LITMIR.BIZ

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for one single day.’ Then he finished what he had come to say. ‘Your sister’s baby—my cousin’s son—gives him that reason.’

      He stood looking down at her. Her face was still ashen, her hands twisting in her lap. He spoke again, his voice grave. He had to convince her of the urgency of what had to happen.

      ‘I need to take Georgy to Greece with me. I need to take him as soon as possible. My dying grandfather needs to know that his great-grandson will grow up in the country of his father—’

      ‘No! No, I won’t let you!’ The words burst from her and she leapt to her feet.

      Anatole pressed his lips together in frustration. ‘You are overwrought,’ he repeated. ‘It is understandable—this has come as a shock to you. I wish that matters were not as urgent as they are. But with Timon’s state of health I have to press you on this! The very last thing I want,’ he said heavily, ‘is to turn this into any kind of battle between us. I need—I want—your co-operation! You do not need me to tell you,’ he added, and his eyes were dark now, ‘that once DNA testing has proved Marcos’s paternity, then—’

      ‘There isn’t going to be any DNA testing!’ Lyn shot back at him.

      Anatole stopped. There was something in her voice—something in her face—that alerted him. There was more than obduracy in it—more than anger, even.

      There was fear.

      His antennae went into overdrive. Thee mou, might the child not be Marcos’s after all? Everything about those plaintive, pitiful letters he’d read indicated that the baby’s mother had been no promiscuous party girl, that she had fallen in love with his cousin, however unwisely. No, the child she had been carrying was his. He was certain of it. Timon, he knew, would require proof before he designated the baby his heir, but that would surely be a formality?

      His thoughts raced back to the moment in hand. The expression on Lynette Brandon’s face made no sense. She was the one objecting to any idea of taking Marcos’s son back to Greece—if the baby were not Marcos’s after all surely she would positively want DNA testing done!

      He frowned. There was something else that didn’t make sense, either. Something odd about her name. Its similarity to her sister’s. Abruptly he spoke. ‘Why is your sister’s name so like yours?’ he asked shortly. He frowned. ‘It is unusual—confusing, as I have found—for sisters to have such similar names. Lynette and Linda.’

      ‘So what?’ she countered belligerently. ‘What does it matter now?’

      Anatole fixed his gaze on her. His antennae were now registering that same flash of emotion in her as he’d seen when he had mentioned DNA testing, but he had no time to consider it further. Lynette Brandon was launching into him again. Her voice was vehement, passionate.

      ‘Have I finally got you to understand, Mr Telonidis, that your journey here has been wasted? I’m sorry—sorry about your cousin, sorry about your grandfather—but Georgy is staying here with me! He is not going to be brought up in Greece. He is mine!’

      ‘Is he?’

      His brief, blunt question cut right across her. Silencing her.

      In her eyes, her face, flared that same emotion he had seen a moment ago—fear.

      What is going on here?

      The question flared in his head and stayed there, even though her voice broke that moment of silence with a single hissing word.

      ‘Yes!’ she grated fiercely.

      Anatole levelled his gaze at her. Behind his impassive expression his mind was working fast. Since learning that morning about the double tragedy that had hit this infant, overturning his assumption that Marcos’s son was with his birth mother, he had set his lawyers to ascertain exactly what the legal situation was with regard to custody of the orphaned boy—and what might be the outcome of any proposition that the baby be raised in Greece by his paternal family. He had no answers yet, but the baby’s aunt had constantly—and vehemently!—expressed the fact that she had full legal charge in her sister’s place.

      But did she?

      ‘And that is official, is it? Your custody of Georgy?’ His voice was incisive, demanding she answer.

      Again there was that same revealing emotion in her eyes, which was then instantly blanked.

      ‘Yes!’ she repeated, just as fiercely.

      He frowned. ‘So you have adopted him?’

      A line of white showed on her cheekbones. ‘It’s going through,’ she said quickly. ‘These things take time. There’s a lot of paperwork. Bureaucracy and everything. But of course I’m adopting him! I’m the obvious person to adopt him!’

      His expression did not change, but he could see that for the British authorities she would be the natural person to adopt her late sister’s son if she were set on doing so. Which she evidently was! Anatole felt a ripple of respect for her determination to go through with it. Her life could not be easy, juggling studying with childcare and living in penny-pinching circumstances.

      But for all that, he still had to find a way to convince her that Marcos’s son just could not be raised by her in such penurious circumstances. It was unthinkable. Once Timon knew of his existence, he would insist with all his last strength that his beloved grandson’s son be brought home to Greece, to be reunited with his father’s family.

      Just how, precisely, Marcos’s son was to be raised—how a small baby, then a toddler and a schoolboy was to grow up—was something that could be worked out later. For now, just getting the baby to Greece, for his grandfather to see him—make him his heir—before the cancer claimed Timon was his only priority.

      And to do that he had to get this totally impossible intransigent aunt to stop blocking him at every turn!

      But how?

      A heavy, unappetising thought forced its way forward. His mouth tightened. There was, of course, one very obvious method of attempting to stop any objections to what he was urging. A way that worked, as he knew well from his own business experience, to win compliance and consensus and agreement.

      A way he did not want to use here, now, for this—but if he had to...if it worked...?

      He must. If nothing else he must attempt it. He owed it to Timon, to Marcos—to all the thousands employed by the Petranakos Corporation whose livelihoods were threatened.

      Reluctantly, for what he was about to say went against the grain, he spoke. His tone of voice was measured, impassive. ‘I know full well that Timon will insist on thanking you for your care and concern for his great-grandson—that he will fully appreciate the accommodation you make towards granting his fervent wish for Marcos’s son to grow up with his paternal family—and that he will wish to settle a sum on you in respect of his gratitude and appreciation such that your financial security would be handsomely assured for the future.’

      There—he had said it. He had said outright that if she stopped stonewalling him her life of poverty would be over for good. He let the words sink in, not taking his eyes from her.

      Her expression was blank, however. Had she not heard what he’d said?

      Then she answered him. ‘You want to buy Georgy from me?’ Her voice was as blank as her eyes.

      A frown immediately shaped Anatole’s face. ‘Of course not!’ he repudiated.

      ‘You’re offering me money to hand him over to you,’ the same blank voice intoned.

      Anatole shook his head. Did she have to put it in such unpalatable terms? ‘What I am saying,’ he spelt out, ‘is that—’

      ‘Is that your grandfather will pay me if I let him have Georgy to bring him up in Greece.’ Her voice was flat.

      ‘No! It is not like that—’ Anatole’s voice was sharp.

      Suddenly

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