The Greek's Forbidden Innocent
Page 20
‘I have to get ready for work.’ Winnie sighed, rising from her seat.
Zoe stood up, as well. ‘Give me Teddy,’ she urged. ‘I’ll put him down for a nap while I make dinner and that’ll allow you to slip out without him noticing.’
Zoe was tiny like Winnie but her hair was golden blonde as their father’s had been. Her grandfather had told Winnie that she bore a close resemblance to her grandmother who had apparently been an Arabian princess. Winnie shook her head over that startling recollection because nothing could have more surely pointed out that her grandfather came from a very different world. Her father, Cy, had never once mentioned his mother’s exalted birth, but he had talked very lovingly about her.
Smiling at her youngest sibling, Winnie recognised how very lucky she was to have sisters who loved and cared for her son as much as she did. She could never have managed without them although the fact that, as a junior chef, she invariably worked evenings and weekends helped in the childcare department. They had also been living in a dump of a flat before they met their grandfather and Winnie had only accepted the older man’s generous offer of new accommodation for her son’s sake. In the space of two weeks, however, that new comfortable terraced home with its four generous bedrooms and extra space, not to mention its smart location, had changed their lives very much for the better. They weren’t paying rent any more either, which meant that surviving on their low salaries was no longer a struggle.
Even so, it didn’t feel safe to be depending even temporarily on the generosity of a grandfather who was very much a mixed bag of traits and tricks. Winnie was painfully aware that Stam Fotakis could decide to turn his back on them as quickly as he had laid down a welcome mat for them. Rich people, she had learned from her experience with Eros Nevrakis, could be unreliable and volatile. It didn’t do to trust them or to expect them to stay the same like more ordinary folk, she recalled sickly.
‘I’m sorry, I’m not in the mood tonight.’ She recalled Eros murmuring in apology, as if it were perfectly normal to push her away when he was usually keen to encourage her affection. That rejection had hurt, it had hurt so much, acting on her like the very first frightening wake-up call to reality.
Her eyes stinging, Winnie compressed her lips and shut down the memory fast. Remembering Eros was a two-edged sword that both wounded and infuriated her. She had been so stupidly naive and trusting, refusing to see or suspect what her grandfather had picked up instantly...that she had not been engaged in a passionate love affair but had instead become a married man’s mistress. And there was nothing remotely romantic or loving or caring about that role, she concluded as she stepped onto the Tube to travel to the restaurant that currently employed her as a pastry chef. She would’ve been rather higher up the career ladder had she not dropped out of her apprenticeship to become Eros Nevrakis’s personal chef, she reflected resentfully. On the other hand, she would never have had Teddy without him and, no matter what her grandfather thought of unmarried mothers, Teddy could never ever be a source of regret.
* * *
Midevening, Vivi was just tucking the little boy into his jammies when a loud knock sounded on the front door. The knocker sounded again before she even reached the hall with Teddy clutched precariously below one arm, because you couldn’t turn your back safely on Teddy for even ten seconds. ‘All right...all right...try being patient,’ she was muttering below her breath as she yanked open the door and gaped.
At least five men stood on the doorstep, all big, all wearing dark suits and earphones. No, the one standing closest wasn’t wearing one of those communication things and he looked madder than fire.
‘Are you okay, Miss Mardas?’ one of the men at the back enquired.
‘Who on earth are you all?’ Vivi whispered, feeling unusually intimidated.
‘Security, Miss Mardas. We work for your grandfather.’
‘I’m not security,’ Eros spelt out impatiently while trying not to squint to get a better look at the little boy anchored sideways below the redhead’s arm. His brain went momentarily blank as he focused on that grinning, lively little face below the splash of black curls. His son, assuming it was his son, looked very much like him, Eros acknowledged, momentarily shocked out of the rage that had powered him all the way from Greece.
‘Why would I need security?’ Vivi whispered.
‘I want to see Winnie,’ Eros grated. ‘I am Eros Nevrakis.’
Vivi froze and immediately awarded him a look of utter loathing. ‘My sister is at work.’
‘I will come in and wait for her, then.’
‘She won’t be home until after midnight, so there’s no point in you waiting,’ Vivi proclaimed with pursed lips.
Eros drew himself up to his full six feet four inches and simply looked through her, unperturbed by her hostile manner. ‘I will return at ten in the morning. Tell her to ensure that she is here then,’ he delivered through clenched white teeth.
Copyright © 2019 by Lynne Graham
ISBN-13: 9781488044274
The Greek’s Forbidden Innocent
First North American publication 2019
Copyright © 2019 by Annie West
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