Hesitantly, the little boy repeated the numbers. Something pierced inside Alexis.
My son.
Speaking Greek to me.
‘Very good,’ he said, and smiled down at his son.
It seemed easier, that second smile.
R
HIANNA
stirred, sluggishly. Her head felt heavy; her body was aching. She must have been given a sedative, and the after-effects had made her feel groggy. She wondered how long she’d been asleep, and reached for her watch. As she did so she
realised
she was wearing her nightdress. Nurse Thompson must have got her changed, though she did not remember it.
The watch showed ten-thirty a.m., and she
realised
she had slept through till morning.
Simultaneously she remembered just
why
Nurse Thompson must have sedated her.
Panic leapt in her breast.
‘Nicky!’
Her voice was anguished.
Had she called out loud?
An instant later Nurse Thompson was entering her bedroom.
‘Now, now,’ she said calmly. ‘I will not have you upsetting yourself again—’
‘Where’s Nicky?’
Rhianna
demanded desperately. Fear filled her.
Cold, terrifying fear.
Nurse Thompson answered composedly. ‘He’s swimming in the pool with
Mr
Petrakis.’
Immediately
Rhianna
tried to throw off her bedclothes. Nurse Thompson pressed her back.
‘This won’t do,’ she said sternly. ‘Nicky is perfectly all right, and perfectly happy. You can see him in just a little while, when you’ve had breakfast. He isn’t going anywhere.’
But
Rhianna
only stared up at her with anguished eyes.
‘You don’t understand—’
Nurse Thompson plumped her pillows.
‘What I understand is this: if you want to get well, as fast as possible, you simply must not upset yourself like this! You could have fallen quite badly on those steps yesterday, you know. And what help would that have been? Now, eat your breakfast, and then I’ll help you get up.’
There was nothing
Rhianna
could do but give in. But even as she forced down her breakfast under the unyielding supervision of Nurse Thompson her head was going round and round.
Desperately she tried to force her brain to think, to function. Alexis Petrakis could not take Nicky from her. The fathers of illegitimate children had no automatic rights in law. She could deny him access, keep Nicky safe from him,
get
a family court to keep Alexis Petrakis away…
But even as her thoughts writhed like snakes a question kept stabbing through her that she could not,
could not
answer.
Why?
Why
did Alexis Petrakis want Nicky? Surely the only reason he’d got him out of foster care and brought him here with her was to stop any scandal breaking?
But why was he so angry that she had kept him from him?
Emotion choked in her.
Dear God, of
course
she had kept Nicky from him! A man like that, capable of doing what he had to her, saying what he had. If he could use women like that he could do the same to his son.
Her son.
It seemed an age before Nurse Thompson was finally contented by the amount she’d forced herself to eat, and helped her get dressed. Then it seemed an age to get her out on to the terrace.
‘I want to be near the pool,’
Rhianna
said tersely. She could hear splashing, and Nicky’s childish cries answered by a deeper, accented voice, coming from the direction of the lower terrace, around the other side of the villa, where the pool was.
Nurse Thompson helped her along with
Stavros
, Maria’s husband, carrying her chair around the corner. He positioned it so that it overlooked the lower pool terrace. As the pool came into view
Rhianna
felt her heart crush. Nicky was there, wearing armbands, batting his way across the width. Alexis Petrakis was standing in the water, just in front of him, holding his hands out towards him, calling out encouragement.
As she watched, breath tight in her chest,
Rhianna’s
eyes fixed on her son. But another image was burning itself on her retina. That of the man backing slowly towards the edge of the pool, his hair like wet sable, his strong, leanly muscled torso a dark, tanned gold, diamond drops of water caught in the arrow of dark hair from his pectorals to his navel.
Memory sliced like a knife through her brain.
Her hands sliding over the hard, taut cusps of his shoulders beneath the loosened lawn of his shirt, her hips straining up to his, her breath short and frantic with need, sensation pouring through her body, heat exploding through her…
No! She must not remember! All she must do was see Alexis Petrakis now, as the man who wanted to take her son…
Emotion shuddered through her.
He would never do so.
Never.
No one would
ever
take Nicky away from her again. No one would
ever
part her from him.
Into her head the searing hiss of his words scalded.
My son will be a permanent part of my life from now on.
Again, disbelief knifed through her. Why,
why
did Alexis Petrakis want Nicky?
Her eyes gazed down on the scene in the pool.
‘Kick!’
Rhianna
could hear Alexis call out. ‘Kick hard!’
She watched Nicky respond by kicking even harder, propelling himself forward.
‘
Kala
!
Good!’
He was nodding encouragingly to Nicky, beckoning him forwards all the time. He had eyes only for the boy.
Total focus.
Total attention.
It didn’t make sense. It just didn’t make sense.
And yet, as she went on watching, something hollowed out inside her.
Nicky was swimming towards his father.
His little face rapt with concentration, with effort.
With a last flurry of arms he reached him, and Alexis finally allowed his hands to be taken.
‘Excellent!’ he announced.
Nicky looked at him, beaming. Then he caught sight of
Rhianna
, watching him from the upper terrace.
‘Did you see, Mummy? Did you see? I’m swimming! I’m swimming!’
His little face was a picture of delight and pleasure and pride.
Another pair of eyes rested on her.
Dark, like his son’s.
But the look he
levelled
at
Rhianna
was black with loathing.
The morning seemed to last for ever. The swimming lesson changed into a water polo session, causing much glee for Nicky, followed by a jumping-in session which caused even more.
Rhianna
stared, hollow-eyed.
Watching Alexis Petrakis with her son.
When the swimming finally ended, with Karen coming out to the pool area and telling Nicky it was lunchtime, she felt that an
aeon
had passed.
Reluctantly, Nicky climbed out of the pool and let Karen peel his armbands off and wrap a towel round him.
Rhianna
could see Alexis Petrakis saying something to the nanny, and her nodding, then something to Nicky, and him saying something eagerly back. Exchange finished, Alexis Petrakis pushed off from the side of the pool and started to plough powerfully down to the deep end in a strong, rhythmic freestyle.
Nicky came racing up the steps to her.
‘Did you see, Mummy? Did you see?’
He clambered up on her lap, towel and all, wet hair dripping on her. She didn’t care. She just hugged him close.
Her heart clenched.
Oh, Nicky, my adored boy, I love you so much…
‘Come along—lunchtime.’ Karen was holding out her hand. ‘We’ve got to get you changed first.’
She smiled at
Rhianna
and led Nicky off.
Below, in the pool, Alexis Petrakis was still lapping, length after length. Sunlight rippled over the sleek shape of his body.
Rhianna’s
stomach churned.
Alexis lifted himself out of the pool, lithely hauling himself out by the strength of his arms alone and straightening up. He’d needed those lengths.
Needed them to wash the bile from his stomach, to take the edge off his anger.
She was still sitting there, on the upper terrace. The staff had had the good sense to clear out, and that was as well. Seizing a beach towel from a pool lounger, he started to dry himself vigorously. Then, throwing the damp towel over one shoulder, he headed up the steps.
Did she stiffen as he came past her? He didn’t know. He refused to look at her.
Then, as he strode past, her voice hissed at him like a venomous snake.
‘You’re not getting Nicky. You’re not getting him.’
Alexis stopped dead. Slowly he turned to look at her.
Her hands were clenched around the arms of her chair. Her face was vehement.
His was like cold marble.
Slowly he spoke.
‘Let me make something very, very plain to you.’ His words were like stones. ‘Any fond idea that you might now be entertaining, that you can threaten me with a custody battle that will end in your victory and a hefty maintenance payout from me, you can lose straight away. No court in Europe would give a child back to a woman like you!’
Her face contorted. ‘No court in Europe would give a child to a man like
you.
They’d only have to hear how Nicky was conceived to have you thrown out of court!’
A vicious light lit his eyes.
Anger lashed from him, as sharp and as violent as a knife striking.
‘
Thee
mou
,
you have the audacity to talk about how he was conceived?’
Fury bit in her throat.
Fury,
and a burning shame at how easily she had fallen into Alexis Petrakis’ bed. Crimson seared across her cheeks.
‘I’ve done only one thing—
one
—that I ever regretted, and that was being so incredibly,
criminally
stupid as to fall into bed with you that night!’
Venom spat in her voice. Her heart was racing, hammering, but she had to fight back. She had to!
His mouth twisted. His eyes were killing, like a basilisk.
‘Yes, stupid indeed. Stupid to take me for the fool you thought me.’
‘I was not—’
But her objection was cut short by what he said next, sweeping through her hissing interjection.
‘And stupid now if you think that I’d leave my son to the tender mercies of a drug addict.’
Her mouth opened,
then
closed again. She sat back, motionless.
‘What did you say?’
Her voice was hollow.
His face was cold now, cold as the grave.
‘Are you going to deny it?’ His voice was vicious. ‘Don’t even try. The social worker who informed me I had a four-year-old son told me all about your habit. She found the evidence the morning she came to your flat and found you passed out, with spilt drugs on the bedside table and my son unattended, willing to open the door to anyone who called! And then to take a four-year-old child out with you, when you were still high, and nearly get him killed on the road!’ His eyes narrowed. ‘I could throttle you for that with my bare hands, you irresponsible—’
She could feel her teeth start to chatter.
‘It wasn’t drugs. It was flu powder!’ she interrupted.
He ignored her protestation.
‘And you threatened her with violence.’
‘It was a vegetable knife—I was peeling carrots! She was going on and on and on at me, badgering me to tell her who Nicky’s father was—as if I would
ever
have told her that.’
‘No,’ he cut back at her, his voice scathing with anger, ‘you wanted to plan your disclosure, didn’t you? Time it for just when you could get the most money off me. And to hell with the kind of life you were subjecting my son to till you picked your moment to move in for the kill!’
Her face worked. ‘You’re mad.
Completely insane.
I was never going to let you come anywhere
near
Nicky for the rest of his life.’
Something flashed in his eyes, and she almost reeled from it. But the adrenaline was coursing through her body, making her fight, and fight, and fight.
‘So that was why you ensured my name and contact details were carefully attached to his birth certificate?’ His taunt was a scathing sneer.
Rhianna
closed her eyes,
then
opened them again. Her hands were clenching in her lap.
‘It was for emergencies! In case anything…anything ever happened to me.’ Cold sweat ran down her back. Something very nearly
had
happened to her—if she hadn’t jerked herself and the buggy away just in time as that speeding car bore down on her at the pedestrian crossing, even if Nicky had survived, she might not have. ‘I put your name down because I knew that at least you had money, that the state could get you to pay out for him, pay for decent foster care…ensure a future for him…’
Again something moved in his face.
‘Well, now my son
has
a future. And not with some feckless, drugged-out—’
Rhianna
clambered to her feet, ignoring the pain shooting through her as she did so.
‘Don’t speak to me like that! How dare you call me that? I am
not
a drug addict!’
His brows snapped together. ‘Call it anything you want—recreational user—whatever obscene euphemism you want. But I tell you
this,
you’ll never touch drugs again for the rest of your life. My son will not have an addict for a mother!’
‘
I don’t do drugs!’
Her voice was a high-pitched shriek. ‘I have
never
done drugs!’
He looked at her coldly.
‘Control yourself. I won’t tolerate your hysterics. Nor will I be influenced by them.’ Hard, condemning eyes bored into her. ‘I know you for what you are, so don’t prate to me of virtues you do not possess. Now, sit down before you fall down. And don’t even think of trying to play the sympathy card. Your physical condition is entirely your own responsibility. My
only
concern is my son! If it weren’t for him—’ his eyes were a glittering mask of loathing ‘—you could drop dead right now and I wouldn’t lift a finger to save you. But a four-year-old child needs his mother—even one such as you. So for his sake I will tolerate you and your presence in his life, but on
my
terms, do you understand me? From now on you live at my discretion, at my direction, under the supervision of my staff. You don’t move, speak or act unless it is in the interest of my son.’