For a moment he said nothing, just went on looking at her. Ann could feel the colour run into her cheeks. The shock of seeing him was still jolting through her and she was fighting for composure. And losing. That soul-searching gaze of his was transfixing her. Then, without a word, he started towards her. She pulled aside swiftly as he brushed past her, striding down towards the front door. But her relief was short lived. He merely wheeled into the living room.
She hurried after him, heart thumping. ‘Mr Theakis, I asked you to leave—’ she began, but he cut her short with a peremptory lift of his hand, as if she were a servant who had spoken out of turn.
‘I am here merely to see the child for myself, and to inform you of the arrangements that have been made to take him home.’
Ann stared. ‘This is his home.’
Nikos Theakis glanced around him. The sagging sofa, the worn carpet and faded curtains were encompassed in his condemning glance. ‘This, Miss Turner,’ he said, his eyes coming back to her, resting on her as if she were a cockroach, ‘is not a home. It is a slum.’
Ann coloured. Poverty wasn’t a crime! But Nikos Theakis clearly thought otherwise. His eyes were pinning her as if she were on a dissecting board. Instantly she became conscious of her messy, drab appearance and unwashed hair—conscious, inexplicably, of a feminine shame that she should be caught looking so absolutely unappealing in front of a man as expensively and physically drop-dead gorgeous as Nikos Theakis. Angrily, she broke her gaze away. What did it matter what she looked like? Or him? This was a man who’d just announced to her his intention of stealing the baby she loved more than anyone in the whole world. Her only living family.
Then suddenly he was speaking again, and this time his tone was quite different from the curt, condemning one with which he’d informed her she was living in a slum.
‘But how could it be otherwise?’ he said smoothly, as Ann’s eyes flew to him again. ‘It is very hard, is it not, Miss Turner, to have the unwelcome burden of a small baby? What girl your age could want that?’
His smooth words backfired. Instinctive rage reared in Ann. Yes, it was hard work looking after a baby. But Ari was never a burden. Never.
Nikos Theakis was speaking again, in the same smooth voice. ‘So I shall relieve you of this unwanted burden, Miss Turner, and you may return again to the life of a young, idle and carefree girl.’
She stifled down the rage that his unctuous words aroused in her, trying to keep her voice steady.
‘Mr Theakis, you rejected Ari’s existence from the moment he was conceived,’ she shot at him witheringly. ‘Why the sudden concern about him now?’
Nikos’s eyes darkened. ‘Because now I have the DNA results forwarded to me from the laboratory. I know that he is indeed my brother’s son.’ There was no trace of smoothness in his accented voice now.
‘My sister said so right from the beginning!’ Ann protested.
The sculpted mouth curled contemptuously. ‘You think I would trust the word of a whore?’
It was spoken in such a casual way Ann blanched. ‘Don’t speak of Carla like that!’ she spat furiously.
His eyes skewered her. ‘Your sister slept with any man rich enough to keep her in the lifestyle she hawked herself out for. Of course I warned my brother to check the child was his.’
‘My sister is dead!’ she rang back at him.
‘As is my brother. Thanks to her.’ The coldness in his voice was Arctic. ‘And now only one person is important—my nephew.’ Abruptly his manner changed again. That surface smoothness was back in his voice. ‘Which is why he must return to Greece with me. To have the life that his father would have wanted. Surely, Miss Turner, you cannot disagree with that?’
He sounded so smooth, so reasonable—but Ann’s hackles did not go down. ‘Of course I disagree! Do you propose, Mr Theakis—’ she was even more withering now ‘—to raise Ari yourself? Or will you just dump him on a nanny?’
The dark eyes flashed. Ann felt a stab of angry satisfaction go through her. He doesn’t like being challenged!
‘To assuage your concerns, Miss Turner—’ the deep voice was inflected with sardonic bite ‘—Ari will live in the family home. Yes, with a professional nanny but, most crucially, with my mother.’ And suddenly his voice that was quite different from anything Ann had heard so far. ‘Do I really need to tell you how desperate my mother is for the only consolation she has left to her after the death of her son? Her grief, Miss Turner, is terrible.’
Involuntarily, Ann felt her throat tighten.
‘She is welcome to visit any time she wants—’ she began, but Nikos Theakis cut right across her.
‘Generous of you, indeed, Miss Turner. But let us cut to the chase,’ he said bitingly, the Arctic chill back in his voice.
His eyes were pinning her again, but this time there was not disdain in them for her shabby, messy appearance. Now they held the same expression as when he had called her sister a whore…
His voice was harsh as he continued. ‘I expected no less of you, and you have ensured that my expectations are fulfilled. So, tell me—what price do you set on the boy’s head? I know you must have a high one—your sister’s was marriage to my brother. Yours, however, can only be cash. Well, cash it will be.’
Ann stared disbelievingly as Nikos Theakis slid a long- fingered hand inside his immaculately tailored jacket and drew out a leather-bound chequebook and a gold fountain pen. Swiftly, with an incisive hand, he scrawled across a cheque, then placed it on the table. His face was unreadable as her gaze flickered to it. Ann stood in shock as he spoke again. ‘I never haggle for what I want, Miss Turner,’ he informed her harshly. ‘This is my first and final offer. You will get not a penny more from me. I am offering you a million pounds for my nephew. Take it or leave it.’
Ann blinked. This wasn’t real. That piece of paper on the table in front of her wasn’t a cheque for a million pounds— a million pounds to buy a child. As she still stared, Nikos Theakis spoke again.
‘My neph