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Laura swallowed as she stared into the shadowed flint of his features. Be reasonable, she told herself as she worked out what to say. Because if she expected him to come round to her way of thinking then she was going to have to be convincing. And convincing a man like this about anything wasn’t going to be easy. She had to show him how it would look from a little boy’s point of view.
Her voice softened. ‘Alex’s life is here in England—it’s all he’s ever known. Don’t you think that suddenly landing all this in his lap would be overloading him with too much, too soon? Tearing him away from his home and his school? A new father who turns up out of the blue and a new life he has no say in? What if Greece doesn’t work out?’
‘We will make it work out,’ he vowed grimly.
And in a way that stubborn insistence only reinforced her determination. Laura suddenly got an ominous vision of the finality of being trapped in a loveless marriage with a man like Constantine, and a shiver ran down her spine. ‘You can’t make things happen like that,’ she said. ‘Human beings aren’t puppets that you can play with and control. I don’t think you realise the impact of taking a child who’s never even been abroad and plonking him in a foreign land.’
His body tensed as if she had hit him, and he clenched his fists. ‘Don’t ever … ever … refer to Greece as a “foreign land” in front of me or in front of my son,’ he hissed. ‘It is the land of his forebears with a rich and glorious heritage. And one which I intend that he will learn about.’
The fingers which had tightened into two fists now slowly unfurled, and Laura found herself watching them with a horrible kind of fascination.
‘I want contact with Alex,’ he continued inexorably. ‘And I want him to meet his grandfather. Those two things are non-negotiable—so how do you intend to let me go about doing it, Laura?’
And Laura knew then that she didn’t have to be stuck on an island to be trapped. Entrapment could be emotional as well as geographical, she realised—and in a way her fate had been sealed from the moment she had made contact with him again. She could see the determination etched on his face, and she realised that there was no way she was going to be able to escape his demands. Which meant that she had to fashion them to best suit her and Alex’s purpose. And no one could deny that it was in a child’s best interests to learn about his father—no matter what she thought about him.
She laced her fingers together. ‘I think it’s best for Alex to get to know you … gradually.’
‘And how do you suggest I do that?’ he demanded. ‘Start coming into that bread shop you run and buying some damned bun every morning?’
If the circumstances hadn’t been so fraught then Laura might almost have laughed, because the image of this powerful Greek going into her little village shop was both bizarre and amusing. But there was no place for humour here; this was deadly serious. Yet neither was there was any need for him to be so scathing about her method of earning a living. Working in a shop wasn’t up there with being a supermodel, but it was honest and it was decent—even if it didn’t reap the huge kind of rewards which he obviously considered essential.
‘Of course I don’t,’ she said stiffly.
‘My life and my work are in Greece,’ he clipped out.
‘I realise that.’ Just as hers and Alex’s was here—a cultural and geographical world away. Laura’s mind starting spinning as she searched desperately for some sort of solution to their dilemma, when suddenly a thought occurred to her. Unseen in the folds of her cheap summer dress, her fingers tightened as an idea of breathtaking simplicity came to her. ‘But the long summer holidays are coming up,’ she said slowly.
Constantine stilled. ‘And what has that got to do with anything?’
‘I could come to Greece,’ she said carefully. ‘But not as your wife. A complete lifestyle change would unsettle Alex—but he could cope with the kind of situation he’s used to.’
‘You aren’t making any sense,’ he snapped.
‘Well, I … I presume that your father employs staff at his home in Greece?’
‘Of course he does.’
‘How many?’
‘I am not in the habit of keeping an inventory,’ he drawled. But her eyes continued to regard him steadily and he gave an impatient kind of sigh. ‘There is a permanent housekeeper who lives within the complex, and several people who come in from the village to help out.’
‘And do … do any of them have children?’
‘Not young children, no—but there are plenty of those in the village.’ He frowned. ‘What the hell does that have to do with anything?’
Laura let out a long breath. ‘I know exactly what we can do,’ she breathed. ‘You take me on for the summer as a temporary member of staff. I can work in your father’s house—’
‘Work in my father’s house?’ he roared in disbelief, staring at her as if she had taken complete leave of her senses. ‘Doing what?’
Laura lifted her chin up, determined not to be intimidated by the fierce blaze from his eyes. ‘The skills of which you’ve already been so very critical—I can clean and make beds. I can serve food. I can even cook—though not to any cordon bleu standard.’
Constantine stared into her face. ‘Such lowly and subservient pursuits!’ he bit out. ‘What kind of a woman would want this?’
A woman with pride, thought Laura ardently. And a woman with dignity—or rather one who was trying to claw back some of the poise which always seemed to fly out of the window whenever Constantine was around.
‘Meanwhile, Alex gets a few weeks in the sun,’ she carried on, her enthusiasm growing now. ‘If he plays with other children he can learn a little Greek, and they can learn English. It’ll do him good to have a holiday—and in that relaxed environment he can get to know you.’
There was an ominous kind of silence while Constantine mulled over her words—there was no doubt that he was surprised by the humbleness of her request. She wanted to come to his house as a servant! And yet maybe it would work out better this way—for wouldn’t it place strain on his father’s heart to suddenly produce a seven-year-old grandson out of nowhere? And wouldn’t she be more expendable as a servant than as a wife? Easier to dispose of afterwards, if her presence began to grate on him, without having to go through all the publicity and disruption of a divorce?
He stared at her, aware that her impudent idea was distracting him from the most important question of all. ‘And when do you propose telling Alex that I’m his father?’ he asked softly.
The eyes she turned to him were huge. ‘Can we … can we wait until the moment is right?’
He hardened his heart against the tremulous appeal in her voice. ‘I will not wait for ever, Laura,’ he warned.
‘No. No, I can understand that. We will tell him as soon as it’s appropriate. I promise. Oh, thank you. Thank you, Constantine.’ She flashed him a grateful smile, but the look he gave in response was like ice.
‘This is not a situation I am happy with,’ he bit out.
How hard the years had made him, she thought fleetingly. He was a completely different person from the ruffle-haired man who had sailed in and out of her life all those summers ago.
And what about her? Had she changed that much? Laura bit her lip. Quite honestly, that brief period of freedom and sexual awakening had been so unlike anything she had known since that she had almost completely forgotten it. Or maybe she had just blocked it from her mind. Maybe it was too painful to remember being carefree and unencumbered by worry.
She forced her mind back to practicalities. ‘The only problem I can think of is that I’m going to need a replacement to help my sister in the shop while I’m away—but I assume you’d be able to help me sort that out?’
The only problem? he thought. Was she crazy? He could see a few more than that.
‘I can fix that,’ said Constantine heavily—because for the first time in his life he had not got what he wanted. Despite her reduced circumstances and tiny stature, he could see that here was a woman who had her mind set on something, and nothing he could do or say was going to change her mind. Was this a unique version of mother-love? he wondered bitterly. A mother fighting tooth and nail for what was best for her child?
Briefly, Constantine found himself wondering what it must be like to have a mother who felt like that about you. A mother who cared about your welfare more than she cared about her own—but he vetoed the thought instantly. He never wasted time thinking about things which were beyond his own comprehension.
It was one of the reasons behind his success.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LAURA was aware of a surprisingly green oval rising up to meet them as the helicopter landed with the agility of a large moth. Ringed with silver-white sand, from the sky the island had looked like a jewel in the middle of a sea so intensely blue that she’d felt quite shaken with the beauty of it all.
And shaken by her first ever trip in a helicopter, of course.
She stole a glance at Alex, who also seemed completely rapt by the splendour unfolding before him, and wondered what kind of effect this trip was going to have on him. Because although she’d insisted on travelling out to Greece on a regular airline, since ‘servants don’t arrive in private jets,’ as she had told Constantine firmly, there had been a helicopter waiting at Athens airport to whisk them off to the island of Livinos.
It had all proved a little distracting—and Laura found herself wondering if experiencing these enormous riches from such an early age had been instrumental in fashioning Constantine’s character? She stared out at the gradually slowing helicopter blades. Of course it had! Your early experiences always shaped your development like nothing else. If he’d been used to snapping his fingers from an early age and getting whatever it was he wanted then no wonder he was so autocratic and demanding.
She held Alex’s hand tightly as she helped him down from the helicopter, with his beloved blue bear clutched tightly to his chest. He’d been worried that the scruffy old toy was too babyish to bring with him—but Laura had insisted the bear come too. Heaven only knew he wouldn’t go to sleep without him.
Thinking she heard someone call her name, she looked up, her eyes narrowed against the blinding heat of the hot sun, and there, standing beside a four-wheel drive, was the man who had been dominating her thoughts all week.
Constantine! Here! Her mouth dried and her heart began to race erratically as he fixed his piercing gaze on them. So much hung on what happened next, and for Alex’s sake she prayed that this first meeting would be a success as they made their way across the scorching tarmac towards the Greek billionaire.
Constantine felt a sudden lurching of his heart as he watched them approach, unprepared for the powerful feelings which came surging over him as he stared at the boy. The photos he had seen had made him take seriously her claim that the child was his—even though he had done his best to deny it at the time. But seeing him now, in the living and breathing flesh—well, that was something entirely different. Put a hundred—no, a thousand seven-year-old boys in front of him and Constantine would have instantly picked out this particular boy as having sprung from Karantinos loins.
He sucked in a ragged breath as they grew closer, his heart now pounding with a terrible combination of recognition and regret—that they were strangers to one another, and yet he knew that they were linked in the most primeval way of all.
With an effort he tore his gaze away from Alex and let it travel instead to Laura, whose eyes were fixed on him with a certain amount of trepidation. As well they might be. Constantine’s lips curved with contempt. Another cheap little dress and a pair of sandals which had seen better days—and her fine hair all mussed up in a cloud around her head. Had she deliberately come here today emphasising her lowly status, after stubbornly insisting that she be employed in the house as a member of staff? Was she perhaps hoping that he might make some kind of generous settlement on her if she insisted on highlighting the differences between them?
Yet despite the anger he felt towards her there was a fair amount of it directed at himself, for the inexplicable lust he still felt for her. That his groin should instantly ache with an unquenchable desire to make love to her—this pale and insipid little shop-worker who had turned down his offer of marriage!
But he composed his face into a smile of welcome as they grew closer—because he was clever enough to know that he could never win the boy if he was seen to be openly critical of his mother.
‘C-Constantine,’ stumbled Laura. ‘I … well, I certainly wasn’t expecting to find you here to meet us.’
‘What an unexpected pleasure it must be,’ he murmured sardonically, but his eyes were fixed on the child and he was aware of a strange beating of his heart. ‘Hello, Alex.’
Alex turned a confused face up towards Laura ‘Who’s this, Mum?’
Constantine crouched down so that he was on a level with the boy, wondering if there would be some kind of instant recognition on the part of his son—but of course there was none. Had he perhaps been secretly hoping that Laura might already have told him—that there would be some kind of touching scene outside the airport? But things like that only happened in movies, he told himself grimly. This was real life.
Usually he did not care what kind of impression he made—people could either take him or leave him. His careless attitude stemmed from the fact that other men were always anxious to be his friend, while women were eager to be his lover. But now he realised that unexpectedly his heart was beating fast with something approaching concern. I want him to like me, he thought fiercely. I need him to like me.
‘My name is Constantine Karantinos,’ he said softly. ‘And you are going to be staying in my father’s house.’
Alex nodded, as if this were nothing untoward, and Laura supposed that after the excitement of the day itself he would have calmly accepted being told he was taking a trip to the moon. ‘Is it a nice house?’
‘Oh, it’s a very nice house,’ answered Constantine, with a smile of rare indulgence. ‘With a big swimming pool.’
Alex blinked. ‘You mean, just for us?’
‘Just for us,’ replied Constantine gravely.
Alex bit his lip in the way he always did when he was worried, and Laura’s heart turned over as she watched him. ‘But I’m not very good at swimming,’ he said.
Constantine wondered why. ‘Then we shall have to teach you—would you like that?’
Alex nodded, his dark eyes wide. ‘Yes, please!’
‘Let’s get in the car, then.’ And Constantine helped the child into the back seat and strapped him in, before stepping back to allow Laura to pass.
His eyes narrowed as she moved close enough for him to be able to get the drift of some light scent, and despite its cheapness he swallowed with another unexpected wave of lust.
‘You look …’ He allowed his gaze to drift over her pale skin and pinched expression and saw her bite her lip in response to his critical scrutiny. ‘Pretty tired,’ he conceded.
‘Yes,’ said Laura, thinking that tired didn’t even come close—she felt physically and mentally exhausted. Truth to tell, she hadn’t had a full night’s sleep since she’d met Constantine at the Grapevine that night—plus she’d been working some of Sarah’s shifts, to make up for the time she was going to take off. ‘It’s been a long week,’ she said wearily.
For a moment—just for a moment—he felt the faintest tug of sympathy. For the first time he noticed that the grey eyes were shadowed, and that her pale skin was almost translucent with fatigue.
‘Then for heaven’s sake get in the car and relax,’ he said roughly, climbing into the driver’s seat himself and starting up the engine, while the helicopter pilot put their small and rather battered suitcases in the boot.
‘Wow! Get in, Mum!’ Alex enthused. ‘It’s huge.’
Uncomfortably conscious of trying to keep as much of her pale, bare legs hidden as possible, Laura got in next to her son. She caught sight of a pair of black eyes mocking her as they glanced at her from the rearview mirror, and her reaction to that unmistakably sensual look was instinctive, though completely unwelcome. She felt the weak, thready patter of her heart and the icing of her skin, but she stared straight ahead at his broad shoulders and prayed that he would just let her get on with her work while he got down to the important business of getting to know Alex. Did he realise that she was determined to fight her desire for him—since no good could come out of their renewing a sexual relationship?
‘Do you live near the sea?’ piped up Alex.
‘No place on the island is far from it,’ answered Constantine. ‘And if you’re very lucky you might see one of the Karantinos ships sailing by.’
Alex failed to keep the sense of wonder from his voice. ‘You mean real ships?’
Constantine laughed. ‘Yes. Very real. And very big.’
‘I’d love that,’ said Alex wistfully, and then bit his lip in the way he’d unconsciously picked up from his mother. ‘But Mum will be working, won’t she? And she says I’m not to get in anyone’s way.’
There was an awful silence, and if there had been a dark corner nearby then Laura would have gone away and crawled into it. She had never felt sorry for herself—ever. She had always embraced hard work and considered it a part and parcel of bringing up a child out of wedlock. But Alex’s words prompted a deep dislike of her predicament—and of what it was doing to her son.
His words had set them apart. Making him sound like some servant’s child from a different century—almost as if he was going to be sent up the chimney and asked to sweep it! And Constantine clearly felt it, too—because once more he caught her gaze in the driving mirror, but this time the look was not remotely sensual, it was spitting with a slow, burning anger. As if it was an insult to his honour to hear his son speaking in such a way.
‘You must not worry about your mother’s working hours,’ he said abruptly. ‘Since I know that she will be happy for you to enjoy yourself.’
‘I just don’t want her to feel left out,’ said Alex loyally, and Laura could have wept. It was supposed to be her protecting him, and not the other way round.
‘Of course you must let Constantine show you all his ships,’ said Laura, as if she discussed the ownership of ships every day of her life.
‘I used to live here when I was about your age,’ said Constantine conversationally.
‘Oh, wow!’ Alex sighed. ‘Lucky you.’
Something in the boy’s wistfulness made a rush of unwilling memories come flooding back—and for once Constantine could not block them out. In many ways it had been a textbook and idyllic upbringing—with none of the stresses surrounding life spent in the city. The beauty of Livinos, and the ability to swim and to fish and to climb trees without fear—those were gifts which every other child on the island had experienced. He hadn’t needed to be the son of a wealthy man to enjoy the carefree freedoms of childhood in this part of Greece.
But, essentially, it had been a lonely time for Constantine. Materially rich but emotionally neglected by a mother who had never been there—even when she had been physically present. His beautiful, fragile mother, who had captivated his father like a moth to a flame—who had consumed all those around her but given little back. Who had not known—nor been able to learn—how to love the strong-minded baby she had given birth to.
‘Look out of the window, Alex,’ said Constantine gently. ‘As well as some of the most wonderful beaches you will ever see, we have mountains, and forests of cedar, oak and pine. And mines of silver and gold.’
‘Gold?’ spluttered Alex. ‘Not really?’
‘Yes, really. It was first discovered by the Parians, who came from the island of Paros.’
This time Laura sent Constantine a silent message. Stop it, her eyes appealed. Stop painting for him the kind of pictures he has only ever seen in films or books before. Please don’t make his life in England fade into pale and boring insignificance.
And Constantine read the appeal perfectly, deliberately choosing to ignore it. Did she really expect him to play his heritage down, when it was his son’s heritage, too? His expression didn’t alter.
‘We have white marble, too,’ he continued. ‘Which is exported all over the world. And there are all the other components which are an essential part of Greek life—fruit and honey and olives. Now, look closely as we drive up this road, Alex, and you will see my father’s house.’
House, he had said, noted Laura suddenly, her quibble forgotten as she gazed curiously out of the window. Not home. Did that have any significance? But then she peered out through the window and her breath caught in her throat as the most beautiful place she had ever seen suddenly came into view.
Surrounded by orange and lemon trees, the villa was large and imposing, dominating the landscape while somehow managing to blend into it. It stood almost at the top of the mountain, and the views around it were panoramic. Dark sapphire brush-strokes of a sea threw off a brilliant light, and as Laura opened the car door she could smell the scent of pine and citrus and hear the unfamiliar sound of beautiful birdsong.
‘We’re here,’ said Constantine, as he held his hand out to help Alex down. The boy took it as naturally as breathing.
How easily Alex is learning to trust him, thought Laura—knowing that she should be glad for her son’s sake, and yet unable to prevent the strange spike of envy which tugged at her stomach.
