The Innocent's Shameful Secret

by Sara Craven

  ‘Unless I complied, he, my own father, would end up in court and almost certainly go to jail, which would be a catastrophe for Constantinou International and, by association for me, his only son.’

  She said shakily, ‘But that’s blackmail on both sides.’

  ‘Of course.’ He shrugged. ‘I was presented with two intolerable choices, and I chose reluctantly to protect my father, and agreed to an engagement.

  ‘But the wedding, I made clear, must wait. I had already committed myself to trying to protect Rhymnos from the worst effects of the economic crisis and nothing would change that.

  ‘But I told the Sofiakis family that if Katerina would agree to a small, hasty wedding, she was welcome to accompany me to the island and share whatever privations that might involve.’

  He added casually, ‘It was a safe offer. Katerina, I knew, would never willingly travel further from Manhattan than the Hamptons or Cape Cod and after both she and her mother had indulged in a series of increasingly hysterical scenes, the marriage was safely postponed.

  ‘Before my departure, I hired a team of investigators to take a close look at Ari Sofiakis. I wasn’t hopeful. He had a reputation for utter probity in his business life and was known as a religious man and a major donor to charity.

  ‘At the same time, I had my lawyers and accountants working in the background to make me totally independent from Constantinou International.’ His voice was expressionless. ‘I had learned my lesson.’

  She said, ‘And your investigators found something?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘When I had almost given up hope. In his charity work. One small, insignificant organisation, run by an order of nuns, helping potential immigrants to adapt to life in the US, and supported regularly and generously by Mr Sofiakis and a number of his friends and other prominent members of the community.’ He paused. ‘Which did not include my father.

  ‘The team found this—odd. When they looked deeper, they found the nuns long gone and their house sold. While the immigrants, most of them illegal, but all female and beautiful, were high-class and expensive call-girls with Ari a faithful and long-standing client.

  ‘They telephoned me in Athens with the news and I flew straight to New York to confront him, not knowing my father, under pressure from his family, had also been busy. Mr Sofiakis agreed to end the engagement but then had to invent some reason to placate his wife and daughter. I almost felt sorry for him.’

  His mouth hardened. ‘Until my father told me that my relationship with you was over, too, and I should turn my attention to finding myself another bride from our community.’

  ‘When I said I would marry you or no one, he advised me not to waste my time. That you were a greedy tramp who had let yourself be bought off for a quarter of a million pounds.

  ‘His lawyer even produced a document you had signed, promising to give me up, and congratulated me on my “lucky escape”.’ He pronounced the words with distaste.

  She said numbly, ‘And you believed them?’

  ‘Not my father, perhaps,’ he said. ‘But I had no reason then to doubt Manoli. I had been at college with his younger brother, and looked on his family as friends.’

  ‘Whereas I was just a pillow friend,’ she said scornfully. ‘One of many, no doubt.’

  ‘If you expect me to apologise for my past, Selene mou, you will be disappointed.’

  Their glances met—clashed—and she was the first to look away.

  ‘How did you discover the truth—about the money?’

  ‘Months later, when my father unwisely fired Manoli. By then I had separated myself from Constantinou International, and offered him a job. He broke down and confessed you had rejected the pay off, and that my father had signed the document in your name, gambling rightly on my not recognising your signature and being too shocked to question its validity.

  ‘I told him the job offer stood and booked an immediate flight to England, to find you.’ He paused. ‘In the town where your aunt has a school.’

  Her head went back. She said hoarsely, ‘You saw Aunt Nora?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘And heard her, too. How you had refused her help, her offers of support. How your hatred of me had caused you to reject our baby at birth.

  ‘Some might say I owe Kostas thanks for putting an end to my illusions about you,’ he added bitterly. ‘But somehow I cannot be grateful.’

  Her head swam. She felt herself gulping in air, struggling not to fall to pieces after this new blow. Because she needed to concentrate her energies on finding a way out of this nightmare.

  Not unscathed—she would carry his anger, his accusations with her like a scar—but hopefully with her self-respect still intact.

  ‘Yet you still used him to bring me here.’ Her voice was brittle.

  ‘If you’d known I had sent for you, would you have agreed?’ He watched her look away and nodded. ‘I thought not.’

  But was that the truth? How many times had she imagined standing before him—asking the questions that haunted her?

  I can never tell him that, she thought achingly, because I dare not let him see that the answers to those questions still matter to me.

  That, God help me, he still matters—in spite of everything...

  She said, ‘So, I have to tell Kostas that he’s lost his home and his living.’

  ‘I think, Selena mou, that he already knows.’ He shrugged again. ‘His time on Rhymnos is done.’

  He paused, watching her, his eyes lingering on her mouth. ‘And now shall we turn to our more personal negotiations?’

  ‘There is nothing to discuss.’ She looked back defiantly. ‘I have no intention of—co-operating as you put it. The idea disgusts me—as it should you.’

  ‘Such indignation,’ he returned softly. ‘Yet I am only being practical. I am a single man who needs an heir. I require you to provide one for me. If I had known you had already done so, I would have induced you to hand him over to me, instead of hastily abandoning him to strangers.’

  She said thickly, ‘I—did not—abandon him. Before he was born, I was living in one room, able only to work part-time and receiving benefits.’ She swallowed. ‘It took me longer than it should have to—recover—afterwards, and that’s when he was taken to—to live with another family.’

  ‘You did not think to contact me—his father?’

  ‘No, because I thought—I’d been told—that by then you’d be married. I—I didn’t want to intrude on your new life.’

  ‘How noble.’ He studied her through half-closed eyes. ‘And how much you must have regretted refusing my father’s money.’

  ‘Never,’ she said. ‘Not for one moment.’

  ‘You were content to simply—let your baby go?’

  Content? If hearts could break twice, mine would have done so.

  She kept her voice steady. ‘The decision was made for me.’

  ‘How convenient,’ he drawled. ‘Then let me tell you what I have decided. That you shall become, in effect, a surrogate mother. After the birth, I shall legally adopt the child, son or daughter, leaving you to walk away unencumbered once again. Although I shall naturally pay for your services.’

  She stared at him, shaking with disbelief—and with her own mounting anger as it mingled with the renewed pain at his treatment of her.

  ‘How generous.’ Her voice vibrated with scorn. ‘But I do hope you’re not offering another paltry two hundred and fifty thousand as your father did. My starting price would be at least double that amount.’

  There was a long, taut silence. Apart from the sudden clench of a muscle in his jaw, he was motionless, his dark eyes studying her as if he had never seen her before.

  ‘So,’ he said eventually. ‘You have actually managed to surprise me, Selene mou. But at least we now know where we stand. And I will pay whatever you ask, although I advise you not to allow your greed to run away with you. Do we have a deal?’

  She drew a quick, harsh breath. ‘No,’ she said raggedl
y. ‘We do not and we never will, you—you unutterable bastard. How could you even think so?’ A sob she could not control rose in her throat, as she pushed back her chair and stood up. ‘I think you’re utterly vile and despicable—and I only wish to God that I’d never met you.’

  He, too, got to his feet, taking a step towards her, bringing him too close for comfort—or safety. Making her dizzily aware of the warm, familiar scent of his skin.

  Reviving memories that were poignant as well as dangerous.

  ‘Truly?’ His voice was harsh. ‘I wish I could feel the same—but, even now, I cannot.’

  If he came any closer she would be lost and she knew it.

  Stay calm, she whispered silently. And walk away.

  But when she reached the outer door he was beside her, his hand on her arm.

  She recoiled. She said between her teeth, ‘Do—not—touch me.’

  ‘Forgive me, but there is something I must know.’ There was a strange, almost anguished note in his voice. ‘My son—what is his name?’

  The empty passage ahead of her became a sudden blur, but she forced back the tears.

  She said huskily, ‘Alexander.’ And fled.

  * * *

  ‘You,’ she said. ‘You dared to ask for my help, when you knew what you’d done? When you’d ruined my life?’

  They were alone in the bar. Millie was resting upstairs and Madame Papoulis, muttering, had gone to buy the forgotten cucumbers.

  Kostas’s face was wretched. ‘I was angry, sister, because I asked Kyrios Alexis to lend me money to buy my business and he refused me. He said that if I wished to marry, I should work and save for my wife, not borrow what I might not be able to repay.’

  He hit his chest with a clenched fist. ‘In that moment, he made me feel less than a man, and I wished to make him sorry.

  ‘At his house, I had heard Eleni and Yorgos talking when they did not know I was there, speaking of the marriage in America arranged for him by his father. How there would be great trouble if Kyrios Petros found out that Kyrios Alexis had a pillow friend who had taken his eyes and his heart.’

  She winced. ‘So you told him.’

  ‘Ne. And he promised I would be rewarded. I only wanted the money Kyrios Alexis had refused, but he offered me this taverna, which was not his to give. He cheated me.’

  She said icily, ‘I hope you don’t expect sympathy.’

  ‘I expect nothing. My life is finished.’ He looked up pleadingly. ‘Please, sister, do not tell my Amelia that I am to blame for our loss. I cannot bear for her to know.’

  ‘I think she’d prefer honesty,’ she said crisply.

  ‘And it might be best if I caught the afternoon ferry.’ In case Alexis comes looking for me.

  Just the thought made her throat tighten in a mixture of panic and desolation.

  ‘But if you leave like this, your sister will wonder.’ He gave her another beseeching look. ‘For her sake, stay a little longer.’

  ‘Until tomorrow,’ she said stonily. ‘Then I’m gone.’

  ‘I am thankful.’ He sighed. ‘I hoped you would persuade Kyrios Alexis to forgive me, so that my Amelia and I can keep our dream.’

  And what about my dream—my hopes—my loss? she wanted to scream at him. And the price I paid—that I’m still paying? That I only get to see my little boy once a week, and at the occasional weekend. That now his foster parents are talking about adoption, and I shall have to fight to keep him.

  She took a deep breath. ‘I think you’ll just have to buckle down and—start again—somewhere else.’ She got up from the table. ‘I’ll see if Millie’s asleep.’

  Not just asleep, but dead to the world, she thought as she peeped round the door. She went to her own room, and sat on the edge of the bed, staring into space.

  Her meeting with Alexis had left her sick and shaking inwardly. Would it have been easier to endure, she wondered, if they’d met on neutral territory, instead of somewhere still charged with memories?

  Their bedroom, she thought achingly, its balcony overlooking the lawns and the sea beyond, rippling to the edge of the beach in its own quiet, endless rhythm, and where, at night, she would watch the moon carving her silver path across the water.

  The room, too, where one warm, golden afternoon their baby had been conceived...

  She remembered waking from a delicious dream and reaching for him to find the space beside her unoccupied. She slid naked from the bed and went to find him.

  He was in the bathroom, his dark hair still damp from the shower, standing at a basin, a towel draped round his hips, deftly removing the last traces of lather from his chin with his razor.

  He saw her in the mirror and smiled, the glint in his eyes showing his appreciation for the provocative picture she made, framed in the doorway.

  Selena walked across and slid her arms round his waist, pressing her face against the warm skin of his bare back, breathing the scent of his soap, and marking the length of his supple spine with small, soft kisses.

  She unfastened his towel and let it fall to the floor, her hands sweeping slowly down over the taut male buttocks to the muscular length of his thighs.

  She heard him gasp softly then the rattle of the razor slipping from his fingers into the basin. His body tensing under her caress, he leaned forward, his head bent and his hands gripping the edge of the tiled surround.

  Her lips moved downward, tantalising him with every kiss, her teeth grazing him gently as she slid a hand between his legs, cupping him, teasing him with her fingertips, then reaching for his rigid, straining shaft and stroking it until he groaned aloud.

  He turned, lifting her as if she was featherweight, then lowering her on to his loins and filling her with one smooth thrust.

  Selena clung to him, arms round his neck, her legs wrapped round his hips. Their mouths were locked together, their tongues tangling, in a silence broken only by the rasp of their breathing and the sound of flesh against flesh as she rode him, demanding, challenging in her glorious abandonment, her muscles gripping him, urging him on, taking him deeper and deeper still.

  The harsh, exquisite ascent to pleasure was already building inside her, surging towards its peak, then overwhelming her, convulsing her in such an agony of delight that she cried out into his mouth.

  And in the next instant felt him explode, his climax white-hot within her.

  Afterwards, they found their way, somehow, to the bed and lay for a while, exchanging quiet kisses.

  Eventually, Alexis lifted himself on to an elbow and looked down at her, stroking a strand of hair back from her sweat-dampened face.

  He said slowly, half to himself, ‘I did not intend that.’

  It was unexpected and she gave him a questioning, almost anxious glance. ‘Are you sorry?’

  ‘No,’ he said, and kissed her again. ‘No, my beautiful one, my angel, I could never be that.’ His smile was faintly rueful. ‘But I meant to be wise for us both.’

  And only some weeks later, when she first began to feel sick in the mornings, did she realise, as he must have done at the time, that it was the only time they’d had unprotected sex.

  Which had left her to face, totally alone, the most terrifying, heart-wrenching moments of her life...

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘GO BACK AND talk to him again, Lena, please. Say whatever you have to, but make him listen.’ Millie looked dreadful, her face pale, her eyes swollen. ‘After all, he was crazy about you once. Everyone knew it.’

  Selena bit her lip. She had agreed with Kostas to tell her sister that she’d tried to reason with Alexis, but that he’d remained totally intransigent.

  Her worry that Alexis might come to the Amelia to repeat his offer in person had proved unfounded, but that was the only positive in the day so far.

  She said briskly, ‘What’s past is gone, Mills, and we have to accept that. And downstairs there is a full house wanting dinner. So, do something about your face then come down and charm the customers bef
ore your mother-in-law has a total fit.’

  ‘What’s the point?’ Millie asked despairingly. ‘When we’re about to lose everything anyway.’

  Selena stood up. She said evenly, ‘Because you’re facing a fresh start and for that you’ll need every penny you can make, including tips.’ Adding, ‘As I once did.’

  * * *

  When she got downstairs next morning, she found Kostas, looking heavy-eyed, sweeping the taverna floor.

  He saw the bag she was carrying and frowned. ‘You are truly leaving?’

  ‘I did say so.’

  ‘But the manager at the hotel brought this for you.’ He went to the bar and produced an envelope. ‘I hoped it might be from Kyrios Alexis saying he had thought again.’

  ‘I think the age of miracles is past.’ She took the envelope and went outside to read it, aware Kostas was watching anxiously from the doorway.

  The note was brief. ‘The deal I offered is no longer on the table and you have nothing further to fear from me. I wish you well.’ And his initial.

  ‘Does he want to see you again?’ asked Kostas.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘He’s—just saying goodbye.’

  She read it again, her heart thumping, asking herself what could have prompted this total volte face.

  Well—practical considerations, probably. One day, he would meet someone he wanted to marry, and an adopted child born from a supposed surrogate mother in another country would require too much explanation.

  Or had he simply decided to take ‘no’ for an answer?

  She thought—It’s over. I’m free.

  So, why wasn’t she jumping for joy?

  Worse still, why did she feel suddenly so lost—so scared?

  Because I have a tough time ahead, she told herself. I have to find an affordable two-bedroom flat where children are allowed, then let the authorities know I’m in steady full-time employment, and that Alexander no longer needs fostering and should be living with me.

  After all, I’ve already missed out on too much of his babyhood...

  And paused, biting her lip. Because, it occurred to her with all the force of a blow, she was not the only one.