The day she’d discovered that she was pregnant with Dimitri’s child was the day that his sentence had been handed to him by the American judge. She’d almost felt the gavel fall onto the bench, as if it had tolled against her own heart. She’d never wanted to believe him guilty of the accusations levelled at him, the theft of millions of dollars from the American clients of the Kyriakou Bank, but what had she known of him then? Only that he was a man who liked whisky, had driven her to the highest of imaginable pleasures and left her bed the following morning without a word.
Hating to think that her child would bear the stigma of such a parent, she’d determined to keep the identity of Amalia’s father to herself. But when she’d heard of his innocence? And tried to get in touch with him? Only to hear that she was just one of several women making the same ‘claim’? She practically growled at the memory. Her daughter wasn’t a claim. Amalia had been eight months old, and from that day she’d promised to be both mother and father to her child. She’d promised to ensure that Amalia would be happy, secure and know above all that she was loved. She wanted to give her daughter the one thing she had never had growing up after her own father had abandoned his pregnant wife.
As she walked up the path towards the front of the bed and breakfast she could see a small minibus in the driveway. The three customers who had checked in earlier that day were stowing their bags in the back.
Mr Carter and his wife saw her first.
‘This is absolutely unacceptable. I’ll be adding this to my review.’
‘What’s going on?’ she demanded, her interruption momentarily stopping Mr Carter’s tirade.
‘We booked with you in good faith, Ms Moore. I suppose the only good thing is that we’re upgrading to the hotel in town. But really. To be kicked out with no explanation at ten thirty at night... Not good, Ms Moore. Not good.’
Before Anna could do anything further, her customers disappeared onto the bus. She jumped out of the way as it backed out of the drive, leaving only one man standing in front of the door to her home.
Dimitri Kyriakou. Looking just as furious as she felt.
* * *
Dimitri had been pacing the small bar where he’d first met Mary Moore. Somewhere in the back of the building a member of Mary’s staff was holding his daughter in her arms and looking at him as if he were the devil.
From inside, he heard the irate conversation from one of the customers. She’d returned.
In just a few strides Dimitri exited the bar, passed along the short hallway and out through the front door, just in time to see the bus departing.
He’d let anger drive him out here, but he was stopped in his tracks the moment he caught sight of the woman who had nearly, nearly, succeeded in separating him from his child.
Tendrils of long, dark hair whipped around her face, her green eyes bright with something he could recognise. Anger was far too insipid a word for the storm that was brewing between them. She looked...incredible. And he hated her for it. She was better than any of his imprisoned dreams could have conjured. But wasn’t that how the devil worked? Looking like the ultimate temptation whilst cutting out a soul?
‘What are you doing here? And what have you done to my guests?’ she demanded.
The hostility in her tone was nothing he’d ever imagined hearing from her lips. But he was happy to hear it. Happy to have it match his own.
‘We need to talk; they were in the way. I got rid of them.’
Money was an incredible thing. It had been both his saviour and his destroyer, but this time he was going to use it to help him get what he wanted...what he needed.
The woman holding his daughter moved into the hallway behind him, drawing Mary’s attention. He watched as the mother of his child rushed past him, forcing him to back out of her way, and swept their daughter up in her arms.
They made a striking image, Mary’s dark head buried in the crook of their daughter’s neck. He’d so desperately wanted to hold his child the first moment he set eyes on her. But the woman employed by Mary had raged that she wouldn’t let her be held by a stranger. Christe mou, was this how he started as a father? Being denied the right to hold his child? Anger crushed his chest.
‘Thank you, Siobhan. You can go now.’
‘If you’re sure?’ the young girl asked, casting him a doubtful look. After a quick nod of reassurance from the woman holding his child, the girl brushed past him, letting loose a low tut as she did so.
Dimitri locked his gaze with Mary’s. If looks could kill...
* * *
It was all Anna could do to take him in. Dimitri filled the entire doorway, looking like the devil come to collect his dues. Tall, broad and mouthwatering. Anger slashed his cheeks and made a mockery of the taut bones of his incredible features. The long, dark, handmade woollen coat hung almost to his knees, covering a dark blue knitted jumper that, she knew, would stretch across his broad shoulders perfectly. Broad shoulders that she’d once draped with her hands, her fingers, her tongue. Even the sight of him drove away the bone-deep chill that had settled into her skin from the rain. Her body’s betrayal stung as it vibrated, coming to life for the first time in three years, just from his proximity. Desire coated her throat while heat flayed her skin.
He looked as if he’d just stepped from the pages of a glossy magazine. And there she was, soaking wet, an old, hideous luminous-green waterproof jacket covering ill-fitting jeans and a T-shirt that was probably indecently see-through from the rain. But it was his eyes, shards of obsidian and hauntingly familiar, so like the ones she’d seen every single day since her daughter had been placed in her arms. Though they had never been filled with such disdain.
‘You have five minutes.’ His voice was harsh and more guttural than she remembered. Cursing herself silently, she forced her brain into gear.
‘For what?’ Anna asked, thinking that this was an odd way to start the conversation she’d spent years agonising over.
‘To say goodbye.’
‘Goodbye to who?’
‘Our daughter.’
Dear Dimitri,
I didn’t mean for it to be like this.
INSTINCTIVELY ANNA CLUTCHED Amalia tightly to her chest.
‘I’m not saying goodbye to my daughter!’
‘Don’t play the put-upon mother now.’
Dimitri had taken a step towards her and Anna took a step back.
‘You,’ Dimitri continued, ‘who only two days ago blackmailed me with news of her. The transfer has been made, but I’ve come to collect. Because there’s no way I’m leaving my daughter in the care of an alcoholic, debt-ridden liar and cheat.’
Anna’s head spun. So much so, it took her a moment to realise that he had somehow mistaken her for her mother.
‘Wait—’
‘I’ve waited long enough.’
Anna watched, horrified, as another man appeared in the doorway. A man who had ‘legal’ stamped all over him. It didn’t make a dent in Dimitri’s powerful tirade.
‘Mary Moore of Dublin, Ireland. Mortgaged up to the hilt, with three drunk and disorderlies, one child and no father’s name on the birth certificate. You should have been on the stage,’ Dimitri spat, his anger infusing his words with misplaced righteousness. ‘The woman I met that night three years ago was clearly nothing more than a drunken apparition...with