question, but it seemed to make the girl flinch. Seeing her now, like this, had not improved her looks, he noted absently. She was still abysmally dressed, without any attention to her appearance.
‘He’s asleep,’ she answered stiffly.
The dark eyes rested on her. ‘I would like to see him.’
It was not a request. It was a statement of intent. His eyes went past her to the half-open bedroom door and he stepped towards it. Inside was a cot beside a bed, and in the cot the small figure of a baby nestled in a fleecy blanket. In the dim light from the drawn curtains Anatole could not make out the baby’s features.
Are you Marcos’s son? Are you the child I’ve come to find? The questions burned in his head. Instinctively he moved to step into the room. Immediately a low-voiced hiss sounded behind him.
‘Please don’t wake him!’
He could hear a note in her voice that was not just a command but a plea. Abruptly, he nodded, reversing out of the cramped room, causing her to back away into the equally small living room.
Once again she felt his presence dominate the poky space.
‘You had better sit down, Miss Brandon,’ he said, indicating the sofa as though he, not her, was the host.
Stiffly, she did so. Somehow she had to find a way to make him go away—leave her and Georgy alone. Then it came to her just why he might be here. What he might be after.
‘If you want me to sign papers saying I forfeit any claim to his father’s estate, I will do so straight away,’ she blurted out. ‘I don’t want any money, or maintenance, or anything like that. Georgy and I are fine as we are—we’re all sorted!’ She swallowed again, altering her tone of voice. Her eyes shadowed suddenly. ‘I’m sorry to hear that your cousin is...is dead...but—’ her eyes met his unflinchingly ‘—but it doesn’t change the fact that he was not in the slightest bit interested in Georgy’s existence, so—’
Anatole Telonidis held up a hand. It was a simple gesture, but it carried with it an expectation that she would cease talking.
Which she did.
‘My cousin is...was,’ he corrected himself painfully, ‘the only Petranakos grandson of our mutual grandfather, Timon. Marcos’s parents died when he was only a teenager and consequently...’ Anatole paused. ‘He was very precious to our grandfather. His death has devastated him.’ He took another heavy breath. ‘Marcos’s death came as a viciously cruel blow—he was killed driving the car that our grandfather had given him for his birthday. It was a birthday Timon knew would likely be the last he would see, because...’ Anatole paused again, then finished the bleak saga. ‘Because Timon had himself just been diagnosed with advanced incurable cancer.’
He fell silent, letting the information sink in. Lynette Brandon was sitting there, looking ashen.
‘You will understand, I know,’ he went on quietly, ‘how much it will mean to Timon to know that, although he has lost his grandson, a great-grandson exists.’ He read her expression. It was blank, rejecting. He had to convince her of the argument he was making. ‘There is very little time,’ he pressed. ‘The cancer was very advanced at the point of diagnosis, and since my cousin’s death my grandfather has refused all treatment—even though treatment could keep him alive for a little while longer. He is waiting to die—for with the loss of his grandson he has no reason to live at all. Not even for one single day.’ Then he finished what he had come to say. ‘Your sister’s baby—my cousin’s son—gives him that reason.’
He stood looking down at her. Her face was still ashen, her hands twisting in her lap. He spoke again, his voice grave. He had to convince her of the urgency of what had to happen.
‘I need to take Georgy to Greece with me. I need to take him as soon as possible. My dying grandfather needs to know that his great-grandson will grow up in the country of his father—’
‘No! No, I won’t let you!’ The words burst from her and she leapt to her feet.
Anatole pressed his lips together in frustration. ‘You are overwrought,’ he repeated. ‘It is understandable—this has come as a shock to you. I wish that matters were not as urgent as they are. But with Timon’s state of health I have to press you on this! The very last thing I want,’ he said heavily, ‘is to turn this into any kind of battle between us. I need—I want—your co-operation! You do not need me to tell you,’ he added, and his eyes were dark now, ‘that once DNA testing has proved Marcos’s paternity, then—’
‘There isn’t going to be any DNA testing!’ Lyn shot back at him.
Anatole stopped. There was something in her voice—something in her face—that alerted him. There was more than obduracy in it—more than anger, even.
There was fear.
His antennae went into overdrive. Thee mou, might the child not be Marcos’s after all? Everything about those plaintive, pitiful letters he’d read indicated that the baby’s mother had been no promiscuous party girl, that she had fallen in love with his cousin, however unwisely. No, the child she had been carrying was his. He was certain of it. Timon, he knew, would require proof before he designated the baby his heir, but that would surely be a formality?
His thoughts raced back to the moment in hand. The expression on Lynette Brandon’s face made no sense. She was the one objecting to any idea of taking Marcos’s son back to Greece—if the baby were not Marcos’s after all surely she would positively want DNA testing done!
He frowned. There was something else that didn’t make sense, either. Something odd about her name. Its similarity to her sister’s. Abruptly he spoke. ‘Why is your sister’s name so like yours?’ he asked shortly. He frowned. ‘It is unusual—confusing, as I have found—for sisters to have such similar names. Lynette and Linda.’
‘So what?’ she countered belligerently. ‘What does it matter now?’
Anatole fixed his gaze on her. His antennae were now registering that same flash of emotion in her as he’d seen when he had mentioned DNA testing, but he had no time to consider it further. Lynette Brandon was launching into him again. Her voice was vehement, passionate.
‘Have I finally got you to understand, Mr Telonidis, that your journey here has been wasted? I’m sorry—sorry about your cousin, sorry about your grandfather—but Georgy is staying here with me! He is not going to be brought up in Greece. He is mine!’
‘Is he?’
His brief, blunt question cut right across her. Silencing her.
In her eyes, her face, flared that same emotion he had seen a moment ago—fear.
What is going on here?
The question flared in his head and stayed there, even though her voice broke that moment of silence with a single hissing word.
‘Yes!’ she grated fiercely.
Anatole levelled his gaze at her. Behind his impassive expression his mind was working fast. Since learning that morning about the double tragedy that had hit this infant, overturning his assumption that Marcos’s son was with his birth mother, he had set his lawyers to ascertain exactly what the legal situation was with regard to custody of the orphaned boy—and what might
