leapt to her feet, fear and panic impelling her. Too much had happened—shock after shock—and she couldn’t cope with it, couldn’t take it in.
Anatole stepped towards her, urgency in his voice. ‘Miss Brandon, we have to talk—discuss—’
‘No! There’s nothing to discuss! Nothing!’
And then, before his frustrated gaze, she rushed from the room.
Lyn fled. Her mind was in turmoil. Though she managed to make her way into her next lecture she was incapable of concentrating. Only one single emotion was uppermost.
Georgy is mine! Mine, mine, mine!
Lindy had given the baby to her with her dying breath and she would never, never betray that! Never!
Grief clutched at Lyn again.
‘Look after Georgy—’
They had been Lindy’s final words before the darkness had closed over her fevered, stricken brain and she had ebbed from life.
And I will! I will look after him all my life—all his life—and I will never let any harm come to him, never abandon him or give up him!
‘Just you and me, Georgy!’ she whispered later as, morning lectures finally over, she collected him from the college crèche and made her way to the bus stop and back home for the afternoon.
But as she clambered on board the bus, stashing the folding buggy one-handed as she held Georgy in the other, she completely failed to see an anonymous black car pull out into the road behind the bus. Following it.
Two hours later Anatole stood in front of the block of flats his investigator had informed him was Lynette Brandon’s place of accommodation and stared bleakly at it. It was not an attractive building, being of ugly sixties design, with stained concrete and peeling paint. The whole area was just as dreary—no place for Timon Petranakos’s great-grandson to be brought up!
Resolve steeling, he rang the doorbell.
CHAPTER TWO
LYN HAD SAT down at the rickety table in the corner of the living room and got out her study books. Georgy had been fed and changed, and had settled for his afternoon nap in his secondhand cot, tucked in beside her bed in the single bedroom the flat possessed. She was grateful for Georgy’s afternoon sleep, even though if he slept too much he didn’t sleep well at night, for it gave her an hour or two of solid homework time. But today her concentration was shot to pieces—still reeling with what had happened that morning.
Hopefully she had made her position clear and the man who had lobbed a bombshell into her life would take himself off again, back to Greece, and leave her alone. Anxiety rippled through her again. The adoption authorities believed that there was no contact with Georgy’s father or any of his paternal family. But since this morning that wasn’t true any more...
No, she mustn’t think about that! She must put it behind her. Put behind her all the dark, disturbing images of the man whose incredible good looks were such a source of disturbance to her. For a moment his image formed in her mind, overpowering in its masculine impact. She thrust it impatiently aside and started reading her textbook.
Two minutes later she was interrupted. The doorbell had sounded. Imperative. Demanding.
Her head shot up. Who on earth...? No one called on her here.
The bell rang again. Warily, heart thumping suddenly, she went to the door, lifting up the entryphone.
‘Who is it?’ she asked sharply.
‘Miss Brandon—we need to continue our conversation.’
It was Anatole Telonidis.
For a moment Lyn remained motionless. Don’t let him in! The childish, fearful words sounded in her head, but she knew she could not obey them. She had to get this conversation over and done with. Then she could send him away and never see him again—never be troubled again by the existence of Georgy’s father’s family. Nervelessly she pressed the entry buzzer, and a few moments later opened her front door.
He was just as tall and formidable as she remembered. Taller, it seemed, in her poky flat. But it was not just his size and demeanour that pressed on her senses. His physical presence was dominating more than just the space he stood in. It was making her horribly aware all over again of his dark, devastating looks.
Desperately she tried to crush down her awareness of them. It was the last thing she should be paying any attention to right now!
Besides, a vicious little voice in her head was reminding her to think about what he was seeing! He was seeing a plain-faced nobody who was wearing ancient baggy jeans and a thick frumpy jumper, with her hair tied back and not a scrap of make-up. A man like him wouldn’t even look once, let alone twice!
Oh, for God’s sake, what are you even thinking of? Focus—just focus! This is about Georgy and what this man wants—or doesn’t want.
And how quickly she could get rid of him...
She stared at him. He seemed to be looking about him, then past her into the small living room, with its shabby furniture, worn carpet and hideously patterned curtains. Her chin went up. Yes, the place was uninviting, but it was cheap, and it came furnished, and she wasn’t going to be choosy. She couldn’t afford to be—not until she was earning a decent salary. Till then Georgy didn’t care that he wasn’t anywhere nice. And neither did she.
This man who had dropped a bombshell into her life, however, looked as if he cared—and he didn’t like what he was seeing.
‘I hope,’ he said evenly, ‘that you have now had a chance to come to terms with what I told you this morning, and that you understand,’ he continued, ‘how imperative it is that we discuss my cousin’s son’s future.’
‘There’s nothing to discuss,’ she replied tightly.
Anatole’s mouth tightened. So she was still taking that line. Well, he would have to disabuse her of it—that was all. In the meantime there was something that was even more imperative. He wanted to see Marcos’s son—see him with his own eyes. He looked around the room.
‘Where is the baby?’ he asked. He hadn’t meant it to sound like a demand, only a 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
