Securing the Greek's Legacy

by Julia James

  He saw her take a rasping breath, making herself speak. Her face was still white with shock with what he’d told her about Marcos.

  ‘Lindy...Linda—’ she gave her sister’s full name before stopping abruptly, her voice cutting off. Then she blinked.

  Anatole could see the shimmer of tears clearly now.

  ‘Linda was my sister,’ she finished, her voice no more than a husk.

  He heard the past tense—felt the slow, heavy pulse of dark realisation go through him. Heard her thin, shaky voice continuing, telling him what was so unbearably painful for her to say.

  Her face was breaking up.

  ‘She died,’ she whispered. ‘My sister Linda. Georgy’s mother. She died giving birth. Eclampsia. It’s not supposed to happen any more. But it did...it did...’

  Her voice was broken.

  She lifted her eyes to Anatole across a divide that was like a yawning chasm—a chasm that had claimed two young lives.

  Her mind reeled as she took in the enormity of the truth they had both revealed to each other. The unbearable tragedy of it.

  Both Georgy’s parents were dead!

  She had thrown at Anatole Telonidis the fact that his uncaring, irresponsible cousin wasn’t wanted or needed by his son, but to hear that he had suffered the same dreadful fate as her sister was unbearable. As unbearable as losing her sister had been. Tears stung in her eyes and his voice came from very far away.

  ‘You should sit down,’ said Anatole Telonidis.

  He guided her to a chair and she sat on it nervelessly. His own mind was still reeling, still trying to come to grips with what he had just learnt. The double tragedy surrounding Marcos’s baby son.

  Where was he? Where was Marcos’s son?

  That was the question he had to have answered now! A cold fear went through him. Newborn babies were in high demand for adoption by childless couples, and a fatherless baby whose mother had died in childbirth might have been just such a child...

  Had he been adopted already? The question seared in Anatole’s head. If so, then he would have a nightmare of a search to track him down—even if he were allowed to by the authorities. And if he had already been adopted then would his adoptive parents be likely to let him go? Would the authorities be likely to let him demand—plead!—that they accede to his need for Timon to know that he had an heir after all?

  He stood looking down at the sister of the woman who had borne his cousin a child and died in the process. He swallowed.

  ‘Where is my cousin’s son?’ he asked. He tried not to sound brusque, demanding, but he had to know. He had to know!

  Her chin lifted, her eyes flashing to his.

  ‘He’s with me!’ came the answer. Vehement, passionate.

  Abstractedly Anatole found himself registering that when this drab dab of a female spoke passionately her nondescript features suddenly sharpened into life, giving her a vividness that was not drab at all. Then the sense of her words hit him.

  ‘With you?’

  She took a ragged breath, her fingers clutching the side of the chair. ‘Yes! With me! And he’s staying with me! That’s all you need to know!’

  She leapt to her feet, fear and panic impelling her. Too much had happened—shock after shock—and she couldn’t cope with it, couldn’t take it in.

  Anatole stepped towards her, urgency in his voice. ‘Miss Brandon, we have to talk—discuss—’

  ‘No! There’s nothing to discuss! Nothing!’

  And then, before his frustrated gaze, she rushed from the room.

  Lyn fled. Her mind was in turmoil. Though she managed to make her way into her next lecture she was incapable of concentrating. Only one single emotion was uppermost.

  Georgy is mine! Mine, mine, mine!

  Lindy had given the baby to her with her dying breath and she would never, never betray that! Never!

  Grief clutched at Lyn again.

  ‘Look after Georgy—’

  They had been Lindy’s final words before the darkness had closed over her fevered, stricken brain and she had ebbed from life.

  And I will! I will look after him all my life—all his life—and I will never let any harm come to him, never abandon him or give up him!

  ‘Just you and me, Georgy!’ she whispered later as, morning lectures finally over, she collected him from the college crèche and made her way to the bus stop and back home for the afternoon.

  But as she clambered on board the bus, stashing the folding buggy one-handed as she held Georgy in the other, she completely failed to see an anonymous black car pull out into the road behind the bus. Following it.

  Two hours later Anatole stood in front of the block of flats his investigator had informed him was Lynette Brandon’s place of accommodation and stared bleakly at it. It was not an attractive building, being of ugly sixties design, with stained concrete and peeling paint. The whole area was just as dreary—no place for Timon Petranakos’s great-grandson to be brought up!

  Resolve steeling, he rang the doorbell.

  CHAPTER TWO

  LYN HAD SAT down at the rickety table in the corner of the living room and got out her study books. Georgy had been fed and changed, and had settled for his afternoon nap in his secondhand cot, tucked in beside her bed in the single bedroom the flat possessed. She was grateful for Georgy’s afternoon sleep, even though if he slept too much he didn’t sleep well at night, for it gave her an hour or two of solid homework time. But today her concentration was shot to pieces—still reeling with what had happened that morning.

  Hopefully she had made her position clear and the man who had lobbed a bombshell into her life would take himself off again, back to Greece, and leave her alone. Anxiety rippled through her again. The adoption authorities believed that there was no contact with Georgy’s father or any of his paternal family. But since this morning that wasn’t true any more...

  No, she mustn’t think about that! She must put it behind her. Put behind her all the dark, disturbing images of the man whose incredible good looks were such a source of disturbance to her. For a moment his image formed in her mind, overpowering in its masculine impact. She thrust it impatiently aside and started reading her textbook.

  Two minutes later she was interrupted. The doorbell had sounded. Imperative. Demanding.

  Her head shot up. Who on earth...? No one called on her here.

  The bell rang again. Warily, heart thumping suddenly, she went to the door, lifting up the entryphone.

  ‘Who is it?’ she asked sharply.

  ‘Miss Brandon—we need to continue our conversation.’

  It was Anatole Telonidis.

  For a moment Lyn remained motionless. Don’t let him in! The childish, fearful words sounded in her head, but she knew she could not obey them. She had to get this conversation over and done with. Then she could send him away and never see him again—never be troubled again by the existence of Georgy’s father’s family. Nervelessly she pressed the entry buzzer, and a few moments later opened her front door.

  He was just as tall and formidable as she remembered. Taller, it seemed, in her poky flat. But it was not just his size and demeanour that pressed on her senses. His physical presence was dominating more than just the space he stood in. It was making her horribly aware all over again of his dark, devastating looks.

  Desperately she tried to crush down her awareness of them. It was the last thing she should be paying any attention to right now!

  Besides, a vicious little voice in her head was reminding her to think about what he was seeing! He was seeing a plain-faced nobody who was wearing ancient baggy jeans and a thick frumpy jumper, with her hair tied back and not a scrap of make-up. A man like him wouldn’t even look once, let alone twice!

  Oh, for God’s sake, what are you even think
ing of? Focus—just focus! This is about Georgy and what this man wants—or doesn’t want.

  And how quickly she could get rid of him...

  She stared at him. He seemed to be looking about him, then past her into the small living room, with its shabby furniture, worn carpet and hideously patterned curtains. Her chin went up. Yes, the place was uninviting, but it was cheap, and it came furnished, and she wasn’t going to be choosy. She couldn’t afford to be—not until she was earning a decent salary. Till then Georgy didn’t care that he wasn’t anywhere nice. And neither did she.

  This man who had dropped a bombshell into her life, however, looked as if he cared—and he didn’t like what he was seeing.

  ‘I hope,’ he said evenly, ‘that you have now had a chance to come to terms with what I told you this morning, and that you understand,’ he continued, ‘how imperative it is that we discuss my cousin’s son’s future.’

  ‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she replied tightly.

  Anatole’s mouth tightened. So she was still taking that line. Well, he would have to disabuse her of it—that was all. In the meantime there was something that was even more imperative. He wanted to see Marcos’s son—see him with his own eyes. He looked around the room.

  ‘Where is the baby?’ he asked. He hadn’t meant it to sound like a demand, only a question, but it seemed to make the girl flinch. Seeing her now, like this, had not improved her looks, he noted absently. She was still abysmally dressed, without any attention to her appearance.

  ‘He’s asleep,’ she answered stiffly.

  The dark eyes rested on her. ‘I would like to see him.’

  It was not a request. It was a statement of intent. His eyes went past her to the half-open bedroom door and he stepped towards it. Inside was a cot beside a bed, and in the cot the small figure of a baby nestled in a fleecy blanket. In the dim light from the drawn curtains Anatole could not make out the baby’s features.

  Are you Marcos’s son? Are you the child I’ve come to find? The questions burned in his head. Instinctively he moved to step into the room. Immediately a low-voiced hiss sounded behind him.

  ‘Please don’t wake him!’

  He could hear a note in her voice that was not just a command but a plea. Abruptly, he nodded, reversing out of the cramped room, causing her to back away into the equally small living room.

  Once again she felt his presence dominate the poky space.

  ‘You had better sit down, Miss Brandon,’ he said, indicating the sofa as though he, not her, was the host.

  Stiffly, she did so. Somehow she had to find a way to make him go away—leave her and Georgy alone. Then it came to her just why he might be here. What he might be after.

  ‘If you want me to sign papers saying I forfeit any claim to his father’s estate, I will do so straight away,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t want any money, or maintenance, or anything like that. Georgy and I are fine as we are—we’re all sorted!’ She swallowed again, altering her tone of voice. Her eyes shadowed suddenly. ‘I’m sorry to hear that your cousin is...is dead...but—’ her eyes met his unflinchingly ‘—but it doesn’t change the fact that he was not in the slightest bit interested in Georgy’s existence, so—’

  Anatole Telonidis held up a hand. It was a simple gesture, but it carried with it an expectation that she would cease talking.

  Which she did.

  ‘My cousin is...was,’ he corrected himself painfully, ‘the only Petranakos grandson of our mutual grandfather, Timon. Marcos’s parents died when he was only a teenager and consequently...’ Anatole paused. ‘He was very precious to our grandfather. His death has devastated him.’ He took another heavy breath. ‘Marcos’s death came as a viciously cruel blow—he was killed driving the car that our grandfather had given him for his birthday. It was a birthday Timon knew would likely be the last he would see, because...’ Anatole paused again, then finished the bleak saga. ‘Because Timon had himself just been diagnosed with advanced incurable cancer.’

  He fell silent, letting the information sink in. Lynette Brandon was sitting there, looking ashen.

  ‘You will understand, I know,’ he went on quietly, ‘how much it will mean to Timon to know that, although he has lost his grandson, a great-grandson exists.’ He read her expression. It was blank, rejecting. He had to convince her of the argument he was making. ‘There is very little time,’ he pressed. ‘The cancer was very advanced at the point of diagnosis, and since my cousin’s death my grandfather has refused all treatment—even though treatment could keep him alive for a little while longer. He is waiting to die—for with the loss of his grandson he has no reason to live at all. Not even for one single day.’ Then he finished what he had come to say. ‘Your sister’s baby—my cousin’s son—gives him that reason.’

  He stood looking down at her. Her face was still ashen, her hands twisting in her lap. He spoke again, his voice grave. He had to convince her of the urgency of what had to happen.

  ‘I need to take Georgy to Greece with me. I need to take him as soon as possible. My dying grandfather needs to know that his great-grandson will grow up in the country of his father—’

  ‘No! No, I won’t let you!’ The words burst from her and she leapt to her feet.

  Anatole pressed his lips together in frustration. ‘You are overwrought,’ he repeated. ‘It is understandable—this has come as a shock to you. I wish that matters were not as urgent as they are. But with Timon’s state of health I have to press you on this! The very last thing I want,’ he said heavily, ‘is to turn this into any kind of battle between us. I need—I want—your co-operation! You do not need me to tell you,’ he added, and his eyes were dark now, ‘that once DNA testing has proved Marcos’s paternity, then—’

  ‘There isn’t going to be any DNA testing!’ Lyn shot back at him.

  Anatole stopped. There was something in her voice—something in her face—that alerted him. There was more than obduracy in it—more than anger, even.

  There was fear.

  His antennae went into overdrive. Thee mou, might the child not be Marcos’s after all? Everything about those plaintive, pitiful letters he’d read indicated that the baby’s mother had been no promiscuous party girl, that she had fallen in love with his cousin, however unwisely. No, the child she had been carrying was his. He was certain of it. Timon, he knew, would require proof before he designated the baby his heir, but that would surely be a formality?

  His thoughts raced back to the moment in hand. The expression on Lynette Brandon’s face made no sense. She was the one objecting to any idea of taking Marcos’s son back to Greece—if the baby were not Marcos’s after all surely she would positively want DNA testing done!

  He frowned. There was something else that didn’t make sense, either. Something odd about her name. Its similarity to her sister’s. Abruptly he spoke. ‘Why is your sister’s name so like yours?’ he asked shortly. He frowned. ‘It is unusual—confusing, as I have found—for sisters to have such similar names. Lynette and Linda.’

  ‘So what?’ she countered belligerently. ‘What does it matter now?’

  Anatole fixed his gaze on her. His antennae were now registering that same flash of emotion in her as he’d seen when he had mentioned DNA testing, but he had no time to consider it further. Lynette Brandon was launching into him again. Her voice was vehement, passionate.

  ‘Have I finally got you to understand, Mr Telonidis, that your journey here has been wasted? I’m sorry—sorry about your cousin, sorry about your grandfather—but Georgy is staying here with me! He is not going to be brought up in Greece. He is mine!’

  ‘Is he?’

  His brief, blunt question cut right across her. Silencing her.

  In her eyes, her face, flared that same emotion he had seen a moment ago—fear.

  What is going on here?

>   The question flared in his head and stayed there, even though her voice broke that moment of silence with a single hissing word.

  ‘Yes!’ she grated fiercely.

  Anatole levelled his gaze at her. Behind his impassive expression his mind was working fast. Since learning that morning about the double tragedy that had hit this infant, overturning his assumption that Marcos’s son was with his birth mother, he had set his lawyers to ascertain exactly what the legal situation was with regard to custody of the orphaned boy—and what might be the outcome of any proposition that the baby be raised in Greece by his paternal family. He had no answers yet, but the baby’s aunt had constantly—and vehemently!—expressed the fact that she had full legal charge in her sister’s place.

  But did she?

  ‘And that is official, is it? Your custody of Georgy?’ His voice was incisive, demanding she answer.

  Again there was that same revealing emotion in her eyes, which was then instantly blanked.

  ‘Yes!’ she repeated, just as fiercely.

  He frowned. ‘So you have adopted him?’

  A line of white showed on her cheekbones. ‘It’s going through,’ she said quickly. ‘These things take time. There’s a lot of paperwork. Bureaucracy and everything. But of course I’m adopting him! I’m the obvious person to adopt him!’

  His expression did not change, but he could see that for the British authorities she would be the natural person to adopt her late sister’s son if she were set on doing so. Which she evidently was! Anatole felt a ripple of respect for her determination to go through with it. Her life could not be easy, juggling studying with childcare and living in penny-pinching circumstances.

  But for all that, he still had to find a way to convince her that Marcos’s son just could not be raised by her in such penurious circumstances. It was unthinkable. Once Timon knew of his existence, he would insist with all his last strength that his beloved grandson’s son be brought home to Greece, to be reunited with his father’s family.

  Just how, precisely, Marcos’s son was to be raised—how a small baby, then a toddler and a schoolboy was to grow up—was something that could be worked out later. For now, just getting the baby to Greece, for his grandfather to see him—make him his heir—before the cancer claimed Timon was his only priority.