by Julia James
His expression tightened.
‘My priority is persuading Timon to relinquish control of the Petranakos Corporation to me. I’m limited at the moment as to what I can and can’t do, and I can see that a great deal needs to be done. A lot of the workforce at too many of the sites and premises are very jumpy—they know Timon is old and very ill, they know Marcos is dead, and they don’t know what is going to happen. Bankers and investors are restless too, as well as suppliers and customers. None of that is good. I need to take charge—make it clear that I’m going to run the company on behalf of the new heir. And I most urgently want Timon to designate Georgy.’ He took a breath. ‘Whatever it takes, I have to get Timon to hand over the reins of power to me.’
Whatever it takes...
The words echoed in Anatole’s head. He had used them so often in these past weeks since Marcos’s fatal car crash. His eyes went to the woman and child seated beside him and he felt them echo again.
Whatever it takes...
Emotion swirled within him. Whatever it took to safeguard Marcos’s son and safeguard the jobs of the thousands of people employed by Timon. That was what he must cling to.
His mind refocusing, he started to point out to Lyn the various landmarks they were passing, giving her a sense of the geography of the region.
‘We are heading for Glyfada,’ he told her. ‘It’s on the shore of the Saronic Gulf—where, as I’m sure you already know, the famous battle of Salamis was fought in the fifth century BC to defeat the invading Persians. My grandfather’s villa is beyond the resort, on a quiet peninsula, well away from all the glitz of Glyfada and its neighbours, like Voula.’
‘I see the roadsigns are in the Latin alphabet, as well as Greek,’ Lyn remarked.
‘That’s pretty common in Greece now,’ Anatole reassured her.
She frowned. ‘It’s the hardest part of learning Greek, I think,’ she said. ‘Having to learn to read a different script.’
‘It isn’t so bad,’ he said encouragingly. ‘Lots of the symbols are the same. One or two can be confusing, though—like the Latin capital P, for example, which is our R: rho.’ He smiled. ‘But don’t worry. You’ll get the hang of it. I’ll get a teacher organised, and you can start lessons as soon as you like.’
‘Thank you,’ she said gratefully. Her heart warmed. He was taking so much trouble to make her feel easier, more comfortable about moving here to Greece.
Yet even so, as the car turned off the main highway, and started to head down smaller roads, threading between what were clearly private and expensive residences all around them then pausing to go through electronically controlled gates to curl around a driveway that led to the huge white villa at the far end, Lyn felt her heart quail again.
But yet again Anatole sought to assuage her fears as she stared, daunted, at the massive ornate mansion.
‘Timon likes to live in style,’ Anatole commented dryly. ‘But the beach house is a lot less grandiose.’
The car took a fork off to the right that went around the main house and down through extensive manicured grounds that led towards the sea, and drew up outside a much more modest-looking building.
‘This will be far more suitable for us,’ said Anatole.
Lyn could not help but agree.
It was a single-storey, low-level building, with shutters and a terrace to the front, which overlooked the far end of a private beach that fronted the shoreline of the main villa, from which it was separated by formal gardens set with tall cypress trees and a lot of cultivated greenery.
‘I’ve had the beach house opened up, but no one’s been here for a while, so it might be a bit musty,’ Anatole apologized.
Lyn only smiled. ‘It looks lovely,’ she said. She definitely felt relieved that she wouldn’t have to cope with the huge imposing-looking villa that was Timon Petranokos’s residence.
They made their way indoors, leaving the driver to bring in their luggage. Indoors, Lyn immediately felt even more reassured. Although it was clearly a luxury residence the house was small-scale, and simply furnished, but she liked it that way.
‘The staff from the main house will do the housekeeping here,’ Anatole explained, ‘and the kitchen there will always be on call. Tonight,’ he went on, ‘we’ll definitely make use of my grandfather’s chef!’
Lyn was grateful, and by the time she had sorted out her unpacking and got Georgy settled in his new nursery in the bedroom next to hers, she was glad to sit down to a dinner that someone else had prepared.
She still felt strange, but knew she must simply get on with settling in. This was to be her life now.
But for how long?
The thought arrowed through her head and she wished it had not. She didn’t want to think about the future right now.
All she wanted to do was be with Georgy—and Anatole...
With Anatole’s arms around her, his lips kissing her, his hands caressing her, his words murmuring in her ear as he took her to a place that made everything else in the universe disappear...
She wouldn’t think about anything else. Just what she had now.
Take each day...each night...and do what he asks you to do. Trust him.
It was all she needed to do.
* * *
The following morning they drove to the specialist cancer hospital outside Athens where Timon Petranakos was being treated.
‘I hope you do not mind, Lyn,’ Anatole said, ‘but for this first meeting I want to take Georgy to see Timon on his own.’
Lyn was understanding. ‘Of course,’ she agreed readily.
It was understandable that he should want that. This would be a very emotional encounter for a man, old and dying, who, still raw with terrible grief, had lost his beloved grandson but who now was to receive a blessing he had never hoped for: his grandson’s baby son. She did not wish to intrude on such a special moment.
Anatole was tense, she could see. So much was resting on this encounter, and she did not want to add to that tension. She leant across to give Georgy, already hoisted up in Anatole’s arms, a quick final mop of the face, ready to be presented to his great-grandfather, then she stood back, watching Anatole walk out of the visitors’ lounge at the swish private clinic. As the door closed behind them, taking Georgy from her sight, a little bubble of anxiety formed inside her. She deflated it swiftly.
What did she imagine was going to happen? That a frail, sick man like Timon was somehow going to whisk Georgy away, never to be seen by her again? Of course he wasn’t! She must stop fretting like this. Just as Anatole kept reiterating, everything would be all right...
She sat back on the chair and reached for a magazine to while away the time until Anatole emerged again. She could do little but glance at the pictures, and it strengthened her determination to get to grips with the Greek language without delay. This might only be the first day after their arrival, but the sooner she could cope with the language the better.
* * *
It was a determination she found she had ample time to put into practice in the days that followed. Anatole had warned her that once in Greece he would have to focus primarily on work so, like it or not, she had to wave goodbye to him in the mornings as he headed into Athens, leaving her to her own devices during the day. Not that she had any housework to do—maids from the main house appeared and duly disappeared after taking care of all the chores, and food shopping was also taken care of by Timon Petranakos’s staff. They all made a huge fuss over Georgy, who clearly revelled in the admiration, and those who spoke English told her, with visible emotion, how like his poor tragic father he was. She herself was treated with great deference as well, as the fiancée of Timon’s other grandson, which she found a little awkward. It brought home to her the very different worlds she and Anatole came from.
But it doesn’t matter�
��we are united in Georgy. He bridges any gap between us.
Not that there was any gap. She might not see anything of Anatole during the day, but when he came home in the evening he was everything she could desire.
She’d made a point of cooking dinner herself some evenings, for she was reluctant to rely totally on Timon’s house staff to do so for her, but she knew her meagre repertoire would soon pall for someone like Anatole, used to gourmet cuisine all his life, so she restricted herself to easy dishes like pasta, leaving anything more complex to the chef from the main house. Baby food, though, she attended to herself, and soon discovered that shopping for fresh fruit and vegetables with Georgy in the nearby little coastal town—to which she was delivered and collected by Timon’s chauffeur—made for a pleasurable excursion every day or two. The Greeks, she swiftly realised, were a lot more volubly enthusiastic about infants than the reserved British, and everyone from passing old ladies to shopkeepers made a huge fuss of him whenever she wheeled him along in his buggy, much to his evident enjoyment.
Having bought herself some teach-yourself and tourist phrasebooks for Greek, Lyn steadily tried to put her first stumbling efforts with the language into use as she shopped. They were aided when the teacher Anatole had promised he would organise arrived at the beach house. He was an earnest young man—the graduate son of the brother of Anatole’s PA—and with his assiduous help Lyn started to feel less intimated by the Greek script, started to make definite progress with grammar and vocabulary.
While she had her daily lesson one of the housemaids would look after Georgy. She spoke to him in Greek, as did Anatole quite a lot, and Lyn knew that it was essential that he grow up to be bilingual from the start—a tangible sign of his dual heritage.
But she also knew she didn’t want him growing up unaware or under-exposed to his mother’s heritage too. It was something that caused her some anxiety now that she was actually here in Greece. It might not matter while Georgy was little, but as he grew to boyhood Lyn knew she would want him to be as much English as Greek. She owed it to Lindy...
She said as much one evening to Anatole over dinner. She felt a little awkward raising the subject, but steeled herself to slip it into the conversation at an opportune moment. He had made some remark about their day out to the South Downs while they’d been in England, and Lyn seized her chance.
‘We will be able to go back to England some time?’ she asked. ‘I know we’ll have to go back after the wedding at some point, to be present at the adoption hearing, but once that is done do we come back here for good?’
For a moment he stilled completely, and she realised he might have misunderstood her question.
His eyes rested on her. ‘Are you not happy here?’ he asked.
There was a concerned note in his voice and immediately Lyn replied. ‘No, it’s not because of that at all—I promise you! I’m settling in, just as you promised me I would! Please, please don’t worry about that! You’ve got enough to deal with as it is—with Timon’s state of health and all the work you’ve got to do! I suppose it’s simply dawning on me that once Georgy starts talking he’s going to have Greek as his predominant language and culture—and I don’t want him to lose touch with his English side completely. It would be reassuring to know that he can spend time in England, still—for holidays...that sort of thing! Touch base with that side of his cultural heritage.’ She finished hastily. ‘But that’s all for the future, I know.’
‘Yes, it is,’ said Anatole. ‘But of course I can see why you think about it.’ He took a breath. ‘We can work something out, I am sure,’ he said.
There was reassurance in his voice, but suddenly Lyn saw a veil come down over his expression, as if he were thinking of something he was not telling her about.
She frowned inwardly, and a thread of anxiety plucked at her. It dissipated almost immediately, however, as Anatole’s expression cleared.
‘I’m going to try and take the day off tomorrow,’ he said. ‘What’s that expression in English? Playing hockey?’
Lyn laughed. ‘It’s playing hookey—but I have no idea what hookey is, or why you play it when you skive off work!’
Anatole gave a quirking smile. ‘Skive?’ he queried.
‘It’s slang for bunking off—which is also slang for going AWOL, I guess...taking a day off work when really you’re not supposed to.’
‘Well, I think I deserve it,’ Anatole said firmly. ‘I’ve been flat out since we got here, and the pressure is only going to get worse when I’m running Petranakos fully. For the moment I’m going to take a long weekend for once.’ He looked at Lyn. ‘How about if I take you into Athens and show you the sights? I feel bad that you’ve been stuck away here and haven’t seen anything yet.’
Lyn’s face lit. ‘Oh, that would be wonderful! Thank you! But please, please don’t feel I’ve been “stuck” here—this is such a lovely house, with the beach right in front, and the weather is so lovely and warm.’
Anatole looked at her. ‘Are you sure you’re happy here, Lyn?’ he asked.
She could hear the concern in his voice again, and immediately wanted to reassure him. ‘Yes, truly I am! It’s getting less strange every day. And so is the language.’
‘Good,’ said Anatole, and relief was clear in his eyes. ‘The other good news is that Timon’s oncologist tells me he’s continuing to do well. The cancer is responding to the drugs and he is coping better with the side effects. He’s talking about letting him come home next week, maybe.’ His eyes warmed. ‘And then, Lyn, we can really get going on our wedding.’
His gaze caressed her, and she felt herself melt as she always did.
‘Not that we need to wait for the wedding...’ he murmured, and his message was clear—and potent.
Lyn felt a little shimmer as her blood warmed. No, they did not need the formality of a wedding to unite them. It might be needed to expedite the adoption process, which was still progressing back in the UK, but she and Anatole needed no marriage lines to release the passion between them!
Happiness welled through her.
She had everything she could ever dream of here with Anatole, in his arms, in the life he had made for her here with her beloved Georgy!
And if there was a shadow over her happiness, over the future that was yet to come—well, she would not think about that now. Would not let herself be haunted by it.
She would give herself only to the present—this wonderful, magical present that Anatole had created for her!
‘There’s something else the oncologist was saying, Lyn.’
Anatole’s voice penetrated her haze of happiness. She brought her mind back smartly.
‘He thinks that Timon is now sufficiently strong to receive visitors—I mean beyond just me and Georgy. I know you’ve been very understanding that Timon has really not felt up to coping with meeting you yet, and you know how brief I’ve had to keep my own visits to him, but of course he is keen to meet you. So...’ He took a breath. ‘How about if on our way into Athens tomorrow we go via the clinic? How would that be?’
His expression was encouraging, and Lyn knew she must acquiesce. She might have her own apprehension about finally meeting Georgy’s formidable great-grandfather, the patriarch of the family, but it was something that had to be faced some time. And tomorrow, after all, was as good a day as any.
* * *
She dressed the next morning with particular care, and was conscious of a feeling of tension as they arrived at the clinic—conscious, too, of Anatole’s warm, strong hand holding hers as they went indoors, dissipating her tension. Georgy was in her arms, and was already a clear favourite with the reception staff, and with the nurse who escorted them to Timon’s room.
Anatole went in first, just to check his grandfather was ready for the encounter, and a moment later emerged to escort Lyn inside. He took Georgy
from her, hefting him easily into his strong arms, and guided Lyn forward.
‘Lyn—come and meet my grandfather,’ he said.
She stepped towards the bed, her eyes going to the occupant. So this, she thought, was Timon Petranakos.
A lion of a man, she realised, but one on whom old age, grief and extreme illness had taken a heavy toll. Yet his eyes, as dark as Anatole’s, held her with a penetrating regard. For a moment he said nothing, simply looked at her as if taking her measure. Then he nodded.
‘It is good to meet you,’ he said. His voice was somewhat rasping, and his accent in English strong.
‘How do you do?’ she said politely.
He gave a short, rasping laugh. ‘Not well, but better than I might.’ His dark eyes turned to Georgy, who was blowing bubbles at him from Anatole’s arms. ‘And all the better for seeing you!’
He switched to Greek, bestowing what Lyn took to be words of warm affection for Georgy and holding out his gnarled hands for Anatole to place him on his lap. She watched them interact—the old, sick man who had lost both son and grandson before their time and the infant who represented to him all the hope he had for the future. Anatole joined in, speaking Greek as well, and making a fuss of Georgy, who clearly loved being the centre of attention.
Lyn stood at the foot of the bed, feeling suddenly awkward.
Excluded.
Then, abruptly, Timon’s head lifted. ‘Tell me about his mother,’ he commanded.
And it definitely was a command, she realised. But she made allowances. A man of his generation, his wealth, the head of a powerful Greek family, would be used to giving commands to all around him.
She swallowed, wondering what to say, where to begin. ‘Lindy was...the sweetest person you could know,’ she said. ‘Loving and gentle.’
It hurt to talk about her, and yet she was glad that Timon Petranakos was asking.
‘Beautiful?’ he probed.
She nodded. ‘Blonde and blue eyed,’ she answered.
