her family and spoil everyone’s delight, with the news her own child was due a couple of months earlier?’ she queried sharply, so caught up in her own emotions she never saw the flash of anger in his dark eyes.
‘Anyway, she didn’t want to. She didn’t want her child brought up to be like her father, a chauvinistic tyrant who blamed her for the death of her mother.’ Leon’s head did jerk at that but he did not stop her. ‘She didn’t think you were much better after you agreed with him to ship her off to boarding-school because of a couple of teenage flirtations.’
His mouth twisted cynically. ‘Of course, you agreed with her, and it never entered your head she might have been better served if you had gotten in touch with her family.’
‘No, I didn’t just agree with her,’ Helen retorted hotly. ‘I told her to do just that.’ She paused, her anger fading at the memory of what had happened next—the death of her grandfather.
‘Very laudable, I’m sure, but not very believable given the present circumstances,’ Leon remarked cynically.
‘You are wrong. I only agreed to help her after she returned from the Easter holiday, and came here for my grandfather’s funeral. She told me that no one had even noticed she was pregnant,’ Helen shot back scathingly, ‘which rather proved her point.’
‘Regrettable. But not worth arguing over,’ he opined flatly. ‘We now have a young boy’s future to consider, a boy without parents.’ His dark eyes narrowed intently on her pale face. ‘Unless you happen to know the name of the father?’
‘Delia told me he was dead,’ she said, avoiding his astute gaze. She had also made Helen promise never to reveal the man’s identity, and she saw no reason to break her word now.
‘You are sure?’
‘Absolutely,’ Helen said firmly, looking straight up at Leon. Delia had shown her a newspaper cutting of the train crash that had killed the man.
‘Good.’ She had not given him a name, which Leon was sure she knew. Miss Heywood had very expressive eyes and she had avoided looking at him when she had answered, and for the opposite reason he believed her when she said the man was dead. ‘Then there is no fear of anyone appearing out of the blue to claim the boy. That only leaves you and I.’
‘Before you say anything more—’ Helen rushed into speech ‘—you should know when Nicholas was born Delia made me his guardian, with her, until he is twenty-one. It was necessary in case of emergency and so he could be enrolled with a doctor and the like, and I have the documentation to prove it.’ She felt some guilt for what she had allowed to happen, but even so she wasn’t about to give Nicholas up to this granite-faced autocrat without a fight.
‘I’m sure you have,’ he drawled cynically. ‘Before I arrived here I visited a lawyer in London, a Mr Smyth, and he is in possession of Delia’s last will and testament. In it she makes you a substantial beneficiary of her estate, twenty per cent to be precise, and you and I are now joint trustees of Nicholas’ money, as I am sure you know.’ Helen’s mouth fell open in shock. ‘Don’t look so surprised—after all, you are now probably the best paid nanny in the history of the world, as I am sure you also know.’
There was a sinking feeling in the pit of Helen’s stomach when she heard the absolute decisiveness in his tone, and she knew he was telling the truth.
‘Delia left me money.’ She gazed up at him in shock and saw the contemptuous expression on his hard face. ‘I didn’t know, and I don’t want it. I love Nicholas. I agreed to be his guardian to help Delia but not for money,’ she said, horrified and furious that this man could think so badly of her. ‘And I find it incredible that she made you Nicholas’ guardian as well, she told me she did not want Nicholas growing up like you,’ she blurted out unthinkingly.
Leon’s astute gaze narrowed, his needle-sharp brain instantly recognising Helen Haywood in her upset and anger had made a simple mistake. He had said he was a trustee of the boy’s estate, not a joint guardian. But he had no qualms about using her assumption to his advantage. Despite her protestations, and the care she had taken of the child, she was nothing more than a little gold-digger. ‘It seems my little sister said a damn sight too much and not always the truth,’ he drawled. ‘But never mind, it is not important. What is important is Nicholas.’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ she cried. ‘I have looked after him from birth; I love him as my own. Nicholas’ future happiness is all I care about.’
‘Excellent.’ He ignored the flare of anguish in her violet eyes. ‘Then you can have no objection to Nicholas coming back to Greece with me.’
‘But that’s insane,’ she responded emphatically. ‘You can’t just snatch him away from here. This is the only home he’s ever known.’
‘Then it is way past time he got to know his own. Nicholas is Greek, and he will quickly adapt. He will enjoy living in my home with my staff to attend to his every need. He will certainly enjoy the sunny climate rather than this constant cold grey drizzle. He is an Aristides and as such will have the best education available, and will eventually take his rightful place in Aristides International.’ Leon let his hard eyes sweep over her with a calculated arrogance.
‘You say you don’t want the money Delia left you, yet, according to the receptionist at the hotel where I stopped to book a room for the night, you are employed as a part-time carer in the crèche for the guests’ children. While a very laudable occupation, it is hardly going to make you a fortune,’ he mocked. ‘A fortune I already have, so what can you offer Nicholas to compare?’
Seething that the superior swine had the audacity to discuss her circumstances with a total stranger, Helen had had enough. ‘Money is not everything. I love Nicholas—something you, by all accounts, know nothing about.’ She did some mocking of her own.
‘Ah, Delia again, I presume. You should not believe everything you hear.’
‘Well, your marriage was no love match, rather it facilitated the acquisition of an American bank, according to Delia.’ She lashed back, her anger overriding her common sense. ‘What kind of example are you going to set for a trusting, lovable young boy like Nicholas?’
‘A realistic one,’ he stated rising to his feet and walking around to where she sat. ‘Not the kind of independent, idealistic fairy-tale view of life you and my sister adhered to.’ He captured her chin between his finger and thumb and tilted her head back so she was forced to meet the savage darkness in his eyes. ‘Look where love and independence got Delia and tell me I am wrong.’
Helen was speechless for a moment, her hands curled into fists in her lap in an effort to suppress the furious urge to hit him. His sister was dead, and his sneering comment was a low blow.
‘Oh! And your way was so much better—you managed to lose both your wife and your child,’ she snapped. ‘At least Nicholas is safe, and you are the most detestable man it has ever been my misfortune to meet. I wouldn’t let you look after my pet goldfish.’
As he towered over her his fingers tightened on her chin and she thought he was going to break her jaw during the taut silence that followed. Belatedly Helen realised she had gone way too far with her personal comment on his private life. If she wanted to keep in touch with Nicholas she had to get along with this man; how, she had no idea.
Then from just inside the kitchen door a high-pitched voice yelled, ‘Let go of my Helen, you nasty man.’
A
