The Greek's Million-Dollar Baby Bargain

And two lives snuffed out.

Ann had been at home with Ari, looking after him willingly while Andreas and Carla went off for the day together. He had been orphaned at a stroke.

Ann knew that the horror and grief of that day would never leave her. Andreas’s body had been flown back to Greece. None of his family had come near Ann. Ann had been left to bury her sister on her own. Left to look after baby Ari, all alone in the world now, except for her. She had made no attempt to contact Andreas’ family. They had clearly never wanted Carla—never wanted her child. Whereas she…

Ari was all the world to her. All she had left. Her one consolation in a sea of grief. Grief for her sister and for the man she had so desperately wanted to marry. Anger for his brother—who had stopped them doing so. The brother who was now standing in her own hallway, eyes like lasers.

Demanding to take Ari from her.

Getting no answer, Nikos glanced into the empty room beside the front door, then strode down the narrow hallway to the kitchen at the end. His expression hardened even more. The place was a mess. There was a sink full of washing up, a plastic covered table with food debris on it. But it was the pram that drew him. He strode up to it and looked down. Emotion knifed through him. Andreas’ son! Out of this night¬ mare, one shining miracle. He gazed down at the sleeping baby, his heart full. Slowly, he reached a hand towards him.

‘Don’t touch him!’ The shrill whisper made him halt, whipping his head round.

Ann Turner was in the kitchen doorway, one hand closed tightly around the jamb. Nikos’s brows snapped together. Did the girl think he was going to take the boy there and then? Obviously he was not. He would return when he had all the papers drawn up, a suitable nanny engaged, and then make an orderly removal of his nephew. He was here now simply because he had had to come. He had had to see for himself, this baby who was the only consolation in the nightmare that had closed over the Theakis family with Andreas’s death.

His eyes rested a moment on the figure in the doorway, his mouth tightening as his gaze flicked over her. She suited the place. Shabbily dressed, with her hair tied back, an unkempt mess, and baby food on her shapeless T-shirt. She couldn’t have looked less like the girl who had got her avaricious claws into his brother. Carla Turner had been a gilded bird of paradise. This sister of hers was a scrawny street sparrow.

But Ann Turner’s appearance was irrelevant—only the baby in her care was important.

She was standing aside from the door now. ‘Mr Theakis, I want you to leave. I’ve nothing to say to you, and I don’t want you disturbing Ari.’ Her voice was sharp. Hostile.

For a moment he said nothing, just went on looking at her. Ann could feel the colour run into her cheeks. The shock of seeing him was still jolting through her and she was fighting for composure. And losing. That soul-searching gaze of his was transfixing her. Then, without a word, he started towards her. She pulled aside swiftly as he brushed past her, striding down towards the front door. But her relief was short lived. He merely wheeled into the living room.

She hurried after him, heart thumping. ‘Mr Theakis, I asked you to leave—’ she began, but he cut her short with a peremptory lift of his hand, as if she were a servant who had spoken out of turn.

‘I am here merely to see the child for myself, and to inform you of the arrangements that have been made to take him home.’

Ann stared. ‘This is his home.’

Nikos Theakis glanced around him. The sagging sofa, the worn carpet and faded curtains were encompassed in his condemning glance. ‘This, Miss Turner,’ he said, his eyes coming back to her, resting on her as if she were a cockroach, ‘is not a home. It is a slum.’

Ann coloured. Poverty wasn’t a crime! But Nikos Theakis clearly thought otherwise. His eyes were pinning her as if she were on a dissecting board. Instantly she became conscious of her messy, drab appearance and unwashed hair—conscious, inexplicably, of a feminine shame that she should be caught looking so absolutely unappealing in front of a man as expensively and physically drop-dead gorgeous as Nikos Theakis. Angrily, she broke her gaze away. What did it matter what she looked like? Or him? This was a man who’d just announced to her his intention of stealing the baby she loved more than anyone in the whole world. Her only living family.

Then suddenly he was speaking again, and this time his tone was quite different from the curt, condemning one with which he’d informed her she was living in a slum.

‘But how could it be otherwise?’ he said smoothly, as Ann’s eyes flew to him again. ‘It is very hard, is it not, Miss Turner, to have the unwelcome burden of a small baby? What girl your age could want that?’

His smooth words backfired. Instinctive rage reared in Ann. Yes, it was hard work looking after a baby. But Ari was never a burden. Never.

Nikos Theakis was speaking again, in the same smooth voice. ‘So I shall relieve you of this unwanted burden, Miss Turner, and you may return again to the life of a young, idle and carefree girl.’

She stifled down the rage that his unctuous words aroused in her, trying to keep her voice steady.

‘Mr Theakis, you rejected Ari’s existence from the moment he was conceived,’ she shot at him witheringly. ‘Why the sudden concern about him now?’

Nikos’s eyes darkened. ‘Because now I have the DNA results forwarded to me from the laboratory. I know that he is indeed my brother’s son.’ There was no trace of smoothness in his accented voice now.

‘My sister said so right from the beginning!’ Ann protested.

The sculpted mouth curled contemptuously. ‘You think I would trust the word of a whore?’

It was spoken in such a casual way Ann blanched. ‘Don’t speak of Carla like that!’ she spat furiously.

His eyes skewered her. ‘Your sister slept with any man rich enough to keep her in the lifestyle she hawked herself out for. Of course I warned my brother to check the child was his.’

‘My sister is dead!’ she rang back at him.

‘As is my brother. Thanks to her.’ The coldness in his voice was Arctic. ‘And now only one person is important—my nephew.’ Abruptly his manner changed again. That surface smoothness was back in his voice. ‘Which is why he must return to Greece with me. To have the life that his father would have wanted. Surely, Miss Turner, you cannot disagree with that?’

He sounded so smooth, so reasonable—but Ann’s hackles did not go down. ‘Of course I disagree! Do you propose, Mr Theakis—’ she was even more withering now ‘—to raise Ari yourself? Or will you just dump him on a nanny?’

The dark eyes flashed. Ann felt a stab of angry satisfaction go through her. He doesn’t like being challenged!

‘To assuage your concerns, Miss Turner—’ the deep voice was inflected with sardonic bite ‘—Ari will live in the family home. Yes, with a professional nanny but, most crucially, with my mother.’ And suddenly his voice that was quite different from anything Ann had heard so far. ‘Do I really need to tell you how desperate my mother is for the only consolation she has left to her after the death of her son? Her grief, Miss Turner, is terrible.’

Involuntarily, Ann felt her throat tighten.

‘She is welcome to visit any time she wants—’ she began, but Nikos Theakis cut right across her.

‘Generous of you, indeed, Miss Turner. But let us cut to the chase,’ he said bitingly, the Arctic chill back in his voice.

His eyes were pinning her again, but this time there was not disdain in them for her shabby, messy appearance. Now they held the same expression as when he had called her sister a whore…

His voice was harsh as he continued. ‘I expected no less of you, and you have ensured that my expectations are fulfilled. So, tell me—what price do you set on the boy’s head? I know you must have a high one—your sister’s was marriage to my brother. Yours, however, can only be cash. Well, cash it will be.’

Ann stared disbelievingly as Nikos Theakis slid a long- fingered hand inside his immaculately tailored jacket and drew out a leather-bound chequebook and a gold fountain pen. Swiftly, with an incisive hand, he scrawled across a cheque, then placed it on the table. His face was unreadable as her gaze flickered to it. Ann stood in shock as he spoke again. ‘I never haggle for what I want, Miss Turner,’ he informed her harshly. ‘This is my first and final offer. You will get not a penny more from me. I am offering you a million pounds for my nephew. Take it or leave it.’

Ann blinked. This wasn’t real. That piece of paper on the table in front of her wasn’t a cheque for a million pounds— a million pounds to buy a child. As she still stared, Nikos Theakis spoke again.

‘My nephew,’ he said, and once more he had resumed that smooth tone of voice, ‘will have an idyllic childhood. My mother is a very loving woman, and will embrace her grandson into her heart. He will live with her in her home in Greece, at the Theakis villa on my private island, wanting for nothing.’ He gave a small chilly smile. ‘So, you see, you may take the money, Miss Turner, with a clear conscience.’

Ann heard his terrible words but they didn’t register. Nothing registered except that piece of paper on the table in front of her. He saw her fixation upon it and his expression tightened. The deep lines around his mouth were etched more harshly. She kept on staring at the cheque.

Monstrous! Monstrous! Emotion swirled inside her and she felt the pressure build up in her chest as though it would explode. Only when he moved to the door could she tear her eyes away.

‘I will leave you for now, and return at the end of the week,’ he announced. ‘All the paperwork will be completed by then, and you will hand my nephew over to me.’ His voice hardened again. ‘Understand that a condition of your payment is that all connection with my nephew is severed—he will not benefit from any communication with his late mother’s relatives. However, since my mother can have no idea of the sordid life your sister led, or your squalid circumstances, she has asked me to give you this letter from her.’ He slid his hand inside his jacket once more, and withdrew a sealed envelope, placing it beside the cheque. ‘Do not think to reply to it. And do not attempt to cash your cheque yet—it is post-dated until I have my nephew.’

Then he was gone, closing the door behind him. Numbly Ann heard his footsteps on the pathway, then the soft clunk of a car door and the hushed note of an engine.

Her eyes went back to the cheque, disbelief and loathing filling her. Then slowly her eyes went to the letter. Numbly she picked it up and opened it. Her heart was wrung as she began to read Sophia Theakis’ words.

You cannot imagine, my joy when Nikos told me ofAndreas’ son. I felt the mercy of God’s grace upon me. Tobe blessed with making a loving home for this tragicallybereaved infant would be a privilege I pray for. If you cansee it in your heart, despite your own grief for your lostsister, to grant me this prayer, and allow me to lay the loveI had for my own son before his son, you will have myeternal gratitude. He will be cherished and loved throughouthis life.

Forgive, I beg you, the selfishness of a woman who has lost her son, and for whom old age beckons, in desiring her grandchild to raise. But you are young and have your whole life before you, and you must be free to live it without assuming the premature responsibilities of motherhood to your sister’s child which will consume your precious youth…

Ann could taste the terrible mix of grief and hope in every sentence. Her heart constricted. What should she do? What was for the best? Did Ari really have a ready-made, loving home waiting for him with his grandmother? Would it be better for him than the home she provided, or only richer? A child needed love—emotional security, above all. Far more than material security.

Ann’s face shadowed with memory. Carla had been her emotional security as a child—all that Ann had had—and she had clung to her sister as the only constant in an uncertain, unstable world after their mother’s death. Andreas’ mother’s words echoed in her head, offering ‘a loving home for this tragically bereaved infant’. Was that what would be best for her nephew? Was it what Ari’s parents would have wanted for their son? Ann’s heart squeezed. She knew the answer already.