Securing the Greek's Legacy

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!’