Securing the Greek's Legacy. Julia James
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is exactly like that!’ she cried. ‘How dare you? How dare you sit there and tell me you’ll buy Georgy from me? How dare you do such a thing?’ Her voice had risen; her heart was thumping furiously. ‘How dare you come here and offer me money to hand my dead sister’s son over to you? How dare you?’
He was on his feet as well. He filled the room, intimidating and overpowering. But she would not be intimidated! Would not be overpowered! Would not be paid to part with Georgy!
She took a heaving breath, words pouring from her.
‘I swore to my sister on her deathbed that I would never, never abandon her baby! That I would never hand him over to anyone! That I would always, always look after him and love him. Because she was not going to be able to do it! Because she was dying, and she knew she was dying, and she was never going to see her baby grow up, never going to see him become a boy, a man—never, never, never...’
Her voice was hoarse, the words torn from her, from the very depths of her being. Her hands were clenched into fists at her sides, as if she could—and would—and must—fight off the whole world to keep Georgy with her!
For a second there was silence. Absolute silence between them. Then into the silence came a high, solitary wail.
With a cry of consternation Lyn wheeled about. Oh, no—now she had gone and woken Georgy! With all this awful arguing about what was never going to happen—because she was never giving Georgy up! Never!
The wail came again. She rounded on Anatole. ‘Please go!’ she said. ‘Please—just go!’
She rushed from the room into the bedroom, where Georgy was wide awake, his little face screwed up. She scooped him up with a hushing noise, soothing and rocking him in her arms until he had quietened.
The feel of his strong, solid little body, so familiar, so precious, calmed her too. She took long slow breaths, hugging him tightly, and felt his warmth and weight in her arms like a blessing, a benediction.
How could anyone think to ask her to give him up? She loved this little child more than anyone in the whole world! He was everything to her—and she was everything to him.
Love flowed from her, enveloping and protective, as she cradled him against her, her eyes smarting, her throat tight. Slowly the heaving emotions in her breast, her heart, eased. Georgy was safe. He was in her arms. He was with her. She would never let him go, never abandon him. Her hectic pulse slowed. Cradling him, her hand curved protectively around his back, she crooned soothingly at him, wordless sounds murmuring, familiar and comforting. The rest of the world seemed very far away...
‘May I see him?’
The voice behind her made her spin round. Anatole was standing in the doorway of the bedroom.
But there was something different about him. Something quite different. She’d seen him only as dark and tall and formidable—telling her things she did not want to hear, his very presence a terrifying threat to everything that she held most dear.
Now, as she gazed at him, her expression stricken, across the dimly lit curtained room, he did not seem formidable at all. Or threatening. He seemed merely—tense. As if every muscle in his body were pulled taut. In the dim light the bone structure of his face was stark.
She felt Georgy lift his head from her shoulder, twist his neck so that he could see where the voice had come from. He gazed at the figure in the doorway with eyes just as dark as those which were fixed on him.
For a moment the tableau held all of them immobile. Then, with a gurgling sound, Georgy lurched on her shoulder, his little arms reaching forward towards the man standing in the doorway. The man with eyes like his own.
The man who was kin to the father he had never known. Never would know now....
As if in slow motion, Anatole found his hand reaching inside his jacket pocket, drawing out something he had brought with him from Greece. It was a silver photo frame from his grandfather’s opulent drawing room, displaying one individual alone. Slowly he shifted his gaze down to the photo he held in his hand, then back to the baby cradled so closely in his young aunt’s arms.
‘He is Marcos’s son.’ Anatole’s voice was flat. But there was emotion in it. Powerful emotion. His gaze cut suddenly to Lyn. ‘Look,’ he instructed, holding up the photo.
It was an old one, pre-digital, an informal shot and unposed, but the likeness to the baby in it was unmistakable. The same wide brown-eyed gaze. The same-shaped mouth and head. The same expression.
How was it, Anatole found himself thinking, emotion rising in his chest, that the genes Marcos had carried could be so clearly visible even at this tender age? What was it about the human face that revealed its origins, its kinship? Yet so it was—this scrap of humanity, less than a year old, stared back at him in the baby he himself could just dimly remember from his own boyhood.
‘I couldn’t be sure,’ he heard himself saying. ‘Knew that I must get DNA testing. Knew there would be doubts that necessitated such measures.’ He paused. ‘But I have no doubts—not now.’ His voice changed, and so did his expression. ‘This is my cousin’s son—his only son! The only trace left of him in this life! He must be part of his father’s family.’ He held up a hand as if to pre-empt what he knew would be her response to that unarguable statement. ‘But we must find a way...there must be one—’ He broke off, taking a sharp breath, his focus now on Lyn.
‘I am sorry—sorry that I said what I did just now. It was offensive, and you have every right to be angry.’ He paused. ‘Will you accept my apology?’
His eyes met hers, seeking a way past the stormy expression in them. Slowly, painfully, Lyn swallowed. There was a large stone in her throat, but it was not only from her anger at his vile offer. It was because of the way he’d stared at Georgy...the emotion in his eyes...his voice.
He was seeing his dead cousin in the baby she was holding in her arms...
Just as I see Lindy in him.
She felt her throat close—felt something change, somehow, deep within her. Slowly she nodded, taking a ragged breath.
‘Thank you,’ he said in a low voice.
His eyes went from her face back to Georgy. That expression returned to them, making her breath catch as the same emotion was aroused in herself.
Warily Lyn made her way past him into the living room, heading for the sofa onto which she sank down on shaky legs, her heart rate still ragged. But something had changed. She could feel it—sense it as clearly as if the wind had changed its quarter, as if the tide had turned in the depths of the sea. It was in his voice, his stance, his face, as he sat down at the far end of the sofa.
And it was in her, too, that change. Was it because she was finally accepting that Georgy was more than her dead sister’s son? That he had a family on his father’s side too, to whom he was precious—as precious as he was to her?
She did not want to accept that truth—had tried to fight it—but she had to. Must.
For a moment—just a moment—as Anatole Telonidis lowered his tall frame on to the sofa, he seemed far too physically close to her. She wanted to leap to her feet—away from the intensely physical presence of the man. But even as she fought the impulse she could feel Georgy using his not inconsiderable strength to lean forward, towards this interesting addition to his world. And as he did so, he gave another crowing gurgle, his little arms stretching forward towards his father’s cousin.
And then Lyn saw something quite extraordinary happen.
Before her eyes she saw this tall, dark, forbidding man who had walked uninvited into her world, catalysing her deepest fears with his demands, his assumptions, all the power of his wealth and family, transform. Greek words sounded from his mouth and then slowly, as if he were moving through thick, murky water, she watched him reach a hand out towards the infant. Immediately a little starfish fist closed around the long, tanned finger and tugged it hopefully, if ineffectually, in