The Greek's Ultimate Revenge

by -Julia James

  Sometimes, when she was an adolescent, on holiday from the boarding school she'd been packed off to as soon as her mother could get away with it, she had searched the faces of her mother's myriad acquaintances, trying to see if there was any resemblance to herself in them.

  But how could she have seen any when she herself was the image of her own mother? Only her brown eyes were a clue—and hardly a helpful one. Her mother had seldom fallen for blonds.

  So slowly, bitterly, she had come to accept that she would never know who her father was, or what nationality, or even if he was still alive.

  Until a chance encounter—whose statistical improbability still made her feel terrified at how easy it would have been for it never to have taken place—had changed her life for ever.

  The moment was engravedon her memory. She, arriving back in London, heading down to Baggage Reclaim, had seen a man pause by the entrance to the first-class lounge, pause and stare, as if he were seeing a ghost.

  She might have taken no notice, intent on collecting her luggage, had the man not said, in a stunned, disbelieving voice, 'Louise?'

  He'd put a hand out, saying something in a language she had not at first recognised, and repeated her mother's name. She'd stopped then.

  She knew that her physical resemblance to her mother sometimes caused confusion, and this man was about the right age to have known her. And since he was clearly a habitue of first-class lounges, looked to be wearing a hand-tailored suit and was, moreover, good-looking with silvering hair, he was just the type.

  She'd shaken her head, pausing fleetingly. 'No, I'm Louise's daughter.' She'd spoken in English, knowing that, despite his clearly non-English appearance, a cosmopolitan man like him would be bound to speak it himself.

  'Ah, yes,' he answered. 'Even Louise, with her incredible beauty, could not have defied time so much!'

  He rested his eyes on her. They were kind eyes, she thought, and just a touch familiar somehow. She wondered at it. Had she ever met him before?

  'And you have very clearly inherited her beauty—I hope you will not mind my saying so?'

  She smiled back. 'Not at all.'

  He nodded, and then said, as if it were something he ought to say, 'And how is Louise these days? If you are her daughter, then she must have married at some point. She was very against marriage when I knew her!'

  Her face stilled. 'Louise died three years ago. A car crash.'

  His sympathy was immediate. 'I'm sorry. Please accept my condolences. And to your father.'

  She gave a little shake of her head. 'Louise never did marry—her aversion to the institution remained to the end.'

  The man looked very slightly shocked, then he looked rueful. 'I remember her being very vehement on the subject, but I put it down to her youth. She was very young—so was I, for that matter! It must have been—' he visibly cast his mind back '—oh, twenty-six years ago now. I remember I met her at the Monaco Grand Prix, so it must have been May. We were together six weeks. She... What is the English expression? She bowled me over! Quite the most beautiful woman I'd ever—'

  He stopped. She'd taken a sharp inhalation of breath.

  'What is it?' the man asked immediately, concern in his voice.

  She stared at him, spoke before she could halt the words, forming them even as her brain registered what he'd just said.

  'I'm twenty-five,' she blurted. 'My birthday is in February.'

  For a moment he just looked at her, nonplussed. Then, his expression still arrested, he said something in his own language. Staccato. Shocked.

  It's Greek, she registered finally. He's Greek.

  And he could be... He could be...my...my...

  She went on staring at him, her face draining. How often—how often in the night over the years—had she lain awake trying to work out when she must have been conceived? May was right on the button. May, twenty-six years ago...

  Her fingers pressed against her lips, the unimaginable thought leaping in her brain. For one long, endless moment she still stared at this foreign, middle-aged stranger. Who had had an affair with her mother the month she must have been conceived.

  No! This was insane, absurd! She turned away, almost stumbling.

  His arm shot out, strong and halting.

  'Wait!' He turned her back towards him. 'Wait,' he said again.

  His eyes were searching her face. Then, abruptly, he spoke.

  'Who is your fathe r?'

  She shook her head. 'I...I don't know.'

  Her voice was thin. As shocked as his.

  'My mother...my mother never told me. I...I don't think she knew...'

  A look of total grimness possessed the man's face.

  'Oh, she did! I think she did indeed! I might only have been a temporary affaire to her, but while I was her lover she had no one else! I would not share her with anyone!'

  Suddenly his expression changed. He looked at her—and she could see the shock in his eyes. More than shock. Suddenly, like a blow, she realised why it was he seemed familiar. It was his eyes. They were darker than hers—but they were hers.

  And he was seeing the same in her face.

  'I think...' he said, and there was something very strange in his voice—something that gave her the strangest feeling in the world. I think we need to talk.'

  And that was all it had taken. All it had taken for Stephanos to accept her as his daughter. The daughter he'd never even known he had. He'd demanded no other proof from her, accepted her completely, taken her into his heart, his life, without question, without doubt. With strong and immediate love.

  But with miracles there came a price, and it was one that Janine had known she would pay, and had not begrudged a penny of it. He'd been flying back to Athens because his wife was due to go into hospital and finally be medically investigated for the cause of her long infertility.

  She had understood completely, and without resentment, that Stephanos had felt he could not present her as his daughter at such a moment. It would have been too cruel to Demetria to parade a daughter in front of her when she was trying so desperately to give him a child of her own. So she had accepted what had to happen—that she had to remain, for now, a secret, hidden part of his life.

  But not as secret as he'd thought...

  The low, urgent rapping came again, and her father's voice called, anxiety and concern twisting in his words.

  'Janine—please—Please, I have to talk to you. Please—'

  Slowly, very slowly, feeling as if death had washed through her and left her a living corpse, she got to her feet. The tie of her robe was almost undone, revealing half her body. With a deathly shudder she refastened it.

  Then she went out to face her father—the man Nikos had thought her lover and taken such ruthless steps to part her from.

  Stephanos stood uncertainly, a little way back. He looked old, Janine thought, stricken. Her heart went out to him.

  'Janine—' His voiced sounded broken. 'I'm so sorry...so sorry.'

  A choke sounded in her throat, and then, in a strangled whisper, she said, 'Vava—'

  He opened his arms.

  'Ela—'

  With a heartbreaking cry, she threw herself into his paternal embrace.

  He let her cry. Let her cry and cry and cry.

  It was ludicrous, she thought, somewhere in the middle of all her tears, ludicrous to be like this. She was a twenty-five-year-old woman, not a little girl, and her life had taken her to places she would not wish on her worst enemy. Yet she felt like a child again. A child being comforted by her father.

  He held her wrapped around him, his hands gently patting her back, speaking to her comfortingly in the language she had grown up not even knowing was her birthright.

  Gradually, very gradually, the storm of weeping abated. Gradually, very gradually, her father eased her from him. He stroked her hair.

  'If I could undo what has happened to you I would give my life's blood,' he told her, and the pain in his voice was terrible t
o hear. 'I will bear the guilt of this for ever.'

  She shook her head, the pain dulled to a heavy ache. 'It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault.' She shuddered. 'I should never have... never have She halted suddenly and looked around, fearful.

  'Where—where is—?' She stopped, unable to say his name.

  'Gone.' Her father's voice was tight. 'He didn't need me to tell him to get out! He's taken off in that cruiser of his.' His voice softened. 'Get your things, my child—we are leaving too.'

  She wiped away the last of her drying tears, taking a breath. 'I'll get dressed. Then I'll pack. Am I...am I going back to the hotel?'

  There was a tremor in her voice. She didn't want to go there—not ever again.

  'No. You are coming to Athens. With me.' Stephanos's voice was decisive.

  Janine looked at him. 'But I thought...Demetria?'

  She said the name of her father's wife, for whose sake she had accepted that she could not be openly acknowledged as Stephanos's daughter.

  I cannot do it to her,' he had told her, and she had accepted it. 'For ten long, agonising years Demetria has hoped against hope that she will be able to give me the child she knows I long for. I cannot...cannot...tell her that I already have a child...she would be devastated. Think herself useless. Already she punishes herself endlessly! Calls herself barren!'

  Janine's heart had gone out to her father's wife. She already knew the story of her unhappy first marriage, so she had accepted that, for the time being at least, her existence would have to be kept secret from Demetria.

  And because of that...

  Her mind veered away. No. She would not let herself think, feel what that secrecy had caused—

  Stephanos's face tensed. Taut with guilt.

  I will have to be honest with Demetria. I thought I could keep you hidden entirely from her. That she would never know about you—at least, not until—until...' He took a deep breath. 'Until we might be blessed with a child of our own! Had I thought...for an instant that she might discover your existence and make...' He sighed heavily, '...such an appalling assumption, I would never, never have taken the risk!'

  His expression became bleak. 'But now I must try and undo the harm my silence has caused. To my wife—and my daughter.'

  He turned to go. 'I will leave you to your packing. Let me know when you are ready, and we can go. Forgive me, but I must phone Demetria. She has no idea I am here. When I called the hotel yesterday, after landing from New York, and was told you had left, I was scared. As soon as I had tracked you down I flew here. I cannot cause Demetria any more anxiety than I have already.'

  He bowed his head and left the room. Alone, Janine got on with the bleak, numbing task of packing.

  The helicopter flew them back to Skarios airport, and there the executive jet that Stephanos had chartered was ready for takeoff.

  As Janine had emerged, finally, from the villa, numb from head to toe, the dazzling view of sea and sky had nearly undone her. Biting hard on her lip, she'd turned her back and walked up the stone steps to the helipad on the flat land above the villa. The rotors had churned idly. All around, the wild landscape had stretched beneath the azure sky.

  As they had taken off she'd looked down. The villa had fallen away from them—the terraces and the spectacular pool, the white limestone cliffs and the tiny crescent beach with its little stone quay. No cruiser moored there. Gone.

  Gone, gone, gone.

  She had shut her eyes, feeling sick.

  The flight to Athens took scarcely an hour. A haze of smog sat over the city in the summer heat. Janine sat in the chauf-feured car, still feeling numb.

  The numbness lasted all the way to the quiet suburb of Kifissia, where the rich of Athens lived, through the security gates of Stephanos's villa, and into the house itself. Servants greeted her father's arrival, not even blinking as he arrived with a beautiful young blonde, ushering her pro-tectingly inside.

  Stephanos's face was drawn as he turned to speak to her.

  'I must see Demetria,' he said quietly. He gestured to one of the staff, waiting discreetly in the background. 'Will you show Kyria Fareham to her room?'

  She was taken upstairs, to what was obviously one of the guest suites. It was beautifully furnished. A maid came up to unpack for her. Janine almost told her not to bother. She could not stay here. She could not stay in Greece. She must go—go.

  Back to London. Back to work. She could see Stephanos when he came to England. It would be enough. It would have to be.

  Her throat tightened dangerously. She went to stand by the window, looking down into the gardens. They were immaculately kept.

  The maid closed the closet doors, murmured something, and left. The room was very quiet.

  I'm going to have to think about it, she thought. I'm going to have to think about what happened.

  I'm going to have to think about Nikos.

  Her throat constricted. Her nails clenched in the palm of her hands.

  Nikos. Nikos Kiriakis.

  Her father's wife's brother.

  Well, you always did tell yourself it was a bad idea to fall for him. And it certainly was. Oh, it certainly was.

  The enormity of what he had thought swept over her again.

  How could I not have noticed? Her question was savage. How could I not have noticed that he thought I was Stephanos's mistress?

  The answer was even more savage. Because he thought you already knew you were!

  She was back in the nightmare again, the one where everything shifted round, and floors became ceilings, and up became down. She tried to make sense of it—terrible sense of terrible things.

  It was, after all, once you had turned the floor to the ceiling, very simple.

  He thought you were Stephanos's mistress. That's why he seduced you. To take you away from Stephanos. So you wouldn't threaten his marriage any more. So he started an affair with you himself.

  And if Stephanos hadn't come storming down out of the sky, looking for his missing daughter, what then? What would have happened?

  Her nails dug into her palms. She heard his voice, soft in her ear. The devil's voice.

  / don't want to part with you, Janine. I want us to be together. I want to take you back to Athens with me and make you mine. Recognised by all the world as mine.

  Pain lacerated her, and she swayed with it.

  A few short hours ago and those words had opened the door of heaven for her.

  Now they ushered her to the mouth of hell.

  She wrapped her arms around herself to stanch the pain.

  A soft knock sounded on the door. She stiffened. The door opened and Janine turned, arms still wrapped around herself.

  A woman stood uncertainly in the doorway. She was thin, very thin, but she was beautifully dressed, with the kind of effortless elegance that Janine was used to seeing in wealthy women in the South of France. She looked to be about fifteen years older than Janine.

  'May—may I come in?'

  The woman's diffidence was painful to see. Slowly Janine nodded.

  'This...this is your house,' she answered. Her eyes were riveted on the other woman's face. Her features were strained, and yet Janine could see the stamp that Kiriakis blood had made on them. She felt the knife stab at her again.

  The woman closed the door behind her and advanced a little way across the thick carpet. She held out a hand. 'I am Demetria Ephandrou. Stephanos has told me the truth about you. I...I wish we could have met under happier circumstances.'

  Janine swallowed. 'Whatever you think of Stephanos now, he never meant you to know about my existence. He knew it would hurt you too much.'

  A strange look passed over Demetria's face. 'Hurt me? How could it hurt me?'

  'Because...because... To flaunt me in your face, your husband's daughter. When you...when you could not bear a child yourself...'

  There was a little choking sound from Demetria. 'So he thought it better that I should believe he had taken a mistress?'


  Janine clenched her hands. 'He didn't want you to know anything at all!'

  Abruptly, Demetria lifted her hands 'Did he really think his own wife wouldn't tell that something was going on? Did he really think I wouldn't notice?' She came forward further. 'Did he think I would rather believe he was unfaithful to me?' Her expression changing, she reached out her hands to Janine again. 'And instead he was hiding a secret I would have rejoiced at learning!'

  Janine stared. 'Rejoiced?'

  Demetria slipped Janine's nerveless fingers into her own. 'Don't you see?' she said, and there was a crack in her voice. 'You are living proof that Stephanos can father a child. I was frightened, so frightened, that it might be him, not me, who was infertile. Oh, I know the doctors did their tests—but tests can go wrong, can be misleading, give false hope. But to see you here, strong and well and so very, very alive! Stephanos's child!'

  Janine looked into Demetria's shining eyes. 'You're glad to know about me?'

  The world was turning on its head again.

  'How can I not be? How can I not be glad that Stephanos has found you after all these years?' She gave a poignant smile that suddenly lit her thin face with beauty. 'It will not stop me moving heaven and earth to give him a child myself, but knowing that he is already a father gives me more hope than ever!'

  The smile faded. She let Janine's hands fall. I should have had faith in Stephanos. I should have trusted him. He has loved me so faithfully for so many years—even when I was most unhappy, trapped in a loveless marriage. How could I think that he would betray me? And because I did think that, what has happened now is my fault. All my fault!'

  Her eyes lifted to Janine, filled with remorse. I sent my brother after you. I turned to him because I was desperate and terrified. I do not ask you to forgive me—' Her voice broke off.

  Janine's hands twisted. What could she say? Demetria had acted to save her marriage. And so had Nikos. Her throat thickened. It was like some ghastly Greek tragedy-one misunderstanding, one error, bringing with it a wealth of destruction...

  'It's...it's all right,' she got out. 'Please—'

  She took a constricted breath. She could not take much more of this. The situation was impossible. Impossible.