moment she was indoors, she stepped away.
‘Well?’ she said, lifting her eyebrows, her expression still unyielding.
His eyes had gone to where a small bar opened up off the lobby, and she walked stiffly to one of the tables, sat herself down. The place was almost empty, and she was glad. She ordered coffee for herself and Anatole did likewise, adding a brandy.
Only when the drinks arrived did he speak. ‘I’ve heard from Vasilis’s London solicitors,’ he opened.
Christine’s eyes went to him. She was burningly conscious of him there—of his tall, effortlessly elegant body, of the achingly familiar scent of his aftershave, of the slight darkening of his jawline at this advanced hour of the evening.
How she had loved to rub her fingers along the roughening edges, feeling passion start to quicken...
Yet again, she hauled her mind away. Anatole’s voice was clipped, restrained as he continued. She realised he was tense, and wondered why.
‘Now that probate has been granted they have told me the contents of Vasilis’s will.’ The words came reluctantly from him, his mouth tight. His eyes rested on her face, looking at her blankly. Then his expression changed. ‘Why did you let me think you would inherit all my uncle’s personal fortune for yourself?’
Christine’s eyes widened. ‘I didn’t,’ she said tightly. ‘That, Anatole,’ she added, her voice sharp, ‘was something you assumed entirely on your own!’
He half lifted his hand—as if her objection were irrelevant. As if there were more he had to say.
‘My uncle’s wealth has been left entirely in trust for his son—you get only a trivial income for yourself. Everything else belongs to Nicky!’
Her eyes flickered and her chin lifted. ‘I wouldn’t call my income trivial. It’s over thirty thousand pounds a year,’ she replied.
‘Chickenfeed!’ he said dismissively.
Her expression tightened. ‘To you, yes. To me it’s enough to live on if I have to—more than enough. I was penniless when I married Vasilis—as you reminded me. Of course everything must go to Nicky. And besides—’ she allowed a flash of cynicism to show in her eyes ‘—as I’m sure you will point out to me, I will continue to reap the benefits of Nicky’s inheritance while he’s a minor. I get to live in a Queen Anne country house, and I’ll have all of Nicky’s money to enjoy while he grows up.’
A hand lifted and slashed sideways. ‘But you will have no spending money other than your own income.’
Her composure snapped. ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Anatole. What am I going to spend money on? I have enough clothes to last me a lifetime. And I’ve told you I have no ambition to racket around the world causing scandals, as you so charmingly accused me of wanting to do. I simply want to go on living where I do now—for my sake as much as Nicky’s. It’s where he’s grown up so far, where I have friends and know people who knew Vasilis and liked him, valued him. If I want to take Nicky on holiday, of course funds will be made available to me. I shall want for nothing—though I’m sure you’ll be the first to accuse me of the opposite!’
She saw him reach for his brandy, take a hefty mouthful before setting it down on the table with a decisive click.
‘I can accuse you of nothing.’ He took a breath—a deep, shuddering breath—and focussed his eyes on her. Emotion worked in his face. ‘Instead—’ He stopped, abruptly. His expression changed. So did his voice. ‘Instead,’ he repeated, ‘I have to apologise. I said things to you that I...that were unfair—’
He broke off again. Reached for his coffee and downed it. Then he was looking at her again. As if she were not the person he had thought her to be.
But she isn’t. She’s not the avaricious, ambitious gold-digger I thought. It was she who insisted on Vasilis leaving his personal fortune to Nicky, his lawyers told me, with nothing for her apart from that paltry income.
It was not what he’d expected to hear. But because of it...
It changes everything.
It was the same phrase that had burst from him when he’d discovered the existence of Vasilis’s son, and now it burned in his head again, bringing to the fore the second thing he had to tell her. The imperative that had been building up in him, fuelled by that strange, compelling emotion that had filled him when he’d crouched down beside the little boy to console and comfort him.
‘I would like to see Nicky again—soon.’
Immediately Christine’s face was masked.
‘He is my blood,’ he said tightly. ‘He should know me. Even if—’ He stopped.
She filled the gap, her face still closed. Her tone was acid. ‘Even if I am his mother?’
Anatole’s brows drew together in a frown. ‘I did not mean—’ Again he broke off.
He’d just told her he couldn’t accuse her of wanting her husband’s fortune—but she’d still persuaded a man thirty years older than her to marry her in order to acquire the lavish lifestyle she could never have achieved otherwise. That alone must condemn her. What other interpretation could there be for what she had done when she had left him to marry his uncle?
Conflict and confusion writhed in him again.
‘Yes, you did,’ Christine retorted, her tone still acid. ‘Anatole, look—try to understand something. You may not have wanted to marry me, to have a child with me—but your uncle did. It was his choice to marry me. You insult him if you think otherwise and your approval was not necessary.’
She saw his hand clench, emotion flash across his face, but she didn’t want to hear any more. She got to her feet, weariness sweeping over her. She longed for Vasilis’s protective company, but he was gone. She was alone in the world now. Except for Nicky—her beloved son.
The most precious being in the universe to her.
The very reason she had married.
* * *
Anatole watched her walk out—an elegant, graceful woman. A woman he had once held in his arms, known intimately—and yet now she was like a stranger. Even the name she insisted on calling herself emphasised that.
Emotion roiled within him in the confusing mesh that swirled so confusingly in his head, that he could make no sense of.
But there was one thing he could make sense of.
Whatever his conflicting thoughts about Tia—or Christine, as she now preferred to be known—and whatever she had done...abandoning him, marrying his uncle, remaking her life as Vasilis’s oh-so-young wife...she’d gone up in the world in a way that she could never have imagined possible the day she had trudged down that London street with a heavy suitcase holding all her possessions.
Now she was transformed into a woman who was poised and chicly dressed, who was able—of all things!—to introduce an exhibition of ancient artefacts as if she were perfectly well acquainted with such esoteric knowledge. Yes, whatever she had done in these years when he had never seen her,
