a journalist had found out about it and demanded money to keep quiet. Giannis had been loath to give in to blackmail, but coming soon after he’d broken up with Caroline, and the loss of his first child, his emotions had been raw and he’d been desperate to keep the details of his father’s death out of the media spotlight.
He had no idea how Stefanos’s nephew had found out about the journalist, and he guessed that Petros did not know what information the journalist had discovered. But the suggestion that there were secrets Giannis wanted to keep hidden must have been useful to Petros when he’d told Ava lies about him being involved with the Greek mafia. The story was so crazy it was laughable—yet Ava had believed Petros and as a result she had hidden her pregnancy, Giannis thought bitterly.
His jaw clenched as he remembered that while they had lived together at Villa Delphine he had been tempted to confess to Ava that he had been responsible for his father’s untimely death. Thank God he had not bared his soul to her. He certainly would not tell her the truth now. He could imagine her horrified reaction and he dared not risk her disappearing again with his baby.
‘Everything Petros told you was pure fabrication.’ He shrugged. ‘Believe me, or don’t believe me. I don’t give a damn. But you won’t keep my child from me. If you attempt to, I will seek custody and I will win because I have money and power and you have neither.’
‘No court ruling would allow a baby to be separated from its mother,’ Ava snapped, but she had paled.
Giannis flicked his eyes over her, his emotions once more under control. ‘Are you willing to take the risk?’
* * *
His black gaze was so cold. Ava gave a shiver. It seemed impossible that Giannis’s eyes had ever gleamed with warmth and laughter. Or that they had once been friends as well as lovers. But their wild passion had resulted in the baby that was growing bigger in her belly every day. Giannis’s child. It was strange how emotive those two words were, and even stranger that when she had seen him standing on the doorstep her body had quivered in response to his potent masculinity.
She must be the weakest woman in the world, she thought bleakly. He had barged his way into her home and threatened to try to take her baby from her, yet her heart ached as she roamed her eyes over his silky hair and the sculpted perfection of his features. She had thought about him constantly for the last three months but, standing in the chaotic sitting room, he was taller than she remembered and his shoulders were so broad beneath the black wool coat he wore.
He was like a dark avenging angel, but was his anger justified? Had she been too ready to believe the rumour that he was a criminal because of her father’s criminality? Ava wondered. Supposing Stefanos’s jealous nephew had lied? If she hadn’t had that devastating conversation with Petros, she would have told Giannis as soon as she’d done the test that she was pregnant, and perhaps he would not be looking down his nose at her as if she were something unpleasant that he had scraped off the bottom of his shoe.
A loud knock on the front door broke the tense silence in the sitting room. She glanced towards the window and saw a lorry parked outside the house. ‘We’ll have to continue this conversation another time,’ she told Giannis. ‘The removals firm are here to take my mother’s furniture into storage now that she has sold the house.’
He frowned. ‘I thought this house belonged to you, and you had sold it because you planned to move away so that I couldn’t find you.’
‘I lived here with my family before we moved to Cyprus. My father had registered the deeds of the house in my mother’s name. After my dad...’ she hesitated ‘...after my parents divorced, Mum, Sam and I came back to live here, although I went away to university. My mother and her new partner have bought a bed and breakfast business in the Peak District.’
‘So where will you live? I assume you will need to stay in the East End to be near to your work. At least while you are able to continue working until the baby is born,’ Giannis said, the groove between his brows deepening.
She looked away from him. ‘I was made redundant from my job when the victim support charity I worked for couldn’t continue to fund my role. I’ve arranged to rent a room in a friend’s house, but I’m thinking of moving back to Scotland where property is cheaper and I will be nearer to Sam and Mum.’
She would need help from her family after she became a single mother, Ava thought as she hurried down the hallway to open the front door. The removals team trooped in and it quickly became clear that she and Giannis were in the way, when the men started to carry furniture and boxes out to the van.
‘You had better go,’ she told him. ‘My friend Becky, who I am going to stay with, offered to come over later to collect my things as I don’t have a car.’
‘I’ll put whatever you want to take with you in my car and drive you to her house.’ Giannis’s crisp tone brooked no argument. ‘Which boxes are yours?’
She pointed to two packing boxes by the window and when his brows rose she said defensively, ‘I don’t like clutter, or see the point in having too many clothes.’
‘Is that why you left the dresses that I’d bought for you during our engagement back at the apartment in Athens?’
‘I left the clothes and the engagement ring behind because you did not buy me, Giannis.’ The idea that he had paid for the designer dresses and the beautiful pink sapphire ring with money he might have made illegally was repugnant to Ava, and a painful reminder of her privileged childhood which she’d later discovered had been funded by her father’s crimes.
Giannis’s eyes narrowed but he said nothing as he picked up one of the boxes which contained her worldly possessions. But when Ava bent down to pick up the second box he said sharply, ‘Put it down. You should not be lifting heavy things in your condition.’
‘Who do you think packed all the boxes and lugged them down the stairs?’ she said drily. ‘Mum is busy getting her new house ready and I have spent weeks clearing this place, ready for the new owners to move in.’
‘From now on you will not do any strenuous activity that could harm my baby,’ Giannis growled. His accent was suddenly thicker and he sounded very Greek and very possessive. Ava supposed she should feel furious that he was being so bossy, but her stupid heart softened at his concern for his child. Since she’d left Athens she had debated endlessly with herself about whether she should tell him she was pregnant. One reason for not doing so was that she had assumed he would be angry at having fatherhood foisted on him. She was surprised by his determination to be involved with the baby.
She had already given the house keys to the estate agent and when she walked down the front path for the last time Ava realised that she was severing the final link with her father. Number fifty-one Arthur Close was where Terry McKay had plotted his armed robberies and controlled his turf. He had been a ruthless gangland boss, but to Ava he had been a fun person who had built her a treehouse in the garden. She had been utterly taken in by her father’s charming manner but finding out the truth about him had left her deeply untrusting.
After the bitterly cold wind whipping down Arthur Close, the interior of Giannis’s car was a warm and luxurious haven. Ava sank deep into the leather upholstery and gave him the postcode of Becky’s house.
‘Put your seat belt on,’ he reminded her. But, before she could reach for it, he leaned across her and she breathed in the spicy scent of his aftershave. He smelled divine, and for a moment his face was close to hers and she hated herself for wanting to press her lips to the dark stubble that shaded his
