Claimed For The Greek's Child

Was it normal to feel so disorientated—so nauseous—from even such a short flight? Or was it the fact that she’d handed over the keys to her business, her security, her life to strangers and followed the father of her child to Europe?

She hadn’t been prepared for the pack of paparazzi awaiting the arrival of the private jet. Oh, Dimitri had warned her of it; she just hadn’t taken him seriously. Closing her eyes now, she could still see the strobe of flashbulbs in the dark. If she listened hard she could still hear the rapid-fire questions, most in Greek, but a surprising few in English.

‘Is it true that you carried the heir to the Kyriakou Bank?’

‘Is that the child?’

‘Where have you been all these years?’

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‘Why did you hide...?’

Ignoring the swell of emotions in her chest, Anna focused on how her body still vibrated from the boat trip from Piraeus, the boat that Dimitri had piloted himself, standing tall and proud at the wheel, as if he were a marauding pirate rather than an international tycoon—an image that had fired her fevered imagination and brought too many memories of that night from three years ago to the surface.

The powerful speedboat thrilled Amalia as it crested waves and cut through the water as if it were air, but it had only made Anna’s heart sink further. Who had the money for such a boat? But then she had seen the house Dimitri had brought her to...

The large, low-hung moon picked out sleek, modern lines that winked at her in the night, hinting at a luxury that felt surreal. She’d glimpsed an infinity pool beyond a patio that opened out to the elements, partitioned off by a plastic rail with a gate—clearly a new addition, since it stood out like a sore thumb. While it touched her that Dimitri had thought of Amalia’s safety, she wondered if perhaps that was how she seemed, painfully and obviously out of place.

Questions burst through her mind as she wondered if she had denied her daughter by not trying hard enough to tell Dimitri about their child. When they entered his house, toys fit for a princess, still in their boxes, littered the living room and guilt swirled in her stomach. What would Amalia’s life have been like if she’d had this from birth? Rather than working all hours in the day, could she have given Amalia finer clothes, better toys and, more importantly, more of herself? She’d done the best she could, she told herself sternly.

‘I came to see how you were settling in.’

She closed her eyes against Dimitri’s intrusion. Yes, that had been what she’d told him before disappearing into the room she had been given. But explaining that she just needed some space, from him, from his presence, seemed too much like weakness.

‘My things have been put away.’

‘I have people to do that.’

Yes, thought Anna. I was one of those people until a few days ago. But now? It was only for a few days, she told herself. Amalia would get to spend time with her father, and then she and Amalia would return to the bed and breakfast. So she’d better not get used to this. Because he had an island, and she had a bed and breakfast...because she still was one of those people.

‘Flora?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

Anna had instantly liked Dimitri’s housekeeper and could tell the older woman was kind, generous and loving.

She opened her eyes, because not being able to see him only made it worse. His smell, unique and distinctly male, assaulted her senses. From the first moment she’d laid eyes on him, she’d known that she was in trouble. It was as if her body, her soul, had immediately identified him as her undoing. But she wasn’t here for him, or for her. She was here for Amalia, so that her daughter could get to know her father. Nothing more.

‘Thank you,’ she said. Finally breaking the silence that had almost become too much.

‘What for?’ Dimitri sounded genuinely surprised.

‘For everything?’ she said, shrugging her shoulders and finally turning to take him in. He’d changed out of his cold-weather clothes, and her heart stopped. Even more devastating, he stood there in dark blue linen trousers that moulded his powerful legs and hugged his lean hips. A light blue shirt, rolled back at the sleeves, revealed firm, tanned forearms and Anna forced herself not to bite her lip.

Her fingers itching to reach out, she searched for a distraction instead. She picked up the small clay sculpture she’d wanted to take to Amalia. Even as a small baby, when the palm-sized sculpture had seemed twice as large in her little hands, Amalia had loved to hold it, grip it, even try to gnaw on it. Throughout it all, the little glazed clay piece had never broken.

She turned it in her hands, rubbing the smooth line of the larger oval shape entwined with a smaller one. She had made it years ago, and she’d never shaken the feeling that the piece had been oddly prophetic: mother and child, cast, glazed and fired long before she’d met Dimitri and started out on this path alone. Or perhaps it had reflected her and her own mother—in a maternal embrace she had long forgotten.

Dimitri frowned, noticing her busy hands.

‘What’s that?’

‘Oh...nothing...it’s...’ Anna let out a huff of gentle laughter. She shrugged and held it out to him.

When he took it into his large hands, it looked dwarfed by them. She saw him studying it, turning it in his hands, relishing the feel of the smooth tempered blue glaze around the edges.

‘It’s beautiful,’ he said simply and she felt the truth of his words to her soul.