‘Luka...’ she attempted. ‘I was going to tell you.’
‘I don’t want to hear your lies and excuses,’ he said. ‘I don’t care what you might have been going to do. I want to know about my child.’
‘But I have to get back to her.’
She watched his jaw grit and the angry purse of his beautiful mouth as she realised that he had only just found out that their baby was a girl.
And Cecelia knew in that instant that she would never be forgiven for keeping Pandora from him.
‘Luka, I know we have to talk and I understand that you’re angry but I really can’t do this now.’
‘When then?’ he demanded. ‘On her eighteenth birthday? Or perhaps when your money has run out and you want to claim your meal ticket?’
‘Luka, please.’
He watched as the ordered Cecelia put her hands to her ears.
‘I can’t row now.’
She was muddled, caught, confused.
And it wasn’t just that he already knew.
The impact of being close to him again was an utter assault to her senses.
For the best part of a year she had fought not to think of him. Now that she faced him, worst of all, she was the liar and the guilty party.
‘It’s my first time away from her.’
A pathetic excuse perhaps, only it was the truth and it was killing her.
‘Is she with your aunt?’
‘God, no!’ The words shot out and then she looked up at him. ‘She’s with my neighbour. Luka, I know we need to talk, I accept that, but it’s not going to be wrapped up in an hour.’
‘You clearly don’t get it, Cecelia. Whatever the location, whatever the time, I shall be meeting my daughter tonight. You have denied me my rights for long enough.’
Cecelia had seen him like this before, though it had been in the workplace, and she knew Luka well enough to know that arguing would be futile. But aside from that, he was completely right—she had denied him his rights long enough.
‘We can go to your home,’ Luka said, ‘or we can speak here or at mine, and then you take me to meet her or have her brought to me. But before you decide, know this, Cecelia. If you refuse to take me to my daughter, then the next contact we have shall be via a lawyer. I don’t currently employ an expert in family law, but my team is already looking into it. Mess up again and the best shall be retained.’ He saw her already pale skin go even paler but he felt no guilt. None at all. And he told her why. ‘You started this, Cecelia.’
‘Do you blame me?’
‘Yes,’ Luka swiftly answered. ‘I blame you completely.’
CHAPTER TEN
CECELIA CHOSE HOME.
The drive to her flat had been a silent one. She had tried to speak once, to tell him his daughter’s name, but he had told her to save it.
‘If I want to know anything, I will ask.’
Right now, Luka had enough to process. He had a child. A girl.
He had been a father for three months and not known.
He could not deal with even one more piece of information that had been kept from him or he might just lose it.
Things would be at his pace from this point on and if Cecelia could take her time then so could he!
‘I thought you said we needed to talk,’ Cecelia pushed, wanting as much as possible out of the way before they got home.
‘Well, I’ve changed my mind,’ Luka said. ‘It’s too late for all that.’
Luka actually felt ill at the thought that anything could have happened to his daughter and he wouldn’t have known.
He looked over at Cecelia, who sat opposite him, and he thought of the secret she had kept from him and that only by chance had he found out.
White hot was the rage that seared through Luka and he was doing his level best to contain it.
‘We’re here,’ Cecelia said as his driver pulled up close to the main door to her flat. But as the driver came round and opened the door, Luka didn’t immediately get out.
Luka, who could face anything, was for the first time nervous at the prospect of what lay ahead, for in a moment he would meet his daughter for the first time.
‘Aren’t you coming in?’ Cecelia asked.
‘Of course I am.’ Luka shot Cecelia a look of contempt. ‘I’m hardly going to meet her in the street.’
She could feel his loathing as he entered her small flat. She hadn’t noticed how messy it was when she had headed out.
Cecelia noticed now.
The ordered world she had once inhabited, one where she put out her clothes for the next morning the night before, had long since gone. The tiny bundle that she had birthed meant that she lurched from one feed to the next and grabbed a quick shower and a scrape of her comb through her hair in the short bursts when Pandora slept.
Cecelia did not attempt a rapid tidy.
Instead, she glanced at the magazines on the coffee table to distract her anxious thoughts. There were some colic drops too and a couple of mugs, and some baby blankets strewn across the sofa—the aftermath of a difficult night.
It had been a difficult, yet wonderful three months.
She was permanently exhausted and lonely too. She was barely speaking with her aunt and uncle and she was not exactly inundated with friends. The few Cecelia had were either single or child-free by choice. There had been cards, flowers and visits when Pandora had first been born, but, understandably they did not want their Sunday brunches pierced by a baby’s cries and Cecelia didn’t have space in her brain for decent conversation.
She was a mother.
A new one.
Yet she had a three-month head start on Luka.
‘Would you like...?’ Cecelia started but Luka wasn’t here for a chat and neither would he be taking a seat.
‘Could you fetch my daughter, please?’
‘Of course.’
Mrs Dawson was nosy enough that she would have seen the expensive car pull up and know that Cecelia had a guest, and so she didn’t invite her in for a chat.
‘She was as good as gold,’ Mrs Dawson said, as she handed Pandora over. ‘Fell asleep in my arms.’
‘Thank you so much.’
‘And she’s just been fed,’ Mrs Dawson said as she collected up her things.
Pandora was wrapped in a soft lilac blanket and Cecelia held her close and inhaled the delicious baby scent. Oh, yes, her tiny world was changing and Cecelia did not want to let her go. Having thanked Mrs Dawson, she headed across the hall but Pandora picked up on her tension and started to cry.
Good, Cecelia thought, even as she moved to hush her. Let him see how it really is. Tell me off, write your cheque and be gone. For she could not deal with the thought of handing Pandora over to him. And, no, she did not want her daughter spending weekends and holidays with a father who partied just as hard as he worked.
As she stepped into the lounge he was there waiting, so tailored and exquisite and with angry black eyes. She could not believe that Luka was really in her home.
He did not belong here.
Luka belonged in his office castle or creating merry hell aboard his yacht.
The expensive scent, the stunning suit all felt like too much to process right now.
Her child’s father was a reckless playboy, and in her arms she held the consequence of their one night together.
She soothed Pandora as Luka stood watching but he made no move to come over. ‘I really was going to tell you,’ she told him.
‘Then why didn’t you when I called you earlier today?’
‘I was standing in the street!’
He heard the urgent sincerity in her voice and for the first time today he knew she was telling the truth. Cecelia did not know he had been watching her when she had taken the call.
Still, the grain of honesty from her barely appeased him for it accounted only for a few seconds of the past year.
‘Why didn’t you say anything back in the office?’ he asked as he gazed at the bundle she
held in her arms. Really he could see only the blanket and he was playing for time, nervous now to meet her.
‘I couldn’t do it face to face.’ Another truth, not that he believed her, Cecelia could see. ‘I tried to call you a couple of times during the pregnancy. I couldn’t get through.’
‘You didn’t try very hard.’
‘No,’ she admitted.
‘Why?’
That she couldn’t really answer but she tried. ‘I was scared of your reaction. I thought you’d tell me to get rid of her, or say that I’d tried to trap you by getting pregnant...’
‘I was there that morning, Cecelia. I do know how babies are made and that it takes two.’
It was the closest she had come to a smile since facing him again, but Luka did not see it. He had no interest in the past right now, for in that second the small blanket slipped a little and he saw a shock of dark hair and a pale cheek and suddenly he forgot how to breathe. There in his chest it felt as if an iron fist had sunk in.
He walked over and Cecelia felt him enter her space—only it had nothing to do with her, simply the infant she held in her arms.
She watched one, long, olive finger come and tenderly stroke the little baby’s cheek. ‘Can I hold her?’
‘She’s a bit unsettled...’
‘I was only asking, to be polite,’ Luka said, and now he no longer asked—he told her instead in a voice that was calm but the words hit like sleet. ‘Give my baby to me.’
She handed Pandora to him and he took her into his arms, more skilfully than she had predicted—because, of course, she had imagined how her baby would look in his arms. She watched him cradle his daughter and carefully take a seat on the couch as his eyes never left Pandora’s face.
‘What name did you choose for her?’ he asked, and Cecelia heard the scold in his tone.
He would change it if he did not like it, Luka decided.
How dared she take such an important choice from him?
There were tears at the back of her nose and throat and she had to swallow before she could respond. ‘Pandora.’
But he would not be changing it, for the second he heard the name Luka loved it.
It meant ‘all gifts’, which indeed she was, and it was Greek and...
He let out a soft, yet not quite mirthless laugh. He had decided a caustic response was his to make, yet none came, for the name was completely perfect as for the first time Pandora opened her eyes to look at him.
They were navy and surrounded by spiky black lashes and she simply stared up at her father and met his gaze.
Luka pushed back the pale blanket to reveal more dark hair and he looked at her pretty rosebud mouth. For the first time in his life he felt the threat of tears.
Luka had never held a baby, let alone thought he might father one.
Now he held a daughter he had only found out existed today. His free hand held hers, looking at the slender fingers and tiny nails. Then he traced her eyebrows and imprinted her beauty on his mind—her little mouth and the soft pink of her skin—and when she stared back at him with sleepy navy eyes Pandora gave him a smile.
Her eyelashes seemed too heavy and he watched as she closed her eyes in sleep and he simply breathed in the baby scent of her and the miracle of her existence.
And had her mother got her way, Luka would never have known she was here.
Any tenderness left his eyes as he looked up at Cecelia. ‘Pandora indeed,’ Luka said. ‘However, your secret is out now.’
‘I really was going to tell you—’
‘Save it.’
‘Honestly Luka, when I first found out—’
‘Save it,’ he said again. ‘I won’t have this moment marred by your lies and I won’t have this discussion in front of our child.’ Then he looked down at Pandora. ‘Perhaps it is time to put her down.’
He stood and Cecelia nodded and held out her arms to take Pandora but Luka did not simply hand her over. ‘I can take her to the nursery.’
‘Nursery!’ She let out a wry laugh. ‘Luka, it’s a one-bedroomed flat, not a penthouse apartment.’
While true, there was a small study that could be turned into a nursery in the future, but for now Pandora had been sleeping in with her. Cecelia could not bear the thought of her daughter waking up and crying in the dark alone.
Luka handed over Pandora but Cecelia would not, or could not, meet his eyes. She just held her daughter close to her and headed for the bedroom.
She knew he was furious.
Cecelia was furious with herself.
She should have told him at the very least in his office but she had panicked.
Now she had no one to blame but herself for the situation she found herself in.
Cecelia put Pandora down. Unlike last night, when she had protested every time she had been lowered to the mattress, now Pandora made not a sound.
She stared at her for a moment, aware that Luka stood in the doorway, watching them.
He wanted to know his daughter’s routines and things like how to put a tiny baby to sleep. All of this was completely alien to him.
He saw that Cecelia covered her with a blanket and then kissed her fingers and placed them on the baby’s head before turning to leave the bedroom.
‘I don’t want to argue...’ Cecelia said as she walked past him.
They moved into the hallway and she awaited the interrogation, but instead it seemed he was about to leave.
‘You’re going?’ Cecelia checked, not really believing that was it, but he was heading for the front door.
‘Yes, it has been a long day,’ Luka said. ‘I just returned from Greece this morning.’
He had been on his way back from the airport when he had seen her.
It felt like a lifetime ago.
‘I was there for my father’s funeral.’
It was as if the carpet beneath her feet had turned into a flying one, for she felt the jolt of the ground and the world tip off kilter.
She had known she would never be forgiven by Luka, but what he had just revealed told her that it was a certain fact now.
His father had died without knowing he had a granddaughter.
‘I’m sorry,’ Cecelia attempted.
‘Oh, no, you’re not,’ Luka said. ‘How could you be when you did not know him?’
She looked into his eyes, which were not entirely unreadable for she could see the loathing there.
‘When do you want to see her again?’ Cecelia attempted.
‘Tomorrow,’ Luka responded crisply. ‘A car will be here for you at nine in the morning.’
‘A car?’ Cecelia checked. ‘Am I to bring her to you or?’
‘I am taking Pandora to Xanero tomorrow. Naturally, I would like my mother to meet her granddaughter.’
‘Luka, no...’ She reached and caught his arm but he shook her hand off as if he could not bear the slightest touch from her. ‘She’s not ready to travel.’
‘Why ever not?’ he demanded.
‘She doesn’t have a passport.’
‘I have a contact at the embassy and an urgent one can be arranged on our way to the airport.’
‘No! She’s not ready.’
‘Pandora is three months old and shall be travelling on my private jet accompanied by her mother. I don’t see any issue.’
‘I might have plans tomorrow,’ Cecelia attempted.
To no avail.
‘Then cancel them.’
‘Luka, I’m not trying to keep you from her. You can see Pandora tomorrow, of course you can, but you can’t just walk in here and tell me that tomorrow I have to leave for Greece...’
‘Are you quite sure about that?’ Luka checked. ‘Because the way I see it, tomorrow you can either get on a plane and head to a luxurious resort for a week...’
‘A week?’ Cecelia gulped.
He nodded. ‘There you shall be catered for and beautifully looked after. Once there, the best nannies will be available to assist as I get to know
my daughter and her grandmother meets her.’ He frowned as if bemused by Cecelia. ‘I thought you would jump at the chance.’
‘No!’
‘So you would rather spend the next few days in court? When the outcome will be the same—Pandora will be coming to Xanero, my lawyers will see to that.’
She felt sick.
It was like David and Goliath, except she wasn’t the good guy here and the courts might well agree.
She would be portrayed as the bitch who had kept him from his child, up against the might of Luka Kargas.
She had lost already, Cecelia knew as she watched him walk down the small garden path, brushing against weeds and neglected overgrown bushes because for the past months gardening had been the furthest thing from her mind.
‘I’ll see you tomorrow!’ he called. ‘Be ready.’
And even if Luka was in no mood to speak, even if she had no right to an answer, Cecelia did have a question.
‘How did you know?’ she called out to the dark and watched him halt. She was not asking how he had known about the baby; she was asking how he had been so certain that Pandora was his.
‘How did I know?’ Luka checked exactly what she was asking as he turned around. ‘Are you going to try and drag things out with a DNA test to keep her from me even longer?’
‘Of course not. But most men would demand one. I’m just asking why you’re so certain...’ Her voice trailed off as he walked back toward her, and then he came and stood closer to her than he had all evening.
So close that she could feel his breath on her cheek as he answered the question.
‘I know, Cecelia, because when your legs were wrapped tight around me...’ She was dizzy from lack of oxygen and she could feel his breath warm her cheek as he painted a vivid picture. ‘When I screwed you slow and deep and came inside you,’ he continued and her neck was rigid and her eyes screwed closed as he taunted her with the vision of them, ‘you may recall that I was unsheathed.’
‘Luka...’ She begged with a single word that he stop.
He did not.
‘And given how long it took to get inside you, I doubt you went from my bed straight to someone else’s. And,’ he continued, ‘given your abhorrence that we did not use protection, I would guess that lapse was as rare for you as it was for me.’
Claiming His Hidden Heir Page 11