Ruthless Revenge: Sinful Seduction: Demetriou Demands His Child / Olivero's Outrageous Proposal / Rafael's Contract Bride. Кейт Хьюит
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a mug from the rack and squeezed lemon juice and honey into it. ‘I thought you went to speak to the solicitor as a matter of course.’
‘So did I.’ Iolanthe leaned back in her chair and briefly closed her eyes. It felt like an age since she’d taken a taxi to Metaxas’s office, blithely thinking he would simply number her assets. Instead he’d told her she might as well not have any.
‘Well, then?’ Amara asked, a touch of impatience adding to the anxiety in her voice. She’d been part of Iolanthe’s household for her entire marriage. ‘Tell me what has happened.’
‘Alekos Demetriou has taken over Petra Innovation.’ Amara’s eyes widened with surprise. No one knew that Alekos was Niko’s father, no one save her, her father, and Lukas. It had been an agreement they had made when Lukas had agreed to take Iolanthe as his wife. He would raise Niko as his own, and to the whole world they would present a happy, united front. Or at least try. In the end, Lukas had not tried very hard at all.
‘And what does this Demetriou intend to do with it?’ Amara asked.
Briefly Iolanthe told her. Amara listened in silence, setting the mug of hot, fragrant tea in front of Iolanthe before sitting across from her with her own cup.
‘Very well,’ she said when Iolanthe had finished. ‘But it is not so terrible, surely? Forty per cent should see you and Niko cared for, and you never had anything to do with the company.’
‘The company is Niko’s birthright,’ Iolanthe returned with feeling. ‘My father lived for that company, and so did Lukas.’ She took a sip of tea, swallowing the honey-sweetened liquid along with her bitterness. ‘Niko has always looked forward to being a part of it.’ Talos had, in the last years of his life, mellowed in his disappointment and anger towards Iolanthe, and he’d sometimes taken Niko to work with him, shown him the inheritance that shimmered so promisingly. Lukas had always ignored his cuckoo son, and Iolanthe suspected that Niko cared so much about Petra Innovation because he wanted to impress the man he believed to be his father. Now Lukas was dead, and the company was all her son had. ‘I can’t give it up without a fight. For Niko’s sake I need to try.’ She glanced up at Amara, forcing back the threat of tears. ‘You know what it means to him.’
Amara sighed. ‘Yes, but he is only nine.’
‘All he has ever wanted is to work for Petra Innovation,’ Iolanthe answered. ‘To make his father and grandfather proud.’ The tears she had blinked back now thickened in her throat. Niko had so many struggles, and only one hope. How could she take it from him?
‘And if you have no choice?’ Amara asked grimly.
‘I do have a choice,’ Iolanthe returned, and then closed her eyes against the realisation. She could tell Alekos that Niko was his son. Would he keep Petra Innovation for his own son? Could she gamble on some hidden compassion and softness that Alekos had yet to show her? And it was a gamble; she didn’t know if she dared risk whatever repercussions such an admission would cause. Everything felt fraught.
‘What do you mean, you have a choice?’ Amara asked. ‘If this man has the controlling shares...’
‘I can talk to him.’ Resolutely Iolanthe put down her cup of tea and squared her shoulders. ‘I have to talk to him.’
After finishing her tea and talk with Amara, Iolanthe headed upstairs to the top floor of the town house that had been converted into a suite of rooms for Niko. She stopped in the doorway of his bedroom, watching him with a familiar ache in her heart. He was at his desk, his golden-brown gaze narrowed as he studied the code on the computer screen, completely absorbed in what he was doing, unaware of his surroundings or her presence.
‘Niko.’ Iolanthe spoke gently, knowing her son needed a little time to focus on a person after staring so long at a screen. ‘What are you doing, pethi mou?’
Niko tensed at the sound of her voice and then slowly turned away from the screen, blinking his mother into focus. ‘An app.’
‘You’re making another app?’
He nodded, his expression serious and a little wary. Social interaction had always been fraught for him. ‘Which one is it this time?’ Iolanthe asked lightly. She perched on the edge of the desk, making sure to stay well away from the computer Niko loved and obsessed over. Once she’d dared to touch the keyboard and a near meltdown had ensued. She knew better now.
Niko shrugged thin shoulders, his gaze sliding away from hers as it so often did. From the time he was a baby, Iolanthe had struggled to forge that connection that so many mothers took for granted. She loved her son, she had no doubt about that. She loved him with a fierce and aching fury, wanting to protect him because he was different, because there were so many things he didn’t understand. But she didn’t always feel that Niko loved her. Sometimes she wondered if her son knew how to love. She felt guilty and mean for the thought; Niko showed love in his own way. She knew that, had argued the point fiercely to Lukas and her father, and yet in the quiet grief of her own heart she wondered. She feared.
‘Niko?’ Iolanthe prompted gently. ‘What’s the app?’
He shrugged, looking away from her. ‘Just a thing to keep track of your zombie power points.’
‘Right.’ As if she knew what that meant. In the last year Niko had started designing apps for some of the more popular online games, one of them apparently involving zombies. At Iolanthe’s encouragement, he’d shown them to Lukas, shyly, but Lukas had dismissed them and him with one cursory glance. Iolanthe feared that Niko, in his silence and isolation, had absorbed his father’s rejection, and it made him withdraw even more. She tried to support and encourage Niko as best she could, but she’d been out of her depth with his technical knowledge for years. ‘So what are power points?’ she asked. ‘Are they good or bad?’
‘Good. People buy them online for a lot of money.’
‘Wow. And your app keeps track of them?’
Niko confirmed this with a little nod, his gaze already moving back to the computer screen.
‘That sounds cool, Niko,’ Iolanthe said, and dared to touch her son’s hair with the tips of her fingertips.
He ducked away and Iolanthe withdrew her hand. ‘Did you meet with the solicitor?’ he asked after a few seconds, his gaze still on the screen.
‘Yes.’ She’d told him about her meeting last night before bed.
Niko turned to glance at her, his golden eyes, so much like Alekos’s, narrowing. ‘And what did he say? Is everything all right?’
‘Everything’s fine, Niko,’ Iolanthe assured him. How could she tell him anything else? He might act as if he were much older in some ways, but her son was nine. She couldn’t burden him with her financial troubles. Except they were his too, because Petra Innovation was meant to be his. Needed to be his. Taking that away from Niko would be like taking away his reason to live. Talking about Petra Innovation made his eyes light with excitement and brought him out of his untouchable silence to something close to a chatterbox. Niko needed Petra Innovation. He needed the hope of something better and bigger that he could be a part of.
Briefly Iolanthe closed her eyes as regret swamped through her. How had Lukas let this happen? How had she? Maybe she should have taken more of an interest in the company, insisted on knowing what was going on, and in doing so safeguarded her son’s inheritance.
The prospect was, she knew, laughable. She didn’t know the first thing about the business. And her father and Lukas would have never countenanced her interest anyway. They’d barely tolerated her presence, always reminding her of her shame.
‘Mama?’ The endearment sounded strange on her son’s lips; he rarely used it. ‘Are you sure everything is all right?’
‘Yes.’ Iolanthe took a deep breath and smiled at her son. She would not burden Niko with this. She would figure out a way to keep Petra Innovation for her son. She owed it to him to keep his dream alive; she owed it to