It reminded her of when she was sixteen and her father, who she had met for the first and only time, had told her that, in his eyes, she did not exist. She’d slunk out of the art gallery where David Stanford had been exhibiting his work. But she’d hesitated in the doorway and looked over her shoulder, hoping even then that her father would call her back and apologise for abandoning her. But he hadn’t looked in her direction and she knew he had already forgotten her. The memory still haunted her and she could not bear the idea of her child one day feeling rejected and humiliated by Andreas.
He had made it plain that he did not want his baby. There was no reason for him to demand a paternity test when he knew she had been a virgin. She was damned if she would be forced to prove that she had told him the truth, and Andreas could go to hell.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE HELICOPTER DIPPED low over an olive grove and the villa came into view. Andreas remembered the excitement he’d felt as a boy coming to Louloudi every summer when his boarding school in England broke up for the holidays. His mother hadn’t wanted him at the family home in Athens and he’d been glad to escape from her constant disapproval. Occasionally Stelios had spent a weekend on the island and Andreas had treasured those times that he’d had his father’s exclusive attention. But mostly Stelios had been preoccupied with work.
He rubbed his hand over the stubble on his chin. In three days’ time it would be the first anniversary of his father’s death. For the past year Andreas had fought to save Karelis Corp from being bought out by a rival company. It had been a hellish time and he was mentally exhausted, but at least the company was safe. Now he was determined to save Louloudi from falling into the hands of the most unscrupulous woman he’d ever had the misfortune to meet.
His jaw clenched. Ten months ago Isla had turned up at his office in Athens and announced that she was pregnant. Not unreasonably, he’d demanded proof of paternity before he would accept responsibility for the child she alleged was his. But her tears had stirred his conscience and he had asked himself why she would lie. It couldn’t be because she needed financial support for her child. Stelios had made provision for her in his will and she was due to inherit a fortune. Andreas had needed time to think, but when his meeting with a client had finished and he’d gone to find Isla, his PA informed him that she had already left.
He’d felt responsible for her, despite his suspicion that the child wasn’t his, and he had instructed his security team to search for her, to no avail. She had seemingly disappeared into thin air. The fact that she had not contacted him again seemed further proof that if she had been pregnant it wasn’t his child, Andreas brooded as he climbed out of the helicopter and walked across the lawn towards the house.
But he did not doubt that she would turn up on Louloudi to claim her inheritance. She wasn’t going to miss the chance to become a multi-millionaire and he would have to bite the bullet and buy her share of the island. He was confident that the powerful attraction he’d felt for her would have died. He had dated a few women, although he hadn’t had sex for a year. But he’d assumed that his lack of libido was down to his excessive workload. It was not because he subconsciously compared every woman he met to Isla, he assured himself.
He strode into the house and his vision was momentarily obscured while the lenses in his sunglasses transitioned from the bright light outside to the darker interior. He blinked—but the pram parked in the hallway was still there. Shock ricocheted through him until he remembered that Toula and Dinos’s daughter had been pregnant. Maria must have brought her new baby to visit its grandparents.
Andreas stepped closer to the pram and saw an infant, he had no idea how old, sleeping peacefully. The blue blanket tucked around the baby suggested it was a boy. He had an olive-gold complexion, a mass of dark hair and impossibly long eyelashes that made crescents on his cheeks. Andreas’s heart missed a beat when the baby’s lashes lifted to reveal bright blue eyes. The exact shade of blue as his own eyes.
Hadn’t he read somewhere that all babies were born with blue eyes? He tried to quell the panic that surged through him. Of course this child could not be his. But he felt strangely reluctant to move away from the pram. The baby was so vulnerable. Perhaps the fierce protectiveness he felt was a normal response to seeing something so small and helpless, he thought. He’d never been this close to a baby before. Some of his friends had children, but he’d pretended to admire the usually squalling infant from a safe distance.
Behind him he heard a door open, followed by a swiftly indrawn breath. ‘Andreas! I wasn’t expecting you to arrive for a couple of days.’
Even then he did not take his gaze from the baby. He was crazy to believe he could see a resemblance between himself and the infant, and crazier still to feel a connection to the tiny scrap of humanity in the pram. He finally turned his head towards the familiar voice that had stirred something within him which was too complicated to define.
Andreas’s breath hissed between his teeth as he stared at Isla. The white cotton shirt she wore tied in a knot at her waist revealed her flat stomach, and skimpy denim shorts showed off her long slender legs. Her honey-gold hair was drawn back from her face in a ponytail and a few tendrils clung to her pink cheeks. Despite the villa’s air conditioning, the atmosphere in the entrance hall was sultry and prickled with an electricity that was almost tangible.
‘I thought you were in New York.’ Her tone was faintly accusing. ‘A photo of you and one of your girlfriends who was almost wearing a dress was on the front page of several of the tabloids.’
‘You sound jealous, Isla.’
Her flush deepened. ‘Yeah, right,’ she muttered. ‘Your trouble, Andreas, is that you think you’re God’s gift to womankind.’
‘Is that your opinion?’ He didn’t know why he enjoyed teasing her so that her eyes flashed silver with temper. Andreas refused to question why seeing Isla again made him feel more alive than he’d felt for months.
‘You don’t want to know what I think of you.’
‘Your body is sending out clues,’ he murmured, dropping his gaze to the hard points of her nipples jutting beneath her shirt. He laughed softly as she quickly crossed her arms over her breasts.
‘It’s chilly in here,’ she snapped, her tongue darting out to lick a bead of sweat above her top lip.
Andreas was aware of his body’s damning reaction. His blood pounded in his ears and his erection pressed uncomfortably against his trousers. So much for his assumption that he would no longer be attracted to Isla. Desire swept like molten lava through his veins and he was desperate to take her to bed. He stepped closer to her and breathed in the delicate floral fragrance of her perfume mixed with another scent that he could not name but reminded him of vanilla.
She did not back away from him and he felt the tremor that shook her slender frame. Her soft pink mouth was a delectable temptation but, as he lowered his head, his body tensing with anticipation of claiming her lips with his, a cry came from the pram, shattering the spell that Isla had cast on him. He jerked back from her and raked a hand through his hair.
‘Where is Dinos and Toula’s daughter?’ Isla looked puzzled, and he growled, ‘I assume the baby is Maria’s.’
‘No. He is mine.’ She scooped the infant into her arms and her expression softened. ‘It’s all right, sweetheart. Mama’s here,’ she murmured. The look of love in her eyes for her child made her even more beautiful.
‘So you weren’t lying about being pregnant,’ Andreas said curtly.
‘I’ve never lied to you.’ She took her gaze from the baby and her eyes glittered. ‘Loukas is your son.’
‘Like hell he is.’ Even as he refuted her claim Andreas recalled the sense of recognition he’d felt when he’d looked into the baby’s blue eyes. But it couldn’t be true, his brain insisted. ‘Why did you disappear from my office after claiming that I was responsible for your pregnancy? And why did y
ou refuse a DNA test?’
‘I felt humiliated that you expected me to prove I was telling the truth,’ Isla said fiercely. ‘You are Loukas’s father.’
He stared at her, wondering if her cheeks were flushed with anger at his refusal to believe her, or did she feel guilty because she was lying? ‘It’s not unheard of for women to accuse rich men of fathering their child,’ he said sardonically. ‘I barely know you, yet you expect me to take your word without any degree of certainty that this is my baby.’
‘You can be certain that I was a virgin when I slept with you.’ Pride replaced the anger in her voice. She tilted her chin and held his gaze. ‘Have you any idea how insulting you are to accuse me of pretending that Loukas is yours for financial reasons? I don’t want your money. Stelios made me a beneficiary in his will and I’m not after a maintenance payout from you.’
She played outraged very convincingly, but Andreas wanted hard facts before he would be convinced. ‘Why would you object to a paternity test unless you are worried that the result will show you are a fantasist?’
Her eyes flashed silver. ‘You are unbelievable. Loukas is your son, but I am prepared to raise him on my own. Are you prepared to walk away from your flesh and blood? Think hard before you give me your answer because your decision is final and you can’t change your mind in the future if the idea of fatherhood suddenly becomes more appealing.’
The baby started crying in earnest, his little face turning red. It was a heartrending sound that evoked an unexpected emotional response in Andreas. He wanted to reach out and take the baby in his arms to comfort him but Isla turned away and walked across the hall, holding the baby against her shoulder. She paused in the doorway to the lounge and glanced back at Andreas.
‘If you refuse to accept that Loukas is your son I will tell him when he is old enough to understand that his father is dead. It will spare him the heartbreak of wondering why you rejected him.’
The bitterness in her voice startled Andreas as much as her ultimatum. He was reeling with shock that quickly turned to anger.
‘If you are telling the truth why didn’t you contact me when you gave birth?’ he demanded as he followed her into the room. He found her sitting on the sofa, crooning softly to the baby while she unbuttoned her shirt. The tender expression on her face as she held the baby to her breast evoked an ache in his chest. He wondered if his mother had ever looked at him with such loving affection when he was born. He certainly had no recollection of her doing so when he was older.
The sun streaming through the window picked out the golden strands in Isla’s hair as she sat feeding her baby. She seemed to Andreas like the biblical Eve, the first woman and mother but also a temptress who he was determined to resist.
‘Can you pass me a muslin? The square of material in the change bag,’ she said when he frowned.
Andreas spotted a large colourful bag, opened it and handed Isla a piece of white cloth. ‘You need all this equipment for one small baby?’ he said in astonishment. The bag contained disposable nappies, feeding bottles, a dummy and various other items that he had no idea what they were for. He put the bag on the coffee table and a red booklet slipped onto the floor.
‘It’s Loukas’s record book for when I have him weighed,’ Isla explained as he bent down to retrieve it.
Andreas flicked through the pages and read the baby’s date of birth. ‘It says here that Loukas was born on the eighteenth of May, which makes him four months old.’ His jaw hardened. ‘We had sex in mid-September a year ago. If you had conceived my baby then, as you say you did, you should have given birth three months ago, in June.’ He gave a cold laugh. ‘You appear to have slipped up on rudimentary mathematics, Isla.’
‘He was born three weeks early.’
‘How convenient,’ he drawled. ‘Theos, what kind of a fool do you take me for?’
Hectic colour stained her cheeks. ‘You are such a jerk! You’re so high and mighty, but you are wrong about me. Loukas had to be delivered at thirty-seven weeks because I developed a serious complication with my pregnancy which threatened his life and mine.’
* * *
Through her tears Isla saw Andreas’s shocked expression and her conscience pricked that she could have been gentler when she’d revealed that their baby had nearly died at birth. But maybe he didn’t care, she thought bleakly. She was still traumatised by memories of the routine antenatal appointment when it had been discovered that her blood pressure was sky-high and the baby was showing signs of distress. She had read about pre-eclampsia, but she’d been fit and healthy throughout her pregnancy and hadn’t expected to develop a potentially life-threatening complication.
‘You have no idea how terrified I was when I was rushed into hospital in an ambulance and immediately prepared for theatre,’ she said rawly. ‘Loukas’s heartbeat was dropping and they had to get him out quickly by caesarean section. He spent the first week of his life in the neonatal intensive care unit and it was touch-and-go if he would survive.’
She brushed her hand across her eyes. ‘The worst thing of all was knowing that Loukas was alone while he fought for his life. I was too unwell for a few days after the birth to visit him. Where were you then, Andreas?’ she demanded bitterly. ‘You failed Loukas when he needed you. I don’t know why I thought that there might be a shred of decency in you when I brought him to Louloudi so that you could meet your son.’
Andreas’s hard-boned features gave no clue to his thoughts and he did not say another word as he strode out of the room. It was becoming a regular occurrence for Andreas to walk away from her, Isla thought bitterly. She remembered how he had snatched his mouth from hers when he’d kissed her at Stelios’s house in London more than a year ago. His abrupt departure had left her wondering what she had done wrong.
Loukas gave a loud wail. ‘Don’t cry, baba,’ she whispered, blinking away her own tears. Usually he was a contented baby but he had been restless during his feed and his yells broke her heart even more than Andreas had done. How idiotic she had been to hope that when he saw Loukas he would realise that the baby was his son. They looked so alike, but perhaps all babies looked the same and only their mothers saw every unique detail of their child’s features, she thought. Loukas had even inherited his father’s piercing blue eyes, but the cold rejection in Andreas’s eyes would stay with Isla for ever.
Was this how her mother had felt when David Stanford had abandoned her and left her with a three-month-old baby? Isla refused to think of David as her father. He’d stuck around long enough to put his name on her birth certificate, but Andreas had not even done that for Loukas.
There was no point in feeling sorry for herself. She wiped her eyes with the edge of the baby’s shawl and stood up to rock him in her arms. ‘Don’t cry,’ she told Loukas again, her voice resolute this time. ‘We’ll be fine, you and me. We don’t need anyone else.’ A sob rose in her throat and she forced it back. She had grown up wishing that she knew her father and now her own child would have to do the same.
* * *
It had been a mistake to come here, Andreas brooded as he looked around the old fisherman’s cottage. The cottage was his private retreat, but when he walked into the bedroom he was assailed by memories of the night a year ago when Isla had responded to him with a sensuality that had blown his mind.
It hadn’t been his intention to make love to her when they had sheltered from the rain, but the chemistry between them had been as powerful as the electrical storm which had raged outside. He felt himself harden as he pictured her gorgeous naked body spread out on the sheets, the shy smile she’d given him when he’d positioned himself above her.
There was no question that she had been a virgin. He felt guilty even now, remembering the gasp of pain she’d made when he had thrust his shaft into her and met the fragile barrier of her innocence. But it had been too late to pull back and he had claimed her with a hunger he’d ne
ver felt so intensely with any other woman.
Andreas raked his hand through his hair until it stood on end. He was not a saint and he hadn’t kept a tally of the number of women he’d had sex with in the past, but he always used protection and there had never been a problem. Sadie had said that the condom must have failed, but after she had publicly accused him of being her baby’s father he had been given permission by a judge for a DNA test which had proved she was a liar.
Apart from Isla, the only other woman he had brought to the cottage was the wife of a Greek government minister, who had appreciated the privacy of the island. But his brief affair with Katerina had happened several years ago. Frowning, Andreas opened the bedside cabinet and picked up a box of condoms. He had been glad to find them in the drawer when he’d had sex with Isla. But now, as he checked the use-by date and saw it had expired two years ago, he realised that it was possible he was the baby’s father. More than possible; it was highly likely. His gut instinct told him that Isla had spoken the truth when she’d insisted he was the only man she had been with.
Andreas swore. His life was spinning out of control and he did not know what to think or feel. He’d assumed that one day in the future he would make a suitable marriage and produce the next Karelis heir. But the idea that baby Loukas was his son, his flesh and blood, unleashed emotions that he’d buried deep within him for most of his life. Not least was the realisation that having a child with Isla meant that his life would be linked with hers for ever.
Like it or not, she was the mother of his heir. To say that he found the situation unsettling would be a laughable understatement, he thought grimly. Isla undermined everything he thought he knew about himself. The truth was that he hadn’t wanted to accept that he could be her baby’s father.
On his way back to the villa he passed the jetty and saw Dinos loading luggage onto the boat. The butler had a fear of flying in the helicopter. A brightly coloured bag caught Andreas’s attention. ‘I thought you and Toula were going to Athens for a few days, but you have enough cases for a month,’ he joked.
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