‘You would say that,’ he said, fighting to hold on to his temper before it exploded out of him.
‘It’s the truth!’ she cried. ‘I know how much the biography means to you and I knew that to tell you before we’d finished it would derail you. I swear I was going to tell you as soon as it was done. I swear.’
‘Stop with the swearing. Right now I don’t know if I even care to believe your lies.’ Something else occurred to him—something so profound he couldn’t believe it had taken him so long to consider it. ‘You said you were on the pill.’
She winced and gazed down at the floor. ‘I lied,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so very sorry.’
‘What?’ He grabbed at his hair, then grazed his fingers down his face. ‘How could you lie about such a thing?’
‘I didn’t mean to. I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking of the consequences,’ she said, her voice muffled by her hair. ‘I...’
But he didn’t want to hear her excuses. There was only one thing he wanted from her, and that—he—was thousands of miles away.
‘Where is my son?’
‘At my brother’s house.’
‘Where?’
‘In Oxford.’
‘Where in Oxford?’
‘At...’ She stopped talking and raised her head to look at him. ‘Why?’
‘I’m going to send Nikos to collect him.’
She shook her head. ‘He hasn’t got a passport.’
‘That is not a problem. The address?’
‘You can’t conjure a passport out of thin air,’ she said with an air of desperation. ‘There’s a form that needs to be filled in, photos to be taken—it doesn’t happen overnight.’
‘I can make it happen overnight.’
‘He’s a British citizen. Only I can complete those forms because only my name is on his birth certificate.’
That cut him short.
Jo gave a hollow laugh. ‘Yes, Theseus, your son has my name. Because his father promised he would be in touch, then probably deleted my number before the ferry had lost sight of Illya. You can condemn me for lying about being on the pill, but if you’d kept your promise I would have told you the minute the pregnancy test came back positive. You could have had your name put on that birth certificate alongside mine. If you’d told me the truth about who you were you would already know your son.’
That her words were mostly true did nothing to placate him. Did she really expect him to believe she would have told him? He didn’t believe a word that came out of her pretty, lying mouth.
All he could think was that his son and heir had some sort of version of ‘father unknown’ on his birth certificate. It was like another iced dagger being pushed through his frozen heart.
‘Trust me,’ he said coldly, ‘I have ways of getting things done. My son will have my name and an Agon passport by morning.’
‘You can’t bring him here yet. He doesn’t know you...’
‘And it’s past time that he did. Now, for the last time, give me the address.’
‘I won’t.’ Jo refused to back down. However guilty she felt, and however understandably furious Theseus was, her first priority was her son. She would not have him frightened.
The pulse in his jaw throbbed. Her heart was beating to match it. He stalked over, crouched before her on his haunches and cupped her cheek.
‘I want to see my son and you will facilitate this.’
He spoke the words with such quiet menace that acrid bile surged up her throat. She had never seen such naked rage before.
‘Toby is not a toy,’ she said, with as much steely control as she could muster, refusing to quail under the weight of his power and loathing. Strangely, his hold on her cheek, although firm, was surprisingly soothing. ‘Your wish to see him does not trump his need to be and feel safe. I am not having a complete stranger whisk him away from everything he knows and loves. He’s a little boy.’
His thumb brushed her cheekbone. ‘A little boy who is my son. He belongs here in Agon.’
‘Right now he belongs in England. You’re a stranger to him—he needs time to get to know you before we even think about bringing him here.’
Was this really happening? Were they really having this discussion? She’d prepared herself for anger, or rejection, or if she was lucky faint promises of future contact—but not this.
‘I have a four-year-old son I have never met. He will be brought here.’
She clamped her jaw together and forced air into her lungs. All she succeeded in doing was filling herself with his scent. She almost wished he would shout or throw something. Anything had to be better than this cool yet venomous reasoning.
‘I’m his legal parent. I want you to be a part of his life, for Toby’s sake, but I will not allow you to rush things.’
‘How little you understand the workings of my country,’ he said, with what almost sounded like a purr—although there was nothing kitten-like about his tone. Its timbre and his stance were reminiscent of an alpha lion, getting ready to pounce. He stood up to his full height and headed to the apartment’s front door. ‘I have the means to bring him here and I will use them.’
Fresh panic clawed at her.
Where was he going?
‘You will meet Toby, I promise. I know learning about him has come as a complete shock to you. You need time to process it—’
‘Save me the psychobabble,’ he cut in icily. ‘All you need to think about is this: you will not be allowed to leave Agon until my son is brought here.’
Something cold and sharp pierced her chest.
‘What are you talking about?’ she whispered.
‘I will put out an order that you’re not to leave the palace without my express permission.’ His lips curved but his brown eyes fired bullets at her. ‘Even if you manage to escape you’ll find yourself unable to leave the island. The minute you turn up at the airport or the harbour you’ll be arrested.’
‘You can’t do that.’ But the needles crawling over her skin reminded her that he could.
‘You know the history of Agon as well as I do. My family may not rule the island alone any more but we do hold power. A lot of it. One phone call is all it will take.’
‘Please, Theseus, think about what you’re saying. I promise you will meet your son—but not like this.’
He turned the handle of the door. ‘Do you think I will trust a single word you say when you have proved yourself to be a remorseless liar? I want my son here in his rightful home and I don’t trust you to bring this about. If that means keeping you locked up until you come round to my way of thinking, then so be it.’
* * *
The clock’s hands had barely turned to one a.m. when the apartment door was thrown open. Theseus strode in, a sheaf of papers in his hand.
After his threat to keep her locked up he’d left, disappearing into the maze that was the Agon Royal Palace.
She’d felt it best to let him go, hoping a little distance would give him time to calm down and see reason. She’d stayed where she was on his sofa, clutching at her hair, alternating between feeling frozen to her core one minute and burning hot the next.
And now, judging by the grim, dishevelled look on his handsome face and the wild, dangerous glint in his eye, she saw the past hour hadn’t calmed him down at all.
Their time apart hadn’t worked to restore her own equilibrium either, leaving her stuck in a strange form of paralysed limbo. It was almost a relief to have him charge back in.
‘Fill this out and sign where the cross is,’ he said without preamble, placing the papers on the bureau in the corner and stabbing the one on top with a finger.
‘What is it?’
‘A form acknowledging me as Toby’s natural father. I need the relevant birth details from you. Fr
om this I will produce an Agon birth certificate. When you’ve completed this form I need you to sign this one for his passport.’ He held up a pink sheet of paper. ‘Nikos will fly to England and meet up with Agon’s Ambassador. They will collect Toby, take his photo and produce the passport, then fly him here. Tell your brother to have Toby ready for midday.’
‘Be reasonable,’ she pleaded, knowing she was being backed into a corner she couldn’t fight her way out of, but knowing that she had to fight—for Toby’s sake if not her own. ‘Toby will be terrified when two strangers turn up to spirit him away.’
‘Not if he’s properly prepared. You can call him first thing and tell him that two nice men are coming to bring him to you. Tell him to think of it as a great adventure.’
‘If having Toby here means so much to you, then why aren’t you going to get him yourself?’ she asked, a sudden burst of bitterness running through her.
‘Because my absence will be noted. I can’t afford for anyone to know about him yet.’
‘So you’re going to bring him here and hide him away—is that what you’re saying?’
‘Only until after the Gala. That will give me almost a fortnight to get things organised and time to prepare my family—especially my grandfather—for the shock Toby’s appearance will bring.’
‘What are you going to do?’ she demanded, spreading out her hands. ‘Hide him in the dungeons? He looks exactly like you. Anyone will take one look at him and know he’s of Kalliakis blood.’
Theseus felt his heart jolt at that information. He’d been so full of fire and fury that he hadn’t yet considered what his son looked like. Or what his personality was like. Theos, did four-year-old boys even have personalities?
‘I have a private villa on the outskirts of Resina,’ he said, referring to Agon’s capital. ‘Toby will be taken there until after the Gala.’
‘And what about me?’ Her voice was high with anxiety. ‘You can’t keep him away from me. That would be beyond cruel.’
His lips curved into a sneer but he shook his head. ‘Do not hold me to your own low standards. You will be taken there in the morning to wait for him.’
Not even in the darkest recess of his mind had he entertained the thought of keeping them apart—not even before he’d spoken to Dimitris and been given the hard facts about what having a child here would mean...not just for him but for Jo too.
For a moment his throat thickened as he saw the despair in her eyes.
She’d lied to him about being on the pill, he reminded himself angrily, whilst images of leaving Illya rained down in his mind.
He’d stood at the back of the ferry, staring at the woman who had helped him through one of the worst nights of his life. Jo had sat on the beach, hugging her legs and watching him leave. He’d kissed her goodbye before boarding, had tasted her sweetness for what he had thought would be the last time.
Why had he strung her along as he had? He’d never made false promises to a woman before. He’d known even as he’d stored her number in his phone that he would never call her. He’d never done that to a woman before. If he had no intention of calling, he never pretended that he would.
But she had really lied to him. He might have broken a minor promise to call but she had lied about being on the pill. If she hadn’t told such a wicked lie...
He wouldn’t have a son.
She’d hit a nerve when she’d asked why he wasn’t going to collect him personally. Theos, he wanted to. If he had superhuman powers he would have already flown to him. And yet...
Trepidation had taken root.
He wasn’t ready for this—wasn’t ready to be an instant father. These few hours while his son was being brought to him would allow him to prepare himself and get his villa made suitable for a small boy.
‘I’ll give you twenty minutes to get the paperwork complete,’ he said.
He’d left Dimitris in the palace library, researching constitutional matters, and he needed to check in with him. He could also do without Jo’s accusatory stare following his every move. She had no right to look at him as if he were the bad guy.
If she thought things were bad for her now, she was in for a nasty shock when he told her the rest of it.
CHAPTER SEVEN
JO HAD LONG given up trying to sleep.
It had been three hours since she’d completed those forms. She’d left them on Theseus’s bureau and returned to her own apartment, locking the door behind her.
She wanted to be alone, was too mentally exhausted to cope with anything else.
Padding over to the kitchen, she poured herself a glass of water and then rummaged in her handbag for some headache tablets. Just as she popped them into her mouth there was a soft rap on the door, followed by the sound of the handle being turned.
She swallowed the tablets down, more pathetic tears swimming in her eyes. It could only be Theseus.
She didn’t want to see him. Not right now, when she was so angry and heartsick that she could punch him in the face. She ignored the knock.
Her numb shock had gone...had been replaced with a burning anger that he could be so cruel. Whatever wrong she’d done—and she’d always known what a terrible wrong it was—this was infinitely worse.
All those years of searching, all those years of raising her child as a single parent, and he thought he could sweep in and turn it all upside down with no consideration for Toby’s emotional state.
And there was nothing she could do about it.
Every scratch of the pen on those forms had felt like a scratch on her heart.
But what choice had she had but to sign them? Theseus was fully prepared to keep her a prisoner until Toby was brought to him. She’d seen the threat in his eyes.
What this meant for her future she didn’t know. His power was too much for her to fight—more than she could ever have appreciated. She was fighting from a power base of zero.
Her head pounded. And her eyes... They’d never felt so gritty—not even when she’d spent a whole day sobbing in fear over how her mother would react to her unexpected pregnancy. The fact that her mother’s only comment had been, ‘For God’s sake, girl, I thought you had more sense than that,’ had been rather anticlimactic after all the angst she’d put herself through.
She should have known her mother wouldn’t be angry. For her to be angry would mean she cared, and if there was one thing Joanne had grown up knowing it was that her mother didn’t care. Harriet Brookes had done her duty. She had fed her and clothed her. But that was the extent of any mothering she’d extended towards her daughter.
Even when Jo had spent a month in hospital whilst pregnant her mother had paid only one visit, and that had been to drive her back to the frigid shell she called a home.
At least her father had shown some kindness—but she’d had to catch him at the right time if she’d wanted any coherence from him, considering he started drinking in the morning and was generally comatose in the chair in his study by mid-afternoon.
Her poor father... That weak-willed, spineless man, who’d realised too late that the pretty young woman he’d impregnated and been forced to marry was far too strong for him. He’d once said, intoxicated over Sunday dinner, that she’d emasculated him. Her mother had replied in her usual no-nonsense manner that one needed balls to begin with in order to be emasculated.
Jo had not understood why they stayed together—and had never understood how they’d come to make her.
She knew she must get some sleep. Even if she only managed a couple of hours that would be better than nothing at all.
As she was about to climb back into the huge four-poster bed she froze when she heard the click of a door being unlocked, followed by a creak.
Slowly she turned her head to look at the door adjacent to her dressing room. She’d never be
en able to open it and had wondered a couple of times what lay on the other side. Now she stared as it opened, too frozen with fear to move.
Fight or flight? At that moment she wasn’t capable of either option.
And then Theseus stepped over the threshold, allowing her to expel the breath she’d been holding.
He looked haggard, as if the events of the night had caused him to unravel.
‘You scared the life out of me!’ she said, on the verge of tears with shock. Her heart had been kick-started and was now pumping at the rate of knots. ‘Where did you come from?’
‘You didn’t answer my knock so I came through the hidden passageway connecting your apartment with mine.’ He pushed the door shut with his back and folded his arms. ‘We need to talk.’
‘It’s four o’clock in the morning.’ And she was wearing nothing but an old T-shirt that only just skimmed her fortunately covered bottom.
‘And you’re managing to sleep as well as I am.’ His eyes flickered over her, taking in her attire. ‘Nikos is on his way to England. There’s a helicopter on standby to fly him and the ambassador to Oxford,’ he added.
Jo gnawed at her lip and tried to fight the fresh tide of panic she felt as she did the maths. With the time difference between Agon and the UK, Nikos and the ambassador would easily make it to Toby by midday—just as Theseus had promised.
‘I think it would be best if I meet him at the airport.’ She mentally prepared herself for another fight she knew she was in no position to win.
To her surprise he gave a sharp nod of agreement. ‘I’ll get that arranged.’
‘And we’ll go straight to your villa?’ she clarified.
‘Yes.’
She chose her next words with care. Theseus might have calmed down, but she was aware that his temper was currently as flammable as dry kindling. ‘I know you want us to stay until the Gala, and then introduce Toby to your family, but I need to know how long you’ll want us to stay afterwards so I can make arrangements with work.’
Theseus Discovers His Heir Page 8