As his plaything.
They were poles apart yet eternally joined by a daughter they clearly both loved.
She had thought she’d known hell before.
Working alongside him, while loving him had been torture.
But this was worse. It did not cease at the end of the working day and there would be no annual leave.
Instead, this was her future.
He was now a permanent part of her life.
So far, he hadn’t put a foot wrong, but soon she would have to deal with the glamorous beauties and his tawdry social life.
Some time soon, Cecelia was sure of it, there would be his latest long-limbed beauty lying on the sun lounger, or splashing in the water beside him with her daughter.
And there was no escape from that.
Pandora would talk one day and no doubt she would hear about daddy’s new friends.
So Cecelia returned to the poolside to brood and that was how he found her.
She was huddled under the shade as if the sun might bite and the pool and poolside were pristine from lack of use. She startled when she looked up and saw him.
He wore only bathers and carried Pandora with a muslin cloth over her. She was asleep against his chest.
And she wore only a nappy.
‘Pandora should be covered in the sun...’ Cecelia chastised.
‘And she is,’ Luka pointed out. ‘She fell asleep on the walk over here. Shall I put her down?’
Cecelia nodded and held open the door to the villa. His hair was wet and she knew he’d been in the pool.
‘You didn’t have Pandora by the pool, did you?’ Cecelia checked.
‘Of course I did, but we were always in the shade and she loved the water.’
‘You took her in!’ There was horror in her voice as she followed him through the villa. ‘Luka, she’s far too young.’
‘Pandora adored it.’
She was appalled—in fact, Cecelia was furious, but she held her tongue as he tenderly lowered his daughter.
Pandora was clearly exhausted.
She barely stirred as he lightly covered her with the muslin, and as Luka walked off he tried not to glance at the large bed, or Cecelia’s rumpled dress flung over the chair.
And a pile of bikinis that she’d clearly tried on and discarded.
He kept having to remind himself how furious he was, yet this woman was a constant turn-on.
Out of her bedroom, he headed to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of wine and selected two glasses.
‘This is my villa,’ Cecelia pointed out, not liking his bold intrusion.
‘Okay, you serve, then,’ he said, and handed her the bottle and glasses. ‘I’ll be outside.’
God, he was arrogant, Cecelia thought, and spent five minutes trying to find a corkscrew before she worked out it was a screw top.
Her temper was still bubbling, and yet it was clear he was here to talk. Well, as long as he was prepared to listen too because there was no way he was taking Pandora in the pool again.
She walked outside but it wasn’t the glare of the sun that had her momentarily close her eyes.
It was his beauty.
Practically naked, except for black trunks slung low on his hips, he lay on a lounger.
He had a restless energy to him that she recognised from a year of working alongside him, and she felt a flutter of nerves low in her stomach as she approached.
She poured him a glass of wine and sparkling water for herself and then she suppressed a smile at his You serve, then comment.
‘Here,’ she said, and handed him the glass. ‘Luka, we need to talk about Pandora...’
‘I know we do and it’s the only reason I’m here,’ he said, more to remind himself, for he was on slow boil for Cece—or Cecelia as he would remember to call her now.
‘How was your mother with her?’
‘They got on wonderfully. She’s thrilled to have a granddaughter...’ He kept trying to be angry, but the truth was, it felt as if there was less and less to be angry about. ‘She is concerned for you, and all that you must have been through alone.’
‘Oh.’
Luka was too.
But there was something else concerning him and it was something that urgently needed to be discussed.
‘I’ve been speaking with my PR people in the UK and it would seem that there is a lot of press interest in me at the moment.’
Cecelia felt her heart sink.
‘With my father’s death and the new hotels...’ He didn’t bother to explain it all but Cecelia got the gist.
The press would love to get their hands on the billionaire playboy now a father.
He read her concern. ‘It is secure here, that I can assure you. Nobody can get a photo while you are in the complex, I took care of that long ago. The only risky place is my yacht.’
‘Well, I shan’t be going there!’ She gave a tight smile. ‘But, even so, I can’t be expected to stay behind the wall...’
‘Firstly, it is hardly a prison complex. There are miles of walks and you have access to my private beach. You are hardly going to be confined to four walls. You can take Pandora for a walk in the village if you feel you want to get out. I doubt a mother and baby will raise much interest.’
‘I mean, if she’s seen with you. Oh, God!’ She stood and looked out to sea as if a thousand cameras were trained on them.
‘I’ve already told you that the hotel and grounds are secure and I won’t be joining you on any strolls.’
She felt heat flood her cheeks as again he placed distance between them and she tried to quickly change tack. ‘I meant in London.’
‘For now, I shall see Pandora here.’ He saw the small frown form between her eyes. ‘You just said you don’t want any photos taken.’
‘But if you’re going to be in her life, how can you avoid her while in London?’
‘I’m not avoiding Pandora,’ Luka said, and then he put things bluntly. ‘I’m going to be avoiding her mother.’
‘If you want to be in her life, then that’s going to prove rather difficult.’
‘Amber is going through my schedule and for now, one week a month I am arranging things so that I shall be working from here.’
‘But you have a home in London and you can’t ask me to upend my life!’
‘Hold on right there. Had you done the right thing in the first place, we would have had time to organise things better. Had you bothered to tell me I was soon to be a father I might have been able to sort my schedule better. Had you—’
‘I get it,’ Cecelia said, and held up her hand to halt him.
‘I don’t think you do,’ Luka said. ‘I don’t believe for a moment you were going to tell me. I cannot believe I could have gone through my entire life not knowing about Pandora. She’s my daughter...’ he said. She heard the throaty rasp in his voice and she knew then how badly it was hurting him.
‘Luka, I thought you would tell me to take care of things.’
‘You assumed an awful lot.’
‘My father asked my mother to.’
‘She told you that?’
‘No, the one time I met him he was shouting at her, telling her that he’d given her money for a termination. I didn’t know what it meant, of course, until I looked it up.’
‘I would never have asked that.’
‘What would you have said then?’ she flared.
‘I don’t know...’
‘Well, neither did I!’ Cecelia said, and she fought to keep herself from shouting.
‘But I would have taken care of you and I would have ensured the best of care for the birth. And I would have been there when she was born and held her. And who knows what would have happened between us, but you denied us any chance of finding that out.’
Yes, he was angry.
But, yes, he understood better.
‘You should have trusted me enough to tell me.’
‘Trusted you! With the reckless way you live y
our life and your disposable attitude to women?’
‘They don’t have an issue with it,’ Luka said. ‘Well, most don’t. I deliberately choose women who know what they want and are more than happy to indulge in a good time.’ He could see the burn on her cheeks and he turned the knife. ‘Women who don’t wake up with regret...’
‘Women who paid you.’
‘Do you know what, Cecelia, you used to be a turn-on but I’m sick of the constant disapproval in your eyes.’
But, oh, it wasn’t disapproval in her eyes, it was jealousy and it was want—not that she told him that, and so Luka spoke on.
‘You’re so busy being the perfect parent and before that the perfect PA you don’t even know how to have fun.’
‘Yes, I do.’
‘You haven’t even been in the pool!’
‘You don’t get to dictate what I do with my time,’ Cecelia snapped. ‘And about the pool, I don’t want Pandora in the water...’
‘Roula is a trained swimming instructor and, given that Pandora’s going to be spending a lot of time surrounded by water, it seems prudent to teach her to swim.’
‘She’s three months old!’
‘And she swam straight to the top.’
‘Are you telling me you threw her in?’
‘Roula and I were in the water with her.’
She felt ill at the thought of Pandora in the water and sick too at the thought of him and Roula, sharing that time with her baby.
‘I want Pandora back home,’ Cecelia said. ‘This is too much. Luka, I want her back in London.’
‘Tough!’ Luka said. ‘One week a month you are going to be here, and you can mope around and check for photographers or you can live a little.’
She incensed him, she really did.
He thought of that body of hers that never saw the sun and he did the only thing he could think of in response. He threw her up over his shoulder and carried her to the pool.
‘Luka!’
Cecelia was raging and furious, not that it stopped him.
He just dropped her right into the deep end.
She flailed for a moment and then came up, and as she did, she heard another splash.
Luka.
He was there as she surfaced, spluttering and furious and swimming straight for the edge, but he caught her and held her at the waist as it was too deep to reach the bottom of the pool.
‘How dare you!’ she shouted.
‘Have you never been thrown in the water before?’
‘Of course not.’
‘And do you know how to swim?’
‘Of course I do.’
But it was nice, so nice to be in the water and facing him, nice to feel his hands strong on her waist and the sun beating on her shoulders.
Nice to know that her baby was doing things that she had never even dreamed of as a child and that she had a father who adored her.
And it was also scary to be under his spell again.
To know, from the ragged edge to his breathing, that he was turned on and to know from the warmth spreading through her that she was turned on too.
And to know that right now she could wrap her legs around him and be lost to Luka again.
But would it be Bored on Monday so we might as well do it sex for him? Cecelia pondered as she gazed into dark eyes.
Yes, she decided, because that was how he lived.
And so she disengaged from him and hauled herself from the water.
She was here as Pandora’s mother.
That was all.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CECELIA WOKE EARLY.
Only not to the familiar cries of Pandora.
Silence really was cruel for she had been locked in a dream where Luka’s kiss did not end and with an ache and heat low in her legs, and a body that throbbed for him.
She forced her eyes open and pulled herself out of bed and then went to check on Pandora.
She was asleep on her back with her little arms up above her head, as if cheering.
They had been here for almost a week and they were starting to get into a gentle routine.
The mornings were for her and Pandora alone, but around eleven Roula would come over and fetch her. Luka would take a long lunch break and spend time with her along with her yia-yia—her grandmother—who doted on her apparently.
Late afternoon, after her nap, Pandora would return to Cecelia.
And it was nice.
Cecelia was starting to relax into it and had, after her impromptu dip in the pool, started to swim each day and take regular walks along Luka’s private beach.
It was a long stretch of cove that made for a perfect walk, splashing through the breaking waves and breathing in the fresh sea air.
On her final full day in Xanero before she and Pandora flew home tomorrow, it wasn’t by coincidence that Luka headed down to the beach to join her.
It still galled him that she had kept the news of the pregnancy from him, but he understood better why she had.
He wasn’t exactly fatherhood material.
Or he hadn’t been.
And he wasn’t exactly a family man.
Yet he wanted to be.
He was still infatuated with Cecelia, and his desire for her had never gone, though he knew he must not rush things.
Even so, tomorrow she left for London. Three more weeks apart, and not just apart from his daughter.
He ached for Cecelia. He ached for the glimpse of the smile he sometimes prised from her reluctant lips, and for the way she sometimes made him laugh.
‘Hey,’ Luka said, and he saw that he had startled her.
‘Where’s Pandora?’
‘Being spoiled,’ he said. ‘My mother wondered if you would like to join her for breakfast tomorrow, before we head off?’
‘I’ve been here a week...’
‘Cecelia, my mother would have had you over the first day if she’d had her own way. I have been the one keeping things separate...’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s what I always do,’ Luka said, and then added, ‘And because I was angry.’
They walked on.
‘But I can’t keep my worlds separate now,’ Luka said. ‘We have a daughter. My mother has a grandchild...’ He looked at her. ‘What about your aunt and uncle? Do they know about me?’
‘No.’ Cecelia shook her head. ‘They would have had me straight over to a lawyer,’ Cecelia said. ‘And then they’d have gushed all over us both. You were right about them only taking me on to get to the money.’
She looked out to the cove and the glitter of his yacht but his wealth was not what beckoned her.
He saw where her gaze fell. ‘Do you want to go over for lunch?’ Luka asked.
‘No, thank you.’ It was hard enough just to walk alongside him and not break down. She wanted him so badly and was terrified she’d simply accept whatever occasional crumbs of affection he threw her way and so her response was tart. ‘I thought the reason I was here was so you could spend time with your daughter.’
‘Believe it or not, I actually have some work to do today—things were already piling up before my father died.’
‘I’m sorry he never got to meet his granddaughter,’ Cecelia said. ‘I really do mean that. I feel terrible about it, in fact...’
‘Don’t.’ Luka shook his head and then turned and looked at her ‘Truth?’
‘Please,’ she said, and gave a pale smile. He really was a curious man, for he could so easily have held that over her. She was surprised to have her guilt so readily dismissed.
‘I would not have insisted on a week of playing happy families had he been alive. I would never have exposed her to his toxic nature. Instead, I would have brought Pandora for lunch and that would have been it.’
‘I thought the two of you were close.’
‘That’s what they wanted people to think.’
‘Tell me...’ Cecelia said, because she simply could not feign disinterest.
‘Over dinner.’ He nodded to the yacht. ‘It’s a nice place to talk and I’m not here by accident, Cecelia. My mother has asked if she can have Cecelia stay with her tonight.’
‘Absolutely not.’ Cecelia shook her head. ‘I’ve given you as much time as you want with her but she is not spending the night away from me. There’s no need for your mother to babysit.’
‘But she would not be babysitting—she is family.’ Luka closed his eyes in exasperation. ‘She wants to have her granddaughter stay over and to boast to her friends. It’s the Greek way.’
She could feel her panic building. It was irrational really, for she wanted Pandora to be surrounded by people who loved her, yet she could not bear the thought of her waking in the dark alone.
‘Cecelia, do you really think I would leave Pandora with someone I did not absolutely trust?’
Of course not.
Cecelia knew that.
He had told her that.
And she knew that this was the future.
Time spent away from her daughter as Pandora spent time with people who loved her.
‘Roula will be there too,’ Luka said. ‘Cecelia, I am sure most first-time mothers are anxious when they leave their baby for the first night, but that is co-parenting.’
‘I know.’
She swallowed.
It sounded so odd to hear those words from him.
She had honestly thought he would have no interest in Pandora. Or, perhaps the odd visit. Cecelia had genuinely believed he would throw money at the situation.
Instead, Luka wanted to be a true parent. He wanted real time with his daughter and he wanted his family involved in her life.
He just didn’t want her.
Only that wasn’t entirely the case.
Luka turned so he was facing her and when she didn’t do the same, he took her shoulders and moved her to face him.
‘I want to take you to the yacht tonight because I think it’s time that we speak about us.’
‘Us?’ An incredulous laugh shot from her lips. ‘What us? You hate me, and I can’t stand the way you live your life—’
‘Yet we are parents together,’ Luka interrupted. ‘And for the record, I don’t hate you, and I think you are referring to my former life.’
She assumed he meant prior to him finding out he was a parent.
Claiming His Hidden Heir Page 13