Claimed For The Greek's Child

He left his father, tear-stained and miserable, in his office. Dimitri didn’t even stop to collect his bag from his own office. For all he knew, his computer was still on.

The silence of the lift grated on his frayed nerves. His shirt scratched against his chest, and he wanted to escape. He left the foyer of the offices and crossed the street with powerful strides, fury making his steps long. He approached the unmarked blue van and pounded on the back doors.

They swung open as Dimitri reached inside his shirt and pulled the wire from beneath the cotton, ripping away the small pieces of tape securing the tiny microphone from its moorings.

‘You got what you need?’ he demanded of the FBI agents who had heard everything. His father’s confession, his family’s dirty laundry...the pain.

The man in the windbreaker nodded, and Dimitri stepped back as agents poured out of the van and entered the offices of the Kyriakou Bank, ready to arrest his father.

Dimitri turned and walked away as he heard one of the men ask about him giving his statement.

‘Not now,’ he shouted over his shoulder and stormed deeper into the city.

* * *

Dimitri’s feet were sore. Not just aching but bruised and battered, since the handmade Italian leather shoes were unable to withstand the furious pounding as he had walked through Athens down to Piraeus. His heart felt cold, the way it had done when he’d heard of his mother’s death. Was he grieving again? His confrontation with his father certainly felt like grief. It scratched at him, ate at his skin, his bones. Dimitri’s mind was full of anger and pain, and he pounded the pavement the way that the rain had battered his home less than a week before.

The streets had changed in the last few years. Graffiti marked buildings that had once seemed magnificent. Posters with anti-austerity jargon were clumsily pasted over advertising for expensive clothing, anger vibrating up from the very foundations of Greece. Poverty had spewed out people into the corners of streets and back alleys, each face peering out of the gloom showing the darkest of circumstances. It matched him, matched his mood. No one dared approach him, such was the sheet of armour his fury and pain had created.

If the private-boat captain thought anything strange about his appearance nine hours after dropping him off that morning, he said nothing. They surfed the sea in silence as the sleek motorboat cut through the waves between the harbour and his island, the mindless hum of the engine providing a constant grinding drone that churned his thoughts.

For the first time in years Dimitri felt the plush, leather-lined seats, the chrome and steel of the boat an outrageous luxury, jarring against his humble origins with his mother. Was this how Anna had felt? Pulled from her quiet, small life, and thrust into his obscenely rich world?

When had he become immune to it? To the money and lavish lifestyle? A lifestyle that his brother and father had been so desperate to protect at all costs. It had taken two years for the Kyriakou Bank to survive the last scandal. What would it take to ride this one out? And for the first time in years, Dimitri wondered if he shouldn’t just let it all burn to hell. But somewhere in him remained the last threads of his pride, and the determination to succeed that had seared his soul was clamouring to get out.

He stalked into the kitchen, where Flora and Anna were talking. Flora took one look at him, scooped up Amalia and disappeared.

And there stood Anna. A vision in white, the pristine sundress so pure, so innocent, he almost couldn’t look at it, at her. All he knew was that he needed to protect her and Amalia from what was about to happen. Protect them in the way that his father—his family—had never done for him.

And in that moment a small, terrible part of him blamed Anna. Blamed her for lifting the lid on this greater betrayal. Blamed Anna for making him think that he was better off with her and his daughter in his life, when all along he should have known. Should have trusted the knowledge and the simple fact that he was better off alone.

‘I have arranged for you to return to Ireland.’

‘What?’ Her shock was so sincere, so confused, it hurt. Hurt a part of him that he had thought long since gone from his father’s machinations.

‘Your mother is due to leave the facility in the next few days. It would be good for you to be there when she does.’

‘What’s going on... What happened?’

What happened? The question cut through him, and he wanted to scream, Everything. Everything happened.

‘My father has been arrested.’

Anna started across the kitchen, coming towards him, comfort, sorrow, confusion, all warring within her gaze. He held up a hand to ward her off. He couldn’t do this if she touch

ed him. He had known what would need to be done, and his father had been only the first step. But this second step was the only way he could protect Anna and their daughter.

‘There is going to be a huge scandal. Bigger than any that have come before. The press will be camped out on my doorstep, and it will be nasty.’

My doorstep, not ours. That was the moment Anna realised Dimitri was truly sending her and their daughter away. Her head was spinning. She had been trying to tell herself that she’d imagined his withdrawal, but she hadn’t. Clearly she hadn’t.

‘I don’t care,’ she replied, clinging to her love for him, to the tentative bonds they’d formed before he’d gone to see his brother, before...this. ‘I don’t care if the hounds of hell come after you. I’m staying. We’re staying,’ she said, desperate to remind him that it wasn’t just her he was getting rid of, but their daughter too. ‘This is the worst of for better or worse. And I won’t just leave you.’

‘I don’t need you here. I need to focus on what is about to happen. You are just a distraction.’

He felt an arm on his elbow and he was spun round with more force than he could credit her with.

‘How could you say that?’ she asked, her voice hoarse. ‘I’ve seen you as many things over the last few years—’