The Secrets She Carried

by Lynne Graham

  ‘Are you sure about this?’

  His sooty lashes swept up on his level gaze. ‘I know what I want.’

  ‘But is it really us as a family unit?’

  ‘Do I get to wake up to you almost every morning?’ Cristo raised a mocking brow. ‘That’s my sole demand. That’s what I want and need.’

  Erin was not quite convinced of that when two little wriggling noisy bodies tried to get into bed with them at dawn the next morning. Aghast, Cristo snatched up his boxers to make himself presentable and looked on in disbelief as the twins cuddled up between them, providing as effective a barrier as a wall.

  ‘What are you doing in Mummy’s bed?’ Lorcan demanded curiously.

  ‘Your mother and I are getting married very soon,’ Cristo announced instantly.

  Erin stiffened in dismay. ‘Cristo, I didn’t say yes.’

  Cristo sent her a shocked look, his eyes dancing with wicked amusement. ‘Are you saying that you took repeated gross advantage of me last night without any intention of making an honest man of me and doing the decent thing?’

  Erin reddened at his mockery, the ache of her well-used body reminding her that after the enthusiasm she had demonstrated between the sheets he naturally took her agreement to marry him somewhat for granted. ‘No, I’m not saying that.’

  ‘Then I can go ahead and make the wedding arrangements?’

  Erin nodded uncertainly, thoroughly shaken by the concept of becoming his bride. ‘Shouldn’t we have a living-together trial first?’

  ‘Nope. You might change your mind. I refuse to be put on trial. And on a more serious note, it’s time I told my parents about you and the twins. I don’t want them to hear from another source,’ he imparted wryly. ‘I’ll go and see them after breakfast.’

  ‘They live here on the island?’ Now she grasped why he had never offered to bring her to Thesos for a visit.

  ‘They have a second home here. They use it weekends, holidays.’ He shrugged. ‘They’re here right now.’

  ‘How do you think they’ll react?’

  ‘I suspect my foster mother will be overjoyed—she’s crazy about children.’

  ‘Just not so crazy about me?’ Erin remarked uncomfortably as the twins scampered out of bed and she followed suit.

  ‘Some misunderstanding must’ve lain behind the strange impression you received of my foster mother during that phone call you made while you were pregnant. Appollonia had no reason to think badly of you. She knew nothing about you.’

  The four of them enjoyed breakfast on the terrace and then Cristo left to visit his parents and Erin changed into a swimsuit, packed a bag and took the children down to the beach As the morning ticked slowly past she wondered anxiously what sort of a reception Cristo was receiving from his parents. His foster parents, she reminded herself again, having studied a picture on the wall of a glamorous young couple standing on the deck of a yacht and guessed that the glossy pair were Cristo’s birth parents. When she came back from the beach, she let Jenny take the exhausted twins and went for a shower, emerging to phone her mother and describe the island and the house and, finally, their plans to marry. Her parent was very pleased by her news.

  Choosing a book from the well-stocked, handsome library to entertain her until lunchtime, Erin relaxed in a cushioned lounger in the shade below the trees. She was drowsing in the heat when a slight sound alerted her to the awareness that she was no longer alone. Taking off her sunglasses, she sat up and frowned at Cristo, who looked grim. Lines of strain were indented between his nose and mouth, his black hair was tousled and stubble darkened the revealing downward curve of his beautiful mouth.

  ‘What’s up?’ Erin demanded worriedly, checking her watch. He had been gone for hours. It was two in the afternoon.

  As he sank down heavily opposite her Erin leant a little closer and sniffed. ‘Have you been drinking?’

  ‘I might have had a couple while I was waiting on the doctor’s arrival with Vasos,’ he volunteered half under his breath. ‘It’s been such a ghastly morning that I don’t really remember.’

  ‘Who needed a doctor?’ she exclaimed.

  ‘My mother.’

  ‘Appollonia’s taken ill?’

  Cristo dealt her a troubled appraisal. ‘It was her … she was the one who hired the private detective. I wouldn’t have believed it if she hadn’t known enough to convince me. My father is in shock—he had no idea what was going on.’

  Erin was bemused. ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘My mother hired Will Grimes.’

  Her eyes widened while she recognised how much that staggering discovery had upset him. There was enormous sorrow in his unshielded eyes that made her wince and long to hold him close, for she knew how deeply attached he was to the couple who had raised him. In fact it hurt her so much to see him wounded in such a way that she stopped lying to herself in that same moment: all her proud pretences and defences fell away and she was left to face the inescapable truth that she still loved Cristophe Donakis and had never stopped loving him.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘APPOLLONIA learned that you and I had been together for at least a year from one of my friends. She was always ridiculously eager for me to settle down and have a family and she became convinced that you were holding me back from that development. She was obsessed with the idea of me marrying another Greek and spending more time here in Greece,’ Cristo explained with a heavy sigh as he sat opposite Erin, who was studying him fixedly. ‘She paid a private detective to investigate you and eventually told him that she would pay him a bonus if he would use whatever means were within his power to break us up.’

  ‘But that’s crazy,’ Erin whispered, reeling from the unexpected tale he was telling her. ‘You’re an adult. How could your mother interfere in your life like that?’

  ‘Appollonia seems honestly to have believed that she was doing it for the sake of my future happiness, koukla mou. How I might feel about it or how much damage she might do in the process to me or you never seems to have entered her head until it was too late.’

  ‘How on earth did you realise that it was your foster mother who had hired the detective?’

  ‘I was telling her about you and the twins and she suddenly made a rather scornful reference to the thefts from the spa. That immediately made me suspicious because she did not get that information from me. It could only have come from the detective she hired. Once she grasped that you were the mother of my children she was very shocked and guilty and in that state she blurted out the whole story. My father, Vasos, was appalled and he asked her what she had been thinking of …’

  ‘Did you tell her that I wasn’t the thief?’ Erin asked ruefully.

  ‘Of course. She didn’t ask the detective what weapons he used to bring about our split, in fact she didn’t want to know the dirty details, and once it was achieved she invited Lisandra to dinner and dangled her under my nose. I told her about the doctored photos and Sally being rewarded for identifying you as the thief. I also told her that it was her fault that Lorcan and Nuala were strangers until I met them two weeks ago. She remembered your phone call. She did honestly believe that you had been stealing from me and that was how she justified her interference—you were a wicked woman and I needed help to break free of your malign influence. That had become her excuse and when that excuse was taken from her she became extremely distressed. Vasos was shouting at her and it all got very hysterical and overheated.’ Cristo groaned, luxuriant black lashes almost hitting his exotic cheekbones as he briefly closed his eyes in frustration. ‘In the end we called the local doctor to administer a sedative to calm her down …’

  ‘Oh, my goodness, is this the reason she had a nervous breakdown when your marriage went wrong?’

  ‘Yes, although none of us appreciated that at the time. But she felt hugely guilty at having encouraged me to marry Lisandra.’

  ‘No offence intended, Cristo, but right now Appollonia sounds like the mother-in-law from he
ll,’ Erin remarked with an apologetic grimace.

  ‘I think it is good that the truth has come out at last.’ Cristo was seemingly determined to find a positive angle. ‘Possibly Appollonia’s secret arrangement with the detective has been the burden on her conscience which damaged her recovery from the breakdown she suffered. She is still a fragile personality but she wasn’t always like that.’

  ‘Was your PA got to by the detective as well? Was that why my calls were never put through and my letters were returned unread?’

  Cristo sighed, ‘My foster mother told her you were stalking me and that she’d be grateful if Amelia shielded me from nuisance calls and letters. Amelia probably believed she was doing me a favour.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Erin erupted furiously, standing up and walking away, only to spin back. ‘No wonder I couldn’t get hold of you!’

  Cristo appraised with appreciation her slim, pale, delicately curved body in the brief red bikini she wore. ‘If it’s any consolation, Appollonia is the party most punished by the fallout from all this.’

  Turning pink at the intensity of the gaze resting on her heaving breasts, Erin crossed her arms to interrupt his view. She hated the way he could just look at her and her body would have an involuntary reaction while her brain fogged over. ‘And how do you make that out?’

  ‘You’re the one in possession of grandchildren she has never seen. Had she known you were carrying my child she would never have targeted you and she would have supported you in every way possible. I told her how alone you had been and she felt guiltier than ever,’ he completed wryly.

  ‘So, what happens now?’

  ‘We go down to the village and see the priest and fill out the forms for our wedding.’

  ‘You want to get married here on the island?’ Erin was taken aback by the idea.

  ‘I’ll fly out your mother along with any friends you want to attend.’ Seeing that that assurance had no visible effect, Cristo unfolded to his full impressive height, adding, ‘We’ve been apart a long time—I don’t want to wait long for the wedding.’

  ‘I didn’t realise it would be happening so soon,’ Erin responded tentatively. ‘When I agreed to come here it was only for a week to escape the press because you got so hot and bothered about them.’

  A faint smile softened the harsh curve of his shapely mouth. ‘Everything has changed between us since then, koukla mou.’

  It had changed in the bedroom, Erin reflected guiltily, recalling how easily she had succumbed to his hot-blooded hunger for her. She had said yes where she should have said no and that was the only green light that a male with Cristo’s high voltage libido required.

  ‘I barely remember my birth parents. They’re just a stylish photo on the wall,’ Cristo remarked tautly. ‘The first five years of my life I was raised by nannies. I was always being told not to bother my parents because they were such busy people. They had no time for me and little interest.’

  Erin was frowning. ‘Go on …’

  ‘I didn’t know what a normal home and parents were like until Vasos and Appollonia took charge of me. They spent time with me, talked to me, took an interest in my small achievements and gave me love. I owe everything I am today to them. I want to do the same thing for Lorcan and Nuala.’

  She had not realised that his early years had been so bleak and she understood his attitude, for her own childhood had been almost as troubled and insecure. Marrying Cristo made sense, she reasoned ruefully. She wanted her children to have a full-time father and the chance of a happy family life. Cristo was offering her that option and she put as high a value on that lifestyle as he apparently did. But he would not have wanted to marry her had she not had the twins and that hurt. It hurt that he didn’t love and want her with the same intensity that he wanted their children.

  That evening Sam Morton phoned her. ‘Your mother told me you were in Greece. I was shocked.’

  ‘We’re getting married, Sam.’

  ‘Yes, she told me that as well. Of course that’s the safest choice for Donakis if he wants access to his children. I understand that he consulted an expert in family law in London to find out exactly where he stood. Watch your step, Erin. In a Greek court, he could gain custody of the kids.’

  Erin’s blood ran cold at that forecast. ‘Are you trying to scare me? We’re getting married, not divorced.’

  ‘I think it’s very convenient for Donakis to marry you now but he wasn’t interested in marrying you three years ago. Don’t forget that.’

  Sadly that was a fact that Erin never forgot and she could have done without the second opinion. Had Cristo consulted a legal expert? How had Sam found that out? No doubt someone knew someone in the legal field who also knew Sam and word had got back to him in that way. Ought she to be worried? She supposed it was understandable that Cristo should have sought advice when he first found out that he was a father. That was not in itself wrong. Even so, the knowledge sent a little buzz of insecurity through her that she could not shake.

  ‘Cristo,’ she said towards the end of the evening while she worried about whether it was foolish of her to trust Cristo to such an extent. ‘Would you mind very much if I slept on my own until the wedding?’

  Cristo frowned. ‘Not if it’s important to you.’

  ‘With Mum arriving a few days before the wedding, it would really be more comfortable for me,’ she told him stiffly.

  One week later, Cristo and Erin were married in the little church overlooking the town harbour. She wore a white lace dress, tight on the arms and fitted to make the most of her slender figure, obtained from a designer in Athens. Her mother had thought her daughter was being controversial buying into the whole white wedding fantasy when she already had two young children but Erin had seen no reason why her special day should not live up to her girlhood dreams. After all, she loved Cristo Donakis and preferred to be optimistic about their future.

  The Greek Orthodox service presided over by the bearded priest in his long dark robe was traditional and meaningful. The church was crammed with well-wishers and filled with flowers. The scent of incense and the fresh-orange-blossom circlet placed on her head mingled headily and, strange as it all was to her, she loved it, loved Cristo’s hand in hers, the steadiness of his lion-gold gaze and utter lack of nerves. For the first time she felt that they were meant to be together and she fought off downbeat thoughts about what his wedding to Lisandra might have been like as it was clearly not on his mind.

  The days running up to their wedding had been exceptionally busy. She had had to take Nuala to an Athens hospital to have her cast checked. Mercifully everything had been in order and the little girl had not required a replacement. That appointment had been followed by a shopping trip to buy Erin’s wedding gown. The next day she had first made the acquaintance of Cristo’s father, Vasos Denes, when he came over to meet the twins. Initially appearing stern and quiet, Vasos had slowly shaken off his discomfiture over his wife’s interference in Cristo’s private life and its disastrous side effects to relax in his son’s home and Erin had decided that he was a lovely man. She had been surprised when Cristo explained that his father’s company was on the edge of bankruptcy but that the older man refused to accept his financial help. She had soon grasped from whom Cristo had learned his principles and even if his volatile nature warred against them and occasionally won—as in when he had blackmailed her into going to Italy with him—she knew Cristo did try to respect scruples and operate accordingly.

  In a gesture made purely for Cristo and his foster father’s sake, Erin had volunteered to take the children to visit Appollonia Denes at their villa on the outskirts of the town. Even on the medication her doctor had advised to help her with her low mood, the older woman had been stunned to see the twins and tears had trailed slowly down her cheeks while she attempted awkwardly to express her regret for the actions she had taken almost three years earlier. That she absolutely adored Cristo had shone out of her and her wondering delight in Lorcan and Nu
ala had inspired pity in Erin. She knew it would take time before she could forgive Appollonia for what she had done but she was willing to make the effort.

  Cristo had thrown himself into spending every afternoon with the twins. Watching her children respond to his interest, noting the shocking similarity in their lively demanding personalities, Erin had known that marrying Cristo was the right step to take. Lorcan was already learning that when his father said no he meant it and Nuala’s tantrums had become less frequent. The first time she condescended to call Cristo, ‘Daddy’, he admitted to Erin that he felt as if he had won the lottery.

  Her mother had travelled to Thesos in the company of Tom and Melissa. Sam had turned down his invitation but had sent a lavish present. The day before the wedding, Cristo had taken them all out sailing. He was a wonderful host and had been in the very best of moods. Erin had taken that as a compliment: Cristo was happy that they were getting married. And she had during the week that had passed learned to regret her request that they sleep apart until the ceremony. Intimacy brought a special closeness to their relationship and she missed it, disliking the new distance that her demand had wrought in Cristo. He was too careful to give her space. A couple of times she had lain awake into the early hours, her body taut with frustration and longing, trying to summon up the courage to go and join Cristo in the opulent master suite at the top of the stairs. Why was she still punishing herself for wanting him? Why had she let Sam’s sour suspicious comments make her doubt Cristo’s sincerity?

  Cristo lifted her hand in the car on the way back to the house from the church and touched the shiny new platinum ring on her finger with approval. ‘Now you’re mine.’