Claimed for the Greek's Child

by Pippa Roscoe

  And, now that David had appeared with Amalia’s and her passports—hers had expired since she’d last used it—Dimitri had gone out. It was strange, because Anna had almost become used to his presence, even if he felt like a jailer. The weight of his constant gaze, as if he couldn’t allow her out of his sight for more than five minutes, had been a pressure she hadn’t realised was there. So instead of Dimitri, David sat with her in the small staff area, talking through the process and getting her to sign financial documents to do with the bed and breakfast. And once again she pushed down the inner voice that warned her she was handing over complete control of her life to Dimitri Kyriakou.

  * * *

  Dimitri hadn’t even made it two miles from the B & B before he’d pulled over on a quiet country road. He was supposed to be in Dublin at the race series for the second leg of the Hanley Cup; he was supposed to be with the two other members of the Winners’ Circle, Antonio and Danyl—men who were more family to him than any blood relation could ever be. But the invisible thread tying him to his child, to Anna...it didn’t stretch that far yet. If Anna knew, or even suspected, what was about to happen, she’d run and take his daughter with her. He just couldn’t take the risk.

  Tomorrow they would be on his private jet and once they were in Greece, once they landed on his soil, the power would be all his. But tonight? Tonight, though he couldn’t be there in body, there was no way in hell that he would miss the second race in the Hanley Cup.

  He stared at the screen of his tablet, blocking out the sounds of the driving rain, casting the outside world in a blur.

  He watched the build-up to the race live, glad that the storm hadn’t yet reached Dublin. Nineteen months ago, just after his release, the Australian female jockey Mason McAulty had approached them in a London hotel with such an outrageous proposal it had momentarily silenced all three members of the Winners’ Circle. She’d promised to win each of the three legs of the Hanley Cup riding one of their syndicate’s horses; a feat which hadn’t been achieved in twenty years.

  As the camera panned up to the viewing box reserved for the Winners’ Circle, Dimitri caught sight of Antonio’s brooding Italian face, the grim set to his lips only softening when Emma Guilham—his PA turned fake fiancée, turned very much real fiancée—stepped up beside him. Dimitri had often wondered what might have happened had he not been able to convince Antonio to step back from his path to revenge and embrace the one that led him to Emma. Dimitri realised with a start that counselling his friend had been oddly prophetic. He’d certainly not imagined himself to ever consider matrimony. He’d never thought he’d need to.

  The high-pitched siren sound of the race starting called his attention back to the horses on the screen. McAulty was riding a new horse from their syndicate, Devil’s Advocate, a gorgeous dark brown thoroughbred. Horse and rider seemed as one as they fluidly spun round the sweeps and curves of the course.

  The familiar taste of adrenaline hit the back of his throat, his heart racing as if it were he on the horse and not Mason. After a strong start she’d been pushed back into third place, but she was passing her competitor, quickly checking behind her, urging Devil’s Advocate on and gaining on the second.

  Dimitri, his heart in his mouth, watched from nearly seventy miles away as they rounded the last bend and looked towards the stretch of flat before the finish line. Mason was still in second place... And then, incredibly, he saw her flash the briefest of smiles and a burst of speed exploded from Devil’s Advocate, at first inching his way to pass the lead horse then leaping ahead to a thundering victory.

  The noise from the tablet was deafening. His phone started ringing in his pocket and as the camera panned to Antonio and Danyl in the box he saw Danyl turning away with a phone pressed against his ear.

  ‘Did you see? We won!’ his friend exclaimed the moment that Dimitri answered.

  ‘Yes, it was a great race,’ replied Dimitri, his voice controlled and belying the momentary pleasure coursing through his veins.

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Dealing with something.’

  ‘Something? That sounds intriguing even for you, my friend.’

  ‘It’s nothing I can’t handle on my own,’ he said, hoping to God that he was right.

  ‘You know we’d help. Anything.’

  Dimitri felt a smile grace his lips. ‘I know you’d try to move mountains, Sheikh, and think yourself capable of it, but...’

  ‘You only need ask, Dimitri.’

  ‘Actually there is something. I’d like you and Antonio to come to Greece.’

  ‘You know we wouldn’t miss the charity gala—’

  ‘It’s not that. It’s...for my wedding.’ It was the first time that Dimitri had said it out loud. He might not have told Anna yet, nor got her agreement, but he would on both counts. He didn’t miss the shocked silence from the other end of the phone. And it took a lot to shock this sheikh.

  ‘Of course we will come. When?’

  ‘Soon. The moment I know, you’ll know.’

  ‘Does she have a name?’

  ‘Anna. It’s...complicated.’

  ‘You once said nothing would cause you to take a wife, unless...’

  Dimitri cursed his friend’s quick mind.

  ‘It happened just before I was arrested. My daughter, Amalia, she’s twenty-seven months and—’ he couldn’t prevent the sigh from escaping his lips ‘—she’s incredible.’ For the first time, the first real time, he let it sink through his skin, into his bones, deep: he was a father.

  ‘Congratulations, Dimitri,’ his closest friend replied, the sincerity in his tone soothing some of the fears he’d had about sharing the news of his new-found family. ‘I cannot wait to meet them.’

  He nodded, unable to shift the thanks from his mind to his mouth, instead changing the subject. ‘How’s Mason doing?’

  There was a barely perceptible pause before his friend replied, ‘She’s fine. She’s planning to return to Sydney tomorrow.’

  ‘Already? I don’t think she’s even left the back of the horse yet,’ Dimitri said, scanning his tablet for the current footage of the racecourse.

  ‘She’s...quite determined.’

  Dimitri let out a huff of air, thinking that the description could equally be applied to Anna.

  ‘Good luck with that,’ he said to Danyl as much as himself.

  ‘Why would I need luck? Mason is nothing to me, other than our jockey.’

  Dimitri wasn’t so sure of that and signed off not too long later. He switched off his tablet and listened for a moment to the pounding of the rain, wondering how it was that he could still hear his own heartbeat ringing in his ears. In just a few more hours, Anna and Amalia would be on Greek soil. And then he’d have everything he’d need.

  * * *

  It was late by the time they eventually arrived at Dimitri’s island home just off the coast of mainland Greece. Anna had spent the last hour putting a fractious, overly excited Amalia to bed and walked through the adjoining door into the considerably larger room that was to be hers. Was this what Dimitri’s life was like? In Ireland one day, Greece the next?

  Was it normal to feel so disorientated—so nauseous—from even such a short flight? Or was it the fact that she’d handed over the keys to her business, her security, her life to strangers and followed the father of her child to Europe?

  She hadn’t been prepared for the pack of paparazzi awaiting the arrival of the private jet. Oh, Dimitri had warned her of it; she just hadn’t taken him seriously. Closing her eyes now, she could still see the strobe of flashbulbs in the dark. If she listened hard she could still hear the rapid-fire questions, most in Greek, but a surprising few in English.

  ‘Is it true that you carried the heir to the Kyriakou Bank?’

  ‘Is that the child?’

  ‘Where have you been all these years?’r />
  ‘Why did you hide...?’

  Ignoring the swell of emotions in her chest, Anna focused on how her body still vibrated from the boat trip from Piraeus, the boat that Dimitri had piloted himself, standing tall and proud at the wheel, as if he were a marauding pirate rather than an international tycoon—an image that had fired her fevered imagination and brought too many memories of that night from three years ago to the surface.

  The powerful speedboat thrilled Amalia as it crested waves and cut through the water as if it were air, but it had only made Anna’s heart sink further. Who had the money for such a boat? But then she had seen the house Dimitri had brought her to...

  The large, low-hung moon picked out sleek, modern lines that winked at her in the night, hinting at a luxury that felt surreal. She’d glimpsed an infinity pool beyond a patio that opened out to the elements, partitioned off by a plastic rail with a gate—clearly a new addition, since it stood out like a sore thumb. While it touched her that Dimitri had thought of Amalia’s safety, she wondered if perhaps that was how she seemed, painfully and obviously out of place.

  Questions burst through her mind as she wondered if she had denied her daughter by not trying hard enough to tell Dimitri about their child. When they entered his house, toys fit for a princess, still in their boxes, littered the living room and guilt swirled in her stomach. What would Amalia’s life have been like if she’d had this from birth? Rather than working all hours in the day, could she have given Amalia finer clothes, better toys and, more importantly, more of herself? She’d done the best she could, she told herself sternly.

  ‘I came to see how you were settling in.’

  She closed her eyes against Dimitri’s intrusion. Yes, that had been what she’d told him before disappearing into the room she had been given. But explaining that she just needed some space, from him, from his presence, seemed too much like weakness.

  ‘My things have been put away.’

  ‘I have people to do that.’

  Yes, thought Anna. I was one of those people until a few days ago. But now? It was only for a few days, she told herself. Amalia would get to spend time with her father, and then she and Amalia would return to the bed and breakfast. So she’d better not get used to this. Because he had an island, and she had a bed and breakfast...because she still was one of those people.

  ‘Flora?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  Anna had instantly liked Dimitri’s housekeeper and could tell the older woman was kind, generous and loving.

  She opened her eyes, because not being able to see him only made it worse. His smell, unique and distinctly male, assaulted her senses. From the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, she’d known that she was in trouble. It was as if her body, her soul, had immediately identified him as her undoing. But she wasn’t here for him, or for her. She was here for Amalia, so that her daughter could get to know her father. Nothing more.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. Finally breaking the silence that had almost become too much.

  ‘What for?’ Dimitri sounded genuinely surprised.

  ‘For everything?’ she said, shrugging her shoulders and finally turning to take him in. He’d changed out of his cold-weather clothes, and her heart stopped. Even more devastating, he stood there in dark blue linen trousers that moulded his powerful legs and hugged his lean hips. A light blue shirt, rolled back at the sleeves, revealed firm, tanned forearms and Anna forced herself not to bite her lip.

  Her fingers itching to reach out, she searched for a distraction instead. She picked up the small clay sculpture she’d wanted to take to Amalia. Even as a small baby, when the palm-sized sculpture had seemed twice as large in her little hands, Amalia had loved to hold it, grip it, even try to gnaw on it. Throughout it all, the little glazed clay piece had never broken.

  She turned it in her hands, rubbing the smooth line of the larger oval shape entwined with a smaller one. She had made it years ago, and she’d never shaken the feeling that the piece had been oddly prophetic: mother and child, cast, glazed and fired long before she’d met Dimitri and started out on this path alone. Or perhaps it had reflected her and her own mother—in a maternal embrace she had long forgotten.

  Dimitri frowned, noticing her busy hands.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Oh...nothing...it’s...’ Anna let out a huff of gentle laughter. She shrugged and held it out to him.

  When he took it into his large hands, it looked dwarfed by them. She saw him studying it, turning it in his hands, relishing the feel of the smooth tempered blue glaze around the edges.

  ‘It’s beautiful,’ he said simply and she felt the truth of his words to her soul.

  ‘Thank you,’ she replied, trying to press down the surprising shock of sentiment that rose from the simple compliment.

  He paused and she was intrigued as she watched the play of emotions crossing his dark features as he realised what she meant.

  ‘You made this?’

  ‘Yes. Just after finishing school. I’d hoped to... I wanted to go university to study art and sculpture, but...’ She trailed off. Her mother, him, her daughter, the bed and breakfast...

  Rather than filling the silence, Dimitri just stared at the sculpture in his hands, his thumb working over the edges of the two strangely comforting shapes. He pressed it back into her hands, and Anna was confused by the frown still marking his brow. He was hovering...and she didn’t quite know why.

  ‘Do you have our passports?’ she asked. Anything to fill the strange, awkward silence. ‘I wasn’t given them back when we landed.’

  Something dark passed over Dimitri’s features, and the sick feeling that Anna had been trying to ignore rose fully in her chest.

  ‘I have them.’

  ‘I’d like them back.’

  ‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Anna asked, her heart in her mouth.

  ‘I’m not giving them back to you.’

  ‘But—’

  ‘No buts. You are now in the position that I was in only a few hours ago. You are on Greek soil, and Amalia is my child.’ His eyes darkened, and the atmosphere between them became heavy with tension. ‘You cannot be trusted to raise my daughter in a safe environment. Your mother proved that quite successfully that first night. If you want any kind of rights over your child, if you wish to take her back to Ireland, then you will have to marry me.’

  ‘Marry you?’ Anna sputtered as she tried to comprehend what he was saying. ‘Marry you? Why would I...?’ Shock was short and sharp in her mind. Fear sliced through her like a knife. He thought she couldn’t be trusted to take care of her child? All she had ever done was take care of Amalia. Everything, she’d done everything, sacrificed everything for her. And her mother...? Betrayal thick and fast spread through her. All her instincts were to take her daughter and run. But where to? And who would help her? She was on an island in a country she didn’t speak the language of, and where she knew literally no one. How had she been so stupid? How had she allowed herself to trust this man? This man who, right now, she didn’t even recognise.

  Dimitri could see the fear in her eyes. He knew what it was like to feel trapped and helpless. But he couldn’t allow himself to feel sorry. Not for a minute.

  ‘I’m not reneging on my offer. I will take care of your mother, and your business, should your mother ever want to return and continue to run it. But for now you will agree to marry me, giving me legal rights over my child. I will accept nothing less. And you will not get your passports back until you do.’

  ‘Get out!’ she shouted. ‘Just get out.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Dear Dimitri,

  Will you ever trust me?

  ANNA DIDN’T KNOW how she’d slept the night before, unless it was some kind of biological form of self-preservation. She opened her eyes to stra
nge surroundings. Light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows that offered the most incredible view of sea and sky. Her head hurt and her mouth was dry. Water. She needed water. She looked over at the side table beside the bed and caught sight of the clock.

  Ten thirty a.m.? Shock crashed through her, propelling her up from the bed. She slipped on the sheets and tumbled off the mattress onto the floor. Where was Amalia? Why hadn’t she heard her daughter? She was in the room next door and would have heard her, should have heard her by now.

  She ran to her daughter’s room, but it was empty. Had he taken her? Had he left her in this house on her own on the island? His threats from the day before rang in her ears as she headed for the stairs that led to the ground floor.

  Her bare feet slapped the cold marble floor and, as she took the stairs two at a time, she slipped and lost her breath. Her feet struck air, gravity pulling her down so hard and so fast she had no time to prepare for the biting pain that struck her leg and back. Her teeth snapped together, cutting into the soft flesh of her tongue. She thrust out her hand to try to break her fall as bone met marble and distantly she was surprised not to hear a crack.

  Shouts and cries came from somewhere else in the house and when Anna opened her eyes she saw the horrified look on Flora’s face, her arms reaching towards her. Arms that Anna batted away, unthinkingly, blind to all but the only face that she needed to see. Her daughter’s.

  She tried to stand from where she had fallen, her shaking legs barely holding her up. She reached out to the wall to try and hold herself up but couldn’t understand why it kept moving further and further away.

  ‘Theos mou, Anna!’

  ‘She wasn’t in her room,’ she managed to get out.

  ‘Anna, you need to sit down. Are you okay?’

  She pushed past Dimitri and painfully made her way to the table where Amalia was sitting in a high chair, now red-faced and howling. Anna poured herself into a seat and her heart finally settled as she put her hand on her daughter’s arm, as she could feel her daughter, could see that, although upset, her daughter was there and was okay.