The Greek Claims His Shock Heir

by Lynne Graham

  In Mykonos, they had gone to clubs and danced into the early hours, and Winnie had been surprised by how much she had enjoyed her first experience of being part of a couple that went out in public. At the country house, they had had quiet dinners, nights in rather than nights out. But this time around, she thought happily, everything was different and Eros treated her differently, as well. He was consistently affectionate, both in and out of bed, tender in private moments and always, always interested in her and very focused on her comfort and enjoyment. There had been swimming picnics in wild, secluded coves where Teddy could run about naked, long lazy lunches in little tavernas off the beaten track and more than once she had fallen into bed tipsy and giggling, having enjoyed herself so much that she’d felt positively guilty about it. They had dodged paparazzi cameras on the beach at Paros and had then been skilfully intercepted by them when they were shopping on Corfu.

  When she looked at that tabloid photograph she barely recognised herself because, with her feet pushed into casual leather flip-flops and clothed in a bright red sundress from the wardrobe Eros had bought her, she seemed to have somehow metamorphosed into a more extrovert and less inhibited version of herself. She had a deep tan now and her hair was a tumbling mass of natural waves streaked lighter in places by the sun. She had stopped watching what she ate and was waiting ruefully on the pounds piling back on although the constant activity in and out of the bedroom had to be holding the weight at bay.

  Eros was very active, very physical. He had taken her windsurfing and paddleboarding. She swam like a fish and she swam every day. Eros was teaching Teddy to swim and he had hauled them both up every hill on the island to appreciate the views, Teddy sitting on his shoulders or waving his arms in excitement from the confines of a baby backpack. Eros was a great father and he had a hands-on approach to his son that had very much impressed Winnie. Watching Eros with Teddy had convinced her that their son would lose a great deal if he was deprived of his father’s daily attention. Teddy was already throwing fewer tantrums. It could be that he was growing out of that phase, but Winnie was also able to see that her son thrived on winning his father’s approval and quickly shied away from the kind of behaviour that made Eros frown.

  With her, Eros was still the same entertaining and sexy man he had always been, but he was much more considerate and caring with her and ready to talk about anything she wanted to talk about, which was the biggest change she had noticed in him. Indeed, being with Eros and Teddy made her happy. And one night a week the staff went home early and Winnie cooked up a storm and they ate on the terrace beneath the stars, which brought back memories of how they had first got to know each other.

  But her own contentment and Teddy’s didn’t mean that Winnie could close her eyes to the necessity of seeing her grandfather and having a straight talk with him. She couldn’t just leave matters as they had been when she had decided to return to Eros on her wedding day. Unfortunately, she was very much aware that Eros would not be keen on her going anywhere near the older man.

  ‘I need a shower.’ Winnie sighed. She slid off the lounger and pulled on a cover-up before stooping to cram her discarded bikini and other possessions into a beach bag. ‘And then it’ll be time for lunch and Teddy will be awake.’

  ‘What do you want to do this afternoon?’ Eros enquired lazily before adding, ‘I could do with getting on with some work—’

  ‘That’s fine. I’ll have Teddy.’ Winnie breathed in deep. ‘But I’d like to go and see Grandad tomorrow.’

  Eros stopped dead in the middle of the long steep path that led back up to the house. ‘No,’ he said with emphasis.

  ‘I wasn’t asking for permission,’ Winnie warned him. ‘Nor am I planning to take our son with me. It would be nice if you could invite Grandad here to see Teddy.’

  Eros studied her with incredulous green eyes. ‘In your dreams!’ he grated.

  ‘No, it’ll happen. I can’t say when because I haven’t got a crystal ball but it will happen,’ Winnie assured him evenly, sliding past him to continue on up the path. ‘I’m not going to allow my grandfather or indeed anyone else in my family to be at odds with my husband. I’m going to sort it all out.’

  ‘I won’t allow it,’ Eros growled.

  ‘Not listening...not listening, Eros!’ Winnie carolled as she walked steadily on even though she was out of breath from the climb and her cover-up was sticking uncomfortably to her perspiring skin. ‘Families shouldn’t be divided.’

  ‘And what bush did your mother find you under after the stork delivered you?’ Eros asked cuttingly. ‘Families are often divided. My own, for a start.’

  ‘That was a divorce, rather a different situation,’ Winnie reasoned. ‘But I know it hit you hard as a child when your parents parted.’

  ‘No, what hit me hard was my mother’s heartbreak,’ Eros sliced in grimly. ‘She never got over my father and she couldn’t move on. A marriage should mean more than a legal obligation.’

  ‘I think it does to most people,’ Winnie contended evenly. ‘From what you’ve told me I suspect your father succumbed to a midlife crisis and that sent his life off the rails.’

  ‘I used to see marriage as a sort of sacred trust,’ Eros ground out rawly. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to marry Tasha and why I stayed married longer than I should’ve. I kept hoping the differences between us would magically melt away but I’m not that naive now and I’d be a fool to let you spend time with a man who hates me and wants to destroy our marriage.’

  ‘Well, you see, the point is I’m not asking you to “let me” do anything,’ Winnie responded with spirit. ‘I’m going to Athens even if it means climbing on the ferry and spending hours getting there.’

  ‘And how the hell do I know that you’re planning to come back to me?’ Eros demanded with suppressed savagery.

  ‘Aside from the fact that Teddy is staying here?’ Refusing to react to the brooding darkness in his lean, strong face, Winnie rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe it’s time you tried trusting me.’

  ‘Not going to happen,’ Eros intoned grimly. ‘Last time I trusted you, you said your vows in church and then scuttled off onto that yacht to leave me!’

  Winnie went pink with mortification and then suddenly she lifted her head high and tilted her chin in defiance. ‘Last time I trusted you, you turned out to be a married man,’ she reminded him thinly. ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. We’ve both made mistakes—’

  ‘This marriage is not a mistake,’ Eros sliced in, his intonation raw-edged.

  ‘Only time will tell us that,’ Winnie parried quietly.

  A lean hand enclosed her arm to hold her back as she started up the stairs. ‘Then give us that time,’ he urged. ‘Running off to see Stam Fotakis this soon is like inviting the fox into the chicken coop. He’ll cause trouble for us if he can.’

  ‘Grandad only wants what he thinks is best for me, what he thinks is best for all of us. I’m going to tell him about your first marriage,’ Winnie told him as she tugged her arm free of his hold and went upstairs.

  ‘You’re going to do...what?’ Eros demanded in shaken disbelief.

  ‘You heard me. I want Grandad to understand that you were in a very unusual situation.’

  ‘What I told you was private,’ Eros grated.

  ‘Please,’ Winnie pressed. ‘At the very least he needs to know that your marriage wasn’t a regular marriage.’

  In an impatient gesture, Eros flung back his dark head, seduced against his will by the softness of those caramel eyes. ‘Oh...as you wish!’

  ‘Thanks. Grandad may be stubborn and difficult but I won’t cut him out of my life.’

  ‘He cut your father out of his,’ Eros reminded her unkindly.

  It was a low blow and, from the landing, she flung him an unimpressed look. ‘He admitted that that was a mistake but once he’d taken a stance he was too prou
d to climb down. People change, Eros.’

  ‘You haven’t changed in the essentials. You still want to believe the best of everyone,’ Eros condemned as he drew level with her. ‘It doesn’t work. Believe it or not, there are bad people in the world who get a kick out of doing you down and hurting you.’

  Winnie thrust wide their bedroom door with angry force. ‘You think I don’t know that after my experiences in foster care?’ she flung back at him in disbelief.

  ‘I don’t know. You won’t talk about those experiences,’ he pointed out.

  Winnie went very still and then crossed her arms defensively in front of herself. ‘In the very first home I went to, my trainers were stolen and I was accused of selling them and lying about it. Vivi was badly bullied by the other girls. In the second I was repeatedly punched by an older boy because I wouldn’t give him money. That I didn’t have any money didn’t seem to occur to him because he said I talked too nicely to be poor. The third place, I no longer had my sisters because we’d been separated. The foster father was a wife beater and one night I got in the way of his fists,’ she recited emotionlessly, her hands clenching in on themselves. ‘After that I was in a state home for a while and by the time I moved back into foster care, I was developing breasts, which was really bad news.’

  As she’d talked, Eros had paled. ‘Why did you never share all this with me before?’

  Winnie compressed her lips. ‘People don’t want to know about that sort of stuff.’

  ‘But I want to know everything because I care about you,’ Eros said levelly. ‘So keep talking.’

  ‘If it wasn’t men leering at me on the home front, it was adolescent boys. I had several scary experiences as a teenager but I managed to keep myself safe. By the time I got to John and Liz’s home, I was viewed as antisocial and difficult. They changed all that. They changed everything,’ she admitted chokily, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘But do you know why I’m telling you all this? Because I want you to know that family means everything to me and I don’t expect perfection. Family can encompass a whole pile of different people. It can be your friends, people like John and Liz, even misguided people like my grandfather, who don’t know when to mind their own business.’

  Eros crossed the distance between them and hauled her into his arms, desperate to comfort her. He was appalled at what she had gone through without proper support. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No, you’re not,’ she whispered helplessly. ‘You’re like Grandad. Of course, you don’t like each other. You’re just sorry you’re not getting your own way.’

  ‘Partially,’ Eros admitted gruffly, brushing her hair back from her tear-stained face. ‘But it’s important to me to protect you. I don’t want you to get hurt and I’m afraid I don’t trust your grandfather not to hurt you.’

  ‘You can’t keep me locked up here for ever.’

  ‘Like a princess in a tower?’ His charismatic smile curved his sensual lips. ‘No...but I’d like to.’

  ‘I know...’ Acting on impulse, mesmerised by the stunning jewelled eyes welded to her, Winnie stretched up and covered his mouth with hers. ‘But you can’t.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean I’m giving up.’ Eros claimed her parted lips with fiery hunger and drank deep of her response, holding her so close that she could feel every stark line of his big powerful body, including his blatant arousal.

  ‘You can’t be...again?’ she mumbled weakly. ‘Really?’

  ‘Really,’ Eros husked, long fingers lifting the hem of her dress, gliding up to the junction of her thighs to pry them apart and explore, his body already aching for the silken oblivion of hers.

  He pushed her back against the wall and hoisted her up against him, the carnal play of his fingers ensuring her readiness. A moment later, he plunged into her and buried himself deep, his breathing raw and ragged in her ears as his hips hammered against hers. It was fast and hard and very erotic, and she shot to a climax so swiftly that she saw stars behind her eyes. Only when her legs slid limply down his hard thighs in the aftermath and they were both panting did she register that he hadn’t used a condom.

  ‘You didn’t use protection!’ she gasped.

  Eros blinked, green eyes still dark and sultry with sexual satisfaction. He groaned out loud, raking his tousled black hair from his brow with frustrated fingers. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘No...no, it’s okay... At least, it should be,’ Winnie muttered, feverishly calculating dates. ‘We should be fine. It’s not the right time. I should see a doctor, see about taking the pill.’

  ‘No discussion?’ Eros lifted a judgemental black brow.

  ‘Not on that topic...maybe in a year or two if we’re still together,’ Winnie suggested with characteristic practicality.

  ‘I’m not pushing it. Whatever you decide is okay with me...’ he conceded, surprising her. ‘And, Winnie? We will still be together.’

  As Winnie walked into the bathroom, Eros appeared in the doorway. ‘I’ll head into my Athens office tomorrow and drop you off at your grandfather’s estate on the way. But I won’t be able to pick you up coming home because I have a meeting in Piraeus and I don’t know how long it will run. When you’re ready to leave, your security team will arrange it.’

  Winnie turned slowly from her beach-flushed reflection in the mirror and gave him a huge smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said warmly, appreciating the reality that he had listened to her and respected her right to do as she wished even if it went against his own instincts.

  * * *

  ‘Four security guards to look after me is overkill!’ Winnie hissed in disbelief as she saw the men getting out of the car behind to supervise her visit to her grandfather’s home. ‘Grandad’s not about to kidnap me, for goodness’ sake. Don’t you think that you’re taking this security stuff too far?’

  ‘Better safe than sorry,’ Eros told her, impervious to reason. ‘If they see anything remotely suspicious, they will immediately contact me.’

  ‘And if they contact you, what are you planning to do?’ Winnie demanded incredulously. ‘Storm the house to extract me in a military assault?’

  Eros studied her with a ferocious glitter of emerald fire lighting his stunning eyes. ‘I will do whatever it takes to protect my wife and my marriage.’

  Winnie groaned out loud. ‘This is one of those masculine things, isn’t it? A show of strength?’

  Eros gave her a flashing, utterly beguiling boyish grin that lit up his lean, dark features. ‘It’ll annoy the hell out of Stam. I’m warning him politely that I will not tolerate further interference in our marriage. He’ll tell you, of course, that I’m paranoid.’

  ‘I don’t care,’ Winnie whispered softly before she reached for the car door. ‘Paranoid or not, you’re mine...’

  The assurance fell into a sudden silence as she immediately regretted those revealing words and Eros stilled in surprise. ‘Am I?’

  Far more hers than he had ever been before, Winnie adjusted painfully, her heart-shaped face suffused with mortified colour. She loved him but that didn’t mean she had to wave that fact like a big banner in his face. In fact, coolness would be far more effective with Eros. Weren’t men supposed to always want what they thought they couldn’t have? What came easy was always deemed less valuable.

  ‘I’ll see you later,’ Winnie framed, climbing hastily out of the car and walking towards the grand front door of her grandfather’s home. She had given the older man a brief call the night before to tell him that she was coming to visit. She was hopeful that the month she had been on the island would have given him the chance to calm down and develop a more accepting attitude towards her marriage.

  Stam Fotakis was in his office but he immediately rose from behind his desk and ordered his PA to serve coffee.

  ‘I thought you might have taken the morning off,’ Winnie remarked wryly as he instructed his PA to hold his calls.
<
br />   ‘I never take a day off,’ Stam informed her with pride, studying her over the top of his reading glasses. ‘Unless I’m celebrating, of course, and the fact you’ve arrived without luggage suggests that I have nothing to celebrate...yet.’

  Winnie quickly caught his drift and almost winced before deciding to be equally direct. ‘I’m not planning to leave Eros. We’ve decided to stay together,’ Winnie admitted, watching the older man’s craggy face tighten and darken at that unwelcome news. ‘I’m here to ask you to back off and accept our marriage.’

  ‘Thee mou...’ Stam Fotakis breathed with a sudden frown of condemnation as he studied her strained and anxious face. ‘You’re still in love with the bastard!’

  His perception made Winnie pale but she stood her ground. ‘You have to recognise that Eros and I are a couple and that it is absolutely in Teddy’s best interests that we make a go of our marriage.’

  ‘You’d walk through fire for Nevrakis, wouldn’t you?’ her grandfather breathed in a tone of incredulity as he sprang upright again. ‘When will you learn that he is simply using you?’

  ‘How is Eros using me?’ Winnie pressed levelly. ‘I know the best of him and I know the worst of him. Let me tell you about his first marriage.’

  Her grandfather raised his hand in an immediate silencing motion. ‘I don’t want to hear some sob story.’

  ‘It’s not a sob story—it’s an explanation,’ Winnie argued and, as quickly and as simply as she could, she told her grandad about Eros’s first marriage.

  ‘Am I supposed to be impressed that I’ve married you off to a sentimental idiot with silly romantic notions about honour and loyalty?’ Stam Fotakis demanded, frowning at her in concern. ‘You’re making excuses for him, Winnie. He was a married man and he turned you into his mistress!’

  ‘It wasn’t like that between us.’ Winnie lifted her chin, although it took courage to fly in the face of such opinions. ‘And I respect stuff like sentiment and honour and loyalty. I like that he didn’t blame Tasha or anyone else for the mess he involved us all in. I like that I wasn’t one of many lovers he took. I like that he knows he made mistakes but that he’s trying to make up for it now.’