If sleeping with another woman was a betrayal of Amy, what then was this? Creating a whole new family, and bringing them to this island?
He grunted, shaking his head, knowing that wasn’t fair. Amy would never have expected him to close himself off from life, from another relationship, another family.
But Leonidas had sworn he would do exactly that.
The idea of Hannah ever becoming anything to him besides this was anathema. Theirs was a marriage born of necessity, a marriage born of a need to protect his child, and the woman he’d made pregnant. It was a marriage of duty, that was all.
Flint formed in his eyes, his resolution hardening.
They would marry—there was no other option. Even if it weren’t for the possible threat to Hannah’s life, Leonidas acknowledged his ancient sense of honour would have forced him to propose, to insist upon marriage. Growing up in the shipwreck of his father’s marriages hadn’t undone the lessons his grandfather had taught him, nor the unity he’d seen in his grandparents’ marriage.
Their child, their daughter, deserved to grow up with that same example. Hannah deserved to have support and assistance.
And what else?
His body tightened as he flashed back to the way he’d responded to her that night, the way desire had engulfed him like a tidal wave, drowning him in his need for her. The way he’d kissed her, his mouth taking possession of hers, his whole body firing with a desperate need to possess her, even when he’d spent the past five months telling himself their night together had been a mistake.
It had been a mistake. It should never have happened, but it had, and, looking back, he didn’t think he could have stopped it. Not for all the money in all the world. There had been a force pulling him to her; the moment their bodies had collided he’d felt as though he’d been jolted back to life. He’d looked at her and felt a surge of need that had gone beyond logic and sense. It had been an ancient, incessant beating of a drum and ignoring it had not been an option.
Perhaps it still wasn’t...
* * *
Glass. Steel. Designer furniture. Servants. More glass. Famous art. Views of the ocean that just wouldn’t quit. Hannah stared around Leonidas’s mansion, the luxury of it almost impossible to grapple with, and wondered if she’d stepped into another dimension.
Did people really live like this?
He had his own airfield, for goodness’ sake! His private jet had touched down on the island, a glistening ocean surrounding them as the sun dipped towards the horizon. She’d expected a limousine but there’d been several golf carts parked near the airstrip and he’d led her to one of them, opening the door for her in a way that made her impossibly aware of his breadth, strength and that musky, hyper-masculine fragrance of his.
When he’d sat beside her, their knees had brushed and she’d remembered what he’d said to her in the plane. ‘You have no idea how I have been tormented by memories of that night.’
Her belly stirred with anticipation and heat slicked between her legs.
At first, she hadn’t seen the house. Mansion. She’d been too distracted by the beauty of this island. Rocky, primal in some way, just like Leonidas, with fruit groves to one side, grapevines running down towards the ocean and then, finally, a more formal, landscaped garden with huge olive and hibiscus trees providing large, dark patches of shade in the lead up to the house.
Leonidas had given her a brief tour, introducing Hannah to the housekeeper, Mrs Chrisohoidis, before excusing himself. ‘I want to get some things organised.’ He’d frowned, and she’d felt, for the first time, a hint of awkwardness at being here, in the house of a man she barely knew, whom she was destined to marry and raise a child with.
‘Okay.’ She’d smiled, to cover it, thinking that she had her own ‘things’ to organise. Like the room she was renting in Earl’s Court and the job she was expected back at in a few days, and an aunt and uncle who deserved to know not only that she was pregnant but also that she was getting married.
None of these were obligations Hannah relished meeting and so she decided, instead, to explore. There was plenty of house to lose herself in, and with the approach of dusk, and only the occasional staff member to interrupt, she went from room to room, trying to get her bearings.
The property itself was spectacular. The initial impression that it was a virtual palace only grew as she saw more and more of it. But what she did realise, after almost an hour of wandering, was that there was a distinct lack of anything personal. Beyond the art, which must surely reflect something of Leonidas’s taste, there was a complete lack of personal paraphernalia.
No pictures, no stuff. Nothing to show who lived here, nor the family he’d had and lost.
The sun finally kissed the sea and orange exploded across the sky, highlighted by dashes of pink. Hannah abandoned her tour, moving instead to the enormous terrace she’d seen when she’d first arrived. No sooner had she stepped onto it than the housekeeper appeared.
‘Miss May, would you like anything to eat or drink?’
Hannah thought longingly of an ice-cold glass of wine and grimaced. ‘A fruit juice?’ she suggested.
‘Very good. And a little snack?’ The housekeeper was lined, her tanned skin marked with the lines of a life well-lived and filled with laughter. Her hair, once dark, had turned almost completely silver, except at her temples, where some inky colour stubbornly clung.
‘I’m not very hungry.’ Hannah wasn’t sure why she said the words apologetically, only it felt a little as if the housekeeper was excited at the prospect of having someone else to feed.
‘Ah, but you are eating for two, no?’ And her eyes twinkled, crinkling at the corners with the force of her smile, and Hannah’s chest squeezed because, for the first time since discovering her pregnancy, someone seemed completely overjoyed with the news.
Her flatmates had been shocked, her boss had been devastated at the possibility of losing someone he’d come to rely on so completely, and Leonidas had been...what? How had he felt? Hannah couldn’t say with certainty, only it wasn’t happiness. Shock. Fear. Worry. Guilt.
‘My appetite hasn’t really been affected,’ she said.
‘Ah, that will come,’ the housekeeper murmured knowingly. ‘May I?’ She gestured to Hannah’s stomach.
Mrs Chrisohoidis lifted her aged hands, with long, slender fingers and short nails, and pressed them to Hannah’s belly and for a moment, out of nowhere, Hannah was hit with a sharp pang of regret—sadness that her own mother wouldn’t get to enjoy this pregnancy with her.
‘It’s a girl?’
Hannah’s expression showed surprise. ‘Yes. How did you know?’
At this, Mrs Chrisohoidis laughed. ‘A guess. I have a fifty per cent chance, no?’
Hannah laughed, too. ‘Yes. Well, you guessed right.’
‘A girl is good. Good for him.’ She looked as though she wanted to say something more, but then shrugged. ‘I bring you some bread.’
Hannah suppressed a smile and turned her attention back to the view, thinking once more of the beautiful coastline of Chrysá Vráchia, of how beautiful that island had been, how perfect everything about that night had seemed.
She’d longed to visit the island from the first time she’d seen footage of it in a movie and had been captivated by the cliffs that were cast of a stone that shimmered gold at sunrise and sunset. The fact she’d been able to book her flights so easily, the fact Leonidas had been there in the bar and she’d looked at him and felt an instant pull of attraction...the fact he’d reciprocated. It had all seemed preordained, right down to the conception of a child despite the fact they’d used protection.
When she heard the glass doors behind her slide open once more, she turned around with an easy smile on her face, expecting to see the housekeeper returning. Only it wasn’t Mrs Chrisohoidis who emerged, carrying a champagne flute filled
with orange juice.
‘Leonidas.’ Her smile faltered. Not because she wasn’t happy to see him but because a simmering heat overtook any other thoughts and considerations.
‘I am sorry I left you so long.’
‘It’s fine.’ The last thing she wanted was for him to see her as an inconvenience—a house guest he had to care for. She knew the feeling well. Being foisted upon an unwilling aunt and uncle taught one to recognise those signs with ease. She ignored the prickle of disappointment and panic at finding herself in this situation, yet again.
This wasn’t the same. She was an adult now, making her own decisions, choosing what was best for her child. ‘You don’t need to feel like you have to babysit me,’ she said, a hint of defensiveness creeping into her statement.
His nod showed agreement with her words and, she thought, a little gratitude.
He didn’t want to be saddled with a clinging housemate any more than she intended to be one.
‘I will show you around, after dinner.’
‘I’ve already had a look around,’ she murmured, but her mind was zeroed in on his use of the word ‘dinner’. It had all happened so fast she hadn’t stopped to think about what their marriage would look like. Would it be this? Dinner together? Two people living in this huge house, pretending to be here by choice?
Or polite strangers, trapped in an elevator with one another, having to stay that way until the moment of escape? Except there was no escape here, no one coming to jimmy the doors open and cajole the lift into motion.
This was her life—his life.
‘And I mean what I said. Please don’t feel you have to keep me company, or have dinner with me or anything. I know what this is.’
‘Ne?’ he prompted curiously.
Mrs Chrisohoidis appeared then, carrying not only some bread, but a whole platter, similar to the one they’d shared on the flight, but larger and more elaborate, furnished with many dips, vegetables, fish, cheeses and breads.
‘I make your favourite for dinner.’ She smiled at Leonidas as she placed the platter on a table towards the edge of the terrace.
‘Thank you, Marina.’
They both watched her retreat and then Leonidas gestured towards the table.
‘She’s worked for you a while?’ Hannah eyed the delicious platter as she sat down and found that, to her surprise, she was in fact hungry after all. She reached for an olive, lifting it to her lips, delighting in its fleshy orb and salty flavour.
‘Marina?’ He nodded. ‘For as long as I can remember.’
That intrigued her. ‘Since you were young?’
He nodded.
‘So she worked for your parents?’
‘Yes.’
A closed door. Just like his wife and son.
Hannah leaned against the balcony, her back to the view, her eyes intent on the man she was going to marry. ‘Did you grow up here?’
He regarded her thoughtfully. ‘No.’
‘Where, then?’
‘Everywhere.’ A laconic shrug.
‘I see. So this is also “off limits”?’
Her directness clearly surprised him. He smiled, a tight gesture, and shook his head. ‘No. I simply do not talk about my parents often. Perhaps I’ve forgotten how.’
She could relate to that. Aunt Cathy had hated Hannah talking about her own mother and her father. ‘He was my brother! How do you think it makes me feel to hear you going on about them? Heartbroken, that’s how.’ And nine-year-old Hannah had learned to keep her parents alive in her own mind, her own head, rather than by sharing her memories with anyone else who could mirror them back to her.
Angus had asked about them, but by then she’d been so used to cosseting her memories that it hadn’t come easily to explain what they’d been like.
‘They divorced when I was young.’
‘That was hard on you?’
‘Yes.’
Mrs Chrisohoidis appeared once more, this time with a little bowl of chocolates. ‘For the baby,’ she said, and winked as she placed them down on the table.
‘But there was a silver lining, too, because part of the divorce was a new brother.’
‘How does that work?’
‘My father had an affair. Thanos was the by-product. It caused my parents’ divorce, but they’d been catastrophically miserable, anyway. I was glad they were separating; glad there would at last be some peace. And Thanos arrived, only three months my junior.’
‘That must have been strange. How old were you?’
‘Eight.’
‘And he lived here?’
At this, Leonidas’s expression was thoughtful, darkly so. ‘His mother gave my father full custody.’
‘That must have been hard for her.’
Leonidas shook his head. ‘Hardest of all for Thanos, I’m sure.’
‘How so?’
‘His mother gave him up quite willingly,’ Leonidas said softly, his expression shifting to one of compassion so Hannah’s heart turned over in her chest. ‘Thanos was—and remains—an incredibly strong-willed, stubborn character. She could not cope with him.’
Hannah’s jaw dropped open. ‘But he was just a boy! Surely there were ways of making him listen to her?’
‘Who knows? But one day, when he was eight, she showed up and left him with my father. She said she couldn’t do it any more.’
Sympathy scored deep in Hannah’s veins. ‘That must have been so hard for him. And your mother!’
‘My mother hated him,’ Leonidas said grimly. ‘She treated him like a street dog.’
Hannah felt as though she could cry! Having experienced exactly this treatment herself, she felt an odd link to Leonidas’s brother, a desire to look at him and comfort him, to tell him he was worthy, just as she’d always wished someone would say to her.
‘But your father took him in,’ Hannah said quietly, hoping there was a happy ending for the little boy Thanos had been.
‘My father was bullish about custody. He had money, resources, staff. He ensured he had the raising of us. We were his, you see. Not boys so much as heirs. Proof of his virility. As I got older, I came to realise that he enjoyed the story of Thanos and my closeness in age. Far from finding it awkward, he relished the proof of his desirability. He boasted about it.’
Hannah ground her teeth together.
‘You’re not close to him?’
Leonidas took a sip of his wine; Hannah’s gaze didn’t falter. ‘No.’
She had the feeling she was moving closer to ground he wished to remain private, topics he’d prefer not to discuss. Rather than approach it directly, she circled around it this time. ‘Would you have preferred to stay with your mother?’
He frowned, thoughtfully. ‘My mother was American. She moved to Las Vegas when they split. I didn’t want to go.’
‘It must have been hard for her. Leaving you, I mean.’
Leonidas’s smile showed disagreement, but his response was a banal, ‘Perhaps.’
‘Do you see her much now?’
‘Once a year, for an obligatory birthday visit.’
‘Yours, or hers?’
‘Hers.’ He sipped his wine again, then turned to face Hannah. ‘And you, Hannah?’
‘What about me?’
His eyes swept over her face and then zeroed in on her lips, staying there for so long that they parted on a rushed breath and began to tingle; she was remembering his kiss and aching for it anew.
‘What about your own parents?’
It was like being dragged into a well that was completely dark. She felt the blackness surround her and her expression closed off, her skin paling. She jerked her head, turning away from him and looking towards the horizon. The sun was gone but the sky remained tinged with colour.
Her breathing felt forced and
unnatural and she struggled to find words.
‘Hannah?’
She nodded. He had every right to ask—this street went both ways. She wanted to know about him, she had a strange, consuming curiosity to understand him. It made sense he would expect the same courtesy.
‘My parents are dead.’ How was it possible that those words still stung? It had been a long time; the reality of being orphaned was one she’d lived with for many years.
‘I’m sorry.’ She felt his proximity rather than saw him move closer. His body was behind hers, warm and strong, and instantly reassuring.
‘It was years ago. I was only a child.’
He didn’t say anything, but he was right there. If she spun around, they’d be touching.
‘My mum used to love that movie—The Secret Princess. I watched it a little while after she’d died, and I wanted to go to Chrysá Vráchia ever since.’
He made a noise of comprehension and now she did turn, and, just as she’d expected, it brought their bodies together, his so strong and broad that she felt as if she could weather almost any storm if he was there.
‘And then?’ he prompted, shifting a little, so his legs were wider than her body, and he pressed his hands to the balcony balustrading behind her, so she was effectively trapped by him.
‘Then?’ Her voice was husky.
‘You came to the island for New Year’s Eve, to see the fireworks. What were you going to do then?’
‘I hadn’t really thought about it. But I guess in the back of my mind I always thought I’d end up in England. My mum was English so I have a passport and I’ve wanted to travel through Europe for ever.’ Her expression was wistful. ‘My honeymoon was going to be to Paris. I used to have a picture of the Eiffel Tower on my bedside table, and when you tapped a button on it the lights twinkled.’ She shook her head wistfully. ‘My parents gave it to me after a ballet recital and I’ve never been able to part with it.’
‘You did ballet?’
‘Only as a child,’ she said, thinking of how her aunt had donated all Hannah’s tutus and leotards to a community charity shop when Hannah had moved in. She pushed the memory aside, focussing on the present, on the circumstances that had brought her here. ‘After I found Angus and Michelle in bed together, I just wanted to run away.’
The Greek's Billion-Dollar Baby Page 7
