million thoughts shouted in her mind. She, more than anyone, knew the truth of her mother’s statement. But she had tried to garner his support...she had tried to tell him once about his daughter: nineteen months ago, on the day she, along with the rest of the world, discovered his innocence. She’d called his office and had been met with a response that proved to her that the man she’d spent one reckless night with, the man to whom she had given so much of herself, her true self, had been a figment of her fevered imagination.
‘Ma?’
‘At least you picked one with money...he was willing to pay fifty thousand euros in exchange for our silence.’
Sickness rose in Anna’s stomach. Pure, unadulterated nausea.
‘Jesus, Ma—’
The slap came out of nowhere.
Hard, more than stinging. Anna’s head rang and the buzzing in her ears momentarily drowned out the shock.
‘Do not take His name in vain, Anna Moore.’
In that one strike, years and years of loneliness, anger and frustration rose within Anna. She locked eyes with her mother and watched the righteous indignation turn to guilt and misery.
‘Oh, Anna, I’m so—’
‘Stop.’
‘Anna—’
‘No.’ Anna put her hand up, knowing what her ma would say, knowing the cycle of begging, pleading and justification that would follow. But she couldn’t let it happen this time.
Had Dimitri really paid a sum of money to reject their daughter? A hurt so deep it felt endless opened up in her heart. The ache was much stronger than the throbbing in her cheek.
Anna rubbed her chest with the palm of her hand, trying to soothe the pain that she knew she would feel for days, possibly even years. This was what she’d wanted to avoid for her daughter—the sting of rejection, the feeling of being unwanted...unloved. She wouldn’t let her daughter suffer that pain. She just wouldn’t.
Anna looked at her mother, seeming even smaller now that she was hunched in on herself. The sounds of familiar tears coming from her shaking body.
Eamon poked his head around the entrance to the snug. There was pity in his eyes, and she hated him for it. She hated this whole damn village.
‘I’ll make sure she’s okay for the night.’
‘Do that,’ Anna said as she walked out of the pub with her head held high. She wouldn’t let them see her cry. She never had.
Anna didn’t notice that the rain had stopped as she made her way back to the small family business she had barely managed to hold on to through the years. All she could think of was her little daughter, Amalia. Her gorgeous dark brown eyes, and thick curly hair. Sounds of her laughter, her tears and the first cries she’d made on this earth echoed in her mind. And the miraculous moment that, after being placed in her arms for the first time, Amalia opened her eyes and Anna had felt...love. Pure, unconditional, heart-stopping love. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for her daughter.
The day she’d discovered that she was pregnant with Dimitri’s child was the day that his sentence had been handed to him by the American judge. She’d almost felt the gavel fall onto the bench, as if it had tolled against her own heart. She’d never wanted to believe him guilty of the accusations levelled at him, the theft of millions of dollars from the American clients of the Kyriakou Bank, but what had she known of him then? Only that he was a man who liked whisky, had driven her to the highest of imaginable pleasures and left her bed the following morning without a word.
Hating to think that her child would bear the stigma of such a parent, she’d determined to keep the identity of Amalia’s father to herself. But when she’d heard of his innocence? And tried to get in touch with him? Only to hear that she was just one of several women making the same ‘claim’? She practically growled at the memory. Her daughter wasn’t a claim. Amalia had been eight months old, and from that day she’d promised to be both mother and father to her child. She’d promised to ensure that Amalia would be happy, secure and know above all that she was loved. She wanted to give her daughter the one thing she had never had growing up after her own father had abandoned his pregnant wife.
As she walked up the path towards the front of the bed and breakfast she could see a small minibus in the driveway. The three customers who had checked in earlier that day were stowing their bags in the back.
Mr Carter and his wife saw her first.
‘This is absolutely unacceptable. I’ll be adding this to my review.’
‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, her interruption momentarily stopping Mr Carter’s tirade.
‘We booked with you in good faith, Ms Moore. I suppose the only good thing is that we’re upgrading to the hotel in town. But really. To be kicked out with no explanation at ten thirty at night... Not good, Ms Moore. Not good.’
Before Anna could do anything further, her customers disappeared onto the bus. She jumped out of the way as it backed out of the drive, leaving only one man standing in front of the door to her home.
Dimitri Kyriakou. Looking just as furious as she felt.
* * *
Dimitri had been pacing the small bar where he’d first met Mary Moore. Somewhere in the back of the building a member of Mary’s staff was holding his daughter in her arms and looking at him as if he were the devil.
From inside, he heard the irate conversation from one of the customers. She’d returned.
In just a few strides Dimitri exited the bar, passed along the short hallway and out through the front door, just in time to see the bus departing.
He’d let anger drive him out here, but he was stopped in his tracks the moment he caught sight of the woman who had nearly, nearly, succeeded in separating him from his child.
Tendrils of long, dark hair whipped around her face, her green eyes bright with something he could recognise. Anger was far too insipid a word for the storm that was brewing between them. She looked...incredible. And he hated her for it. She was better than any of his imprisoned dreams could have conjured. But wasn’t that how the devil worked? Looking like the ultimate temptation whilst cutting out a soul?
‘What are you doing here? And what have you done to my guests?’ she demanded.
The hostility in her tone was nothing he’d ever imagined hearing from her lips. But he was happy to hear it. Happy to have it match his own.
‘We need to talk; they were in the way. I got rid of them.’
Money was an incredible thing. It had been both his saviour and his destroyer, but this time he was going to use it to help him get what he wanted...what he needed.
The woman holding his daughter moved into the hallway behind him, drawing Mary’s attention. He watched as the mother of his child rushed past him, forcing him to back out of her way, and swept their daughter up in her arms.
They made a striking image, Mary’s dark head buried in the crook of their daughter’s
