With a swift impatience to be done with the whole grim business of sorting through Marcos’s personal effects Anatole took the folded single piece of paper from the one envelope that was open. He flicked open the note and started to read the English writing.
And as he did he froze completely...
* * *
Lyn made her way out of the lecture hall and sighed. It was no good, she would far rather be studying history! But accountancy would enable her to earn a decent living in the future and that was essential—especially if she were to persuade the authorities that she was capable of raising a child on her own: her beloved Georgy. But for now, while she was still waiting so anxiously to learn if she could adopt him, she was only allowed to be his foster carer. She knew the welfare authorities would prefer for him to be adopted by one of the many childless couples anxious to adopt a healthy baby, but Lyn was determined that no one would take Georgy from her! No one!
It didn’t matter how much of a struggle it was to keep at her studies while looking after a baby as well, especially with money so short—she would manage somehow! A familiar regret swept over her: if only she’d gone to college sooner and already had her qualifications. But she hadn’t been able to go straight from school because she’d had to stay home and look after Lindy. She hadn’t been able to leave her young teenage sister to the indifference and neglect which was all her mother had offered. But when Lindy had left school herself and gone to London, to live with a girlfriend and get a job, her mother had been taken ill, her lungs and liver finally giving in after decades of abuse from smoking and alcohol, and there had been no one else to look after her except Lyn.
And now there was Georgy...
‘Lyn Brandon?’
It was one of the university’s admin staff.
‘Someone’s asking to see you,’ the woman said briskly, and pointed to one of the offices across the corridor.
Frowning, Lyn walked inside.
And stopped dead.
Standing by the window, silhouetted by the fading light, was an imposing, dark-suited figure. Tall, wearing a black cashmere overcoat with a black cashmere scarf hooked around the strong column of his neck, the man had a natural Mediterranean tan that, along with his raven-dark hair, instantly told Lyn that he was not English. Just as the planes and features of his face told her that he was jaw-droppingly good-looking.
It was a face, though, that was staring at her with a mouth set in a tight line—as though he were seeing someone he had not expected. A frown creased his brow.
‘Miss Brandon?’ He said her name, his voice accented, as if he did not quite believe it.
Dark eyes flicked over her and Lyn felt two spots of colour mount in her cheeks. Immediately she became conscious of the way her hair was caught back in a stringy ponytail. She had not a scrap of make-up on, and her clothes were serviceable rather than fashionable.
Then suddenly, overriding that painful consciousness, there came a jolt of realisation as to just who this clearly foreign man must be—could only be...
The Mediterranean looks, the expensive clothes, the sleekly groomed looks, the whole aura of wealth about him... She felt her stomach constrict, filling with instinctive fear.
Across the narrow room Anatole caught the flash of alarm and wondered at it, but not nearly as much as he was wondering whether he had, after all, really tracked down the woman he’d been so urgently seeking ever since reading that letter in Marcos’s apartment—the woman who, so his investigators had discovered, had most definitely given birth to a baby boy...
Is he Marcos’s son? The question was burning in hope. Because if Marcos had had a son then it changed everything. Everything!
If, by a miracle, Marcos had a son, then Anatole had to find him and bring him home to Greece, so that Timon, who was fading with every passing day, could find instead a last blessing from the cruel fate that had taken so much from him.
And it was not just for his grandfather that a son of Marcos’s would be a blessing, either, Anatole knew. This would persuade Timon to change his will, to acknowledge that his beloved Marcos had had a son to whom he could now leave the Petranakos Corporation. Infant though he was, Anatole would guard the child’s inheritance, keep it safe and prosperous for him—and save the livelihoods of all its employees.
Tracking down the author of the letters had led him first to a council house in the south of the country and then, through information given to his detectives by neighbours, to this northern college, where he’d been told the young woman he was so urgently seeking—Linda Brandon—had recently moved.
But as his eyes rested now on the woman he was addressing he felt doubt fill him. This was the woman he’d trekked to this grim, rainswept northern town to find in a race against time for his stricken grandfather? Marcos wouldn’t even have looked twice at her—let alone taken her to his bed!
‘Are you Miss Brandon?’ he asked, his voice sharper now.
He saw her swallow and nod jerkily. Saw, too, that her entire body had tensed.
‘I am Anatole Telonidis,’ he announced. His voice sounded clipped, but his mission was a painful one—and an urgent one. ‘I am here on behalf of my cousin, Marcos Petranakos, with whom I believe you are...’ he sought the right phrase ‘...acquainted.’
Even as he said it his eyes flicked over her again doubtfully. Even putting aside her unprepossessing appearance, Marcos’s taste had been for curvy blondes—not thin brunettes. But her reaction told him that she must indeed be the person he was looking for so urgently—she had instantly recognised Marcos’s name.
And not favourably...
Her expression had changed. Hardened. ‘So he couldn’t even be bothered to come himself!’ she retorted scornfully.
If she’d sought to hit home with her accusation she’d failed. The man who’d declared himself Marcos Petranakos’s cousin stilled. In the dark eyes a flash of deep emotion showed and Lyn saw his face stiffen.
‘The situation is not as you suppose,’ he said.
It was as if, she realised, he was picking his words carefully.
He paused a moment, as if steeling himself to speak, then said, ‘I must talk to you. But the matter is...difficult.’
Lyn shook her head violently. She could feel the adrenaline running through her body. ‘No, it’s not difficult at all!’ she retorted. ‘Whatever message you’ve been sent to deliver by your cousin, you needn’t bother! Georgy—his son!—is fine without him. Absolutely fine!’
She saw emotion flash in his dark eyes again, saw the shadow behind it. Out of nowhere a chill went through her.
‘There is something I must tell you,’ Anatole Telonidis was saying. His voice was grim, and bleak, as if he were forcing the words out.
Lyn’s hands clenched. ‘There is nothing you can say that I care about—!’ she began.
But his deep, sombre voice cut right through hers. ‘My cousin is dead.’
There was silence. Complete silence. Wordlessly, Anatole cursed himself for his blunt outburst. But it had been impossible to hear her hostility, her scorn, when Marcos lay dead in his grave...
‘Dead?’ Lyn’s voice was hollow with shock.
‘I’m sorry. I should not have told you so brutally,’ Anatole said stiffly.
She was still staring at him. ‘Marcos Petranakos is dead?’ Her voice was thin—disbelieving.
‘It was a car crash. Two months ago. It has taken time to track you down...’ His words were staccato, sombre.
Lyn swayed as if she