Demetriou Demands His Child

Sickly Iolanthe recognised how unlikely it was that a man like Alekos would have sought her out with such determination. Would have seduced her with such thoroughness. He must have had an ulterior motive, and it seemed that it was revenge. The realisation was bitter indeed, making what had happened between them seem even more sordid. ‘I can’t believe it,’ she said numbly, even though she already did.

‘Believe it,’ Talos returned flatly. ‘And marry Lukas Callos.’

* * *

Alekos stared at the announcement in yesterday’s Athinapoli and told himself he felt nothing. So Iolanthe was marrying Lukas Callos, her dull keeper from the ball. Was he really surprised? She’d told him herself that her father would arrange her marriage. Her father... Talos Petrakis.

Bitterness surged through him at the memory of the last time he’d come face-to-face with his enemy. After bursting into his hotel suite, Petrakis’s thugs had taken him to an alley behind the hotel and beaten him almost senseless. It infuriated him even now to think that Petrakis would flout the law with such easy indifference. To have a grown man, an upstanding member of the business community, beaten as if he were some nameless street rat. The fact that Alekos had at one time been hardly distinguishable from a street rat only made him more determined to avenge himself on Petrakis. Nothing would stop him now. Nothing—and no one—would sway him from his purpose, even for an instant.

As for Iolanthe Petrakis... Alekos’s mouth firmed into an unforgiving line. Who knew what had been in that pretty head of hers? Perhaps she’d set him up, fully intending for her father to find them together. How else would Petrakis have known where she was? Where he was?

She’d certainly pressed herself on him. Looking back, Alekos could only wonder at Iolanthe’s determined urgency to lose her virginity to a stranger. Perhaps she’d wanted to rebel against her father and the strict isolation he’d kept her in. Perhaps she hadn’t realised how overwhelming it had all become. In any case it didn’t matter whether she’d been conniving or merely naïve. He couldn’t trust her. He wouldn’t trust anyone.

‘There’s a woman here to see you,’ Stefanos, his bodyguard, said as he appeared in the doorway of Alekos’s study. Alekos had hired Stefanos after Petrakis’s attack; he intended never to be caught like that again.

Now Alekos stiffened in surprise. No one visited him at home; the apartment in Athens’ Plaka district that he’d recently rented was private, the address unlisted. ‘Did she give a name?’

‘Just a first name. Iolanthe.’ Stefanos’s face was impassive as he waited for Alekos’s orders.

Alekos tossed the newspaper onto a nearby table and drove a hand through his hair. How had Iolanthe found him here? Clearly she was more resourceful than he’d realised. And why did she want to see him? To gloat about her engagement? Or to tell him something else? He still felt uneasy about not having used birth control. For that reason only he would see her.

‘Where is she?’

‘I’ve left her waiting in the hall.’

‘Put her in the drawing room,’ Alekos commanded. ‘I’ll see her in a moment.’

Stefanos nodded and withdrew from the room. Alekos rose from his chair and paced the confines of his study; despite cloaking himself in icy numbness for the last month, he felt an unwelcome welter of emotions at the prospect of seeing Iolanthe again. He had no idea what to think, to believe, of her any longer. She’d enchanted him once, but now he suspected he’d merely been duped, just as her father had once duped him, encouraging his ideas, clapping him on the shoulder, asking him to explain everything. Only twenty-two years old, Alekos had thought he’d found his mentor. His home. How wrong, how stupid he’d been. How trusting.

Never again, he vowed. Never would he trust a Petrakis, or anyone, again. Taking a deep breath, he squared his shoulders and strode from the room.

* * *

Iolanthe stared out at the dusky night framed by the curtains of Alekos’s drawing-room window and tried to still the wild beating of her heart. She couldn’t quite believe she’d possessed the audacity to slip out of her father’s house and dart through the narrow streets of Athens’ old district like some errant shadow. If her father discovered her here...

But she had to see Alekos. She had to know if he’d been using her as Talos had said. And if he hadn’t...even now a girlish fantasy spun through her mind in shining, golden threads, of Alekos explaining everything, of her telling him about her pregnancy. He’d whisk her away and she wouldn’t have to marry Lukas Callos. They’d live happily ever after, the end.

The door opened and Iolanthe whirled around, one hand pressed to her heart. Alekos stood in the doorway, loomed there, looking as darkly attractive as ever, and also utterly unwelcoming. The mouth that had kissed her so thoroughly was now thinned into an uncompromising line, and eyes that had glittered gold with desire now looked flat and hard. The straight slashes of his dark eyebrows were drawn together in a frown as he folded his arms across his impressive chest and stared at her in silent hostility.

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