‘You don’t need to repeat what I said. I remember.’
Something sharp moved in the region of her heart. She was glad he remembered.
‘You told me you had a girlfriend,’ she reminded him anyway, her hands on her hips, her chin jutting forward. She’d hated him then, for taking what had been an incredible night for her—her first sexual experience with a man she’d already been halfway to loving, the comfort and sense of unity she’d felt—and turning it into something so tawdry and wrong. She would never have slept with him if she’d known he was with someone else!
‘Yes.’ No apology, yet she saw something stir in the depths of his eyes, something she didn’t understand and didn’t want to waste time analysing.
‘All of which makes me a bastard of the first order,’ he said firmly. ‘But that still doesn’t excuse you hiding our son from me for six damn years.’
She spun away from him, moving to the window that overlooked the street. She’d tried to tell him. She hadn’t wanted to do it this way. But seeing him, his lifestyle, how could she throw something like a child into the midst of that? She’d been terrified. What if he’d sued for custody? And raised her child with another woman? She’d already lost so much—her parents, Lewis—the prospect of their baby was all she had.
Seeing him in his own environment like that had shown her the impossibility of telling him anything, and the words he’d thrown at her had been like flames, licking at her feet, tormenting her with how little she meant to him. Why would she ever have believed Dimitrios would act in her best interests? She meant nothing to him—he would do as he wanted, irrespective of her wishes.
Convinced of that, she’d fled, and all these years she’d told herself he’d be grateful if he ever learned the truth.
‘How did the journalist find out?’ she asked quietly, returning to her original question, her face creased with concentration.
‘Beats me. Apparently you must have told someone.’
She shook her head. ‘I have no idea how a journalist could have discovered this. I’ve been so careful.’
‘And what about my son? Does he know?’
My son. So possessive, so...right. For years she’d thought of Max as hers. He was her child, hers to protect, raise, love and shepherd. Except, the older he’d got, the more he’d started to look like Dimitrios, so that it was becoming impossible to ignore his true parentage.
‘He doesn’t know.’
Dimitrios’s response was a rumble, a curse, a moan, low and quiet. It nonetheless reverberated around the room and pressed deep from his soul and into Annie’s. She winced, his pain impossible to miss.
‘You haven’t even told him about me?’
She shook her head softly. ‘He’s started to ask, though. I’ve known for a while that I would need to...’
‘And would you then have told me, also?’
She turned back to face him, wishing she could lie, but knowing he finally deserved the truth. ‘I don’t know.’ It was the best she could do. ‘I’d like to believe so.’
His eyes bore into hers, as though through the power of sight he could somehow intuit the truth of her heart. Her blood moved like wildfire and the hairs on her arms stood up.
She waited for him to say something, to react, but he stood there for so long her blood began to rush for another reason altogether. She stared at him. A cacophony of emotions filled her, so she took a small step backwards, needing to break the connection that was firing between them like an electrical current. How was it possible that even in this moment he could have any kind of impact on her?
‘I—’ She wasn’t sure what she’d intended to say. She stopped talking when he shook his head and held up a hand, as if to silence her.
‘No.’ His brows drew closer. ‘No,’ he repeated, then turned on one heel and took the five or so steps his long gait needed to get him to the door.
‘You’re leaving?’ she demanded.
At the door, he turned to face her. ‘I won’t do this now.’
Her jaw dropped.
‘If you knew how close I was to saying a thousand things I would come to regret, then you’d understand.’ He shook his head. ‘If I’ve learned anything, it’s to not react when your emotions are in play.’
She stared at him in disbelief.
‘I will come back tomorrow.’
She swallowed. ‘Max has school.’
‘Good. We should talk without him hearing—it will be easier to make plans if he’s not present.’
‘Plans for what?’ But she already knew what he was going to say. Custody. He was going to take Max away, at least some of the time. How could she live with that? Panic filled her. She felt as if she might vomit.
‘For our marriage, Annabelle. What else?’
CHAPTER TWO
SHE COULD HARDLY turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse but she’d done the best she could, polishing and tidying, neatening the small apartment to within an inch of its life in preparation for Dimitrios’s return. Her whole world felt completely tipped off-balance.
For our marriage, Annabelle. What else?
As though it were a fait accompli—a given.
It was so like Dimitrios. He was born to command, a Titan of any boardroom he entered, a man people couldn’t help but respond to and obey. Naturally it wouldn’t have occurred to him that she might not wish to be married to him.
But...hello!
How in the world could he possibly think she’d go along with this? They hadn’t seen each other in seven years, and that had been a spectacular disaster. She was still sifting through the shrapnel of that evening, let alone the emotional fallout that had come after.
After he’d left.
After she’d found out she was pregnant.
After she’d gone to tell him.
After she’d seen him with his girlfriend, surrounded by people like him.
After she’d had their baby.
She felt as though she’d boarded some kind of express train and hadn’t been able to pause to draw breath. Marriage? Impossible.
Knots tangled inside her belly.
She moved to the kitchen and wiped the counters for the third time that morning, then pressed the button on the kettle, exhaling slowly as she did so. It was grey outside, gloomy and hot, the kind of late-spring day that typified the tropics. The clouds sat low in the sky, thick like a blanket, holding Sydney hostage to humidity and the lure of rain—a relief that wouldn’t come.
Annie caught her reflection in the window, darkened from the outside, and winced. Having seen the kind of women he associated with, she understood why his rejection of her had been so fierce that night.
How could a man like Dimitrios Papandreo ever really be interested in her? She’d dressed with care that morning, pulling on her best pair of jeans and a neat, white linen blouse she’d found in a charity shop about a month earlier. She’d pulled her silky blonde hair into a pony tail, then yanked it straight back out again and brushed it until it shone, before deciding the pony tail was best after all. She’d run through the process a few more times before giving up in frustration and allowing it to fall around her shoulders, unintentionally creating the impression of a golden halo.
She didn’t generally wear cosmetics unless she was going somewhere for work—which was very rare—and she didn’t really own very much in the way of make-up. But as a concession to their meeting, and out of a desire to feel her very best, she’d dashed some pale-pink lipstick across her mouth and dabbed a bit to the apples of her cheeks, blending it until it just gave a hint of much-needed colour to her pale skin. Her nails were short, her feet bare, and there wasn’t much she could do about the expression of worry that had taken up residence on her features.
The kettle clicked off; she reached for a tea cup on autopilot, placing it on the bench top, adding a herbal bag and filling it with wat
er. She stared at the swirling waves of steam, trying not to contemplate how completely her life was about to change. One way or another—marriage or not—nothing would ever be the same again.
She’d just taken a sip of her tea when the doorbell rang. Startled, she moved abruptly, spilling a gush of boiling liquid over her shirt. She swore, pulling the shirt from her skin, wincing at the hint of pain and shaking her head at her own clumsiness, before moving in the direction of the door.
She wrenched it open, barely giving Dimitrios more than a passing glance—nonetheless, it was enough to send her pulse into overdrive. ‘Come in. Have a seat. I’ll just be a second.’ She moved down the tiny hallway and into the room she was using as her own—it had been designed as a study, a small adjunct to the single bedroom, but it worked better for Max to have the bedroom. While he didn’t have many toys, those he did have were very precious to him. She liked him to have space to play with the train tracks he’d been collecting, as well as the books he brought home from the library.
She pulled a replacement from her wardrobe, a simple yellow T-shirt, and changed quickly. The skin above her breasts was pink from where the water had landed but it didn’t hurt. Sparing a brief second to check her appearance before she left the room, she almost instantly turned away again, hating to think about the ways she’d changed since that night.
At eighteen she’d been youthful and, despite the grief following Lewis’s death, she’d been full of brightness and spark. Her future had all been ahead of her—choices to be made, a university degree to be attained. She looked far older than her twenty-five years, Annie thought with a frown. She didn’t see the way the light picked up the colours of her eyes—sparks of blue alongside silver and green. Nor did she see the way the sunshine-yellow shirt complemented her deep brown tan, or the way her slender frame hadn’t lost the curves of her breasts and hips.
When she emerged a moment later into the stillness of her living area, it was to see Dimitrios had overtaken the space completely. Not with anything he was doing, just by the simple act of being there. He was big—large—his frame too much for the room, his presence too dynamic and demanding. Annie worked alone, and sometimes a whole day could pass in which she wouldn’t hear another human’s voice. Everything about her life was small, quiet and unremarkable. Dimitrios was like a blade of lightning splitting that apart.
‘I spilled something on my shirt,’ she said quietly, self-conscious about her apartment. He was dressed in a suit that, she would bet her non-existent savings, had cost more than her year’s rent. Slate-grey with a light blue shirt, it was clearly hand-made and tailored to his frame.
He nodded once, a crisp movement of his head, and gestured towards the table. ‘Shall we get down to business?’
Despite the tension, a smile tightened her lips. Just as she remembered. All command, completely in charge. Well, that didn’t hurt. For now, she could let him call the shots. Besides, she was curious to hear just what he was suggesting, even when she had no intention of accepting his ludicrous proposal.
‘Of course. I’ve just made a tea. Would you like something?’
‘No, this won’t take long.’
How romantic. She bit back the sarcastic rejoinder. She didn’t want—nor expect—romance from Dimitrios. It was no surprise he wasn’t even pretending to offer it. In a small act of defiance, she moved into the kitchen and grabbed her own tea cup, taking a moment to replenish it with boiling water. She was conscious of his eyes on her the whole time, watching as she added more water and returned the original tea bag to the cup, using a spoon to hasten its brewing and to capture all the flavour she could from the single bag.
When she moved to the table, his eyes followed her, and as she sat down she looked at him properly, catching the frown on his face. No surprises there. He was probably wondering how to politely extricate himself from the parting statement he’d made the night before.
Politely? Who was she kidding? This was Dimitrios Papandreo. Having been on the receiving end of his barbed tongue, there was no need to expect kindness from him. Reminding herself of that, she straightened her spine, regarding him with icy patience.
‘Well, Dimitrios?’ she prompted, cradling her hands around the tea. ‘What would you like to discuss?’
It seemed to jerk him out of his reverie. He nodded, reaching into his pocket and pulling out some sheets of folded paper. The table wasn’t large—it could seat four at a pinch. He extended his arm a little, holding the papers to her. ‘I’ve had a pre-nuptial agreement drawn up. Nothing complicated.’ He looked around the apartment. ‘I presume you don’t have a lot of assets, but whatever you do have will of course be quarantined from me, for you to retain in your name only.’
She didn’t make any effort to take the papers. She was blindsided that instead of attempting to back-pedal on his marriage proposal he was instead doubling down.
‘Naturally, the terms are generous towards you. As for our son, he will inherit what you would expect, as well as have access to a trust fund incrementally—on his eighteenth birthday, his twenty-first and his twenty-fifth.’ Perhaps mistaking her silence for gratitude or acquiescence, he paused a moment then continued. ‘It’s as it was for Zach and me, and for my father. It works well. Better than receiving an enormous amount at eighteen, when you’re more interested in alcohol and women than being sensible with investments.’
Annie felt as if a rock had landed at the base of her throat. She couldn’t swallow properly; her tongue wouldn’t cooperate. She sipped her tea, which helped only a little.
‘As for where we’ll live, I’m not sure if you’re aware, but I relocated to Singapore about four years ago. My house is more than adequate for you and our son and any other children—’
She spluttered, her butter-yellow shirt very nearly another casualty of the tea. ‘Hold on.’ She took a sip, then deliberately replaced the cup on the edge of the table, her fingertips shaking as the reality of what he was suggesting—and the fact he was clearly serious—overtook her.
‘I’m not marrying you, Dimitrios, so please stop making plans as though any of this is actually happening.’
He didn’t react. She realised then that he’d been expecting some opposition.
‘The amount of your allowance is, of course, negotiable.’
She flicked her gaze to the piece of paper he held, then shook her head. ‘There’s no price on my head. You can’t buy me.’
‘No?’ His teeth were bared in a smile, but it was born of anger. ‘I disagree.’
She stayed where she was even as she felt as though bees were flying into her. ‘I’m not mercenary. Not even a little. Don’t you think that, if money had been any kind of factor for me, I would have contacted you well before this? Do you have any idea how hard these last seven years have been for me? How I’ve struggled and sacrificed, all for our son? Who, by the way, is called Max. And don’t even get me started on how offensive I find it that you’ve been here ten minutes and haven’t asked me one single thing about him.’
A muscle jerked in Dimitrios’s jaw and his eyes stirred with unmistakable anger. ‘Do you think I want to hear about my own son from you? No, Annabelle. I want to get to know him, but for myself, not through your eyes. He’s my child, and I should have been a part of his life well before now.’
The rebuke was like a blade sliding beneath her rib cage, because he was right. She ignored that, though.
‘I see how you’ve been living, how you’ve been raising my son. Do you think any of this—’ he gestured around the room ‘—is good enough?’
Hurt simmered in her blood. She swept her eyes shut, so didn’t see the way he frowned and pushed back in his seat a little, shaking his head in frustration.
‘No.’ It was just a whisper. ‘But I’ve been doing my best. So don’t come in here and insult me, because I won’t have it, Dimitrios. You have no idea what this has been l
ike—’
‘And whose fault is that?’
She pressed her lips together, sadness flooding her.
‘I can’t change the past. If you want to be a part of Max’s life, I understand, but there’s no way we can just pick up and move to Singapore, nor that I would ever marry you. This isn’t the nineteenth-century. There’s no morality police set to charge you for having a kid out of wedlock, or whatever.’
‘There are my morals,’ he said simply. ‘And there is my son’s future.’
‘Your morals are your problem, not mine. And as for Max’s future—’ she inserted his name with determination ‘—that’s something we can discuss.’
‘I’m more than happy to discuss the minor details of our situation, but not the solution. We are getting married, Annabelle, so stop fighting me and start getting used to it.’ He leaned closer, bracing his elbows on the table. ‘Start preparing for it—be happy. All of your worries will be gone from the minute you become my wife.’
A shiver ran down her spine and instinctively she rejected that. All her worries would just be beginning if she became his wife—why couldn’t he see that?
‘Why are you being so insistent about this? You seem to have had a string of glamorous, high-profile girlfriends, and you’ve never married any of them, so I can only presume you feel as disinterested in being someone’s husband as I do in being your wife.’
‘It’s true, marriage has never been on my agenda.’
‘Never?’
He held her gaze a long time. ‘No.’
‘Then why now?’
‘Max is a game-changer.’
Max is a game-changer. How true that was! For her, it had been a complete game-changer in every way. No university. No shiny, bright career. No friends—it had been too hard to keep up with them with a small baby at home.
‘Max is your son,’ she agreed quietly. ‘But that has nothing to do with you and me—we can both be a part of his life without having to be a part of each other’s.’
‘That’s not good enough.’
An Heir Claimed By Christmas (Mills & Boon Modern) (A Billion-Dollar Singapore Christmas, Book 1) Page 3