by Kim Lawrence
‘Her blood pressure was up a little…nothing serious,’ Paul hastened to assure the other man.
Angolos clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘I forgot!’ he admitted with a grimace of self-reproach. ‘When is my god-child due?’
‘Last week.’
Angolos’s brows lifted. ‘The plot deepens.’
‘You’re looking well, Angolos.’
It struck him that this was something of an understatement. Nobody looking at the lean, vital figure would have believed that a few years earlier his life had hung in the balance… Paul was one of the few people who did know, and he scarcely believed it himself!
One dark brow slanted sardonically. ‘Always the doctor, Paul?’ came the soft taunt.
‘And friend, I hope.’ It was friendship that, after a lot of heart-searching, had brought him here—that and his wife’s nagging.
‘The man has a right to know, Paul,’ she had insisted.
He had still been inclined to leave well alone, but very pregnant wives required humouring. She had insisted that he speak to Angolos without delay and, as she had pointed out, it wasn’t the sort of thing you could hit a man with on the phone.
So here he was and he wished he weren’t.
The hard features of the darker man softened into a smile of devastating charm. ‘And friend,’ he agreed quietly. ‘So what’s wrong, Paul?’
‘Nothing’s wrong, exactly,’ Paul returned uncomfortably.
Angolos didn’t bother hiding his scepticism. ‘Don’t give me that. It would take something pretty serious to make you leave Miranda alone just now. It follows that this is serious.’
That was Angolos, logical to his fingertips, except when it came to his wife. Where Georgie was concerned he got very Greek and unpredictable, reflected the Englishman.
‘She…Mirrie, that is, made me come,’ Paul admitted.
Angolos nodded. ‘And I’m glad she did. I would be insulted if you hadn’t come to me with your problem. Just hold on a sec and I’ll be with you.’
‘My…prob…? But I haven’t got…’ Paul stopped and watched with an expression of comical dismay as his friend exchanged words with the brunette, who looked far from happy with what he said. Seconds later Angolos had returned to his side.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Angolos suggested. ‘There’s a bar around the corner. We can talk.’
The first thing Paul said when they had ordered their drinks was— ‘Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not here to touch you for a loan, Angolos.’
‘I’m well aware that not all problems can be solved by throwing money at them, Paul.’ The level dark-eyed gaze made the other man shift uncomfortably. ‘But if yours ever can be I will throw money at them whether you like it or not.’ The hauteur in his strong-boned face was replaced by a warm smile as he added, ‘My friend, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here at all.’
‘Nonsense.’
The other man’s patent discomfort made Angolos grin, his teeth flashing white in the darkness of his face. ‘Your British self-deprecation borders on the ludicrous, Paul,’ he observed wryly. He set his elbows on the table and leant forward, his expression attentive. ‘Now what’s the problem?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a problem… It’s just that Dr Monroe retired and his patients have been relocated to us…’ In response to Angolos’s frown Paul breathed in deeply and went on quickly. ‘Yesterday my partner was called out on an emergency and I saw some of the new patients.’ He swallowed. ‘Georgie…your Georgie was one of them.’
Angolos’s expression didn’t change, but his actions as he picked up his untouched drink and lifted it to his lips were strangely deliberate. A moment later, having replaced the glass on the table, he lifted his eyes to those of the other man.
‘Is she ill?’
‘No, no!’
Almost imperceptibly Angolos’s shoulders relaxed.
He privately acknowledged that it was slightly perverse, considering he had cursed his faithless wife with all the inventive and vindictive power at his disposal three and a half years earlier, that the possibility of her being ill now should have awoken such primitive protective instincts.
‘Actually she looked fantastic…a bit thin, perhaps,’ Paul conceded half to himself. ‘She always had great bones.’
‘I have not the faintest interest in how she looks.’ Angolos’s jaw tightened as the other man turned an overtly sceptical gaze on his face. ‘And I don’t remember you mentioning her great bones when you told me I would be making the greatest mistake of my life if I married her…’
‘Ah, well, I was afraid that you were…’
‘Out of my mind?’ Angolos suggested when his friend stumbled. ‘You were right on both counts, as it happened.’ Elbows set on the table, he leaned forward slightly. ‘Did she ask you to intercede on my behalf? I thought you had more sense than to be taken in by—’
The doctor looked indignant. ‘Actually, mate, I got the distinct impression you’re the last person she wants to contact,’ he revealed frankly.
‘Indeed!’
‘She was pretty shocked when she saw me. In fact,’ he admitted, ‘I thought she was going to run out of the office. And when I said your name she looked…’ He stopped; there were no words that could accurately describe the bleak expression that had filled the young mother’s eyes. ‘Not happy,’ Paul finished lamely.
Angolos leaned back in his seat and, loosening a button on his jacket, folded his arms across his chest. ‘Yet you are here.’
‘I am.’ Paul ran a hand across his jaw. ‘This is hard. Mirrie does this sort of thing so much better than I do.’
At this point, if he had been having this conversation with anyone else Angolos would have told them to get on with it, but this was Paul, so he controlled his impatience and made suitably encouraging noises.
‘The thing is, Angolos, she brought the boy.’ The expression on his friend’s face as he looked at him from beneath knitted brows was less than encouraging, but Paul persisted. ‘Have you ever seen…?’
‘No, I have never seen the child,’ Angolos responded glacially.
‘He’s a fine little lad and not spoilt either. Georgie’s done a fine job, though I got the impression reading between the lines that money’s tight.’
Angolos’s lip curled contemptuously. ‘So this is what this is about—she’s been playing the poverty card. I deposit a more than adequate amount of money in a bank account for the child’s needs. If Georgette has got greedy, if she has some deluded hope of extracting a more substantial amount from me, she can forget it. She’s taken me for a fool once…’
‘She honestly didn’t mention money, Angolos, but if she wanted to bleed you… Did you see how much that rock star who denied paternity got taken for when the girl took him to court? DNA testing can—’
‘DNA testing,’ Angolos cut in, ‘has robbed her of the opportunity of passing the child off as mine. If she’s that desperate she could always sell her story to some tabloid.’ His nostrils flared as he drummed his long fingers on the tabletop. ‘That would be her style.’
‘Wouldn’t she have done that before now if she was going to? And if she wanted money I imagine the divorce settlement would be pretty generous.’
‘Over my dead body.’
‘I get the feeling you mean that literally.’
‘I was hoping it wouldn’t come to that,’ Angolos returned smoothly. ‘Are we drifting here, Paul?’
‘Yes, well, actually, it’s…the DNA thing…’
‘The DNA thing?’ Angolos said blankly.
‘Are you totally sure a test would come up negative?’
‘Sure…?’ Angolos looked at his friend incredulously. ‘You of all people can ask me that? The chemo saved my life but there was a price to pay—it rendered me sterile. My only chance of having a child is stored in a deep-freeze somewhere.’
‘It was tough luck,’ Paul, very conscious of his own impending fatherhood, admitted.
‘But it’s not an easy thing to come to terms with.’
‘Actually, intellectually I have no problem with the situation, but somehow, no matter how many times I tell myself there’s more to a man’s masculinity than his sperm count, I still feel…’ His mouth twisted in a self-derisive smile, he met Paul’s eyes. ‘Maybe Georgette was right about that, at least—perhaps at heart I am an unreconstructed chauvinist…’
‘Was there ever any doubt?’
This retort drew a rueful smile from Angolos.
‘Is that why you never told her about the chemo and the cancer? Were you afraid she’d…?’ Paul gave an embarrassed grimace. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t…’
‘Was I afraid she’d think me any less a man, you mean? What do you think, Paul?’
‘I think if I knew what went on in your head I’d be the only one,’ his friend returned frankly. ‘You know, when it comes to answering questions you’d give the slipperiest politician a run for his money. If you want my opinion, you were wrong. I know Georgie was young, but she always struck me as pretty mature…’
‘Mature enough to cheat on me and try to pass off the product of her amorous adventures as mine.’
Paul winced. ‘Ah, about that, Angolos…’
‘You want to discuss my wife’s infidelity?’
‘Of course not.’
‘If you’ve discovered who her lover was…’ Right up to the end she had refused to admit her guilt or provide the name of her lover. Though he knew who he was. ‘I’m really no longer interested.’
‘Maybe there was no lover?’
Angolos’s dark brows knitted as he gave a contemptuous smile. ‘Was no lover…? What are you suggesting—immaculate conception?’
Paul held up his hand. ‘Angolos, hear me out. I know that the sort of chemotherapy you had normally results in infertility, but there are exceptions…you didn’t have any tests post—’
‘No, or the counselling, which apparently would have made me content to be less than a man.’
‘Yes, you made your opinion of counselling quite plain at the time.’
‘One cannot alter what has happened; one must just accept.’
‘Terribly fatalistic and fine.’
‘We Greeks are fatalists.’
‘You’re the least fatalistic person I’ve ever met. And sometimes it helps to talk…but I didn’t come here to discuss the benefits of counselling.’
‘Are you likely to tell me what you did come for any time this side of Christmas?’
‘The boy is yours.’
A spasm of anger passed across Angolos’s face. Paul watched with some trepidation as his friend took several deep breaths. There was a white line etched around his lips as he said in a low, carefully controlled voice, ‘Anyone but you…Paul…’
‘You’d knock my block off, I know, but I still have to say it. The boy, Angolos, he’s the living spit of you. Oh, I don’t mean a little bit like—I mean a miniature version. There’s absolutely no doubt about it in my mind—Nicky is your son.’
‘Is this some sort of joke, Paul?’
‘I’ve got a warped sense of humour, Angolos, but I’m not cruel. If you don’t believe me I suggest you go look for yourself.’
‘I’m not buying into this fantasy.’
‘They’re staying at the beach place.’
‘I have absolutely no intention of going anywhere near that woman.’
‘Well, that’s up to you, but if it was me—’
Angolos’s eyes flashed. ‘It is not you. You have a wife waiting for you at home; you will hold your newly born child in your arms…’ He saw the shock on the other man’s face and, worse, the dawning sympathy. ‘The truth is, Paul,’ Angolos added in a more moderate tone, ‘I envy you. Never take what you have for granted.’
CHAPTER FOUR
PEOPLE sitting in the hotel sun lounge opposite, munching their cream teas, watched as the tall, dark-haired figure emerged from the Mercedes convertible and adjusted his designer shades. A buzz of speculation passed through the room.
Who was the stranger? There was a general consensus that he looked as though he was somebody.
It was exactly as he remembered it, Angolos decided as he scanned the beach. Progress and the twenty-first century had still to reach this backwater.
Despite the fact the sun had retreated behind some sinister-looking dark clouds, there was still a sprinkling of hardy, inadequately clad individuals on the sands. Some were even in the water, which, if his memory served him correctly, was cold enough to freeze a man, especially one accustomed to the warmth of the Aegean, to the core.
Angolos had no specific plan of action. He knew that Paul was wrong; he had made this journey simply to extinguish any lingering doubts. After all, the unformed features of one dark-eyed, dark-haired child looked very much like another.
Saying the resemblance was striking was hardly proof positive. Frankly the unscientific approach from someone who really ought to know better surprised him.
Paul had to be wrong.
Then why are you here?
Because, he admitted to the dry voice in his head, if I don’t see this child for myself I’ll never know for sure. A niggling doubt—or was it hope?—would always be there. Irrational, of course; if he had a son he would know. It was simply not possible.
The part of the sea front he had reached was newly pedestrianised. There were signs excluding litter, dogs, and skateboards…and it had worked; he had the stretch pretty much to himself. He could see the church spire in the distance. He knew if he headed in that general direction he would end up where he wanted to be.
Although in these circumstances want was not really an appropriate term.
The Kemps’ holiday home was reached by a narrow, tree-lined lane that ran one side of the churchyard. A more direct route was via the beach—the house boasted a garden gate that gave direct access to the dunes and sand.
Angolos chose the more direct route. The sooner this nonsense was over with, the better, as far as he was concerned. He could not really spare the time as it was.
Angolos was not a man who lived in the past, but under the circumstances it was hard to prevent his thoughts returning to the first occasion he had walked along this stretch of sand.
He had been euphoric after receiving the final all-clear from the hospital earlier that morning. His first thought had been to immediately drive down to the coast to share the good news with the friend whom he owed his life to. If Paul hadn’t picked up on those few tell-tale symptoms and cajoled him into having a blood test that had revealed his problem, he’d had no doubt that he would not have been here now.
His plans had been frustrated. Paul and his wife Miranda hadn’t been at home. Driving along the sea-front road on his way back to the capital, on impulse Angolos had pulled the car over.
The sea air had filled his nostrils; the sun had warmed his face; he had felt alive…he had been alive.
There was nothing like a brush with death to make a man appreciate things he would normally have overlooked, but even had his senses not been heightened he would have noticed her. Why one pretty girl should have attracted his attention when there were so many pretty girls in the world remained a mystery.
Maybe it was the fact she had refused his impulsive offer of dinner that had made the honey-haired English girl with the golden eyes remain in his mind the rest of the day.
And maybe it had been coincidence that had made him return to the beach late that evening when the light had been fading, but Angolos was more inclined to consider it fate.
And fate was not always kind.
When he’d tried the second time, Paul and Mirrie had been home. They had opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate and had insisted
he should stay the night. He ought to have been able to relax—he had been given his life back; he had been in the company of friends—but Angolos had felt strangely restless.
The evening had been sticky and stifling; a few distant rumbles had promised thunder. When he’d announced his intention of taking a walk on the beach, his understanding hosts had said fine, and given him a key to let himself in.
Walking along the pebbly foreshore, he hadn’t immediately appreciated that the figure in the waves had been in trouble. Assuming the swimmer had been messing around or drunk, he had turned a deaf ear to the cries.
When he had realised what had been happening he had responded instinctively to the situation. On autopilot he had fought his way out of his jacket as he’d run down the beach, pausing only at the water’s edge to step out of his shoes.
He was a strong swimmer and, even hampered by his clothing, it had taken him very little time to cover the hundred or so metres. Even though clearly exhausted, desperation had lent the struggling swimmer strength as she had wrapped her arms around his neck, dragging him down. She had clung like a limpet—yes, even in the desperation of trying to break her stranglehold, he had registered that the body sealed to his was female—and in his weakened condition it had taken him a few worrying minutes to subdue her.
Fortunately she had appeared to have exhausted herself fighting him, and had remained passive as he’d towed her to shore. The undercurrent, which had presumably been too strong for her to negotiate, had been against him on the way back. The swim back had taken its toll on his remaining strength.
The relief when he’d got her ashore had been intense.
It wasn’t until he had carried the limp and bedraggled figure from the water and dumped her, coughing, onto the sand that he had recognised her. Lying at his feet had been the golden-eyed girl from earlier.
Something had snapped in his head. That someone like this girl with everything to look forward to could have been so careless of life when he’d known how fragile and precious it was had incensed him beyond measure.
Anger had coursed through his body and brain, causing his vision to blur and his hands to shake. He hadn’t been able to recall being this angry in his life—not even when the doctors had given him a poor prognosis. On that occasion he had had to control his feelings, but not now. He had been incandescent with rage.
