Cocooned in the luxury of Sebastien’s car, Alesia stared out of the window, watching the sights of London pass by. ‘Oh, look! There’s the Monument. It was built to commemorate the Great Fire of London.’ She gazed upwards to the viewing area. ‘I remember my mother taking me there on one of her rare periods out of the hospital. I climbed all the way up to the top, all three hundred and eleven steps, while she waited in the street and waved.’
Slightly choked by the memory, she met Sebastien’s eye and gave a wobbly smile.
He hesitated and then reached out and took her hand in his. ‘You must have missed her dreadfully.’
She gave a tiny shrug. ‘To be honest, I was so young when it all happened that I just grew up with it all. I just accepted that my mum wasn’t like other people’s—that our lives were different.’
‘How did the press never discover that your mother was alive?’ he demanded with blatant incredulity. ‘How did they never find out about you? You are the only living relatives of one of the richest men on the planet and yet everyone seems unaware of your existence.’
‘Like you, they weren’t looking,’ Alesia said simply. ‘We returned to London. My grandfather insisted that my mother reverted to her maiden name and I used the same name. We were called Rawlings. And that was that.’
The beginning of years of hardship that she couldn’t even begin to describe.
‘That explains why you didn’t respond when I addressed you as Philipos at our first meeting,’ Sebastien mused. ‘Presumably you took that name at your grandfather’s insistence?’
Alesia couldn’t hide her distaste. ‘I hated using his name but it was all part of my grandfather’s plan to make me seem part of his family,’ she said bleakly. ‘When you called me Miss Philipos, it used to take me a while to realize that you were talking to me. All my life I’d been Rawlings.’
‘Your mother is a brave woman.’
‘Don’t tell her.’ Alesia snatched her hand away from his, her expression urgent. She had to make him understand. ‘All her life she has blamed the feud between our two families. We can’t tell her I married a Fiorukis; it would kill her.’
His expression didn’t alter by so much as a flicker. ‘I want you to stop worrying,’ he commanded, lounging back in his seat with a complete lack of concern. ‘You are looking very pale. You need to rest.’
Alesia wished she could be half as relaxed. Her mind was racing through all the possibilities and none of them seemed attractive. ‘I can’t rest until we decide what we’re going to say to her,’ she said breathlessly, her brow lined with worry. ‘I didn’t know what to say to explain my absence so I told her that I’d taken a job in Greece and—’
He leaned forward in a swift movement, his dark eyes clashing with hers. ‘Stop worrying,’ he instructed firmly. ‘I will take over from here.’
She chewed on her lower lip. ‘But—’
‘Rest assured that I will do nothing to hurt your mother further,’ he said quietly and she stared at him for a long moment.
‘Why would you do that?’
His gaze was suddenly hooded. ‘All sorts of reasons, agape mou. Trust me,’ he said quietly. ‘And because I have already had ample opportunity to tell your mother the truth.’
It was true. He could have told her mother everything. Instead he’d been calm and reassuring and had revealed nothing that would have caused further upset.
She relaxed back in her seat and closed her eyes. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be.’ His voice was gruff. ‘I understand that you have had to make nothing but difficult decisions from an age when most children were interested in nothing but toys. But you are no longer alone in this, Alesia. The problem is mine. I will deal with it.’
For a moment she felt as though an enormous burden had been lifted from her and then she remembered that he was only doing it because he felt responsible for what had happened. Because the explosion had taken place on his family’s boat.
She opened her eyes and glanced at him and then looked away quickly to hide the naked longing that she knew must be visible in her face. Her whole body just burned for him. ‘Where are we going?’
‘My suite at the Dorchester,’ he replied tightly, ‘where we won’t be interrupted. We have rather a lot to talk about, agape mou.’
She didn’t want to talk.
Wondering how she’d managed to develop into a person who thought about nothing but sex, Alesia crossed her legs to try and relieve the throbbing heat building between her thighs.