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

‘No, he isn’t,’ he agreed after a pause. ‘If he seems in a bad temper, it is in part because he is upset over the press. My father has wanted to prove to everyone that he deserves the wealth and success he has earned. He feels any stain on his reputation is a reflection of where he came from—the street. Although …’ Lukas’s face was obscured in shadow, but there was suddenly a different darkness to his tone. ‘Things have not been easy for him lately.’

Rhiannon’s steps slowed as memories clicked into place. ‘He’s dying, isn’t he?’ she said quietly.

He stiffened, turned in surprise. ‘How did you know?’

‘I should have realised sooner,’ she admitted. ‘I’m a palliative nurse—I work in hospices. I’ve been around a lot of people in his situation.’ She shook her head. ‘I assumed he was speaking so slowly because he thought I was stupid, but it’s because he’s losing his words, isn’t he? What does he have? A brain tumour?’

Lukas nodded stiffly. ‘The doctors have given him at most a few more months. It hasn’t, by the grace of God, affected him too much yet, although he occasionally forgets things. Sometimes it is just a word, other times a whole event.’ He shook his head. ‘It is frustrating, because he knows he is forgetting.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Rhiannon whispered. ‘I know how difficult a dying parent can be.’

‘Do you?’ Lukas’s glance was swift, sharp, assessing, yet there was a flicker of compassion in those silver eyes. ‘Tell me about yourself, Rhiannon.’

She shrugged, discomfited by the turn in the conversation he’d so quickly and effortlessly made. ‘My parents died three years ago,’ she said, as if it were of no consequence. ‘I cared for them until their deaths. It is a difficult thing to do.’

‘Yes … I suppose it is. And in the time since then?’

‘I studied nursing, went into hospice care. It made the most sense after my experience with my parents.’

‘A rather lonely-sounding life,’ Lukas remarked, his tone expressionless, his face in shadow.

‘No more than anyone else’s.’ Irritation prickled at his judgement. ‘I like to think I make a difference. Help people in a time of need that most of us would prefer to ignore.’

‘Indeed, that’s too true. I only meant that spending time with people twice your age no doubt makes it difficult to find friends with whom you can socialise.’

Rhiannon shrugged. She could hardly argue with that. She didn’t have a social life—had never had one. She gazed unseeingly at the dark stretch of water, at the stars strung above in an inky sky like diamonds pricked through cloth.

‘Why did you come here, Rhiannon?’ Lukas asked after a long moment, his voice musing. ‘Most women in your position I believe would not have made such an effort. They would have sent a letter, or gone through a solicitor. But to come to the resort, to the reception, and think you could convince me I was a child’s father—!’ He shook his head, smiling slightly in disbelief, but Rhiannon was only conscious of her own prickling, humiliated response.

‘I admit it was foolhardy,’ she said in a tight voice that bordered on strangled. She was glad the darkness hid her flushed face. ‘I thought a face-to-face confrontation would be the … strongest way to present Annabel to you.’

‘To get rid of her, you mean?’

‘You have a strange way of looking at things,’ she retorted. She stopped to turn and face him. ‘I wanted to give her to her father—her family. I would have been ignoring my responsibility if I hadn’t attempted to find you. Wouldn’t I? To keep her to myself, to make no effort to find a family who might want her, love her …’ She trailed off, shaking her head. ‘That would have been selfish.’

Lukas was silent for a moment. ‘You wanted to keep her?’ he asked in a different voice.

‘Of course I did—do! She’s a baby.’

‘An inconvenience, as you said.’

She glanced sharply at him, unsure if he thought that, or if he simply thought she did. ‘All children are inconveniences,’ she said flatly. ‘If you remember, I said that didn’t mean they weren’t worth it.’

‘So you want her, but you’re prepared to give her up?’ Lukas said musingly.

‘I was,’ Rhiannon emphasised. ‘Now things are different.’ She turned to face him. ‘You should know that I won’t give Annabel up now. I may have been willing to earlier, when I believed you were the father, when I thought you would love her. But I realise now the situation is completely different. I don’t know how I can fit into the family you envisage for her—your family—but I will have some part. I’m not walking out of her life now.’

Lukas regarded her silently for a long moment. Rhiannon’s heart raced and her face flamed, but she met his gaze, stony-faced and determined, her fists clenched at her sides.

‘What about your own life?’ he asked in a mild voice. ‘Your flat, your job, your friends? If Annabel is Christos’s child, her life will be in Greece. Are you prepared to move here?’ He quirked one eyebrow in cynical bemusement. ‘To give up everything for a child that isn’t even yours … for the child of a friend you hadn’t seen in ten years? A child,’ he continued, his voice turning hard, unyielding, damning, ‘that you didn’t really want? A child with a family in place—a family with far more resources than you could ever possibly have?’

Rhiannon’s mouth was dry, her heart like lead. When he framed it in such stark terms her situation seemed bleak indeed. ‘It’s not about resources,’ she said stiffly. ‘It’s about love.’

‘Can you really see yourself in Annabel’s life long-term?’ Lukas persisted. He kept his voice mild. ‘In Greece? Are you prepared to give up your life in Wales to care for a child that is no relation to you?’

His words wound around her heart, whispered their treacherous enticements in her mind. He was trying to dissuade her from staying, she knew. From complicating his life. And yet he made sense.

If she stayed in Greece she would have a half-life at best—the life of someone who lived on the fringes of a family. Again. Yet surely it was no less of a life than she had now.

‘You’ve done your duty,’ he continued. ‘You’ve brought her to her family. When the paternity issue is resolved, you can return to your home, your life, with a clear conscience. Isn’t that what you really want? Wasn’t that what you planned all along?’

His voice was so smooth, so persuasive, and it made Rhiannon realise how impossible a situation this truly was. Could she really move to Greece, ingratiate herself into the Petrakides family … if they would let her?

Yet she couldn’t leave Annabel. Not like this. ‘I don’t …’ Her mind swam, diving for words, and came up empty. ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted. ‘It’s a lot to think about.’

‘Indeed.’ She heard the satisfaction in his voice and realised he thought he’d chipped away at her resolve. And perhaps he had. She wanted to be in Annabel’s life—she wanted Annabel to be loved.

Yet how could it happen? When Lukas had all the power and she had none? When this world—his world—was so foreign to her? So above her?

Could she ever even remotely fit in?

Lukas kept walking, and Rhiannon followed him. The waves lapped gently at their feet.

‘You said all children are inconveniences,’ he remarked after a moment. ‘Is that how you were viewed?’

Rhiannon’s breath came in a hitched gasp. She was surprised at his perceptiveness. She stared blindly out at the ocean, dark and fathomless, a stretch of blackness, a rush of sound.

‘I was adopted,’ she said after a long moment. ‘My parents never quite got over my arrival into their orderly lives.’

‘Many adopted children have loving homes, caring parents. Was that not the case with you?’

She closed her eyes, opened them. ‘My parents cared for me,’ she said, choosing her words carefully. She would not tarnish their memory. ‘In their own way. But I often wondered about my natural parents, and I didn’t want Annabel to be the same—especially if she discovered when she was older that she could have known her father and I never gave her the chance. I wanted to spare her that pain.’

Lukas was silent for a long moment. ‘I see,’ he finally said.

They continued to walk, Rhiannon with sudden, quick steps as if she wanted to escape the confines of the beach, the island, the reach of this man.

He saw too much, understood too much. And yet understood nothing at all.

Lukas grabbed her arm, causing her to stumble before he steadied her, turned her to face him. ‘Who are you trying to escape?’ His voice was soft, almost gentle, but his hands were firm on her arms and they burned.

‘I want to go back to the villa,’ Rhiannon said jerkily.

‘I didn’t mean to upset you.’ His arms moved up to her shoulders, drawing her closer. ‘I was trying to understand.’

‘You don’t understand anything,’ Rhiannon spat. ‘First you judge me as a blackmailer, then as a woman who is willing to give up a child like so much rubbish.’

‘I may have been mistaken in those beliefs,’ Lukas said quietly. There was no apology in his voice, merely statement of fact. ‘I realise now, Rhiannon, that you want what is best for Annabel. You believed that was entrusting her to her family; I think you’re right.’