Claimed for the Greek's Child

by Pippa Roscoe

  And those were the memories he didn’t mind so much. But it was what came after that shook him to his soul. The shock, the pain when all of that was taken away in a heartbeat. When the policeman had stood in the hallway to their apartment asking the seven-year-old Dimitri if he had any other family. It was the weeks, the months that followed—that was what he didn’t want to remember.

  At the age of seven he’d made himself an island, realising that no one else could protect him. And that was the very reason why the charity event he was holding with the other members of the Winners’ Circle in Kavala tomorrow night was so important.

  * * *

  Returning to the island, early for once, he felt fresh from the boat trip that had blown away the dark thoughts of his day. He hovered in the hallway to the kitchen, steeling himself against the childish giggles of his daughter and Anna’s laughing response, and he wondered if he would ever get used to the sounds of such domesticity. Whether he even deserved them.

  The moment Anna saw him, she cut him an almost accusatory look.

  ‘You’re back,’ she stated with an undertone he couldn’t quite decipher.

  ‘Yes, it is my home,’ he stated before being able to stop the defensive tone from creeping into his voice. He tried not to wince at her hurt reaction. When did his own home become such a minefield? He bit down against the flare of irritation. ‘We are travelling to Kavala tomorrow.’

  ‘Are you?’ Anna replied, purposefully misunderstanding him, Dimitri was sure.

  ‘We are attending a charity gala dinner there.’

  Flora swooped in, prepared to clear the field for the battle she had realised was to come. Amalia went willingly into her arms and Flora retreated outside to the garden.

  ‘I’m sure you will have a wonderful time.’

  ‘Anna,’ he bit out.

  ‘Dimitri,’ she returned.

  He cursed. This could go on all night.

  ‘I’m not going,’ she repeated.

  He searched her tone for a hint of anger, or defiance, but was surprised to find there was none. Just a simple statement of fact.

  ‘You have to be there.’

  ‘Why? Why do you want me there?’

  Such a loaded question. One he wasn’t yet prepared to search his soul to answer. ‘The press will be there. And it’s expected that you—as my wife—will be too.’

  * * *

  Anna felt her stomach clench and she instinctively pressed a hand to soothe it. So it wasn’t because he actually wanted her there. No. It was for appearances’ sake. She could feel the ridges and tension almost vibrating from her forehead. Why was it that everything Dimitri did or said seemed to continually feed into years-old insecurities?

  For a whole week she’d said nothing, betrayed none of her feelings, terrified of making this strange stalemate situation worse. These briefly exchanged words were the most they’d said to each other since the morning after the wedding.

  ‘If that is the only reason you would like me there, then I’m afraid I shall have to decline.’

  ‘Have to... Anna, I’m not joking about this. You are coming with me.’

  ‘Until you give me a good enough reason, I’d rather spend that time with our daughter.’

  She’d thought he’d stalk out. Leave. Yet again. But there was something anchoring him to the spot. And for just a moment she glimpsed a side of Dimitri she hadn’t been privy to yet. Gone was the amused, indignant man, gone was the patronising husband. He stalked towards her in just a few long strides, towering over her with broad shoulders that blocked out the setting sun, his eyes as dark as the night promised to be. The demand she had laid at his feet loosening the bonds around his secrets.

  ‘You want to know? Fine. I didn’t go straight from my mother’s home to my father’s.’

  It took a moment for Anna to orientate her mind to how that might fit in with the charity event, but Dimitri pressed on while she struggled to keep up.

  ‘As I said before, it took my mother’s sister two months to track down my father. But during that time, I was put into the care system. My mother’s sister couldn’t take me in—she lived nearly five hundred kilometres from Piraeus in Kastoria. Her work wouldn’t allow her to take more than a few days away, and she couldn’t afford to lose her job.

  ‘So it was decided that I should be put into the care system, until something suitable could be arranged. What I didn’t know at the time was that the “something suitable” was code for until my father could be persuaded to take me in.

  ‘The people managing the unit were kind, or as kind as they could afford to be. The first day, my jacket was taken—and trust me, my mother wasn’t rich, so it wasn’t expensive by any standards. But, when I did nothing, my shoes were taken the next day. It’s funny what you cling to as a child. Amalia has her sculpture, I had only clothes—small things that my mother had worked hard for and were my only reminders of her. Pieces of her were being taken away from me, bit by bit, and I did nothing to stop it from happening.

  ‘Each day, I asked the adults what was happening, where I would be going, when I would be going. And each day they said, come back tomorrow.

  ‘Two months is a lifetime for a seven-year-old boy. Friendships made, fights lost... Most of the boys had grown up on the streets, tough, mean, clever. There was one kid who tried every day to run away, desperate to go back to where he’d been. But that wasn’t an option for me. There was nowhere for me to go back to.’

  Dimitri took in a breath. It shuddered in his chest, as if the memories were shaking him to his very core. There had been no protection then. No Danyl or Antonio—the friends he wouldn’t meet until university. At the time, his seven-year-old self had thought that he was numb. Numb with grief, numb to the chaos and tension that he’d lived and breathed...but it had scarred him deeply. And only now, forcing himself to recall this time, did he realise how close to prison it had been. How they had both been tinged with the same fear, the same raw vulnerability. His life had not been his own, in either situation. And both times had forced him to realise that there was no one out there who could protect him. He had to protect himself.

  ‘I soon learned that if I didn’t fight back, if I let that soft heart form friendships with unworthy people, people who would lie, steal and cheat their way through the care system, I wouldn’t survive.’

  He let out a huff. ‘I know that sounds dramatic, I know I would have continued to live, breathe, be fed. But...the boy my mother raised? Not so much. So I became tough. I fought for what little belongings I had, fought to keep the things that reminded me of her. I promised myself that I would never be in that situation ever again.’

  I promised myself that I’d never let anyone be my weakness again, his inner voice concluded. Until Manos. Until that one thread of hope had formed and been severed.

  ‘When my father finally took me in, I had the best that money could buy—education, clothes, the biggest house I’d ever seen. It didn’t matter that Manos hated me on sight, that my father barely spared a thought to me other than how he could turn me into an asset for the Kyriakou Bank. It didn’t matter my father’s wife watched me like a hawk, as if I’d do something eventually to hurt her child. It only mattered that they gave me access to the tools that would allow me to ensure I was never beholden to another. I worked hard at school, at university in New York.’

  The memories of meeting Antonio and Danyl softened features he hadn’t realised had become rock-hard.

  ‘And the moment I had enough money, enough power to create a charity for homeless children, I did. Antonio and Danyl helped too. Because none of us ever wanted a child to feel that same sense of helplessness, that same uncertainty. So once a year there we hold a gala. This year it is in Kavala, and we—you and I—will be there.’

  Dimitri refused to turn to Anna. Refused to see the pity he knew would be there in her eyes. He’
d never wanted her to look at him in that way. He never wanted to see that from her.

  ‘Why didn’t you just tell me how important this was, and ask me to come with you?’

  Unbidden, the words that came surprised even himself. ‘I didn’t want to risk that you’d say no.’

  He felt her small hand reach his elbow and gently pull him about to face her.

  ‘You have to trust me, Dimitri. If I knew how important this was, then of course I would come with you. But trust works both ways, Dimitri. You can’t demand truth and fidelity from me, and not give it in return. So if there is something that I don’t want to do or, in fact, do want, then you have to trust me too.’

  But, in the darkest reaches of his heart, he knew that this was what he was most afraid of.

  * * *

  Anna shifted uncomfortably in the back of the limousine taking them to the gala at the exclusive hotel in Kavala, the same limousine that would pick them up at the end of the night and return them to his apartment nearby.

  Had it only been last night that Dimitri had opened himself up to her? She felt as if years had passed. She was beginning to see through the mask that Dimitri wore to the child, the vulnerable boy who’d been lost and needed, deserved, kindness. Beneath his words she’d felt his pain, and was finally beginning to understand his need to secure certain things for their daughter. She’d once so easily dismissed his notion that something might happen to her, or to him. For her it was hypothetical. For him it had been real. A lesson hard learned.

  She felt that they’d made a step forward last night. That slowly they were forging connections she both longed for and feared. But she also knew that he was holding something back. Because he was speaking of a childhood pain, not the pain of the present that she could see hovering around him like an aura.

  Flora and Amalia had stayed back at the island, neither Dimitri nor Anna willing to upset Amalia’s routine for just one night. A few hours ago, Amalia had played with diamonds and pearls as if they were plastic bricks, Anna’s heart lurching as she saw her daughter’s chubby fist gripping enough jewels to support them for a lifetime. The same expensive jewels that now hung around her neck like a noose.

  The cool silks of a turquoise dress skittered over her skin like a caress—one that she hadn’t received from Dimitri since their conversation the night before. She had marvelled at how the beautiful colour had sat against her sun-darkened skin. Never before had she seen the colour of her skin as anything other than something that marked her as different, that reminded her constantly of her father’s absence from her life. But here, in Greece, it came to life; she came to life. Stunning was how Dimitri had described her one night. Beautiful, another, and more recently his. But the night-time words were left in the dark, and the day...?

  She had darkened her eyelashes with liner and mascara, accentuating features she now wanted to own, to shine as if both her appearance and her emotional scars had made her who she was today. She’d dusted the lids of her eyes with a golden shadow, bringing the vivid green of her irises to light. Was it Dimitri’s confession, his struggles with his past, that had helped her find her own strength? The fact that this incredible, powerful man, with his own dark secrets, could be proud and confident? If only he had chosen her for herself...the unwelcome secret voice of her heart whispered.

  Brushing that thought aside, and focusing on an inner sense of confidence, she proudly walked up the red carpet that lined the steps to the incredible hotel built within an old imaret in the port town halfway between Thessaloniki and Istanbul. As they passed through the high, sweeping archways she ignored the flash of the press’s cameras, the questions called out to Dimitri. She followed his actions, smiled when he smiled and, when he turned to her and claimed her lips with his own, shock momentarily gave way to desire, inflaming hopes of what might come after the gala.

  The moment they entered the gilded ballroom, sound hit her like a wave, a thousand voices in a hundred languages echoing off the stone walls and marble floors, but all hushed in an instant, turning to greet Dimitri like a long-lost friend. After the fourth introduction, Anna stopped trying to remember people’s names, instead taking it all in and falling back into warm greetings she was well versed in from her experience at the bed and breakfast.

  When Dimitri guided her towards yet another group of people she felt herself smile as she recognised the man that stood in the centre of a tightly knit group. The sheikh who had been at their wedding, the royal she had been almost too scared to speak to, now greeted her with warmth the moment his eyes lit on hers.

  ‘Dimitri, so kind of you to join us,’ said the heavily accented voice with mock reproach.

  ‘I knew that this evening would be doing well in your more than capable hands, Danyl.’

  ‘Anna, lovely to see you again,’ Danyl said, bypassing Dimitri’s compliment.

  The lack of formality between her husband and the prince drew only the slightest of frowns from the two dignitaries, who made excuses and left the small group. Anna’s eyes were drawn to the cool beauty pressing herself against the sheikh. In Anna’s mind, she was exquisite. Ice-blonde hair, perfectly swept back, as if ready and waiting for a crown, topped a face with the palest of skin. Milk and honey was the first thing that came to Anna’s mind.

  ‘Allow me to introduce Birgitta Svenska,’ Danyl said without making eye contact with the woman, his tone as bland as if he were reading off a restaurant menu. Anna thought she saw a brief flash of hurt in Birgitta’s features.

  ‘A pleasure,’ the woman said in cultured tones that betrayed no hint of a Scandinavian accent. Her gaze remained cool and assessing, until she took in Anna’s husband. Calculation turned to appraisal, and Anna was surprised by the fierce streak of possessiveness that ran across her shoulders.

  ‘Any sign of Antonio?’ asked Dimitri as if he too had somehow passed over the European beauty.

  ‘He couldn’t make it. He sends his apologies. Emma’s morning sickness has kept her in their apartment in New York.’

  Anna smiled. ‘You should tell her to try ginger tea. It certainly worked for me.’

  Dimitri turned to her. ‘You had morning sickness?’

  ‘Yes, Dimitri. Oddly enough, it’s actually quite common,’ she replied, gently mocking him. Though her tone had clearly done nothing to assuage the sting reflected in his gaze.

  ‘I hadn’t expected her to be experiencing it so soon. He only just called to tell me the news,’ he said, turning back to the Sheikh of Ter’harn. ‘Anything new from Australia?’ Dimitri asked.

  ‘Nothing you cannot find out for yourself, Dimitri.’ It was then that Anna was reminded of the sheikh’s true power, the look in his eyes enough to quell an army. Her husband responded only with a raised eyebrow.

  ‘She is fine,’ Danyl reluctantly admitted.

  ‘She?’ Anna couldn’t help querying.

  ‘It has been the talk of the racing world,’ scolded Birgitta, as if somehow Anna’s ignorance was a fatal flaw. ‘The Winners’ Circle syndicate is trying the impossible with a female jockey. Three wins on the Hanley Cup hasn’t been achieved since...’

  ‘Mason’s father,’ concluded Danyl.

  Birgitta eyed her companion with speculative eyes before enquiring after the Kyriakou Bank’s recent success, effectively shutting the sheikh and Anna out from the conversation. Danyl’s only reaction was an amused quirk of his lips, before turning his powerful attention to Anna.

  ‘How is your daughter?’

  ‘Well, thank you. She’s thriving in Greece.’

  ‘As are you, it would seem.’

  Anna smiled at the compliment, letting it warm her, but she still couldn’t help but glance at the intimate way Birgitta was conversing with her husband.

  ‘Don’t worry, Anna. He only has eyes for you.’

  Anna cocked her head to one side, considering his words. Before she c
ould contradict his statement, Danyl pressed on.

  ‘I have never seen him with any woman the way he is with you. And it is good. As it should be. I cannot say that he’s the easiest of men.’

  ‘No. He’s not.’

  ‘But he is very much worth it. Once his loyalty is earned, it is steadfast. As is mine. So should you need anything, Anna, anything, just say.’

  The sincerity in his tone touched her. It made her happy that Dimitri had people like Danyl in his life, after the loneliness of his childhood. And now, it seemed, perhaps she did too.

  Birgitta politely excused herself from the conversation with Dimitri and disappeared. In an instant, Danyl’s whole demeanour changed. He ran a hand over exhausted eyes.

  ‘Another potential bride?’ queried Dimitri.

  ‘She certainly seems to think so. I feel like a prize bull.’

  Anna felt a smile lift the corners of her mouth at the easy admittance of the powerful royal before her, but quietly retreated from the personal tenor of the conversation.

  Dimitri watched Anna slip away into the crowds, dark intent swirling in his stomach. The first time he had laid his eyes on her that evening, clothed in the gentlest of turquoise silk, he had wanted to order her back into the room, strip her of her dress and lock her in. The only thing that had stopped him was the shock of his own caveman-like reaction.

  ‘You seem tense. Certainly more tense than usual,’ Danyl remarked.

  ‘It’s... We’re staying at the apartment here tonight.’

  ‘And you haven’t been back since Manos’s arrest.’

  ‘No,’ Dimitri replied, casting his eyes around for a drink, for anything to distract him from the direction of this conversation.