CHAPTER TEN
THAT staggering announcement sent Tally careening into the bathroom to wash and dash on some make-up. What had he meant by that outrageous statement? Were the older couple actually offering to step in and bring Oleia’s daughter up for Sander? Tally was astonished by the suggestion, for his parents had not impressed her as being particularly fond of children. When she emerged from the bathroom within ten minutes to an empty bedroom, she wasted no time in pulling on jeans and a black tee, reluctant to waste any more time in making herself presentable. Sander had already returned downstairs to entertain his parents.
When Tally joined the three of them in the drawing room, Mrs Jones was serving coffee and biscuits and Eirene Volakis was saying to her son with her usual indifference to the presence of staff, ‘If only you had married Oleia when you had the chance. She would have been so perfect for you.’
Her flawless skin staining with colour, Tally came to a sudden awkward halt. Her mother-in-law gave her an acidic smile that acknowledged her presence and no more.
‘I don’t think so. We split up when we were young because we were completely incompatible,’ Sander imparted smoothly.
‘We were always very fond of Oleia,’ Petros Volakis declared cheerfully. ‘That’s one reason why we’re willing to offer her child a home with us.’
‘In the circumstances your wife can hardly want her,’ Eirene contended without embarrassment.
‘Lili is Sander’s daughter,’ Tally declared firmly.
Sander’s mother elevated an unimpressed brow. ‘The child would be much better off with us. I’ve always wanted a little girl. When I was carrying Sander, I was convinced I was going to have a daughter,’ she admitted, shooting her son an accusing look as if his gender were somehow his fault. ‘I was devastated when I had another son instead.’
‘That was a source of great disappointment,’ Petros agreed, giving his wife a sympathetic look.
Tally could not bite her tongue any longer. ‘And neither of you ever got over it, did you? Is that why you always favoured your elder son over the younger? Is that why you never have a good word to say about Sander?’ she condemned.
Sander was startled and embarrassed by Tally’s spirited intercession on his behalf. Faint colour edged his superb cheekbones. ‘Let’s not have this conversation.’
‘You have no manners,’ Eirene Volakis informed Tally icily.
‘My wife has excellent manners,’ Sander countered crisply. ‘From my own point of view, I’m very surprised that you should want to take on the burden of a child at your stage in life and I don’t think it’s a good idea.’
‘We could equip Lili with everything she requires to take her place in the highest stratum of Greek society,’ Sander’s mother pronounced haughtily.
‘There are more important things,’ Sander replied drily.
‘Not to me,’ his elegant mother told him. ‘She would thrive in our care and why not? She is our first grandchild.’
‘Actually my son was,’ Tally could not refrain from slotting in.
Sander’s father had the decency to give Tally an apologetic look but Eirene treated her to a stony appraisal, unmoved by that reminder.
Tally focused on Sander, recognising the tension hardening his lean strong face, and she wondered if his parents’ proposition secretly appealed to him. A knock sounded on the door and Sander strode across the room to open it. The nanny came in with Lili cradled in her comfortable baby carrier.
‘It really is time that I became acquainted with my granddaughter,’ Eirene Volakis announced in a saccharin-sweet voice as she approached the child.
The older woman then came to a sudden halt and exclaimed, ‘What on earth is the matter with her face?’
‘Lili suffers from eczema,’ Tally explained.
‘It’s very unsightly,’ Eirene said critically, her mouth curling into a little moue of distaste as she studied the patches of inflamed skin that marred the baby’s cheek and chin. ‘Will it clear up?’
‘Some babies grow out of it, others don’t, I’m afraid. We can only wait and see,’ Tally answered and she fought a protective urge to whip Lili out of the carrier and cuddle her in the face of her grandmother’s disparagement.
Sardonic amusement flashed through Sander’s expressive eyes as his parent drew back from his daughter as though the child’s condition might prove to be contagious. ‘I’m sorry she’s not perfect,’ he said with quiet derision.
Stiffening at that scornful note, the older woman frowned. ‘She’s not a healthy child. Perhaps it would be best if she remained with you.’
‘It scarcely matters as I’m not prepared to hand her over to anyone,’ Sander asserted quietly. ‘Oleia entrusted me with her daughter and I intend to bring her up. How Lili looks makes no difference to me or Tally.’
Eirene Volakis appeared unimpressed but her husband could not hide his embarrassment at the speed with which his wife had withdrawn her plan to give Lili a home. Clearly, only the prettiest little girls might apply for such a position. Tally soothed the baby when she started crying, Lili had been wakened from a nap to be brought downstairs and introduced to her grandparents. Within fifteen minutes, their visitors had departed again, all interest in the child abandoned.
Sander crouched down to restore Lili’s rattle to her hand when it dropped and she cried for it, little starfish fingers stretching unavailingly for her lost toy. ‘You’re stuck with us, Lili. It appears we can’t even give you away.’
‘Don’t say that, even jokingly,’ Tally scolded.
‘She’s not unsightly,’ Sander declared, tight-mouthed with annoyance at that remark.
‘No, she’s not.’
‘Were you hoping I’d hand her over to them?’ Sander shot the question at her without warning.
Tally tensed at that blunt demand and the keen appraisal that accompanied it and had to admit that only a few days earlier she might have given him a different answer. ‘Absolutely not. I don’t think your mother is cap
able of offering a child unconditional love.’
‘She never admitted that before—that she had hoped I would be a daughter,’ Sander reflected with a sudden frowning shake of his handsome dark head. ‘I was the most energetic and noisy little boy. No wonder I was always irritating her.’
And very probably one of the very few disappointments a rich and spoiled woman like Eirene Volakis had ever had to endure, Tally mused, pained by the knowledge that Sander had been so unappreciated as a child. ‘No wonder you’re independent.’
‘Let’s go back to London tomorrow,’ Sander suggested, dropping the subject of his family at understandable speed. ‘Since yesterday, the paps have been chasing a politician caught playing away from his wife. Lili is old news now.’
‘It would certainly be easier to get back to work,’ Tally conceded.
As she registered that they were talking like polite strangers again Tally’s eyes stung like mad, forcing her to blink furiously. In Morocco she had gone to Sander, making the first move to bridge the distance between them, but she was not prepared to go the same route again. He didn’t love her. The least she had to do to hold her own in such an unequal relationship was hang onto her dignity. She shrank from the prospect of mentioning her need for a pregnancy test. Those bright happy days at the villa in Morocco when having another child had seemed such a wonderful idea were long gone. Having once before broken such news to Sander when it was unwelcome, she could not face finding herself in a similar position again.
That evening, her father phoned and asked her to meet him for lunch again, but at his hotel rather than at the usual restaurant. Surprised, because it was unusual for her to see or hear from Anatole Karydas so soon after their last meeting, Tally wondered if he was planning to ask her about Lili and hoped that she was wrong. She wasn’t ready to talk about the situation. Although she had come to terms as best she could with Lili’s existence, she and Sander were still estranged. Yet she had no idea how that had happened in the wake of their happiness in Morocco.