‘You know she lived a lot of the time in Greece. Well, so does Uncle Leon and that is why he is here today. He came to tell us Delia was badly hurt in an accident and she died.’ Her voice broke. Saying the words out loud seemed so final.
‘You mean she is never coming back?’ Nicholas’ bottom lip trembled, and the big dark eyes so like Delia’s filled with tears. ‘But why not?’
Helen tightened her arm around him and snuggled him closer. ‘Remember when your hamster died and you and I had a little service and I told you he had gone to heaven where he would still be able to watch you even though you could no longer see him?’
He looked up into her face and then glanced at Leon and back to Helen. ‘Has Delia gone to heaven?’ he asked, big fat tears rolling down his soft cheeks.
‘Yes, but she will still be watching over you.’
‘But I want to see her again.’ He began to sob in earnest.
‘Shh, it’s all right,’ Helen husked.
‘You won’t leave me like Delia?’ he gasped between his sobs, his little hands clinging to her shoulders, his body shaking.
Whether he understood the meaning of death, Helen wasn’t sure, or whether he was simply picking up the enormity of the news from the tension in the two adults, she could not say. She simply held him close and stroked his dark curly hair, murmuring soothing words of love and reassurance, telling him not to worry, she would always be there for him.
Eventually the sobbing ceased and Helen laid him gently down in the bed and kissed his brow.
‘Promise you won’t die and leave me?’ he pleaded, his eyes huge in his flushed damp face. ‘Promise.’
‘Don’t worry, my love, I will always be here for you,’ Helen said softly, brushing her lips against his brow again, and she saw exhaustion overtake him as his eyes closed and she kissed the slightly swollen lids, the smooth cheeks, and tenderly placed his car-printed duvet around his shoulders. ‘I promise.’ And a tear dropped from her eye to his cheek. His little nose wrinkled and he sighed and slept.
Ten minutes later at Leon’s insistence Helen was seated alone in the living room while he went to make coffee. She had been too emotionally exhausted to argue and now she laid her head back against the soft cushions of the sofa and closed her eyes.
Grief and guilt washed over her in waves, and her mind spun like a windmill in a gale. What a mess, and most of it of her own making. She should never have agreed to Delia’s mad idea, she should never have let her own circumstances influence her judgment, but then she would never have known the deep love she felt for Nicholas. To lose him would break her heart, yet she had always known Delia would claim him one day and somehow that had never felt so bad.
‘Here, take this.’ She opened her eyes to find Leon looming over her with a cup of coffee in his hand. ‘I’ve laced it with a little cognac I found in a cupboard. You look like you need it.’
She took the mug from him and raised it to her lips and swallowed down a mouthful of the hot liquid. She grimaced as the spirit caught her throat, but the warmth seemed to spread through her veins inducing a kind of calm. Slowly she sipped the refreshing brew until she had drained the cup and put it on the coffee table in front of her.
Finally she glanced across at Leon reclining on the sofa opposite. He had finished his coffee and he was watching her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, a brooding expression on his rugged face, and she wondered what he was thinking. A moment later she found out.
‘Did you mean what you told Nicholas about never leaving him?’
‘Yes, of course,’ she asserted. ‘I know it will be difficult, and obviously I don’t expect to be physically with him all the time,’ she said gathering her thoughts into some kind of order. ‘I understand you will want to spend some time with him. You could take him for the holidays, as I know it is a custom in your family, plus apparently you have already told him.’ She couldn’t resist the dig. ‘Given the circumstances it is inevitable Nicholas and I will be apart for some periods, but I will still keep in touch with him by telephone on a daily basis so he will never feel I have left him,’ Helen offered and thought she was being reasonable.
‘I hear what you are saying, but I don’t agree. I can see Nicholas is happy with you and you don’t want to part with him. But as his uncle, his only blood relative, I think we should share his upbringing. Nicholas can live with me for six months of the year and you for the other.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Helen exclaimed, her eyes widening in astonished disbelief on his darkly attractive face. ‘That would be absurd. Nicholas switching home every six months, switching schools, doctors everything—only a man could come up with such an idiotic suggestion,’ she declared, for once feeling superior to the arrogant devil.
His mouth hardened. ‘Exactly.’
‘Then why suggest it?’ she queried warily, no longer feeling superior as she realised he had set her up for something, but what?
‘Don’t get me wrong. I think you have done a wonderful job with Nicholas, with little help from my sister, though his knowledge of the Greek language is quite good, so she did do something right. But I have noted he calls youmy Helen. But he rarely adds the prefix Mum to Delia’s name unless you prompt him. He is upset at the news of her death, but, though it pains me to say it, nowhere near as upset as he would be if he lost you. To all intents and purposes you are his mother, and I think it would be in his best interest if he stays with you.’
‘You mean you agree he can stay with me? ‘ Helen asked, hardly daring to believe Aristides could be so reasonable.
‘No, I mean the boy has had a confusing start in life with you as the only constant adult and he deserves more. He deserves two parents and a stable home and I can provide that.’
For a moment she was confused, then the full import of his words hit her and her heart sank. Obviously he had a new wife.
‘So you married again; I didn’t know,’ she murmured. Why hadn’t she thought of that? A wealthy, virile man like Leon Aristides who could take his pick of women, of course he had a wife. Suddenly the possibility of losing Nicholas completely became very real. How could she possibly deny the young boy two parents?
‘No, I am not married yet.’
‘You have a fiancée. You mean to marry and make a home for Nicholas?’ she found the courage to ask. While her heart was breaking at the thought of losing him, her own innate honesty told her she could not deny Nicholas the chance of being part of a normal family.
Leon did not answer immediately. He placed his glass on the table between them and lounged back on the sofa, his dark eyes, piercing in their intensity, focusing on her ashen face. ‘No, I do not have a fiancée. But with one condition you can marry me, and we can share Nicholas’ upbringing at my home in Greece.’
Helen stared at him in stunned disbelief. ‘Marry you! Are you mad?’ He had to be joking. She didn’t like the man. But something in the ruthless curl of his mouth, in the black unfathomable eyes that held hers, sent a prickling sensation down her spine. Her heart beat like a sledgehammer in her chest. She felt again the fear she had known as a teenager the first time they had met, and she knew he was not joking.
His mouth twisted sardonically. ‘I have been accused of many things, but mad was never one of them. However, you and my sister obviously were, to have hatched such a ridiculous plot and denying a child his right to grow up in the bosom of his family. I was informed when she died that Delia had taken drugs, which might account for her perverse behaviour. So do you have the same problem? I need to know before I marry you,’ he demanded arrogantly.
‘I certainly do not,’ she exclaimed furiously. ‘And I don’t believe for one minute Delia did either, she was perfectly fit and healthy the last time I saw her.’
‘Then you are even more naive than you look.’ His night-black eyes mocked her. ‘I have the doctor’s report to prove it.’
Helen was stunned into silence, her mind at first rejecting the truth, and then it slowly dawned on
her she had not seen Delia since last summer. Maybe the pressures of returning to live in Greece and her engagement might have led Delia into doing something so stupid. It certainly explained her erratic behaviour over the last few months. The cancelled visits and dwindling telephone calls, suddenly it all made a horrible kind of sense. Why had she not noticed something was wrong? She had failed her friend when she had needed her. ‘I never knew; I never guessed,’ she murmured.
‘I am inclined to believe you. Preliminary investigations seem to suggest Delia only got involved in recreational drugs last year when she returned to Athens and began to socialise in the party crowd—tragically for her.’
‘Surely her fiancé could have stopped her,’ Helen exclaimed.
‘Her fiancé was blissfully unaware of what she got up to when he wasn’t around, and when he found out after her death he was horrified. His father sent him to Japan to work and get over his loss, and I would guess by now his main feeling is that he had a lucky escape,’ Leon drawled. ‘Delia was more devious than any of us imagined. But as she is no longer here, you now have to pay the price for your foolishness. Unless you want to traumatise Nicholas by leaving him, you will have to marry me.’
Put like that, Helen had no defence. She had failed to recognise Delia had needed help. Helen could not, would not, compound her fault by failing Nicholas as well. But marriage to Leon Aristides…
Searching for the words, she began hesitantly. ‘Surely there must be some other way that would fulfil all Nicholas’ needs that does not involve marriage?’ she appealed to him,
Leon Aristides saw the flicker of helplessness in her violet eyes, the slight perceptible slump of her slender shoulders, and he knew he had won. ‘Nicholas has just lost his birth mother—not a very good one, I will grant you,’ he said dryly. ‘He sees you as his mother and he needs the reassurance of your constant presence more than ever now. You have known my nephew from birth. I have not had that privilege. I am not a brute, but there is no way I will allow you to have sole custody. Marriage between us is the only answer.’ And, rising to his feet, he crossed to sit down beside her on the sofa.
‘Believe me, Helen, if there was any other way I would take it.’ And he reached for her hand, clasping it against his thigh. ‘I have married before and I have no real desire to do so again.’ He let his thumb idly caress her palm. ‘But for Nicholas’ sake I will.’
He felt her tremble and saw the flash in quick succession of two different emotions in her huge violet eyes. The first was fear, but the second was one a man of his experience could not fail to recognise, and he felt a surge of triumph go through him. She had tried to hide her awareness of him all afternoon, but he had seen it in her hastily lowered lashes, her pink cheeks. He could feel it in the rapidly beating pulse in her slender wrist. It would be no hardship to bed the lovely Helen and his body hardened perceptibly at the thought.
But now was not the time, besides which he still had Louisa. Nicholas was his first priority, and he must not forget Helen Heywood was as deceitful a woman as any he had ever met. As she was Nicholas’ official guardian and a trustee of the boy’s estate, he needed her in Greece and tied to him by the legal bond of matrimony. As her husband it would be much easier to protect the boy’s interests and his own.
Ever since the death of his father he had naturally assumed complete control of the company. He had dealt swiftly and fairly with the odd objection from various distant cousins who had through inheritance retained an interest in the business. He’d had everything under complete control until the discovery of Delia’s new will. Suddenly Helen Heywood’s involvement posed a threat—a very slight threat, it was true. But he was a man who left nothing to chance.
Lifting her hand, he folded her slender fingers into her palm and placed it in her own lap, and sat back.
‘You must see, Helen, whatever personal sacrifice you and I have to make, it is the only sensible solution,’ he told her with just the right amount of wry acceptance in his tone. He let his eyes slide over her and he gave an inward smile. She was flustered, and trying very hard not to show it. ‘You told me you have no man in your life at the moment, and I am unattached, so no one else will be hurt, except Nicholas if we don’t marry and provide a stable home for him.’
‘But we hardly know each other, never mind care,’ she argued faintly, and he saw the confusion in her eyes.
His hard mouth twisted in a sardonic smile. ‘Courtesy of Delia you seemed to think earlier you know a lot about me.’ A guilty blush stained her cheeks, which didn’t surprise him in the least, he thought with a flash of anger. She had a hell of a lot to feel guilty about, but he let none of his anger show as he continued, ‘As for me, I know you are great with Nicholas and that is enough for me. A convenient marriage is not that unusual, and with the goodwill of both parties can be quite successful. We have the added incentive of Nicholas to ensure our marriage will be amiable.’
For the count of a few heartbeats Helen simply stared at Leon Aristides. The genuine concern in his steady gaze was undeniable, and not something she had thought him capable of. Maybe he was not as hard as Delia had made out, she didn’t know any more. It didn’t help that she could still feel the warmth of his thigh against her skin, the stroke of his thumb against her palm, and she clasped her hands together trying to control her rapidly beating pulse.
‘A marriage of convenience, you mean?’ She finally managed to speak. Of course that was all he was suggesting, and she knew it made sense, so why did she feel oddly deflated?
‘Yes,’ he said with a determination that left her in no doubt. ‘Obviously we will have to live in Greece as my headquarters are there. But there is no reason why you should not keep this house, and visit your friends occasionally. Business takes me abroad quite often so it won’t be a problem.’
He rose to his feet and looked down at her, a hint of cynicism in the depths of his dark eyes as they held hers. ‘And there is another compelling reason why we should marry. When we spend time together with Nicholas, as is inevitable, how would it look to an outsider? Nicholas is innocent and does not understand, but the first words out of his mouth when I met him were about his friend’s live-in “uncle.” You and I both know what connotations people put on such a relationship and I am not having him exposed to that kind of speculation on top of the fact he is illegitimate. I know in your country a child outside of marriage is quite acceptable and fast becoming the norm. But in Greece it is still frowned upon.’
Embarrassment and, yes, guilt, she acknowledged, made her blush, and she tore her troubled eyes away from his. ‘Nothing can change the circumstances of Nicholas’ birth.’ She made a helpless movement of her hands. ‘But I hadn’t thought of that,’ she said shakily.
‘Well, think about it now, and say you will marry me.’
‘I don’t think I could live with myself if I let Nicholas down.’
‘Good, so that is a yes.’
He was towering over her, tall, dark and formidable. She had to tilt back her head to look at him again and reluctantly she nodded. ‘I suppose so.’
‘You can leave everything to me.’ He reached down and wrapped his large hand around her arm and hauled her to her feet. Before she could protest his dark head swooped down and she felt the firm pressure of his mouth against her own. She caught the faint scent of his aftershave mingled with clean, slightly musky male, felt the heat of his body enfolding her and the subtle intrusion of his tongue between her softly parted lips. She swayed slightly in shock as unfamiliar electric sensations surged through her, and then abruptly he released her.
‘What did you do that for?’ she demanded when she could catch her breath, still reeling from the effect of his brief embrace.
‘Get used to it.’ And the look he levelled at her held none of the concern she had noted earlier, but a cold determination that she found oddly threatening. ‘As you yourself said, Nicholas is a loving boy, and for him to feel secure with us he will expect to see some signs of aff
ection between us.’ His voice was cool and edged with mockery. ‘And you could use the practice.’
She lowered her lashes over her luminous eyes. From burning with heat, Helen was burning with rage and humiliation. So in the kissing stakes Leon Aristides thought she was useless. Given his no doubt vast experience of the female sex it was hardly surprising, and why was she angry? She should be thankful. Now she knew without a doubt she need have no fear of their marriage of convenience being anything more than just that.
‘I must leave now.’ Leon interrupted her thoughts and she glanced back up at him. ‘I am staying at the hotel for the night, and I have a few calls to make.’ He spoke impatiently as though he could not get away fast enough. ‘But I will be back in the morning to see Nicholas, before work commitments dictate I return to Greece, but I will keep in touch. You concentrate on getting packed up here. I will arrange the wedding ceremony for two weeks on Saturday in Athens.’
Aristide's Convenient Wife Page 5
