Claimed for the Greek's Child

by Pippa Roscoe

  How could he have been so deceived? Again? How could he have let that happen?

  Throughout his wrongful imprisonment, fourteen months incarcerated and locked behind bars like an animal, he’d held up the memory of that one night, of her, as a shining beacon in the darkness. A moment completely for him, known only to them. He’d lived off the sounds of her pleasure, the cries of ecstasy and that first, single moment—the moment when he’d been shocked, and ever so secretly pleased, to find that she had been a virgin—he’d drawn it deep within him, hugged it to him and allowed it to get him through the worst of the time he’d spent in prison.

  Had he been deceived by her innocence? Had she really been a virgin? But even he had to acknowledge that thought as inherently wrong. It may have been the only true thing about Mary Moore. But the rest? She’d lied. She’d kept a secret from him. And she’d live to regret it for the rest of her life. Because nothing would prevent him from claiming his child.

  * * *

  Anna gasped as the rain pelted down even harder. It snuck beneath the neck of the waterproof jacket she’d slung around her shoulders the moment she got the phone call. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring an umbrella though. She dug her hand into the pocket and pulled out the only protection she had with her against the elements. And the irony of that was enough to poke and prod at the miserable situation she was in.

  She pulled the large, thin envelope from her pocket and held it over her head as the paper ate up the rain in seconds, and water dripped down her jacket sleeve and arm, to eagerly soak the cotton of her T-shirt.

  It didn’t matter if the letter got wet. She knew it word for word by now.

  We regret to inform you...owing to late payments...as per the mortgage terms...right to repossess...

  She was about to lose the small bed and breakfast she’d inherited from her grandmother, the place where both she and her mother had been born and had grown up. It might never have been the future that she had imagined for herself, but it was the only one she could cling to in order to support her child. How had her mother managed to keep this from her? Mary Moore was barely functioning as it was. But—Anna supposed—that was the beauty of being an alcoholic. Even in her worst state, her mother managed to hide, conceal, lie.

  Through the pounding of the rain, Anna could hear the raucous sounds of music and shouts coming from the only building with signs of life on the road. Light bled out from the frosted windows, barely illuminating the wet benches in the courtyard. Anna braced herself for what was guaranteed to be a pretty bloody sight.

  She pushed open the door to the pub, and the men at the bar stopped talking and turned to stare. They always stared. The colour of her skin—the only thing her Vietnamese father had left her with after abandoning them before her birth—had always marked her as an outsider, as a reminder of her mother’s shame. She shook out the letter, put the sodden paper back into her pocket and ran a hand through her hair to release the clusters of raindrops still clinging to the fine strands. The smell of warm beer and stale cigarettes defiantly smoked even after the ban hung heavy on the air.

  She locked eyes with the owner, who stared back almost insolently.

  ‘Why did you serve her?’ Anna demanded.

  The owner shrugged. ‘She had the money.’ As if in consolation, Eamon nodded in the direction of the snug.

  She could hear sniggers coming from the men who had turned their backs to her and anger pooled low in her stomach. It was a hot, fiery thing that moved like a snake and bit like one too.

  ‘What, you’ve never seen a drunk woman before?’ she demanded of the room.

  ‘She’s not a woman, she’s a—’

  ‘Say that word and I’ll—’

  ‘That’s enough,’ Eamon interrupted, though whether for Anna’s sake or for his peace and quiet, she couldn’t tell.

  She stepped through to the snug. Her mother was sitting alone in the empty room, surrounded by round wooden tables. She looked impossibly small, and in front of her, next to a newspaper, was a short glass filled with clear liquid—probably vodka. Anna hoped for vodka; gin always made it harder. She took a seat next to her and pushed down her mounting frustration. Anger never helped this situation.

  Mary looked worse than the last time she’d seen her. From the day Amalia was born, Anna knew she couldn’t allow Mary to continue to live with them. She wouldn’t take the risk that her drunken outbursts could harm her daughter. She’d arranged for her mother to live with one of the only family friends Mary Moore had left. And their exchanges ever since had been loaded and painful.

  ‘What happened, Ma? Where did the money come from?’ Anna hated the sadness in her voice.

  ‘I thought I’d be able to pay off some of the mortgage... I thought...just one drink... I thought...’

  ‘Thought what, Ma?’ Anna couldn’t imagine what her mother was talking about, but she was used to the circulatory nature of conversations when she was in this state. The small flame of hope she’d nursed in the last few weeks as her mother had stayed sober and even talked of rehab spluttered out and died on a gasp.

  ‘Even when he got out of prison, I thought he was guilty...but when they arrested his brother...’

  Oh, God. She was talking about Dimitri.

  Her mother nudged at the newspaper. Beside the main article was coverage of the forthcoming Dublin Horse Race, with a black and white picture of three men celebrating a win in Buenos Aires. Her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn straight to one man: Dimitri Kyriakou.

  ‘And he has all that money...so...’ Mary Moore’s words were beginning to slur a little around the edges. ‘So I did what you never had the courage to do.’

  ‘What did you do, Ma?’

  ‘A father should provide for his child.’

  A million thoughts shouted in her mind. She, more than anyone, knew the truth of her mother’s statement. But she had tried to garner his support...she had tried to tell him once about his daughter: nineteen months ago, on the day she, along with the rest of the world, discovered his innocence. She’d called his office and had been met with a response that proved to her that the man she’d spent one reckless night with, the man to whom she had given so much of herself, her true self, had been a figment of her fevered imagination.

  ‘Ma?’

  ‘At least you picked one with money...he was willing to pay fifty thousand euros in exchange for our silence.’

  Sickness rose in Anna’s stomach. Pure, unadulterated nausea.

  ‘Jesus, Ma—’

  The slap came out of nowhere.

  Hard, more than stinging. Anna’s head rang and the buzzing in her ears momentarily drowned out the shock.

  ‘Do not take His name in vain, Anna Moore.’

  In that one strike, years and years of loneliness, anger and frustration rose within Anna. She locked eyes with her mother and watched the righteous indignation turn to guilt and misery.

  ‘Oh, Anna, I’m so—’

  ‘Stop.’

  ‘Anna—’

  ‘No.’ Anna put her hand up, knowing what her ma would say, knowing the cycle of begging, pleading and justification that would follow. But she couldn’t let it happen this time.

  Had Dimitri really paid a sum of money to reject their daughter? A hurt so deep it felt endless opened up in her heart. The ache was much stronger than the throbbing in her cheek.

  Anna rubbed her chest with the palm of her hand, trying to soothe the pain that she knew she would feel for days, possibly even years. This was what she’d wanted to avoid for her daughter—the sting of rejection, the feeling of being unwanted...unloved. She wouldn’t let her daughter suffer that pain. She just wouldn’t.

  Anna looked at her mother, seeming even smaller now that she was hunched in on herself. The sounds of familiar tears coming from her shaking body.

  Eamon poked his hea
d around the entrance to the snug. There was pity in his eyes, and she hated him for it. She hated this whole damn village.

  ‘I’ll make sure she’s okay for the night.’

  ‘Do that,’ Anna said as she walked out of the pub with her head held high. She wouldn’t let them see her cry. She never had.

  Anna didn’t notice that the rain had stopped as she made her way back to the small family business she had barely managed to hold on to through the years. All she could think of was her little daughter, Amalia. Her gorgeous dark brown eyes, and thick curly hair. Sounds of her laughter, her tears and the first cries she’d made on this earth echoed in her mind. And the miraculous moment that, after being placed in her arms for the first time, Amalia opened her eyes and Anna had felt...love. Pure, unconditional, heart-stopping love. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her daughter.

  The day she’d discovered that she was pregnant with Dimitri’s child was the day that his sentence had been handed to him by the American judge. She’d almost felt the gavel fall onto the bench, as if it had tolled against her own heart. She’d never wanted to believe him guilty of the accusations levelled at him, the theft of millions of dollars from the American clients of the Kyriakou Bank, but what had she known of him then? Only that he was a man who liked whisky, had driven her to the highest of imaginable pleasures and left her bed the following morning without a word.

  Hating to think that her child would bear the stigma of such a parent, she’d determined to keep the identity of Amalia’s father to herself. But when she’d heard of his innocence? And tried to get in touch with him? Only to hear that she was just one of several women making the same ‘claim’? She practically growled at the memory. Her daughter wasn’t a claim. Amalia had been eight months old, and from that day she’d promised to be both mother and father to her child. She’d promised to ensure that Amalia would be happy, secure and know above all that she was loved. She wanted to give her daughter the one thing she had never had growing up after her own father had abandoned his pregnant wife.

  As she walked up the path towards the front of the bed and breakfast she could see a small minibus in the driveway. The three customers who had checked in earlier that day were stowing their bags in the back.

  Mr Carter and his wife saw her first.

  ‘This is absolutely unacceptable. I’ll be adding this to my review.’

  ‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, her interruption momentarily stopping Mr Carter’s tirade.

  ‘We booked with you in good faith, Ms Moore. I suppose the only good thing is that we’re upgrading to the hotel in town. But really. To be kicked out with no explanation at ten thirty at night... Not good, Ms Moore. Not good.’

  Before Anna could do anything further, her customers disappeared onto the bus. She jumped out of the way as it backed out of the drive, leaving only one man standing in front of the door to her home.

  Dimitri Kyriakou. Looking just as furious as she felt.

  * * *

  Dimitri had been pacing the small bar where he’d first met Mary Moore. Somewhere in the back of the building a member of Mary’s staff was holding his daughter in her arms and looking at him as if he were the devil.

  From inside, he heard the irate conversation from one of the customers. She’d returned.

  In just a few strides Dimitri exited the bar, passed along the short hallway and out through the front door, just in time to see the bus departing.

  He’d let anger drive him out here, but he was stopped in his tracks the moment he caught sight of the woman who had nearly, nearly, succeeded in separating him from his child.

  Tendrils of long, dark hair whipped around her face, her green eyes bright with something he could recognise. Anger was far too insipid a word for the storm that was brewing between them. She looked...incredible. And he hated her for it. She was better than any of his imprisoned dreams could have conjured. But wasn’t that how the devil worked? Looking like the ultimate temptation whilst cutting out a soul?

  ‘What are you doing here? And what have you done to my guests?’ she demanded.

  The hostility in her tone was nothing he’d ever imagined hearing from her lips. But he was happy to hear it. Happy to have it match his own.

  ‘We need to talk; they were in the way. I got rid of them.’

  Money was an incredible thing. It had been both his saviour and his destroyer, but this time he was going to use it to help him get what he wanted...what he needed.

  The woman holding his daughter moved into the hallway behind him, drawing Mary’s attention. He watched as the mother of his child rushed past him, forcing him to back out of her way, and swept their daughter up in her arms.

  They made a striking image, Mary’s dark head buried in the crook of their daughter’s neck. He’d so desperately wanted to hold his child the first moment he set eyes on her. But the woman employed by Mary had raged that she wouldn’t let her be held by a stranger. Christe mou, was this how he started as a father? Being denied the right to hold his child? Anger crushed his chest.

  ‘Thank you, Siobhan. You can go now.’

  ‘If you’re sure?’ the young girl asked, casting him a doubtful look. After a quick nod of reassurance from the woman holding his child, the girl brushed past him, letting loose a low tut as she did so.

  Dimitri locked his gaze with Mary’s. If looks could kill...

  * * *

  It was all Anna could do to take him in. Dimitri filled the entire doorway, looking like the devil come to collect his dues. Tall, broad and mouthwatering. Anger slashed his cheeks and made a mockery of the taut bones of his incredible features. The long, dark, handmade woollen coat hung almost to his knees, covering a dark blue knitted jumper that, she knew, would stretch across his broad shoulders perfectly. Broad shoulders that she’d once draped with her hands, her fingers, her tongue. Even the sight of him drove away the bone-deep chill that had settled into her skin from the rain. Her body’s betrayal stung as it vibrated, coming to life for the first time in three years, just from his proximity. Desire coated her throat while heat flayed her skin.

  He looked as if he’d just stepped from the pages of a glossy magazine. And there she was, soaking wet, an old, hideous luminous-green waterproof jacket covering ill-fitting jeans and a T-shirt that was probably indecently see-through from the rain. But it was his eyes, shards of obsidian and hauntingly familiar, so like the ones she’d seen every single day since her daughter had been placed in her arms. Though they had never been filled with such disdain.

  ‘You have five minutes.’ His voice was harsh and more guttural than she remembered. Cursing herself silently, she forced her brain into gear.

  ‘For what?’ Anna asked, thinking that this was an odd way to start the conversation she’d spent years agonising over.

  ‘To say goodbye.’

  ‘Goodbye to who?’

  ‘Our daughter.’

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dear Dimitri,

  I didn’t mean for it to be like this.

  INSTINCTIVELY ANNA CLUTCHED Amalia tightly to her chest.

  ‘I’m not saying goodbye to my daughter!’

  ‘Don’t play the put-upon mother now.’

  Dimitri had taken a step towards her and Anna took a step back.

  ‘You,’ Dimitri continued, ‘who only two days ago blackmailed me with news of her. The transfer has been made, but I’ve come to collect. Because there’s no way I’m leaving my daughter in the care of an alcoholic, debt-ridden liar and cheat.’

  Anna’s head spun. So much so, it took her a moment to realise that he had somehow mistaken her for her mother.

  ‘Wait—’

  ‘I’ve waited long enough.’

  Anna watched, horrified, as another man appeared in the doorway. A man who had ‘legal’ stamped all over him. It didn’t make a dent in Dimitri’s powerful tirade
.

  ‘Mary Moore of Dublin, Ireland. Mortgaged up to the hilt, with three drunk and disorderlies, one child and no father’s name on the birth certificate. You should have been on the stage,’ Dimitri spat, his anger infusing his words with misplaced righteousness. ‘The woman I met that night three years ago was clearly nothing more than a drunken apparition...with consequences. That consequence—’

  ‘Don’t you dare call my child a consequence,’ she hissed at him, struggling not to raise her voice and disturb Amalia, who was wriggling in discomfort already.

  ‘That consequence is why I am here,’ he pressed on. ‘Now that I am aware of her existence, I shall be taking her with me. If it’s money you need, then my lawyer here will draw up the requisite paperwork for you to sign guardianship over to me. Though I wouldn’t normally pay twice for something, I will allow it this time.’

  ‘Pay twice for something? You’re calling my daughter “something”?’ Anna demanded furiously.

  His words provoked her beyond all thought. Blood pounded in her ears; injustice over his awful accusations sang in her veins; fury at his arrogance, anger at his belief that she would do just as he asked lit a flame that bloomed, crackled and burned.

  ‘I am sure that it would be possible, Mr Kyriakou, almost easy for you, even, to have your lawyer draw up paperwork, to hand over ludicrous amounts of money, money that would be yours, I’m sure, not taken from the clients of the Kyriakou Bank...’ she paused for breath, ignoring how his darkened eyes had narrowed infinitesimally, before continuing ‘...were I Mary Moore.’

  His head jerked back as if he had been slapped.

  ‘Mary Moore is guilty of all the things you have lambasted her for. She is the one who contacted you demanding money for her silence. But I. Am. Not. Mary. Moore. I’m Anna Moore. And if you raise your voice to me in front of our daughter one more time, I’ll throw you out myself!’

  In her mind she had been shouting, hurling those words against the invisible armour he seemed to wear about him. But in reality she had been too conscious of her daughter, too much of a mother to do anything that would upset her child. But she had caught Dimitri on the back foot—she could see that from the look of shock, then quick calculation as he assessed the new information. And she was determined to press her advantage.