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‘You think a diamond necklace will get you into my bed.’
She said it flatly, getting the words out past the emotion that was seizing on them as she spoke them.
‘Why not? Your track record shows you are very amenable to such an approach to life.’ There was a twist to his mouth as he answered her, his voice terse.
It made the emotion spear deeper into her. Her eyes went to the necklace again—the necklace Nikos was offering her in exchange for sex. Emotion bit again—a different one. One that seemed to touch the very quick of her. But she must not allow that emotion, only the other one, which was as sharp as the point of a spear.
Her eyes pulled away, back to the man sitting in his hand-made suit at his antique desk, rich and powerful and arrogant. A man who had kissed her deeply, caressed the intimacies of her body, who had melded his body with hers, who had transported her to an ecstasy she had never known existed.
Who was offering her a diamond necklace for sex…
Carefully, very carefully, she snapped shut the lid of the box and placed it back in front of him. ‘I am not,’ she said, ‘your mistress.’
Julia James lives in England with her family. Mills & Boon® were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—‘The most perfect landscape after England’!—and she considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!
BY
JULIA JAMES
www.millsandboon.co.uk
MILLS & BOON
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PROLOGUE
THE EXECUTIVE JET cut through the wintry night, heading north. Inside, its sole passenger stared through the darkened porthole. His face was sombre. His gaze unseeing. Looking inward, into the distant past.
Two boys, carefree, happy.
Brothers. Who’d thought they had all the time in the world.
But for one time had run out.
A knife stabbed into the heart of the man sitting, staring unseeing into the night sky beyond the speeding plane.
Andreas! My brother!
But Andreas was gone, never to return. Leaving behind only a weeping mother, a stricken brother.
And one precious, most miraculously precious gift of consolation…
The front doorbell rang, peremptory and insistent. Ann paused in clearing the mess in the kitchen and glanced into the second-hand pram, checking that the noise hadn’t woken Ari. She hurried to the front door, pushing back untidy wisps of hair, wondering as she opened it who on earth it could be.
But even as she opened the door she knew who it was. He stood, tall, and dark, face set like stone. Beyond him, at the kerb, a chauffeured car, sleek and expensive, looked utterly out of place in this run down part of town.
‘Miss Turner?’
The voice was deep, and accented. It was also cold, and very hard.
Ann nodded briefly, dread suddenly pooling in her stomach.
‘I am Nikos Theakis,’ he announced, as the breath caught in her throat in a shocked rasp. ‘I have come for the child.’
Nikos Theakis. The man she had most cause to hate in all the world.
Ann could only stare, frozen, as he stepped past her, inside, dominating the narrow hallway, glancing dismissively around the shabby interior before arrowing back on her, as she stood shocked into immobility. ‘Where is he?’ he demanded.
His eyes lasered into her—dark, overpowering. Her mind was reeling. Out of all the insane things to do at this moment all she could do was stare at him. Stare at six foot of lean packed male, sheathed in a business suit that shouted wealth, sable hair immaculately cut, and a face—Ann’s stomach clenched—a face that widened her eyes involuntarily.
Night-dark eyes, a strong blade of a nose, high cheekbones, steel-jaw and sculpted, sensual mouth.
She gulped mentally. Then, with a jolt of effort, she dragged her mind away. What the hell was she doing, staring at the man like that? As if he were anyone other than the man he had just announced himself to be.
Nikos Theakis—rich, powerful, arrogant and ruthless. The man who had ruined her sister’s life.
Because he had. Ann knew. Her sister had told her time and again.
Carla, always the golden girl, vibrant and glamorous. Partying her way through life. Then the party had ended. She’d turned up late last summer at Ann’s poky, dingy flat with no place else to go. Distraught.
‘He said he was crazy about me. Crazy! But now I’m pregnant and he won’t marry me! And I know why.’ Her beautiful face had twisted in hatred. ‘It’s that snobby bully-boy brother of his! The almighty Nikos Theakis. Looking down his nose at me like I’m dirt!’
Shocked, Ann had listened while Carla’s tearful tirade flowed on. She had tried to reassure her, to remind her that the father of her child had to support it financially—
‘I want Andreas to marry me!’ Carla had railed.
The months that had followed had not been easy. Carla had sunk into a depressive lethargy, forbidding Ann to make contact with the father of her child even to at least sort out maintenance for the baby.
‘Andreas knows where I am,’ she’d said dully. ‘I want him to come and find me! I want him to come and marry me!’
But Andreas had not come, and Carla’s difficult pregnancy had ended with an even more difficult labour that had left her with postnatal depression, brought on, Ann was sure, by Andreas’ rejection of her. To Ann had fallen the task of looking after baby Ari—for Carla, it seemed, had failed to bond, sinking deeper into depression, refusing all treatment.
The cure, when it had come, had been dramatic. A knock at the door—a young man, handsome, but with a strained, uncertain manner.
‘I—I am Andreas Theakis,’ he’d told Ann.
That was all it had taken. Carla had flown to him, her face transfigured. Her life transfigured. Or so she had believed. In reality it had been a little less romantic than Ann had hoped. Andreas had wanted a paternity test done.
‘I have to convince my brother…’ he’d said uneasily to Ann. But Carla had been viciously triumphant.
‘Oh, Ari is Andreas’, all right! And Mr Almighty Nikos Theakis is going to get his comeuppance! Andreas will marry me now—he’s promised me, because he wants his son—and there isn’t a thing his damn brother can do about it!’
Had Carla been tempting fate, to be so triumphant? Ann wondered, with a bitter twist of misery. It had not taken the malign will of Nikos Theakis to keep his brother from marrying her sister. It had taken a moment’s misjudgement by Andreas, whisking Carla away—glamorous once more, vibrant once more—in his powerful hire car on unfamiliar British roads. Nothing more than that.
And two lives snuffed out.
Ann had been at home with Ari, looking after him willingly while Andreas and Carla went off for the day together. He had been orphaned at a stroke.
Ann knew that the horror and grief of that day would never leave her. Andreas’s body had been flown back to Greece. None of his family had come near Ann. Ann had been left to bury her sister on her own. Left to look after baby Ari, all alone in the world now, except for her. She had made no attempt to contact Andreas’ family. They had clearly never wanted Carla—never wanted her child. Whereas she…
Ari was all the world to her. All she had left. Her one consolation in a sea of grief. Grief for her sister and for the man she had so desperately wanted to marry. Anger for his brother—who had stopped them doing so. The brother who was now standing in her own hallway, eyes like lasers.
Demanding to take Ari from her.
Getting no answer, Nikos glanced into the empty room beside the front door, then strode down the narrow hallway to the kitchen at the end. His expression hardened even more. The place was a mess. There was a sink full of washing up, a plastic covered table with food debris on it. But it was the pram that drew him. He strode up to it and looked down. Emotion knifed through him. Andreas’ son! Out of this night¬ mare, one shining miracle. He gazed down at the sleeping baby, his heart full. Slowly, he reached a hand towards him.
‘Don’t touch him!’ The shrill whisper made him halt, whipping his head round.
Ann Turner was in the kitchen doorway, one hand closed tightly around the jamb. Nikos’s brows snapped together. Did the girl think he was going to take the boy there and then? Obviously he was not. He would return when he had all the papers drawn up, a suitable nanny engaged, and then make an orderly removal of his nephew. He was here now simply because he had had to come. He had had to see for himself, this baby who was the only consolation in the nightmare that had closed over the Theakis family with Andreas’s death.
His eyes rested a moment on the figure in the doorway, his mouth tightening as his gaze flicked over her. She suited the place. Shabbily dressed, with her hair tied back, an unkempt mess, and baby food on her shapeless T-shirt. She couldn’t have looked less like the girl who had got her avaricious claws into his brother. Carla Turner had been a gilded bird of paradise. This sister of hers was a scrawny street sparrow.
But Ann Turner’s appearance was irrelevant—only the baby in her care was important.
She was standing aside from the door now. ‘Mr Theakis, I want you to leave. I’ve nothing to say to you, and I don’t want you disturbing Ari.’ Her voice was sharp. Hostile.
For a moment he said nothing, just went on looking at her. Ann could feel the colour run into her cheeks. The shock of seeing him was still jolting through her and she was fighting for composure. And losing. That soul-searching gaze of his was transfixing her. Then, without a word, he started towards her. She pulled aside swiftly as he brushed past her, striding down towards the front door. But her relief was short lived. He merely wheeled into the living room.
She hurried after him, heart thumping. ‘Mr Theakis, I asked you to leave—’ she began, but he cut her short with a peremptory lift of his hand, as if she were a servant who had spoken out of turn.
‘I am here merely to see the child for myself, and to inform you of the arrangements that have been made to take him home.’
Ann stared. ‘This is his home.’
Nikos Theakis glanced around him. The sagging sofa, the worn carpet and faded curtains were encompassed in his condemning glance. ‘This, Miss Turner,’ he said, his eyes coming back to her, resting on her as if she were a cockroach, ‘is not a home. It is a slum.’
Ann coloured. Poverty wasn’t a crime! But Nikos Theakis clearly thought otherwise. His eyes were pinning her as if she were on a dissecting board. Instantly she became conscious of her messy, drab appearance and unwashed hair—conscious, inexplicably, of a feminine shame that she should be caught looking so absolutely unappealing in front of a man as expensively and physically drop-dead gorgeous as Nikos Theakis. Angrily, she broke her gaze away. What did it matter what she looked like? Or him? This was a man who’d just announced to her his intention of stealing the baby she loved more than anyone in the whole world. Her only living family.
Then suddenly he was speaking again, and this time his tone was quite different from the curt, condemning one with which he’d informed her she was living in a slum.
‘But how could it be otherwise?’ he said smoothly, as Ann’s eyes flew to him again. ‘It is very hard, is it not, Miss Turner, to have the unwelcome burden of a small baby? What girl your age could want that?’
His smooth words backfired. Instinctive rage reared in Ann. Yes, it was hard work looking after a baby. But Ari was never a burden. Never.
Nikos Theakis was speaking again, in the same smooth voice. ‘So I shall relieve you of this unwanted burden, Miss Turner, and you may return again to the life of a young, idle and carefree girl.’
She stifled down the rage that his unctuous words aroused in her, trying to keep her voice steady.
‘Mr Theakis, you rejected Ari’s existence from the moment he was conceived,’ she shot at him witheringly. ‘Why the sudden concern about him now?’
Nikos’s eyes darkened. ‘Because now I have the DNA results forwarded to me from the laboratory. I know that he is indeed my brother’s son.’ There was no trace of smoothness in his accented voice now.
‘My sister said so right from the beginning!’ Ann protested.
The sculpted mouth curled contemptuously. ‘You think I would trust the word of a whore?’
It was spoken in such a casual way Ann blanched. ‘Don’t speak of Carla like that!’ she spat furiously.
His eyes skewered her. ‘Your sister slept with any man rich enough to keep her in the lifestyle she hawked herself out for. Of course I warned my brother to check the child was his.’
‘My sister is dead!’ she rang back at him.
‘As is my brother. Thanks to her.’ The coldness in his voice was Arctic. ‘And now only one person is important—my nephew.’ Abruptly his manner changed again. That surface smoothness was back in his voice. ‘Which is why he must return to Greece with me. To have the life that his father would have wanted. Surely, Miss Turner, you cannot disagree with that?’
He sounded so smooth, so reasonable—but Ann’s hackles did not go down. ‘Of course I disagree! Do you propose, Mr Theakis—’ she was even more withering now ‘—to raise Ari yourself? Or will you just dump him on a nanny?’
The dark eyes flashed. Ann felt a stab of angry satisfaction go through her. He doesn’t like being challenged!
‘To assuage your concerns, Miss Turner—’ the deep voice was inflected with sardonic bite ‘—Ari will live in the family home. Yes, with a professional nanny but, most crucially, with my mother.’ And suddenly his voice that was quite different from anything Ann had heard so far. ‘Do I really need to tell you how desperate my mother is for the only consolation she has left to her after the death of her son? Her grief, Miss Turner, is terrible.’
Involuntarily, Ann felt her throat tighten.
‘She is welcome to visit any time she wants—’ she began, but Nikos Theakis cut right across her.
‘Generous of you, indeed, Miss Turner. But let us cut to the chase,’ he said bitingly, the Arctic chill back in his voice.
His eyes were pinning her again, but this time there was not disdain in them for her shabby, messy appearance. Now they held the same expression as when he had called her sister a whore…
His voice was harsh as he continued. ‘I expected no less of you, and you have ensured that my expectations are fulfilled. So, tell me—what price do you set on the boy’s head? I know you must have a high one—your sister’s was marriage to my brother. Yours, however, can only be cash. Well, cash it will be.’
Ann stared disbelievingly as Nikos Theakis slid a long- fingered hand inside his immaculately tailored jacket and drew out a leather-bound chequebook and a gold fountain pen. Swiftly, with an incisive hand, he scrawled across a cheque, then placed it on the table. His face was unreadable as her gaze flickered to it. Ann stood in shock as he spoke again. ‘I never haggle for what I want, Miss Turner,’ he informed her harshly. ‘This is my first and final offer. You will get not a penny more from me. I am offering you a million pounds for my nephew. Take it or leave it.’
Ann blinked. This wasn’t real. That piece of paper on the table in front of her wasn’t a cheque for a million pounds— a million pounds to buy a child. As she still stared, Nikos Theakis spoke again.
‘My nephew,’ he said, and once more he had resumed that smooth tone of voice, ‘will have an idyllic childhood. My mother is a very loving woman, and will embrace her grandson into her heart. He will live with her in her home in Greece, at the Theakis villa on my private island, wanting for nothing.’ He gave a small chilly smile. ‘So, you see, you may take the money, Miss Turner, with a clear conscience.’
Ann heard his terrible words but they didn’t register. Nothing registered except that piece of paper on the table in front of her. He saw her fixation upon it and his expression tightened. The deep lines around his mouth were etched more harshly. She kept on staring at the cheque.
Monstrous! Monstrous! Emotion swirled inside her and she felt the pressure build up in her chest as though it would explode. Only when he moved to the door could she tear her eyes away.
‘I will leave you for now, and return at the end of the week,’ he announced. ‘All the paperwork will be completed by then, and you will hand my nephew over to me.’ His voice hardened again. ‘Understand that a condition of your payment is that all connection with my nephew is severed—he will not benefit from any communication with his late mother’s relatives. However, since my mother can have no idea of the sordid life your sister led, or your squalid circumstances, she has asked me to give you this letter from her.’ He slid his hand inside his jacket once more, and withdrew a sealed envelope, placing it beside the cheque. ‘Do not think to reply to it. And do not attempt to cash your cheque yet—it is post-dated until I have my nephew.’
Then he was gone, closing the door behind him. Numbly Ann heard his footsteps on the pathway, then the soft clunk of a car door and the hushed note of an engine.
Her eyes went back to the cheque, disbelief and loathing filling her. Then slowly her eyes went to the letter. Numbly she picked it up and opened it. Her heart was wrung as she began to read Sophia Theakis’ words.
You cannot imagine, my joy when Nikos told me of Andreas’ son. I felt the mercy of God’s grace upon me. To be blessed with making a loving home for this tragically bereaved infant would be a privilege I pray for. If you can see it in your heart, despite your own grief for your lost sister, to grant me this prayer, and allow me to lay the love I had for my own son before his son, you will have my eternal gratitude. He will be cherished and loved throughout his life.
Forgive, I beg you, the selfishness of a woman who has lost her son, and for whom old age beckons, in desiring her grandchild to raise. But you are young and have your whole life before you, and you must be free to live it without assuming the premature responsibilities of motherhood to your sister’s child which will consume your precious youth…
Ann could taste the terrible mix of grief and hope in every sentence. Her heart constricted. What should she do? What was for the best? Did Ari really have a ready-made, loving home waiting for him with his grandmother? Would it be better for him than the home she provided, or only richer? A child needed love—emotional security, above all. Far more than material security.
Ann’s face shadowed with memory. Carla had been her emotional security as a child—all that Ann had had—and she had clung to her sister as the only constant in an uncertain, unstable world after their mother’s death. Andreas’ mother’s words echoed in her head, offering ‘a loving home for this tragically bereaved infant’. Was that what would be best for her nephew? Was it what Ari’s parents would have wanted for their son? Ann’s heart squeezed. She knew the answer already.
Andreas would have wanted his son raised in his family, by his own mother who had so clearly loved him. In the short time that she had known Andreas he had often mentioned his mother, with love and affection clear in his voice. His mother, he had told Ann, would welcome the news of Carla’s existence— and their child she would welcome with open arms and open heart.
And Carla? What would she have wanted? Ann knew the answer to that question too, and a hand clutched her own heart. Carla had spent her brief life trying to claw her way to the wealth she thought meant happiness—she would have given her right arm for her son to take his place in the heart of the Theakis clan.
She had given more. She had given her life.
How can I keep Carla’s son away from what she would have wanted so much for him? How can I?
Slowly, inexorable logic crushed her desperation to find reasons to keep the baby she loved so much. How could she? It would be pure selfishness on her part. If a loving, financially secure home were being offered to Ari, which both his parents would have wanted for him, how could she keep him within her own impecunious protection? However much she loved Ari, one day he would grow up. How would he feel then, having been deprived of the birthright that should have been his? The time to decide was now, while he was a baby— before emotional ties could be formed, before he grew to love her, and could be wounded by parting with her. Now was the time, she knew, for her to be strong—to let him go to his grandmother, to be cherished and loved, protected and safe.
As every child should be.
And there was yet one more reason for giving Ari up to his grandmother. One that she could not ignore. One that the monstrous offer by Nikos Theakis made it impossible to ignore.
A million pounds. So much money. How could she possibly say no to that?
Nikos stood, as he had stood only a few days before, in the dingy living room of Ann Turner’s flat, watching with rigid features as she signed away her custody rights to his nephew. But as she put her name to the last of the legal papers, and shakily got to her feet, he allowed himself the satisfaction of letting his opinion of her show in his face.
Ann flinched. It was quite visible. Then his lawyer was picking up the papers and placing them inside his briefcase. At the door, a young nanny held Ari. For a second the emotion was so overpoweringly strong that she swayed with the need to snatch him back. Never, never let him go! But it was too late. The nanny, with a last sympathetic smile at Ann, was going, followed by the lawyer.
At the doorway, Nikos paused. Ann Turner was clutching the back of the chair, her face white. For a second Nikos frowned, then his face cleared, resuming its expression.
‘You may cash your cheque now, Miss Turner,’ he said softly, and his words licked over her like a whip.
But Ann was beyond his scorn. Beyond anything but the silent scream in her head that she could not do what she had just done. Yet even as the scream sounded in her mind Nikos Theakis was walking out, the front door closing behind him.
Its echo haunted her, tearing at her through the years ahead.
CHAPTER ONE
Four years later…
THE FAMOUS LONDON toy shop was crowded with children and parents as Ann threaded her way through, studying the myriad toys on offer. Most were far too expensive, but some gave her excellent ideas. It was strange being back in England. She’d hardly been back here at all in the years since she’d taken Nikos Theakis’ cheque—and given Ari away.