The Greek's Secret Son by James Julia

Author:James Julia [Julia, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarlequinUKLtd
Published: 2018-01-31T23:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER EIGHT

HAD THE WORLD just tilted on its side? Had an earthquake just happened? Her vision was blurred...her heart seemed to have stopped.

‘What?’

The word shot from her like a bullet. A bullet that found its target in the blankness of Anatole’s face.

‘Are you insane?’ she shot again.

He lifted a hand. It was a jerky movement, as if designed to stop more bullets. As if to silence her.

‘Hear me out,’ he said. ‘It’s the obvious solution to the situation!’

Christine’s eyes flashed. It felt as if her heart had still not started beating yet. ‘What situation?’ she demanded. ‘There is no situation! I am Vasilis’s widow. He has left me perfectly well provided for and even more so his son—a son who will before long no longer be so sad at the loss of his pappou and who will grow up adored by me and protected by Vasilis’s wealth. What on earth about that needs a solution?’

Anatole’s expression shifted. Something moved in his eyes. But his words, when he spoke, were stony. ‘Nicky needs a father. All children do. With Vasilis gone, irrespective of whether Nicky thought of him as his grandfather, another man must take the role he played in his son’s life.’

His eyes rested on Christine, shifting in their regard.

‘You are not yet thirty, Tia—Christine—and it is impossible to envisage you not remarrying at some point.’ He lifted his hand again. ‘I take back what I said,’ he said stiffly, ‘about your likely dissolute lifestyle as the wealthy widow of a deceased much older husband.’

He felt the fury of Christine’s eyes hurling daggers on him, even for saying that, even with his stiff apology, but he kept on speaking. It was vital he do so. Imperative.

‘But it is inevitable that you will remarry,’ he persisted. Something flashed darkly in his eyes. ‘That neighbour of yours, Barcourt, would be only too eager—or any other man! And I do not mean that as an insult. I mean it as a compliment, Christine.’

He gritted his teeth.

‘I appreciate that you would never marry anyone who would not be a doting stepfather to Nicky. And Barcourt—I give him this freely—is clearly cut out to be an excellent father. But he would not, as I said, make a good husband for you.’

His eyes rested a moment on her, his face taut, his eyes implacable.

‘I would,’ he said.

He took an incised breath.

‘I would make an excellent husband for you. Think about it...’

He leant forward a little, as if to give emphasis to what he was saying—what he had to say to make her hear. Accept what had forced its way into his head and now could not be banished.

Urgently, he forged on. ‘I am the closest relative to Nicky on his father’s side. I discount my own father. He would be as little interested in Nicky as he was in me,’ he said scathingly.

Christine could hear something in his voice that for the first time since he had tilted the world sideways for her with what he had said, stopping the beating of her heart, shifted her to react.

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