Claimed for the Greek's Child

by Pippa Roscoe

  Yes, she wanted to cry. She did remember. She did want to reach out, to touch him, feel the weight of his punishing kisses, the way that only he made her body come alive. But it was the greater risk, the one to her heart, that she was truly fearful of. And that was why she couldn’t let herself be with him. She couldn’t let him in at all. Because if she did, she wasn’t sure that she would survive it.

  ‘I will make you this promise, Anna.’ His voice called to her as she struggled with the intoxicating feelings of her desire. ‘I will not seduce you with fine words and wine, I will not come to your door. Not once. And I will not touch you against your will.’

  Anna jerked a breath of air into her lungs—had she done it? Had she got him to agree to her condition?

  ‘I won’t have to.’ Dimitri pulled his head back, just enough to meet her eyes. ‘You will come to me. You will beg me to touch you. To take you as I did that night, over and over again. You will plead with me to pleasure you, to find the release that only I have given you. And I will, Anna. I assure you that I will. But you will be the one to come to me.’

  * * *

  Weeks slipped through Anna’s fingers like sand. She had settled into a strange routine with Dimitri, who spent his mornings with her and Amalia at breakfast, and returned after the sun had set. She had learned to both long for and resent those hours. He hovered in the background as if he were some dark angel, waiting for her to make a mistake. He was there with her when her daughter woke in the night, watching her soothe Amalia’s tears. He shared Anna’s joy as Amalia would race along the patio, holding herself up at the plastic railing fencing off the swimming pool.

  Occasionally he would surprise her with a visit in the afternoon, a brief swim with Amalia as she splashed and giggled in the water. But when Amalia was asleep he was there, waiting for Anna to come to him. She resented the sense of satisfaction she felt coming off him in waves whenever he was near, as if he smugly knew more about herself, her body, than she did.

  Each night she would lie awake, listening to the quiet house, imagining him in his bed, the sound of his breathing, the slip-slide of his skin against his sheets. It was a slow torture as she fell into fevered dreams of his body, his touch, his caress, the feel of him moving deep within her. And each morning she woke more exhausted than the day before. He had stayed true to his promise. He had not touched her, nor come to her, but she felt as if she was being watched, hunted, slowly entrapped by her own desires.

  Anna put the phone back in its cradle. Her mother’s therapist had informed her that Mary had requested to stay on yet another month, refusing contact with Anna even though she was entitled to that now. It hurt and it surprised her to find that her mother still had access to parts of her heart that would cause such pain.

  But she wanted to let her mother know about her marriage personally, rather than reading about it in the headlines of a newspaper. The therapist had agreed to pass on a letter, should Mary Moore feel up to reading it.

  That she wouldn’t be at the wedding...well. Anna still couldn’t quite tell how she felt about it. She thought of the wedding more in an abstract way, as if it was something simply to be done. An event to be planned, rather than a marriage or a future way of life.

  But as she began the letter, her hand automatically began to spell out Dimitri’s name...and she thought of the hundreds of pages she had written to him over the years, telling him of something Amalia had done, telling him of the joys and the tears she had shed, Amalia’s first bath, first steps, first words, first smile, second teeth and second words, second falls and third. To tell him of the moment she had truly realised that she was a mother. The well of love that had almost brought her to her knees. All of that she had wanted to share with the father of her child. But the man she was marrying? He was not the same man she had written to over the last few years. She needed to be realistic. Now, more than ever, was not the time for fantasies and could-have-beens.

  Pushing thoughts aside, she focused on the letter in front of her. Anna’s hands shook a little as she committed the words to the page.

  Dear Ma,

  I’m getting married... I have decided to stay in Greece. The lovely couple running the bed and breakfast are taking good care of it for us. You’d like them, Ma.

  I wish you could see Dimitri’s house. It’s incredible. One day I hope that you will. Amalia is getting big! She’s outgrown almost all of the clothes I brought with us.

  And I’ve been learning a little Greek. Flora, Dimitri’s housekeeper, has been teaching me a phrase a day, along with some of the most delicious recipes...

  * * *

  Dimitri paced the length of his Athens office. How was it that, on the cusp of achieving everything he had wanted, he suddenly felt trapped? Trapped by the marriage he had brought upon himself. He cursed out loud into the empty room, the words bouncing off the sleek chrome and dark wood that surrounded him. When he had been in prison, he had longed to come back to his office. The place where he was in control. He had longed to stand once again in his house, looking out on to the open sea, but somehow he couldn’t shake the feeling that he had swapped one cage for another.

  He rubbed at his ring finger, the phantom itch that had started the moment that Anna had agreed to his proposal. What did he know about marriage? His own father had been a bastard and had abandoned his mother, the young waitress he had ruthlessly seduced, then discarded, just like he had his son. Even if he had softened at the party just weeks ago, Dimitri couldn’t ignore the way he had been his entire life until that point. Agapetos’s own marriage had been based solely on a business deal, rather than any finer feelings, and it had kept his entire family in a state of misery throughout Dimitri’s life. Was that what would become of him and Anna? Would she come to resent him for forcing this upon them? Would he?

  He was no better off than when he was stuck in that prison, where testosterone mixed with anger, impotence and helplessness. Where desperation made men weak, and bullies strong. Where fear was a feral animal stalking the hallways, beaten, bruised and bloodied.

  His only release was the short moments he would steal with his daughter. Her laughter was a panacea to the chaotic thoughts that filtered through his mind almost constantly. Whether it was breakfast, where Amalia would rain down an Armageddon of culinary destruction, or the evenings, where he would watch over Anna as she soothed her daughter’s night-time tears, he still felt like an outsider. But the thing that had surprised him the most was the fear of somehow causing damage to the small life they had created together.

  He couldn’t turn to Agapetos, couldn’t trust the fragile bond that had begun to form with his offering of peace. He couldn’t turn to Antonio and Danyl, who hadn’t the first clue of parenting. Antonio was busy making plans for his wedding to Emma. Danyl had the weight of an entire country on his shoulders, and Dimitri was reluctant to add to that. No. To all intents and purposes, Dimitri was alone in this. And that was the only real way he knew how to be. He had long since learned that he couldn’t rely on others to help bear his burden. So instead, he became a man on the verge of the perfect marriage to the mother of his child. That was the image he needed to maintain, and perhaps if he told himself that enough times he might start believing it.

  ‘Mr Kyriakou?’ The intercom buzzed with his new assistant’s voice. ‘The Sheikh of Ter’harn and Antonio Arcuri are here to see you.’

  Before she had even finished speaking, Danyl had stormed into his office, laden with two bottles of dark amber liquid in each hand, Antonio swiftly following behind.

  ‘You didn’t think you could get married and miss out on the stag, did you?’

  * * *

  The doorbell rang just as Anna put the letter to her mother in an envelope. Flora had offered to post it for her, Anna’s limited Greek most definitely not up for ensuring its secure delivery. The sound of voices from the hallway and an unaccountably flustered Flora surpris
ed her. Frowning, Anna rounded the corner to see Dimitri’s stepmother, Eleni, in the doorway, with what looked like an army of people and clothes behind her.

  ‘Mrs Kyriakou?’ asked Anna, unaware of her plans to visit.

  ‘Ms Moore,’ she said, still failing to make eye contact as she brushed a piece of imaginary lint from her chic designer suit.

  ‘Anna, please call me Anna’ was all she could reply as Eleni Kyriakou pushed her way into the house that suddenly felt a million times smaller as it filled with uniformed people dragging racks of covered dresses into the open-plan living area.

  ‘Anna,’ Eleni finally relented. If there was a superior ‘sniff’ to be heard, Anna was sure it was covered by the cacophony of voices that filled the room.

  Amalia stirred in her high chair at the table, craning her neck to take in what new exciting delights had surrounded her. In an instant, all the formidable uniformed minions turned into gushing women, pinching her cheeks and thighs and exclaiming happily in Greek. Flora descended, shooing them away, retrieving Amalia and sending Anna a look that told her categorically that she wasn’t paid enough to deal with Eleni Kyriakou.

  Eleni looked longingly after her granddaughter and Anna felt a little burst of pity for the older woman. Until she turned her assessing gaze on Anna.

  ‘You are in need of a dress, I believe,’ the older woman stated. Anna took a closer inspection of the covered garments on the racks. Wedding dresses.

  It wasn’t as if Anna had ever really imagined her wedding day, what she would be wearing, or how—even—she would be choosing the dress, but it had never involved the overbearing stepmother of Dimitri Kyriakou. In fact, Anna had thought that perhaps she might spend the day in Athens and pick something from a retail store. But the names in gilt lettering on the covers of these dresses were some of the most expensive designers she had ever heard of. And then there were names of designers she hadn’t heard of, whose clothes were guaranteed to be priceless.

  Within seconds she was being manhandled out of her light clothes, and standing before her soon-to-be mother-in-law in little more than her underwear. Anna knew that her body had regained her pre-baby figure fairly easily after a diet of sleepless nights and hard working hours at the bed and breakfast, but still she seemed only just to pass muster.

  The dispassionate assessment of her physique made her feel like a mannequin, as gown after gown was relieved of its covering. The sheer number of dresses and styles almost overwhelmed her, although some called for instant dismissal, especially the one that made her think of Little Bo Peep. Taffeta was discarded as impossible, tulle too heavy for the heat and, although Anna was surprised to find herself quite liking the shorter, nineteen-fifties-style skirt, Eleni Kyriakou dismissed it with a flick of her red nail-polished finger. Finally one of the younger stylists timidly brought forward her offering while the others were distracted. She cast one quick glance in their direction, before pressing it into Anna’s hands and shooing her off behind the screen that had been erected in the living room for what little was left of her modesty.

  As her fingers reached out to the exquisite lace detail of the plunging bodice, a thread of excitement wound through her. The skirt was long, and pure oyster-coloured silk, flaring out into a seamless fishtail. Exquisite lace detail was sewn onto the barely visible material of sleeves that would cover her arms down to her wrists. Anna almost groaned out loud when she saw the hundreds of little buttons at the back but was pleasantly surprised to find a concealed zip hidden beneath them. She stepped into the cool, silky skirt and lifted the bodice over her breasts, realising that she’d have to discard her bra.

  As she pulled the zip, she cast a glance at her reflection in the window—the nearest mirror was in the hallway. The bodice lay flat against her stomach, and the plunging neckline revealed enough to be sexy but hid enough to be respectable. Her sun-bronzed skin glowed against the oyster colour of the silk. She swept her hair up in a band and a spark of excitement ignited within her. This was the one. She knew it. She could feel the rightness of it settle about her as the silk skirts swirled about her bare feet.

  Tentatively she stepped out from behind the screen, just in time to see Flora, returning to the house with Amalia, stop dead in her tracks. All conversation in the room halted midsentence. For a second Anna worried that she’d made a huge mistake, until everyone started talking at once, oohing and aahing after the gown.

  Anna felt a smile spread over her mouth, and even Eleni appeared to be satisfied.

  After the assistants had removed all the dresses from Dimitri’s house and Anna was back in her own clothes, she sat at the table to have coffee with Flora and Eleni. Anna had expected Eleni to leave with the magic she’d summoned that morning, but she hadn’t.

  ‘Your mother?’ Eleni asked her, slightly uncomfortably. ‘She is not able to come?’

  ‘No, she’s...she’s having medical treatment.’

  ‘And your friends?’

  Anna didn’t really want to explain how she couldn’t have asked the few friends that had survived her job and her child to pay for the extraordinarily expensive air fare to Greece in the summer months. Nor how she would have explained to them the events of the last few weeks.

  Eleni nodded as if she somehow understood. ‘Nella, Dimitri’s cousin, told me that the English have a tradition in weddings. I’m not sure if it’s the same for Ireland...’ Anna was too busy wondering when her English had got so good to try to understand where this was going. Eleni looked to Flora. It was the first time that Anna had seen her anything less than poised and, well, rude, frankly.

  ‘Something old, something borrowed...’ said Eleni, producing the most exquisite pearl-encrusted bracelet. The colour of the pearls matched her dress perfectly, and Anna felt the stir of emotion within her breast.

  ‘New and blue,’ Flora said, less articulately, placing a beautiful blue lacy garter beside the pearls.

  Anna was overcome in an instant. She felt tears pressing against her eyes. It was a silly tradition, one she hadn’t even given a second thought to, but that these two women had made such an effort to make it happen... She felt so grateful to Nella for thinking of such a thing, and somehow managing to convince Eleni to be part of it. Around the table sat three generations of women, all brought together by Dimitri, and Anna, who had not once felt that kind of female solidarity or emotional support before, was so very touched.

  ‘Not all weddings...start the same way,’ Eleni said, still not quite able to make eye contact with her. ‘But Dimitri, he is a good man. He will care for you and your child.’ Her words soothed Anna’s unspoken fears, just a little, and made Anna wonder at Eleni’s own marriage. ‘We do what we have to, for our children, nai?’

  Eleni’s burst of honesty made Anna bold. ‘Does Dimitri know that you think he is a good man?’

  Eleni paused before continuing, clearly wondering how much to reveal of their relationship.

  ‘Dimitri’s childhood with us was...not easy. His father is...not easy,’ she said honestly. ‘It may have been easier for Dimitri to see me as...as...’ she seemed to be struggling, whether with the English language, or something far harder ‘...very different to his own mother. And when he came to us I was worried about my own son, Manos. And now with what has happened...’

  Flora’s tutting interrupted Eleni, who shot a dark look at the older woman. No matter what her son had done, and how he had done it, Eleni was still his mother. Anna knew that bond. Knew what she would do for her daughter.

  ‘But there is a goodness in Dimitri. I know that.’

  Anna could only hope that Eleni was right. Because she was about to commit her life and her daughter to Dimitri Kyriakou.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Dear Dimitri,

  Today I wore your ring.

  THE CHURCH WHERE they were to be married was like something out of a film. It was on a small jut of land rea
ching out to the sea, accessible only during low tide. The small building’s roughly hewn hunks of blondstone melted into the sand behind it and were surrounded by sea and sky.

  The late afternoon sun still providing a pure golden light and heat, the way it never did in Ireland, made Anna feel as if it were something from a dream rather than the day that she committed her life to Dimitri.

  Because the church was so small and the number of guests so large, the wedding was held outside, in front of the old building. A large erected awning provided guests with shelter from the blaze of the sun. Rows and rows of chairs had been placed in the courtyard, and numerous pots of bay trees, shaped small and round, bordered the aisle. White silk bows had been tied to the backs of chairs, and Anna was grateful to Eleni for all the work she’d put into the wedding. Since the day she had brought the wedding dresses to the house, the two women had found a balance. Eleni was still formidable and not a woman to be crossed, but Anna had found respect there.

  Anna hovered, alone, just out of view from the guests and the man who stood waiting at the top of the aisle. She felt an ache in her chest. There was no father to walk her down the aisle. No friends eagerly waiting to see her exchange rings, no family to witness her join herself to another person before guests, the priest, the sun and sky. She was so surprised to find want in her breast. The want that made her ache and tears press against the backs of her eyes. The want that made her wish so very much that she was doing this for love. That the man who would place his ring, his ownership, on her truly loved her. She had seen so many different versions of Dimitri over the last few weeks: the demanding, uncompromising man; the vengeful angel; the father to her child...the seducer, full of the dark promises he’d made her that night she’d agreed to be his wife.