charged with adrenaline, he changed into his swim trunks and hurried down to the beach where the family ski boats were in use.
“There’s Uncle Andreas!” One of his nieces waiting on the beach for her turn screeched with joy and ran toward him. Her brother followed. “Now that you’re here, will you take us? Grandpa hasn’t come back for us yet.”
His sister Leila’s children were the youngest, seven and nine. “What do you think?” He grinned. “Climb in my ski boat. We’ll show everybody! You spot your sister first, Jason.”
“Okay!”
Happy chaos reigned for another half-hour, then everyone left the beach because dinner had been announced. Andreas secured his boat to their private pier. Things couldn’t have turned out better than to find his brother Leon the last to tie up his own ski boat. His wife Deline had gone up with the others, leaving them alone for the moment.
“How was the party last night?” Andreas asked as he started tying the other end for him.
Leon shot him a glance. “Fine, but I have to tell you Dad wasn’t too thrilled you didn’t make a showing. He was hoping to see you there with Irena.”
Irena Liapis was a favorite with the family and the daughter of his parents’ good friends who owned one of the major newspapers in Greece. It was the same paper that had shown Thea aboard the family yacht.
Everyone was hoping for news that a wedding was in the offing. With his four siblings married, his parents were expecting some kind of announcement from him.
Andreas groaned. No woman had ever been his grand passion. Maybe there wasn’t such a thing and he was only deluding himself because he’d been a bachelor for too long. But his feelings for Irena had grown over the months. Besides being beautiful, she was intelligent and kind. He wanted his marriage to work and knew it could if she were his wife.
But last night Gabi Turner’s explosion into his life had caused every plan to go up in smoke. Now that a certain situation had developed threatening to set off a conflagration, his whole world had been turned on its side. For the time being he couldn’t think about Irena or anything else.
Andreas knew it wasn’t fair to keep any secrets from the woman he’d intended to marry, but, as he’d just found out, life wasn’t fair…not to the twins who’d lost their mother or to Gabi who’d taken on the awesome responsibility of raising her half sister’s children.
By tacit agreement he and his brother started walking up the beach toward the pool area. Using his fingertips, Leon scooped up his sandals lying in the sand. “Your non-appearance was kind of a shocker. Normally Dad gives you a pass.”
“It’s because he has a soft spot for Melina.” She was the baby in the family.
“If you pulled off the Canadian gold-refining merger, I’m sure all will be forgiven.”
Andreas frowned. “That might not happen. I’m still debating if it’s to our advantage.”
“With the kind of revenue it could bring in, you must be joking!”
“Not at all. I think they’re in deeper trouble than they’ve made out to be.” He gave his brother a covert glance. “Speaking of trouble, there’s something you and I have to talk about in private.”
“If you’re referring to the acquisition of those mineral rights in—”
“I’m not,” he cut him off. “You made a brilliant move on that.” Leon was his second in command. “I’m referring to something else that doesn’t have anything to do with business. After we eat, come to my villa alone. Make it look casual. You need to see something.”
Leon let out a bark of laughter. “You sound cryptic. What’s gotten into you?”
“You’ll find out soon enough.”
For the next hour Andreas joined in with his family and gave Melina the gift he’d found for her on one of his business trips to the Balkans. She collected nesting dolls. The one he gave her proved to be a hit. Once dessert was served, he faded from the scene and headed for his place, nodding to one of the maids on the way. Not long after, Leon showed up.
“Lock the front door behind you. I don’t want us to be disturbed.”
Leon flicked him a puzzled glance as he pushed in the button. He walked into the living room. “What’s going on? The last time I remember seeing you this intense was when Father suffered that mild heart attack last year.”
Heart attack was the operative word.
Andreas was still trying to recover from the one Ms. Turner had given him. Without wasting any more time he handed the newspaper photo to Leon, who studied it for a minute before lifting his head. “Why are you showing me a pic-ture of you? I don’t understand.” He handed it back to him.
“If you’ll notice the date, this headline is a year old. When the picture was taken, I happened to be in the States on business with our big brother. As usual, the paparazzi got you and me mixed up. That was during the time you and Deline were separated. This tall, raven-haired beauty who’s looking over at you was the woman, right?”
Only now did it strike Andreas that Thea bore a superficial resemblance to both Deline and Irena. Sometimes it astounded him that he and Leon had similar tastes, not only in certain kinds of foods and sports, but in women. They were all striking brunettes.
“Yes,” he whispered. “And if I hadn’t gone to Deline and told her the truth about that night, it could have cost me my marriage. I still marvel that she forgave me enough to give us a second chance.”
Leon unexpectedly grabbed the paper out of his hand and balled it up in his fist. “Why are you reminding me of it? Look here, Andreas—” His cheeks had grown ruddy with unaccustomed anger.
“I have been looking,” he came back in a quiet voice. “Because I love you and Deline, for the last twenty-four hours I’ve been doing whatever it takes to protect you and keep this news confidential.”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you’d like to know the name of the woman you spent that hour with on the yacht. Her name was Thea Paulos, the divorced daughter of Richard Turner, of the Greek-American Consulate on Crete. Her ex-husband Dimitri Paulos is the son of Ari Paulos who owns Paulos Metal Exports, one of the subsidiary companies we acquired a few years ago.”
While his brother stood there swallowing hard, Andreas removed the twins’ photo and DNA results from the manila envelope and handed everything to him.
Stunned into silence, Leon sank down on the couch to stare at the children he’d unknowingly produced. Though Andreas had it in his heart to feel sorry for his brother’s predicament, a part of him thought Leon the luckiest man on earth to have fathered two such beautiful sons.
“I had our DNA compared to theirs. It’s a match.”
Leon’s face went white.
“I’ve seen them,” Andreas confided. Thanks to Gabi, he’d held and fed both of them, an experience he’d never forget.
His brother’s
