Greek Affairs: Claiming His Child

Shakily, Ann got down, lifting Ari with her. He immediately sprinted off on to the beach, as Nikos hefted down a kit bag bulging with beach paraphernalia from the back of the Jeep. As she followed Ari she brushed the chalky dust off her long-sleeved T-shirt and long, loose cotton trousers, shaking out her windblown hair.

‘The sea will wash off the dust,’ Nikos said laconically beside her, as he fell into step at her side.

She ignored him. She had been doing her best to ignore him ever since the expedition started. Only for Ari’s sake and his grandmother’s would she be civil to this man. Without their presence she saw no reason to force herself to a hypocritical politeness she did not feel.

Nikos evidently thought otherwise. His hand closed over her arm, stopping her in her tracks. She tried to shake herself free, but his grip was like iron. He turned her towards him and she glared at him balefully. His own dark eyes glinted stonily back at her.

‘Understand something. Had I my choice, you would not be here. But my mother wanted this outing to take place, and Ari, as you can see, is deliriously excited. Therefore, for his sake, you will be civil. You will not sulk, or behave badly. Farce it may be, but I will not have Ari upset. Do you understand me?’

‘Why else do you think I’m here?’ she shot back. ‘It’s only because of Ari and your mother.’

He stared at her grimly a moment. ‘Good,’ he said, and let her go, striding off.

She stared after him a moment, rubbing where he’d gripped her arm. A bruise was already coming up from all the bashing it had received on the journey here. She set off again, pausing to take off her canvas shoes as she reached the sand. It was slow progress in the deep soft sand, and by the time she caught up with them Nikos was already making camp in the lee of some rocks to the side of the beach, spreading out a rug over a groundsheet. Ari was helping—if upending the kit bag and rummaging through for spades and buckets could be considered helpful. Finding what he wanted, he immediately started to dig a hole. Ann watched him a moment, a smile playing on her lips. Ari definitely seemed to like his sand holes. As she turned to put her own beach bag down on the rug, she realised that Nikos was watching her, with a different expression from usual on his face. It seemed—assessing.

She busied herself unpacking her bag. She didn’t really know what was expected of the day, and had had no intention of asking Nikos, so she had brought what she thought would be likely—including a swimsuit, which she was wearing under her clothes. But not the two-piece. Today’s was a workmanlike one piece that was as unrevealing of her figure as a swimsuit could be. Whether she would have the nerve to strip down to it in Nikos Theakis’ presence, she didn’t know, but she did know that if Ari wanted her to come in the water with him she would not turn him down.

For something to do, and to stop feeling as awkward as she did, she went over to Ari and inspected the progress of his hole so far.

‘Would you like me to help?’ she offered. It seemed preferable to being stuck with his uncle’s company.

Ari shook his head. ‘You and Uncle Nikki have to dig your own holes, and the biggest hole wins,’ he informed her.

‘I’ll start one here,’ said Ann, moving a little away and dropping to her knees to begin. ‘Your uncle can dig his own.’

There was a bite in her words as she spoke that she did not trouble to mute. Nor the unspoken coda—and bury himself in it too, for all I care!

She set to, scrabbling at the soft sand until a darker, more compact layer was exposed, which could be dug into satisfactorily. She dug industriously, using her bare hands, pausing only to retie her hair into a pigtail to stop it falling forward.

A shadow fell over her, and then Nikos was hunkering down to inspect both holes.

‘Mine is deeper!’ claimed Ari.

‘You started earlier,’ said Nikos. ‘And you are using a spade.’

‘Auntie Annie can have my spare spade,’ said Ari generously, and pushed it across to Ann.

‘Auntie Annie …’ Nikos’s voice was musing.

‘Tina has started referring to me as that,’ said Ann shortly, reaching for Ari’s spare spade and thanking him.

Nikos’s eyes rested on her unreadably. ‘You do not seem like an “Auntie Annie,”’ he said. ‘Nor even like a plain and simple “Ann.” Surely, once you were able to afford your new wealthy lifestyle, you aspired to a new name to reflect your new image? Even Anna would be more exotic.’

Ann ignored him, merely digging more vigorously.

Nikos levered himself back upright. Why had he let himself bait her like that? It was just that there was something about her today that was galling him more than ever. The intervening days had been intended to put a mental as well as physical distance from her, and though he had had been reluctant to leave her with his mother without his watchful eye, not only had he had things to do in Athens that could not be postponed easily, he’d also wanted a break from Ann Turner.

She was too disturbing to his peace of mind—and not just because of the threat she presented to his family. Ann Turner’s presence on Sospiris disturbed him for quite another reason. One he was determined to crush just as ruthlessly as he would crush any attempt on her part to extract yet more money from the Theakis coffers.

While in Athens he had deliberately kept his evenings busy with social events. It was inconvenient, however, that he was currently between affairs. It would have suited him to have someone to take his mind off Ann Turner. She had occupied far too much of it already. Exasperatingly, any hopes that he’d had that when he returned to Sospiris he’d find her considerably less eye-drawing had evaporated on his return. The damn woman had just the same effect on him as before.

It rattled him.

It shouldn’t be happening. He knew exactly what she was, and that should be sufficient—more than sufficient!—to put him off her big-time. And yet—

And yet he had found himself once again, covertly watching her—telling himself it was because he was keeping her under surveillance, to show her that every word she uttered was suspect, that he had the measure of her even if she were fooling his mother, and taking in the sculpted line of her jaw, the graceful fall of her hair, the wide-set grey eyes, the sensuous swell of her breasts.

And now it was even worse. His mother had manoeuvred him into taking Ari and the boy’s pernicious aunt on this benighted jaunt. And for Ari’s sake he could not refuse, nor spoil it for him by allowing his hostility to show.

His eyes rested on her bowed head. She was digging away as if possessed, refusing to pay him any attention. And that was another thing—the fact that she wasn’t paying him any attention. Deliberately. Conspicuously. She was doing it on purpose, obviously, in an act of defiance—doubtless hoping that it would maybe convince him of a moral purity that was impossible for a woman who had sold her nephew for cash. Her hypocrisy infuriated him.

His mouth set. So Ann Turner, hypocrite and baby-seller, thought she could blank him, did she? Thought she could look through him, cut him, ignore him—defy him? Thought she’d run circles round him by ending up ensconced here, in the lap of luxury, ingratiating herself with his mother, his nephew—the nephew she’d sold?

Anger filled him as he watched them—the little boy that was all that was left of the brother he had lost, of the son his mother had lost, and the girl who had valued a million pounds more than an orphaned child, her blood kin. How dared she play the hypocrite? Not just with him, Nikos Theakis, who could see through her hypocrisy, but with the innocent Ari …

Harsh eyes looked at her.

You play with the child you sold to put designer clothes on your back, to jet you around the world …

A memory came back to him—one that filled him with deepest disgust, blackest rage.

Not of Ann Turner.

Of her sister.

A woman who had offered her body for cash—cash from any man who could afford it. Any man rich enough to keep her in the luxury she thought she was worth. Any man …

Bleak, empty eyes looked now on Carla’s sister. So, just what was the beautiful, alluring Ann Turner prepared to do to get more money?

His mouth twisted into a travesty of a smile as the thought resolved slowly, temptingly, in his mind. What would she do if he made her an offer he’d make it very, very hard for her to refuse?

Very hard—

For a long moment he just went on looking down at the silvery-gold head. He could feel the blood stirring in his veins as he made his decision. Yes, that was exactly what he would do—make her an offer he would ensure it was impossible for her to refuse, and in so doing take the greatest satisfaction possible himself—in more ways than one! Indulge himself with her exactly as he wanted to. And all in the best possible cause—getting her claws out of his family. Permanently.

Ann sat back and looked at her hole. At least digging it seemed to have shut Nikos Theakis up in his attempts to talk to her.

She looked across at Ari. ‘How’s it coming?’ she enquired.

He paused, and looked across at her. ‘Is yours bigger?’ he asked.

‘I’m not sure,’ she temporised.

‘Uncle Nikki can judge,’ said Ari.

Nikos had, to Ann’s relief, returned to the camp, and was idly flicking through a business magazine. Now he looked up, and got to his feet. He strolled across the sand, and Ann did not like to see the way his legs seemed so long in his chinos, or the way his T-shirt moulded to his powerful torso.

Solemnly he inspected both sand holes. ‘Ann’s is wider, but Ari’s is deeper,’ he pronounced.

‘I win!’ shouted Ari excitedly. He turned to his aunt. ‘You have to dig them the deepest,’ he explained. He dropped his spade to the sand. ‘Can we swim now, Uncle Nikki—can we?’

He’d spoken in Greek, and Ann could not understand him. Nikos glanced at Ann. ‘Well, does your English sang froid run to a dip in the Aegean at this time of year?’ he enquired laconically.

She gave a shrug. ‘I’m happy to go in with Ari,’ she said.

As well as not liking the way his legs seemed so long, or his torso so powerful, she also did not like the way he was looking at her. A veiled look that did things to her breathing she did not want it to.

‘Good,’ he said, and then he said something to Ari which Ann assumed was assent.

She had no objection to taking Ari into the water, however cold it might be. It would get her away from Nikos. He could sit in the sun and read his magazine and welcome. But as she scrambled to her feet, dusting sand off her knees and hands, she froze. Nikos, it seemed, was intending to go in the sea as well.

He was stripping off. Before her frozen eyes, he proceeded to divest himself of his chinos and polo shirt down to bare skin.

She stared, open-mouthed.

His body was fantastic. And there was so much of it! The golden shoulders were just as broad as she’d always known they’d be, his back long and smooth, his legs longer and not smooth—fuzzed with a sheen of dark hair over taut muscles that was echoed in the narrow arrowing above the waistband of his hip-hugging bathing trunks. Whether he worked out or it just came naturally, his abdominal muscles were unblemished by an ounce of fat, and the smooth, olive-hued pectorals were likewise perfect.

As he finished undressing, he glanced at Ann. For a moment his eyes stayed veiled, as if observing her reaction. Then, with an indolent, satisfied smile, he reached out one long index finger under her chin and closed her mouth.

‘Your turn,’ he invited softly. ‘Or should I say—my turn?’

He stood, casually poised, with all the natural grace of a Greek statue but with absolutely none of its Platonic virtues, and waited for her to do likewise and disrobe—so he could watch her the way she had watched him.

As she stood stiff and immobile, he gave her a taunting smile.

‘Don’t worry, I’ve checked it out already. You pass muster.’

She started, confused. He enlightened her. ‘By the pool. You were sunbathing.’

Colour mounted in her cheek as the penny dropped and subconscious memory flooded back. ‘You touched me!’ she accused, outraged. God, she thought she’d been dreaming, and all along the hand that she’d imagined stroking over her back had been real. Had been his. Eyes flashing with anger she dropped down to help Ari inflate his armbands and take his T-shirt off.

She heard a mocking laugh, lightly running feet, and then, her eyes automatically flying upwards, she saw Nikos Theakis launching itself into the azure water, splashing loudly in the quietness all around them. As he headed out to sea with long, powerful strokes, Ann dragged her eyes away. Grimly, she helped Ari get ready for swimming.

‘You have to come in too!’ said Ari.

‘After lunch,’ she said, sliding his armbands on and checking their fit. ‘Anyway, I take ages changing, and Uncle Nikki is already in the water. I’ll come and watch you both.’

Accepting this compromise, Ari hammered over the sand to the water’s edge, shouting enthusiastically in Greek to the figure cutting through the water. Watching Ari plunge in, and his uncle halt his swimming to meet him, Ann did her best to ignore the way the sunlight played on the hard, lean torso, glistening with water, and on the sleek, slicked back hair and thick, sea-wet eyelashes.

Oh, God, he really is gorgeous to look at …

She felt her stomach hollow out, and not just with dismay …

Deliberately she flicked her gaze to Ari, keeping it fixed on him. Against her will, she had to concede that Nikos Theakis, unspeakable though he was, was a great companion for a four-year-old child. Over and over again he hefted Ari up and tossed him into the sea. Ari yelled with glee. He played chasing games and piggybacking, and aeroplaned him around above the water. Without her realising it, a smile came to her lips as she watched them.

Then they were wading out of the water. Ari was rushing up and giving her a wet hug, describing all the things that Uncle Nikki and he had done, asking if she’d seen them, and she was taking off his armbands and wrapping his sturdy little body in a towel. At his uncle she did not look at all. Not at all.

But back at the camp she had to, like it or not.

Energy levels quite undimmed by his marine exertions, Ari hopped about from one foot to the other while Ann creamed sun lotion into him. The sun was getting higher now, and even his darker skin tone needed protection.

‘Have you cream on your face, Ann?’ The question made her look up, and immediately she wished she hadn’t.

Nikos was standing, legs apart, his back to the sun, ruffling his hair dry with a towel. He looked—magnificent.

Ann tightened her mouth. ‘Yes, I put it on before we set off.’

‘You should top up,’ Nikos told her. ‘Even with your tan you can still burn, and that would ruin that flawless complexion of yours.’

Tight-lipped, Ann applied more sun lotion to herself, knowing the truth of what Nikos had said, despite the way he’d said it. Her complexion was none of his damn business …

Ari tugged at her sleeve. ‘It’s time to build a sandcastle,’ he announced. ‘A big one.’

Ann was only too willing. Anything to keep her busy and away from Nikos. She watched as Ari seized his spade and set off to select a good site, just beyond the sand holes, settling down to work. Ann reached for the sun lotion cap and started to screw it on, her eyes focussed on her task—focussed on whatever took her gaze away from where Nikos was lowering himself down with muscular grace on to the rug, leaning back against a large rock, legs stretching out in front of him. Perilously close to her.

But she refused to pull away, calmly returning the sun cream to her beach bag. As she did, Nikos spoke.

‘So,’ he drawled, ‘do you intend to remain covered up neck to ankle the whole day?’

‘I’ve told Ari I’ll swim after lunch,’ she said. Involuntarily her eyes flickered across to him as she got to her feet.

He lounged back, his drying hair feathering on his forehead, a pair of sunglasses over his nose, swimming trunks hugging his lean hips. The ultimate male. For a helpless moment she could only stare. Could only let him see her stare. Knowing that although she could not see his eyes, his could see her—see her reaction to him.

His mouth curved.

‘Look all you want, Ann,’ he said generously. ‘I’m not going anywhere.’ He gave a soft laugh and picked up his magazine again. ‘Off you go now,’ he said. ‘Ari needs a labourer.’

Stiffly, Ann strode off, hating herself.

But not as much as she hated Nikos Theakis.

CHAPTER FOUR

SHE WENT ON hating him for the rest of the day, but she would not spoil it for Ari. Having built his huge and complex castle—a task which Ann had discovered she enjoyed hugely, despite the knowledge that Nikos was only a few metres away, and that Ari regularly invited him to comment approvingly on progress so far—Ari suddenly put down his spade and announced that he was hungry.

It was a general signal for lunch.

They wandered onto the stone terrace of a tiny beach hut which Ann had not even noticed on their arrival. It was set back on the shady side of the beach, above the pebbles, and was pleasantly cool now that the sun was high. Given the Theakis wealth, Ann half expected servants to jump out of nowhere and lay on a four-course luncheon for their lord and master, but their meal in fact came out of a cold bag Nikos had brought with him. It was very simple. A round, flattish loaf of fresh-baked Greek bread, sweet sun-ripe tomatoes, salty, oil-drenched feta cheese, some dry cured ham and a bottle of chilled white wine, with fruit to follow. Ari had a can of cola.

‘It’s a treat,’ he announced smugly to Ann. ‘Tina says it rots my teeth so I only have it for treats. Will you be looking after me when Tina marries Dr Sam, Auntie Annie?’

The question slipped out so suddenly that Ann had no time to think up a good answer. Ari’s uncle supplied one instead.

‘Your aunt isn’t used to children, Ari,’ he said. ‘She wouldn’t know how to look after you.’

For a second Ann’s expression flickered. She was aware that Nikos was looking at her, a cynical glint in his eye. She ignored it.

‘Your uncle is right, Ari,’ she said gently. ‘I’m sure Ya-ya will find another lovely nanny to look after you. And you’ll see Tina still, won’t you? She’ll only be living on Maxos, and you can visit her in the motor boat.’

‘It won’t be the same.’ His little lip quivered.

‘Everything changes, Ari,’ said his uncle. ‘Some are sad changes, some are happy ones.’ There was a strained note in his voice just for a moment.

The boy looked across at Ann. ‘You’re a happy change, coming to see me,’ he said. ‘Isn’t she, Uncle Nikki?’

Get out of that one, thought Ann silently.

‘It has its compensations,’ he replied, and his glance flickered over her deliberately. Abruptly, Ann reached for another tomato and bit into it. Her bite was too vicious, and tomato juice and seeds spurted all over her T-shirt.

‘Shame,’ murmured Nikos Theakis insincerely. ‘Now you’ll have to take it off after all.’

In the end, she did. The afternoon simply got too hot, and before long Ari was clamouring to go into the sea again. Ann peeled off to her swimming suit, taking advantage of the fact that Nikos was now laying out his fabulous gold-hued body face down on a brilliant white towel for the sun to worship it.

‘If you go in the water,’ he advised lazily, not bothering to lift his head from the folded towel beneath it, ‘don’t go out of your depth. No further than that crooked rock to the left. Ari knows which one.’

‘Or the sharks will get you,’ contributed his nephew knowledgeably, if inaccurately, clearly having been told this to keep him close to shore. ‘They lie in wait in deep water.’

Hurriedly she raced Ari down to the sea, welcoming the chill embrace of the water. Playing with Ari took her mind off Nikos, and she entered into his games with enthusiasm, whilst taking care to stay, as instructed, in her depth. Eventually Ari tired, and as they waded out of the sea Ann immediately became aware that she was under professional surveillance.

Nikos Theakis must have seen a multitude of female bodies, but he obviously liked to study each one as a connoisseur. Now he was studying hers, his arms folded behind his neck, using the casual strength of his own perfectly toned, sun-kissed abdominal muscles to hold his head sufficiently off the ground to survey her properly.

Ann attempted to adopt an air of indifference to his scrutiny, and failed. But she did manage to avoid looking at Nikos, instead taking Ari’s armbands off and mopping him dry, letting him chatter away in Greek to his uncle before heading back to his sandcastle. Patting herself dry with Ari’s towel, Ann knelt down, rummaging in her bag for a comb. Finding it, she straightened, squeezed out the worst of the moisture, and started to comb out her dripping wet hair.

Nikos sat up with an effortless jack-knife of his stomach muscles, hooking his hands loosely around wide splayed knees and looking at her with narrowed eyes, while she tried to look completely indifferent to his regard—and to him. But it was impossible. He’s even got beautiful feet, Ann thought absently, trying not to look. Narrow, with sculpted arches. She looked away, but he had seen her. He limbered up, and crossed to where she was kneeling. Before she knew what he was doing he’d hunkered down, removed the large-toothed comb from her hand and taken over her task.

‘Hold still,’ he commanded, as she instinctively tried to get away. A large hand closed over her upper arm. She flinched.

With a frown, he scooped away the wet tangle of hair covering it, revealing the ugly bruise that had formed.

‘What the hell?’

‘Blame the driver,’ she said briefly. ‘I got a walloping against the door frame of the Jeep.’

He muttered something in Greek that was probably impolite. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said tersely. ‘I didn’t realise.’

She shrugged. ‘I’ll live,’ she answered. ‘Give me my comb back.’

He ignored her. Instead, his fingers gently skimmed the smooth skin of her shoulder.

‘Your skin is like silk.’ His voice was low, intimate. His touch made her shiver. But she didn’t feel cold. Heat started to coil in every tensing muscle in her body. For a long moment their eyes met and held—night-dark speculative brown to startled, questioning blue-grey—then, as if in slow motion, Nikos lowered his mouth.

His kiss, on the cusp of her shoulder, was as soft as velvet. Ann’s heart stopped beating. Somewhere, in some small, shrinking space, she knew she should jerk away, shout, scream—anything at all to stop what Nikos was so outrageously, unthinkably doing.

But it was impossible. Simply impossible. All she could do, as the world turned inside out, was to stay kneeling, frozen, weak in every limb, feeling the softness of his mouth on her flesh. She felt his lips part, so the soft, liquid warmth of the inside of his mouth was against her tender skin, moving over it, back and forth, moistening and caressing it. Slow bliss filled her. Then gently, very gently, he lifted his head and drew her around so that she was positioned in the vee of his open thighs as he knelt behind her, caging her. With long, even strokes he started to comb out her hair.

She couldn’t move. Couldn’t move to save her life. Every nerve in her body quivered with awareness. Around her the air hung like silk, shimmering in the heat. As he worked down from her scalp to the still dripping ends of her waist-length hair, gently teasing out every last tangle, she felt a drowsy languor steal over her as the sun beat down. With half closed eyes she could still see little Ari quit his sandcastle to go clambering over the rocks, examining the sea life. Behind her, another Theakis male was seducing her.