This couldn’t be happening.
Lukas Kalanos was in prison—everybody knew that. Serving a long sentence for his part in the disgraceful arms smuggling business that had been masterminded by his father, Stavros—her own father’s business partner.
The sheer immorality of the venture had sickened Calista to the core—it still did. The fact that her father’s shipping business had gone bust because of it, and her family had been financially ruined, was only of secondary concern. At the age of twenty-three she had already experienced great wealth and great hardship. And she knew which one she preferred.
Which was why five years ago she had walked away, determined to turn her back on her tainted Greek heritage. Away from the collapse of the multi-billion-dollar family business, from her brothers’ bickering and back-stabbing. From her father’s towering rages and black, alcohol-fuelled depressions.
But most of all she had walked away from Lukas Kalanos—the man whose dark eyes were tearing into her soul right now. The man who had taken her virginity and broken her heart. And who had left her with a very permanent reminder.
At the thought of her little daughter Calista felt her lip start to quiver. Effie was fine—she was safe at home in London, probably running rings around poor Magda, Calista’s trusted friend and fellow student nurse, who was in charge until Calista could hurry back. She didn’t want to spend any more time here than she had to—she was intending to stay a couple of days at most, to sort through her father’s things with her brothers, sign whatever paperwork needed to be signed and then escape from this island for ever.
But suddenly getting away from Thalassa had taken on a new urgency. And getting away from the menacingly dark form of Lukas Kalanos more imperative still.
The burial ceremony was almost over. The priest was inviting them to join him in the last prayer before the mourners tossed flowers and soil onto the top of the coffin, the distinctive sound as they met the polished wood sending a shiver through Calista’s slender frame.
‘Not cold, surely?’ A firm, possessive grip clasped her elbow. ‘Or is this a touching display of grief?’
He spoke in faultless English, although Calista’s Greek would have been more than good enough to understand his meaning. Using his grasp, he turned her so that now she couldn’t escape the full force of him as he loomed over her, glowered down at her. ‘If so, I’m sure I don’t need to point out that it is seriously misplaced.’
‘Lukas, please…’ Calista braced herself to meet his searing gaze, her knees almost giving way at the sight of him.
The tangled dark curls had gone, in favour of a close-cropped style that hardened his handsome features, accentuating the uncompromising sweep of his jawline shadowed with designer stubble, the sharp-angled planes of his cheeks. But the eyes were the same—so dark a brown as to be almost black, breathtaking in their intensity.
‘I am here to bury my father—not listen to your insults.’
‘Oh, believe me, agapi mou, in terms of insults I wouldn’t know where to start. It would take a lifetime and more to even scratch the surface of the depths of my revulsion for that man.’
Calista swallowed hard. Her father had had his faults—she had no doubt about that. A larger-than-life character, both in temperament and girth, he had treated her mother very badly, and had had a series of affairs that had broken her mother’s spirit, albeit already fragile. In turn that had eventually led to her accidental overdose. Calista would never wholly forgive him for that.
But he’d still been her father—the only one she would ever have—and she had always known she would have to return to Thalassa one last time to lay him to rest. And maybe lay some of her demons to rest too.
Little had she known that the biggest demon of all would be present at the graveside, sliding his arm around her waist right now in a blatant show of possessiveness and control.
‘I’ll thank you not to speak of my father in that way.’
She was grateful to feel her hot-headed temper kicking in to rescue her, colouring her cheeks beneath the veil. Pointedly taking a step to the side to dislodge his hand from her elbow, she pushed back her shoulders and had to stifle a gasp as his arm slid around her waist, the ring of muscled steel burning through the thin fabric of her black dress.
‘It is both disrespectful and deeply insulting.’ Her voice shook alarmingly. ‘Quite aside from which, you are hardly in a position to judge anyone.’
‘Me, Calista?’ Dark brows were raised fractionally in feigned surprise. ‘Why would that be?’
‘You know perfectly well why.’
‘Ah, yes. The heinous crime I committed. That’s something I want to talk to you about.’
‘Well, I don’t want to talk to you—about that or anything else.’
Particularly not anything else.
Cold fingers of dread tiptoed down her spine at the thought of what they might end up discussing. If Lukas were to find out that he had a daughter, heaven only knew how he would react. It was too terrifying an idea to contemplate.
Calista had never intended to keep Effie a secret from her father—at least not at first. She had been over five months pregnant before she had even realised it herself, convinced that stress was responsible for the nausea, her lack of periods, her fatigue. Because no one got pregnant the very first time they had sex, did they?
Certainly the stress she had been suffering would have felled the strongest spirit, even before she’d found out she was expecting Lukas’s child. What with Stavros—her father’s friend and business partner—dying so suddenly, and then the whole arms smuggling scandal coming out and the shipping business collapsing. And finally making the sickening discovery that Lukas was involved.
By the time she had seen a doctor Lukas had already been awaiting trial for his crime. And on the day she’d gone into labour, a full month earlier than expected, alone and frightened as she pushed her way through the agonising birth with only the midwife’s hand to grip for support, Lukas had been in court, with the judge declaring him guilty and sentencing him to eight years in jail.
Effie’s first screaming lungful of air had come at the exact moment when the judge had uttered the fateful words, ‘Take him down.’
On that day—the day of her daughter’s birth—Calista had resolved to wait to tell Lukas of Effie’s existence until he was released from jail. Eight years had seemed a lifetime away. Time enough for her and Effie to build their own lives in the UK, to become a strong, independent unit. So the secret had been kept well hidden.
Calista had told no one—not even her father—for fear that if he knew the truth word would spread amongst her Greek family and find its way to Lukas. But if she was honest there was another reason she didn’t want her father to know. She didn’t want her precious Effie tainted by any association with him.
He would have tried to take control, Calista knew that—both of her and his granddaughter. He would have tried to manipulate them, bend them to his will, use them to his advantage. Calista had worked far too hard to build an independent life to let him do that. Simply not telling him about Effie had been the easiest solution all round.
Now Aristotle would never know he’d had a granddaughter. But Lukas… Calista moved inside the band of his arm, her heart thudding with frantic alarm and something else—something that felt dangerously like excitement. Lukas would have to know that he was a father. That was his right. But not yet. Not until Calista had had a chance to prepare herself—and Effie. Not until she had made sure all her defences were securely in place.
‘Calista, people are leaving.’ Beside her, but keeping a safe distance from Lukas, Yiannis tried to get her attention. ‘They are waiting to speak to us before they go.’
‘Leaving