Greek Affairs: Tempted by the Tycoons: The Greek Tycoon's Convenient Bride / The Greek Tycoon's Unexpected Wife / The Greek Tycoon's Secret Heir

CHAPTER SIX

‘YOU’RE leaving?’ Rhiannon clutched the back of the chair as she watched Lukas riffle through some papers. This was the Lukas from the resort—the business Lukas, the professional man.

He wore a grey silk suit, tailored and immaculate, and he didn’t even look at her as he said, ‘Yes. I have business in Athens.’

‘You’re just going to leave me here? Like …’ Her mind struggled to remember the Greek myths from his school-days. ‘Like Ariadne?’

Lukas looked up, eyes glinting briefly with admiring humour. ‘Ah, yes. Poor Ariadne. Theseus just left her on that island—Naxos, in fact—after she helped him slay the minotaur. A fitting comparison. Remember, though, she was rescued by Dionysus.’

‘I don’t want to be rescued,’ Rhiannon flashed, and Lukas smiled coolly.

‘No one’s offering. Christos will be arriving in Athens within the week, and I need to be there.’

‘I should be too …’

‘No, Rhiannon,’ he corrected her gently, but with ominous finality. ‘That is not your place.’

‘Annabel …’

‘Is my responsibility.’

‘Not yet!’ Rhiannon retorted, eyes flashing fire, and Lukas sighed.

‘Rhiannon, after all we’ve discussed, haven’t you yet realised how impossible this situation is? I know you feel an obligation towards Annabel, an admirable desire to see her well settled, but—’

‘Well loved,’ Rhiannon corrected fiercely, and Lukas acknowledged this with a brief, brusque nod.

‘You cannot possibly mean to sacrifice your career, your life, to be near her in Greece. No one requires that of you.’

No one wants that of you. That was what he was really saying. Rhiannon looked down. It had been a long, sleepless night, reliving those shaming moments in the kitchen with Lukas, her own flooding desire.

She’d also tried to think of solutions, possibilities that would keep her with Annabel.

Nothing had come to mind.

‘What if I want to?’ she finally whispered, and Lukas stilled.

‘Don’t presume,’ he warned softly, ‘that what happened between us last night meant … anything.’

‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Rhiannon replied, blushing painfully. ‘If I choose to stay in Greece it will be because of Annabel only, not you. Last night—’

‘Was a mistake.’ His tone was so final, so brutal, that Rhiannon flinched.

‘One you seem to keep repeating,’ she finally said through numb lips.

The look he gave her from under frowning brows was dark, quelling. ‘You don’t need to remind me. I’m well aware of the situation—which is, in part, why I’m leaving.’

‘Because of me?’

He picked up his briefcase, slid his mobile phone into his jacket pocket and stood before her, glancing down at her with something close to compassion.

‘You need to let go, Rhiannon,’ he said quietly, adding so she barely heard, ‘And so do I.’ He handed her a mobile that matched his. ‘Keep this with you. I’ve programmed my own mobile number on speed dial. You can ring me if you run into any trouble.’

And then, with a faint whiff of his pine-scented cologne, he was gone. Rhiannon slipped the phone into her pocket, then sagged against the study chair, her hands slick on the smooth leather.

She knew she should be relieved that Lukas was gone. At least now they wouldn’t be clashing. There could be no confrontations. She had a week’s reprieve—a week to decide how she could stay in Annabel’s life … if she could.

Rhiannon realised the impossibility, the sacrifice. Was it worth it? Was she willing?

She had no answers.

From upstairs Rhiannon heard Annabel’s faint cries as she woke from her morning nap. She hurried up, smiled involuntarily at the sight of Annabel’s dark fleecy curls and wide brown eyes peering over the edge of the cot.

‘Hello, sweetheart. Shall we go to the beach this morning? Try out all your new sand toys?’

As she picked the baby up, cuddled her close, she heard the sound of a helicopter’s engine throbbing to life.

Rhiannon moved to the window, Annabel on her hip, and watched the helicopter disappear into the horizon like an angry black insect.

The house suddenly seemed ridiculously silent and still.

‘Come on,’ Rhiannon said as cheerfully as she could, ‘let’s find your swimming costume.’

The morning passed pleasantly enough, and, after lunch in the kitchen with Adeia, Rhiannon put Annabel down for a nap and read one of the paperbacks Lukas had included in his box of provisions.

When Annabel woke again, she changed her and took her down to the kitchen. Adeia was busy at the stove, but had a ready smile for the baby.

‘May we eat with you again?’ Rhiannon asked, only to have her spirits sink when Adeia gave a vigorous shake of her head.

‘Oh, no, miss,’ she said in halting English. ‘The master … Mr Petrakides … expects you to dine with him tonight.’

For one brief, hope-filled second Rhiannon thought the housekeeper meant Lukas. Perhaps he’d returned while she was upstairs, was waiting for her …?

The realisation of her own happiness at such a thought made her flush in shame. Of course Adeia meant Theo. And the prospect of dining alone with the sour old man made Rhiannon’s spirits sink further.

She could hardly argue with the housekeeper, however, and to refuse Theo would be outright rude. With a sigh, Rhiannon set to feeding Annabel.

After giving the baby a bath and settling her for the night, she considered her own choice of clothing.

She finally settled on a pair of plain black trousers she’d brought with her, paired with the scalloped lace blouse she’d worn before.

Theo was waiting for her in the dining room. His face cracked into a rare and reluctant smile as she entered.

‘I didn’t think you would come.’

‘That would have been rude,’ Rhiannon replied with a small smile, and he acknowledged this with an inclination of his head.

‘Yes … but what is a little rudeness? After all, I have been rude to you.’ He spoke slowly, but there was precision to his words. Rhiannon blinked in surprise.

‘I’m surprised you admit as much,’ she said after a moment.

Theo shrugged, and indicated for Rhiannon to take her seat. She did so, placing the heavy linen napkin across her lap. Theo poured them both wine and sat.

‘I have come to realise,’ he began carefully, ‘that you will be around for some time to come.’

‘Oh? Has Lukas told you as much?’ Rhiannon could feel her heart starting to beat faster, the adrenalin racing like molten silver through her veins. It was fuelled by hope. She forced herself to remain calm, took a sip of wine and let the velvety liquid slide down her throat.

‘He has said little,’ Theo admitted with a faint frown. ‘But that hardly matters. I am right, am I not? You intend to stay?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Rhiannon met his gaze directly. Adeia entered with the first course—a traditional Greek salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, feta cheese and black olives.

‘You want to be this child’s mother?’ Theo asked musingly, and Rhiannon felt the word reverberate through her soul. Her heart.

Mother. A real mother. Mummy.

‘Legal guardian’ sounded terribly cold in comparison.

‘Yes,’ she said, and her determination—her desire—were evident in the stridency of her tone.

Theo nodded, and Rhiannon was surprised to see a gleam of satisfaction in his eyes. What game was he playing? She’d sensed from the moment he’d rested contemptuous eyes on her that he’d wanted her gone. She was a nuisance, a nonentity.

Yet now he seemed pleased that she intended to stick around.

Why? She should be suspicious, even afraid, but the hope was too strong.

‘I don’t know quite how it will work out,’ she began carefully, after the first course was cleared. ‘Lukas doesn’t seem to think there can be a place for me. But … I’m hoping to convince him when he returns from Athens.’

‘He doesn’t?’ Theo repeated, and he almost sounded amused.

‘Yes. I intend to live my own life, Mr Petrakides, as best as I can. Back in Cardiff I was a nurse, and I imagine that my credentials could in some way be transferred to Greece.’ The idea had come to her that afternoon, and though she knew it was half-thought and hazy, it still gave her hope.

He raised one sceptical eyebrow. ‘And the language barrier?’

‘I will have to learn Greek, naturally,’ Rhiannon replied with some dignity. ‘I intend to anyway, for Annabel’s sake. She is, after all, half-Greek.’

‘Indeed.’ Theo swirled the wine in his glass thoughtfully. ‘And how do you suppose my son will react to such plans? You living your own life—with Annabel in your care, I presume?’

‘Not necessarily,’ Rhiannon said quickly. ‘Annabel could remain with you—with Lukas—as long as I have visitation rights.’

It was a compromise, and one she thought Lukas might accept. She could not become someone’s responsibility … Lukas’s Burden … even if he wanted her to. She couldn’t bear to see duty turn to dread, responsibility to resentment. And she couldn’t let that happen to Annabel, either.

Theo merely laughed dryly.

‘We shall see what happens,’ he said, his eyes glinting with humour.

Rhiannon found herself feeling both uneasy and strangely comforted by his cryptic remark.

Theo excused himself to go to bed soon after dinner.

Rhiannon noticed his pale, strained face, the way he walked slowly and stiffly out of the room. She had not broached the subject of his illness, wanting to respect his privacy, yet now it tugged at her conscience, her compassion.

With a little sigh, and realising she was lonely, she went slowly upstairs.

The mobile phone Lukas had given her was trilling insistently when she entered the room. Rhiannon hurried to it before Annabel stirred, and pushed the talk button.

‘Hello?’

‘I’ve been trying to call you for over an hour,’ Lukas said, annoyance edging his voice. ‘You do realise what this phone is for?’

‘Yes,’ Rhiannon replied. ‘For me to get in contact with you. I had no idea you intended to use it the other way round.’

There was a brief pause, and then Lukas said gruffly, ‘I wanted to make sure you and Annabel were all right.’

A ridiculous bubble of delight filled Rhiannon. Lukas almost sounded as if he cared. She didn’t know why that should please her so much, why it made her face split into a wide smile, but it did.

Oh, it did.

‘We’re fine,’ she said. She sat on the edge of the bed, the phone cradled to her ear. ‘I had dinner with your father tonight.’

‘You did?’ Lukas sounded surprised. ‘And you weren’t on the menu?’

Rhiannon giggled; Lukas’s answering chuckle made shivers of delight race along her arms, down her spine, straight to her soul. ‘No, actually, I wasn’t. We were both civil … more than civil. Although …’ She paused, going over the dinner conversation in her mind. ‘He almost sounded like he had some kind of plan.’

‘Plan?’

‘For me. Us.’

‘Us?’ Lukas repeated thoughtfully, and Rhiannon was conscious of the intimacy, the presumption of the word. There was no ‘us’.

Except right now it felt as if there was.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps I was reading too much into a few comments,’ she said hastily.

‘You don’t know my father,’ Lukas replied. ‘He always has a plan.’

They were both silent for a moment; Rhiannon could hear Lukas breathing. There was something so intimate about a telephone conversation, she thought. A conversation just to hear voices, to connect.

A connection.

‘As long as you’re all right,’ Lukas finally said a bit brusquely, ‘I should go. It’s been a long day.’

‘Yes, of course.’ So much for the connection. ‘Goodbye,’ she said awkwardly.

Lukas’s voice was rough as he replied, ‘Goodnight, Rhiannon.’

Rhiannon listened to the click in her ear before disconnecting herself. She laid the mobile phone on her bedside table, closed her eyes.

The maelstrom of emotions within her was confusing, potent. She shouldn’t be affected by one little phone conversation—yet she was.

She was.

She wanted him. She missed him.

Rhiannon pushed herself off the bed, grabbed her pyjamas.

She would not think about Lukas. There was no point. There was no future. In a few days, weeks, everything could change. Lukas could demand she leave.

Or he could ask her to stay.

Hadn’t she learned there were no fairy tale endings? Rhiannon reminded herself. Surely she wasn’t dreaming … again?

She was shaken awake several hours later.

‘Miss! Miss Rhiannon!’ Adeia crouched next to her bed, her worn face tense and pale with anxiety. ‘It’s the master.’

‘The master?’ Rhiannon sat up, pushing her hair out of her face.

‘Master Theo,’ Adeia said in a high, strained voice. ‘He came down to the kitchen for something to eat and he started …’ She paused, baffled, searching for the word in English. ‘Shaking.’

‘Shaking?’ Rhiannon was already slipping out of bed, throwing a dressing gown over her pyjamas. ‘Where is he now? Has a doctor been called?’

‘My husband Athos helped him back upstairs,’ Adeia said. ‘I called the doctor … he comes from the next island. He’ll be here by boat as soon as he can. You said you were a nurse …?’

‘Yes, I am. I’ll have a look.’ Rhiannon tossed a glance over her shoulder; Annabel was still asleep.

Adeia led her down the tiled hallway to Theo’s bedroom, right at the end.

The room was surprisingly small and Spartan—the room of a man who had never grown accustomed to luxury. Theo lay in bed, still and silent.

Rhiannon approached the bed. He looked even more careworn than he had this evening—smaller, somehow, more fragile. Rhiannon’s heart gave a strange little twist and she laid her hand on the old man’s brow.

His eyes flickered, then opened. ‘What … what are you …?’ he said in a weak, halting voice.

‘You had a seizure,’ Rhiannon informed him quietly. ‘Adeia called me. I’m a nurse.’

‘I want …’ He swallowed, started again. ‘I want a doctor.’

‘The doctor’s been called. He’ll be here shortly. In the meantime, I’m just going to check your vitals.’

Theo glared at her, too weak to resist, and Rhiannon gave him a small encouraging smile as she quickly checked him over. He seemed all right, she decided, while at the same time acknowledging to herself the seriousness of a man Theo’s age having a seizure.

Dawn was edging the sky when the doctor’s boat scraped against the island’s dock, and Rhiannon’s eyes were gritty with fatigue.

She’d kept watch by Theo’s bed, in case there was anything to report to the doctor. She’d watched him drift in and out of sleep, his eyes glazed, and knew she would have to ring Lukas.

‘He’s stable for now,’ the doctor told her in a low voice after he’d seen Theo. ‘As the tumour affects more parts of his brain, more aspects of his life will be affected.’ He paused, his expression sober. ‘He knows this … knows it will continue to get more difficult.’

Rhiannon nodded. It was no more than she’d expected, and yet it still hurt. It always hurt to hear of someone’s pain, the suffering of watching a life slip slowly—or not so slowly—away.

‘What should we expect now?’ she asked.

The doctor shrugged. ‘More seizures, some lessened mobility, increased difficulty in talking. You are his nurse?’

‘Not … not exactly,’ Rhiannon replied, surprised. ‘I mean, I am a nurse, but not …’

The doctor looked nonplussed. ‘You’re here; you’re a nurse. I don’t see many others around. If you have questions, you may ring me. All you can really do is make him comfortable. We are managing his decline.’

Rhiannon nodded and thanked him, before heading upstairs with a heavy heart. She waited until Annabel was fed and dressed and busy with Adeia before ringing Lukas.

He answered on the first ring. ‘Rhiannon? Is something wrong?’

‘Lukas …’ Her voice came out thready. She stopped, started again. ‘Lukas, your father had a seizure last night.’

There was a moment of silence, frozen, tense, and then Lukas repeated blankly, ‘A seizure?’

‘The doctor came. He said your father’s stable for now, but …’

‘But?’ Lukas repeated softly.

‘But,’ Rhiannon admitted, ‘his condition is likely to deteriorate more rapidly from now on.’

There was another silence; Rhiannon’s heart ached. She longed to comfort him, to put her arms around him. The realisation surprised her with its sorrowful power.

‘I’ll come back,’ Lukas said finally. ‘I should have been there.’

‘There was nothing—’

‘I should have been there.’ His voice was flat, dead. ‘Goodbye, Rhiannon. Thank you for telling me.’

Yet another responsibility Lukas had put on himself, she thought as she put down the mobile. Another burden weighing him down.

No man deserved so much heaped on his shoulders.

Lukas arrived by helicopter just a few hours later. Rhiannon watched from her window, Annabel playing at her feet. He went straight to his father; she heard his quick footsteps on the stairs. She wondered when—if—he would come to see her.

He’d left the island to escape her. She doubted he was in any hurry to see her again now.

‘You shouldn’t have come back.’

Theo’s voice was thready, weak, and Lukas tried not to let his shock show on his face. His father looked half the man he had been only a day ago as he lay in bed, his usually thick shock of white hair thin and flat against his head.

‘Of course I should have,’ he replied evenly. ‘You’re my father.’

‘I’m fine.’ Theo spoke in fits and starts, his voice slightly wheezy. At times he struggled for over a minute for a certain word or phrase.

It made Lukas ache to hear his father like this—to see a man who held the deeds to the most desirable real estate in all of Greece in one triumphant fist reduced to such weakness and misery.

‘There was business to attend to,’ Theo continued with effort.

‘I’ve seen to it.’ Lukas stared blindly out of the window. ‘Is the doctor acceptable? We can hire a nurse, of course. One of the best from Athens.’

Theo shook his head.

Lukas heard the movement, the rustling of covers, and turned. ‘What?’

‘I have a nurse.’

It took a moment for him to realise, and then he stared at his father in surprise. ‘You mean Rhiannon?’

Theo nodded. ‘She suits me.’

It was the last thing he’d expected his father to say. To admit.

‘And,’ Theo continued in a stronger voice, ‘she suits you too.’

This shocked Lukas all the more. His face went blank and he turned back to the window. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’

‘You do.’ It was all Theo could afford to say, yet somehow it was enough.

Lukas was silent, but a familiar restless energy was now pulsing through him. She suits me. Yes, she did. All too well. Yet he could not give in to the desire, the need. He knew where that led, had seen the destruction.

The weakness.

‘Marry her, Lukas.’

He swivelled, stared in shock. ‘What? You are joking.’

Theo shook his head. ‘No.’

‘You know I’ve said I’ll never marry.’

‘I know. But now … Annabel … she needs a family.’

‘She’ll have one—’

‘Not some patched affair!’ Colour rose in Theo’s gaunt face. ‘A real family. I’d rather pass this company on to a girl who grew up in a loving home than to a drunken lout like Christos. Marry her, Lukas.’

Lukas shook his head. ‘But it would not be a loving home.’

Theo’s eyes brightened shrewdly. ‘Wouldn’t it?’

He stiffened, turned back to the window. ‘I can’t.’

‘Why not?’

The room was silent save for Theo’s laboured breathing. ‘I can’t allow …’ Lukas stopped, shook his head. He wouldn’t go there. Wouldn’t admit the truth. ‘Because she wouldn’t have me,’ he finally said, shrugging carelessly.

‘What?’ Theo was so surprised he laughed. ‘What—what woman wouldn’t have you? You, the most desirable bachelor in all of Greece? Pah. Of course she’ll have you.’