America, or wherever he’d come from. Life could return to normal, she’d continue to manage the bed and breakfast, continue to handle her mother’s alcoholism, continue to raise her daughter on her own. But she couldn’t do it. She knew what it was like to grow up in this small village without a father, with the stigma of being discarded and unwanted. She knew the questions that were sure to come from her daughter’s lips because they had come from her own.

Where’s my daddy? Didn’t Daddy want me? Did he not love me?

His eyes darkened impossibly as she made him wait for her answer.

‘Yes. She’s your daughter.’

‘How?’ he bit out. ‘We were careful. Every single time. We were careful.’

It was a question she had asked herself time and time again during her pregnancy. Forcing herself to relive that night, the intimacies they’d shared, trying to find the exact moment that their daughter had been conceived.

‘Protection fails sometimes,’ she said, echoing the words of the female doctor who had looked at her with pity.

Anna followed him out into the hallway, ensuring Amalia’s door stayed open just an inch.

He spun round to face her.

‘How could you? How could you keep this from me?’

This was the argument that she’d expected. The one she’d rehearsed in the dead of night when she’d known, somehow, that he would return and come to claim his child. This was the reason that she had poured hours and months into writing letters—documenting her thoughts, experiences, feelings from the day Amalia was born. Letters that had never been sent, nor read by the intended recipient, because they had been addressed to the father of her child. And this man? This man she did not know.

‘You left my bed and within hours were arrested for massive financial fraud. How could I subject the precious child I carried to a man I barely knew and who was in prison within months?’

‘I was wrongfully imprisoned,’ he bit out.

‘I didn’t know that at the time! And the moment I did find out, I was...’ She actually growled her frustration. ‘You know what I was told.’ She tried to take a calming breath. ‘Look, let’s talk about this in the morning. We both need sleep, or at least I certainly do.’ She stopped short of adding ‘please’ to the sentence. Instinctively she knew that any sign of weakness would be like blood in the water to a shark. She waited, her breath held, until the almost imperceptible nod of his head signalled his agreement.

Anna led Dimitri down the hallway to a room. Admittedly it was the smallest room she had to offer, but right now Anna was going to take any small victory she could. Did it make her petty? Perhaps. But she was too tired to care.

Only she hadn’t been prepared for the sight of his large build in the small room. She hadn’t braced herself for the memories that rushed to greet her of the last time he’d spent the night under this roof.

He’d swept into her life when she had been at her lowest, when she had felt helpless against the failings of both her parents. When all she’d wanted was something for herself. Just for once. One night that wasn’t about being responsible or putting someone else’s needs above her own.

She’d told herself that she would stop at one drink. She’d told herself she’d stop at one kiss, one touch...and after he’d given her pleasure she had never imagined possible she’d told herself she only wanted one night. But that had been a lie.

Until she’d woken, alone. The dull ache that took up residence in her heart that morning robbed her of the pleasure and the reckless need for one stolen night. In that moment she was cured of any selfish want she’d ever have, and she’d promised never to lose herself like that again. But she had never regretted that night. And she never would. For it had brought her Amalia.

* * *

Dimitri looked around the small room. It was little bigger than the cell he’d had in prison, but the exhaustion in Anna’s eyes had struck a nerve. He’d come here, all guns blazing, expecting to sweep in and take his child away from a mother who couldn’t care less about his child. What he’d seen instead was a beautiful woman who was fiercely protective of her child. A woman who had raised a child alone, just as his own mother once had. Perhaps he should take the time to work this new information into his plans, before trying again. As if sensing his resolution, Anna backed out quietly from the small room, and Dimitri sat heavily on the surprisingly comfortable mattress.

David was probably helping himself to a whisky from the hotel’s minibar right now, Dimitri thought as he pulled off his shoes. But he wouldn’t have changed places with the man. He was sleeping less than twenty metres from his daughter. From his own child. And he knew that he’d never let her out of his sight again.

A loud crashing sound from below jerked Dimitri from the fitful sleep he’d fallen into. Terror raced through his bones for just a second, until he saw the faint outline of flowery wallpaper and felt the soft mattress beneath him. He wasn’t back in prison. No one was about to get hurt. He waited for a moment to get his breath back, for the painful sting of adrenaline to recede from his pores.

But then the crash sounded again, and his daughter started to cry. What the hell?

He launched out of the bed and into the hallway, where he met Anna.

‘Anna, what—?’

‘Go back to bed,’ she whispered harshly. ‘Please, just—’

Another crashing sound came, this time accompanied by the sound of breaking glass.

He caught a look of panic passing across Anna’s features before she disappeared down the stairs. Amalia was starting to cry in earnest now, and he went into her room. Did he pick her up? Would that make her stop, or cry even harder?

Her poor little face was already red, with big, fat tears rolling down her cheeks. The ear-piercing screams of his daughter caught in his heart and he reached down and picked her up, ignoring the stab of hurt as she tried to pull away from him, her strength surprising him.

He held her against his chest and followed Anna’s footsteps down to the hallway and the bar below, thinking he was ready for whatever he would find down there. But he wasn’t.

Anna was on the floor, kneeling before a small red-haired woman, who was trying to shake Anna off.

‘Please, Ma. You need to go.’

‘You left me with that man—’

‘You know Eamon, Ma.’

Dimitri watched as Anna’s mother tried to get out of the chair, pushing Anna away and nearly succeeding, until Anna stood and took her by the shoulders.

‘Ma, please. It’s late and you’ve woken Amalia.’

For a moment, that seemed to do the trick. ‘My precious Amalia...’ But the moment she caught sight of Dimitri standing with her granddaughter, any hold that Anna might have had on her mother disappeared.

She knocked Anna off balance and she fell awkwardly on her knee. Mary took two uncertain steps towards him and Dimitri instinctively turned to protect his daughter, angling his body away from the drunk woman. He held out his arm.

‘Enough!’ His strong command brought the older woman to a standstill. ‘Anna, take Amalia upstairs.’

Anna looked for a moment as if she was about to argue, but clearly thought better of it.

She took her daughter from him, their skin brushing against each other’s for the first time since that night three years before. Ignoring the waves of little pinpricks that rushed over his hands, Dimitri watched as Anna disappeared up the stairs, her last glance at them uncertain and worried.

Dimitri stared at the woman in front of him, seeing very little trace of Anna’s colouring, but for just a moment he could see reflections of what must have once made the older woman beautiful, especially in the startling moss-green eyes looking back at him.

Dimitri wasn’t a stranger to what alcohol could do to a person and what kind of chemical prison it could be. Some responded to gentle persuasion, but the time for that had passed.

‘I’m going to get you some water, and you’re going to sleep down here on the sofa.’ There was no way he was going to let her upstairs near his child or her daughter. Mary made one last effort to complain, but he saw that off with a raised eyebrow.

‘Do not test me, Mrs Moore. You’ve done enough damage tonight.’

She just hadn’t realised how much yet.

As Mary reluctantly lay down on the sofa, Anna stuck her head over the bannisters. He raised a hand to stop her from coming further down the stairs, knowing that her reappearance would spark another round from the woman on the sofa.

Anna’s eyes were sad as she mouthed the words ‘thank you’ to him and disappeared. And just for a moment he felt sorry for her. Because she had no idea what was about to happen.

He waited until Mary Moore fell into a comfortably drunk sleep and pulled out his mobile. David answered on the second ring.

‘I need you to do a couple of things for me. I need indefinite management cover for the bed and breakfast and a list of rehab clinics as far away from this village as humanly possible, and I need both by ten a.m. tomorrow.’

‘Sure thing. Anything else?’

‘Yes. Tell Flora to get the house prepared for anything a two-year-old might need. And after that, I want you to start working on a watertight prenup.’

CHAPTER THREE

Dear Dimitri,

How could you do such a thing?

ANNA FLIPPED OUT the bed sheet, the whipping sound it made before it settled over the mattress making her wince. She was exhausted, having barely slept the night before. Every time she’d closed her eyes she’d seen Dimitri standing between her and Amalia as if it were a prophecy foretelling how she would, from now on, see her daughter—at a distance and with him separating them. If not that, then she’d been tortured by the memories of her own pleasure as Dimitri had teased orgasm after orgasm from her innocent body.

But when she woke, all she could think of was her mother. It had been years since Mary had turned up at the bed and breakfast that far out of control. A twinge cramped her stomach. This hadn’t been the life she’d wanted. Once she’d dreamed of escaping the small village, whose inhabitants had been hostile towards them from the moment Mary had been forced to raise her child alone. Anna had fantasised about studying art and sculpture, perhaps even at the University of Glasgow. It had been a hope that she’d cherished as she’d worked at the bed and breakfast saving every penny she made to put towards tuition fees. That Anna had somehow managed to follow in her mother’s footsteps—becoming, instead, another single mother—had sealed their fate. Undesirable. Unwanted. The cautionary tale that locals told their children. And what a cautionary tale it was. Only the masochistic would want Dimitri Kyriakou arriving on their doorstep to claim what he felt he was owed.

By the time the sun had peeked around her curtain that morning, she’d realised she needed a plan. She needed to take back the control that was slipping through her fingers like hot sand.

This was the last of the rooms that needed cleaning after the hasty departure of her guests the night before. If she was lucky, she’d be able to pull some new clients from the horse racing meeting in Dublin in a few days’ time.

Thankfully her mother had left before Anna had brought Amalia down for breakfast. It was the one showdown she hadn’t been prepared for. Where her mother was concerned, Anna realised that she no longer had any defences left. How could her mother have done that, knowing Amalia was in the house? Clearly all the talk of rehab—the apparent reason she’d taken the money from Dimitri in the first place—was a... Anna wasn’t ready to call it a lie, more of a thin spider’s web of fiction that broke under the weight of addiction.

Rehab had been a mythical promise she’d heard over and over again throughout the years. A place the woman wearing her mother’s skin would go, and upon her return would be her real mother gifted back to her. The mother who had once been a bright, powerful, creative woman with a deep well of love to give and not enough pools in which to store it. But her mother was one problem. Dimitri was another.

There were a hundred different ways she’d imagined their reunion, and not one of them came remotely close to what had happened the night before. Recalling the night they’d spent together three years before, she realised that she’d been wearing her mother’s shirt—the one with the name Mary Moore sewn onto the pocket. And, with her mother’s record, would she not have stormed in like a Valkyrie, ready to retrieve her child from such a woman? The way that no one had done for her?

She felt, rather than heard, a presence behind her. Siobhan was downstairs with Amalia, so there was only one person it could be. Only one person had ever had that effect on her body. It had been the same way the first time she’d laid eyes on him. A feeling that the world had ever so slightly tilted on its axis, a feeling that nothing would ever be the same again. It started on her forearms, as if she were held there between powerful hands, raising the hairs beneath the imaginary touch. It licked up her spine and across her neck. And then Anna cursed herself for being fanciful.

‘What are you doing?’ Dimitri asked, sounding as sleep-deprived as she.

‘Preparing the rooms. I may get some walk-ins later. The weather is good, and the races are on...’ She trailed off, knowing that she had to address what had happened with her mother. ‘About last night—’

‘Does she live here?’

‘My mother? No.’ Anna shook her head vehemently, instantly understanding his concern. ‘No. It’s been years since she turned up here like that.’

‘Who else do you employ here?’ It wasn’t perhaps the question she’d expected. She’d imagined Dimitri would haul her over the coals for her mother’s appearance. Anna was still trying to gather her thoughts from the breakneck speed of his inquisition. She still hadn’t turned to face him. She needed just a moment more to gather her strength.

‘Siobhan helps out when we’re at capacity. Which we would have been today, had not all my customers been removed to a hotel in Dublin.’ With this she finally turned to take in the broad expanse of the man who had no damn right to look that good after a night in the smallest room she had.

Instantly regretting it, she turned back to the room, picked up the cleaning basket and made her way into the en suite bathroom. She put on the rubber gloves and spread a healthy squirt of bleach on the scrubber as if she could clean away either the sight of him or him completely.

She got onto her knees, realising that this was perhaps the most ridiculous way to have a conversation, but, needing something to do with her hands other than throttle the man behind her, she pushed on.

‘I’ve been thinking, and I would like you to have a relationship with my—our—daughter.’ She told herself it was the smell of the bleach that had her stomach twisting and turning worse than any morning sickness she had experienced. ‘I’d be happy to grant visitation rights, but you must understand that we will be staying here. My life is here and so is my daughter’s. I will not uproot everything she’s ever known.’

There. She had managed to get the words from her mind to her mouth without crying, or sounding weak. She needed him to agree to this.

* * *

For a moment, just as he had done the night before, he felt almost sorry for her. She had no idea that her life was about to change irrevocably. But from the first time he’d heard of his daughter, Dimitri knew that he wouldn’t settle for visitation rights. He wanted his daughter with him. All the time.

He was man enough to admit that the knowledge that he currently didn’t have any legal rights to his child was nothing short of terrifying. The fear that had gripped him in those first moments of this shocking discovery had been nothing like anything he’d ever experienced. Nothing. Even when he’d arrived at his father’s house at the age of seven for the first time, not knowing if he’d take him in. Even before that, when the police filling the tiny apartment he’d shared with his mother were saying unintelligible things that he struggled to make sense of years after they had left his life. None of it scratched the surface of the deep well that opened up when he realised that there was a tiny life out there, his flesh and blood...

‘I don’t want you to miss out on things,’ Anna was saying as she furiously scrubbed at the toilet, before picking herself up off the floor and turning—still with her back to him—to the sink.

‘You don’t want me missing...’ His sentence trailed off as incredulity hit him hard. ‘What, like the first sonogram? The first sound of my daughter’s heartbeat? Tell me, Anna,’ he said, reaching out to pull her around to him, so that he could look her in the eyes, so he could see the truth written there in them when she answered his next question. ‘Does my daughter even know the word Daddy?’

He regretted touching her the moment his fingers hit the bare skin of her arm beneath her short T-shirt. He tried to ignore the flames that licked out at him from just one touch; he tried to ignore the rush of memories he’d held at bay for the last two days. He had to. Instead, he focused on the mounting horror in Anna’s eyes.

‘What? Did you think I wouldn’t have wanted to be part of those things? Christe mou, Anna, did you even think of me at all?’

Dimitri cursed again, but this time silently. He hadn’t want to reveal that much. He needed to get this back on to an unemotional level if he had any hope of persuading her to his cause. But the more and more he thought of all the things he had missed out on, all of the things Amalia would have grown up with, the stigma of being illegitimate in a sternly familial culture...and at how he hadn’t been able to protect her from that... He knew how much damage could be done to a child when they were unwelcome, unwanted...

So, no. No. He’d never put his daughter through that. He would do what he had to do. Because that was what Dimitri did. He put aside anything that would prevent the required outcome. He cut off the thoughts of the past, his mother, his half-brother’s betrayal, thoughts of the time he had spent wrongfully incarcerated in prison. They had no place here. Here was his daughter. And the mother of his child. And he needed them in Greece.

‘This is getting us nowhere,’ he said, looking around the small bathroom. ‘Can we... Do you have coffee? Can we sit and have a proper conversation, when you’re not...?’ He gestured towards the cleaning products and the hideous yellow gloves Anna was wearing.

* * *

The smell of coffee seemed to have a calming effect on his nerves, but the moment the insipid, thin liquid hit his tongue he regretted it. Dimitri kept his eyes trained on Anna, who had yet to stop moving, either around the small bathroom she’d been cleaning or the impressive, sleek chrome kitchen he’d been surprised to find tucked away from the main part of the old cottage.

He supposed the small staff area could pass as cosy and compact. But while he sat pressed up against the wall, his long legs barely fitting beneath the wooden table, his patience finally wore thin.

‘Sit down,’ he demanded.

Anna stilled, freezing against the command, but finally she slipped—easily—into the seat opposite him. Though her body had finally stopped moving, her eyes seemed to take everything in but him.

‘I want you to come to Greece.’

Ah. That did it. Anna’s gaze zeroed in on his.

‘No.’

‘No?’ he asked, his eyebrow raised.

She let out an incredulous laugh. ‘How can I go to Greece? I have a business here, my mother, my...life is here, Dimitri. I can’t.’

This was nothing he hadn’t expected, but the email he’d received from David that morning had confirmed that everything was in place. In fact, in just five short minutes Anna would see how pointless her arguments would be. He didn’t want to use her mother’s behaviour from the night before against her. But even if Mary didn’t live under the same roof she was still an influence on his daughter’s life, she could still put his daughter at risk. So he would use it if Anna forced him to. First he’d try a softer approach. And if that didn’t work...

‘Anna. The situation you’re in can’t be easy. The bank is about to take all this away from you.’ He ignored the small gasp of shock that fell from her mouth.

‘How do you—?’

‘And between Amalia and your mother, dealing with all that alone—’

‘I haven’t been alone—’

‘—must have been incredibly trying. All the work that you have to do here... You must be exhausted. It certainly can’t allow you the time you’d like to dedicate to our daughter.’ That there was no interruption this time told him all he needed to know. ‘I want to pay off the mortgage—in your name. I will also pay for your mother to go to a rehab clinic. Anna, your mother needs help. Proper help. And I can provide that.

‘A lovely couple is ready and willing to run the bed and breakfast in your absence, just for a short time, whilst you come to Greece. There, Amalia can get to know me, get to know her Greek heritage, her family.’ Forestalling her objections, he pressed on. ‘Anna, it’s something that you deserve—time away from this place, to relax and to spend time with your daughter without having to worry about keeping the roof together over your heads.’

Anna’s head spun. In her wildest dreams she had wanted this. She had wanted someone to sweep in, take care of everything, to resolve all her financial worries, to help with her mother, to allow her to focus solely on her daughter. In her deepest heart, she’d even wanted that person to be Dimitri. Like the fairy-tale prince and the happy-ever-after that she had never thought was possible. But, just like in all good fairy tales, Dimitri’s offer was surely too good to be true. Like the poisoned apple, or the spindle needle’s prick, there was always a price to pay. And, just like the miller’s daughter, there was no way she would hand over her child.