was his. He’d looked exactly the same at her age—thick, dark, curly hair, and something indescribably haunted about her large brown eyes. Dimitri acknowledged that that might have been fanciful on his part. But surely, with an alcoholic criminal as a mother, that was a given.
‘You have no actual proof that the child is yours.’
‘I don’t need it. I know it. Know that she is my blood. The timing fits, and, Theos, David, you read the email, you saw that picture too.’
David nodded his head reluctantly. ‘We could engage Social Services, but that would cause publicity and scandal.’
‘No. I will not have any more scandal attached to the Kyriakou name. Besides, it would take too long. The reason you’re here is to help me get what I want without any of that. I can’t afford for the press to find out about this yet. The mother is clearly only in it for the money. A little legal jargon will help grease the wheels, so to speak.’
The satnav on his phone told him to take the next left. How on earth Dimitri had found his way to that little bed and breakfast three years before, he had no idea.
‘Are you sure you want to do this? As I said, legally your position is not the strongest.’
‘She lost her right to any legal standing when she tried to blackmail me,’ Dimitri bit out.
How could he have been so deceived? Again? How could he have let that happen?
Throughout his wrongful imprisonment, fourteen months incarcerated and locked behind bars like an animal, he’d held up the memory of that one night, of her, as a shining beacon in the darkness. A moment completely for him, known only to them. He’d lived off the sounds of her pleasure, the cries of ecstasy and that first, single moment—the moment when he’d been shocked, and ever so secretly pleased, to find that she had been a virgin—he’d drawn it deep within him, hugged it to him and allowed it to get him through the worst of the time he’d spent in prison.
Had he been deceived by her innocence? Had she really been a virgin? But even he had to acknowledge that thought as inherently wrong. It may have been the only true thing about Mary Moore. But the rest? She’d lied. She’d kept a secret from him. And she’d live to regret it for the rest of her life. Because nothing would prevent him from claiming his child.
* * *
Anna gasped as the rain pelted down even harder. It snuck beneath the neck of the waterproof jacket she’d slung around her shoulders the moment she got the phone call. She hadn’t had the presence of mind to bring an umbrella though. She dug her hand into the pocket and pulled out the only protection she had with her against the elements. And the irony of that was enough to poke and prod at the miserable situation she was in.
She pulled the large, thin envelope from her pocket and held it over her head as the paper ate up the rain in seconds, and water dripped down her jacket sleeve and arm, to eagerly soak the cotton of her T-shirt.
It didn’t matter if the letter got wet. She knew it word for word by now.
We regret to inform you...owing to late payments...as per the mortgage terms...right to repossess...
She was about to lose the small bed and breakfast she’d inherited from her grandmother, the place where both she and her mother had been born and had grown up. It might never have been the future that she had imagined for herself, but it was the only one she could cling to in order to support her child. How had her mother managed to keep this from her? Mary Moore was barely functioning as it was. But—Anna supposed—that was the beauty of being an alcoholic. Even in her worst state, her mother managed to hide, conceal, lie.
Through the pounding of the rain, Anna could hear the raucous sounds of music and shouts coming from the only building with signs of life on the road. Light bled out from the frosted windows, barely illuminating the wet benches in the courtyard. Anna braced herself for what was guaranteed to be a pretty bloody sight.
She pushed open the door to the pub, and the men at the bar stopped talking and turned to stare. They always stared. The colour of her skin—the only thing her Vietnamese father had left her with after abandoning them before her birth—had always marked her as an outsider, as a reminder of her mother’s shame. She shook out the letter, put the sodden paper back into her pocket and ran a hand through her hair to release the clusters of raindrops still clinging to the fine strands. The smell of warm beer and stale cigarettes defiantly smoked even after the ban hung heavy on the air.
She locked eyes with the owner, who stared back almost insolently.
‘Why did you serve her?’ Anna demanded.
The owner shrugged. ‘She had the money.’ As if in consolation, Eamon nodded in the direction of the snug.
She could hear sniggers coming from the men who had turned their backs to her and anger pooled low in her stomach. It was a hot, fiery thing that moved like a snake and bit like one too.
‘What, you’ve never seen a drunk woman before?’ she demanded of the room.
‘She’s not a woman, she’s a—’
‘Say that word and I’ll—’
‘That’s enough,’ Eamon interrupted, though whether for Anna’s sake or for his peace and quiet, she couldn’t tell.
She stepped through to the snug. Her mother was sitting alone in the empty room, surrounded by round wooden tables. She looked impossibly small, and in front of her, next to a newspaper, was a short glass filled with clear liquid—probably vodka. Anna hoped for vodka; gin always made it harder. She took a seat next to her and pushed down her mounting frustration. Anger never helped this situation.
Mary looked worse than the last time she’d seen her. From the day Amalia was born, Anna knew she couldn’t allow Mary to continue to live with them. She wouldn’t take the risk that her drunken outbursts could harm her daughter. She’d arranged for her mother to live with one of the only family friends Mary Moore had left. And their exchanges ever since had been loaded and painful.
‘What happened, Ma? Where did the money come from?’ Anna hated the sadness in her voice.
‘I thought I’d be able to pay off some of the mortgage... I thought...just one drink... I thought...’
‘Thought what, Ma?’ Anna couldn’t imagine what her mother was talking about, but she was used to the circulatory nature of conversations when she was in this state. The small flame of hope she’d nursed in the last few weeks as her mother had stayed sober and even talked of rehab spluttered out and died on a gasp.
‘Even when he got out of prison, I thought he was guilty...but when they arrested his brother...’
Oh, God. She was talking about Dimitri.
Her mother nudged at the newspaper. Beside the main article was coverage of the forthcoming Dublin Horse Race, with a black and white picture of three men celebrating a win in Buenos Aires. Her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn straight to one man: Dimitri Kyriakou.
‘And he has all that money...so...’ Mary Moore’s words were beginning to slur a little around the edges. ‘So I did what you never had the courage to do.’
‘What did you do, Ma?’
‘A
