Claiming His Hidden Heir: Claiming His Hidden Heir

Yes, she was braced, if not for attack then for the silk of his persuasion. But she must not relent, not now that she had finally had the courage to hand in her notice.

‘A taste of home,’ he said as their dishes were served.

‘Will it be nice to be there?’ Cecelia asked. ‘Aside from the difficult news, I mean.’

Luka just shrugged.

‘Will you be staying with your family?’ she asked. She wasn’t probing, she told herself, for there were arrangements to be made that would undoubtedly fall to her.

‘The resort is huge. They have a villa there but on the other side to mine.’

‘What’s it like in Xanero?’

‘The island is stunning.’

‘It’s still a family business?’ Cecelia checked.

‘Yes.’ It wasn’t an outright lie but there was so much he left unsaid.

‘Your father’s still the chef there?’

Luka didn’t answer straight away.

The truth was, his father had never been the chef there. Well, once, for the briefest of times.

It was all part of an elaborate charade that Luka went along with, only so that his mother could hold her head up in town.

‘He’s semi-retired,’ Luka said, and that wasn’t really a lie—Theo Kargas had spent his adult life semi-retired. Still, rather than talk about home he moved the subject to the upcoming weeks. Not everything had been cancelled. Luka would be working online and there was a trip to Athens he would keep. It was doable yet it was complex as Luka was booked out weeks and months ahead of time, so there was never much room for manoeuvre.

‘I’ll tell Garcia that the trip to New York will have to wait.’

‘He won’t like it.’

‘Good,’ Luka said. ‘You know what they say about treating them mean to keep them keen. He needs me far more than I need him, yet he has started to forget that! Still, perhaps we can go when I return.’

‘Of course.’ Cecelia nodded. ‘When you know more how things are at home I’ll schedule it again. Hopefully by then your new PA will be on board and he or she can go along too.’

He didn’t like the sound of that.

Luka looked over to where she sat, sipping on sparking water with that mustard-coloured cardigan covering cream shoulders, and still he wondered what made her tick.

Cecelia intrigued him.

She was as cold as ice and so buttoned up and formal that, even though he knew she’d been engaged, he privately wondered if she was a virgin, for he simply could not imagine her in bed.

But on occasion he found himself imagining it anyway!

‘What happened to Gordon?’ Luka suddenly asked.

Her silence was a pointed one.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘you’re leaving—I can ask now.’

‘I like to keep my private life private,’ Cecelia said, stabbing an olive with her fork.

‘I know you do,’ Luka said. ‘Come on, what happened?’

Cecelia hesitated.

Certainly she would not be telling Luka that at inappropriate times images of him had kept popping into her head! And neither would she tell him that she had thought herself content until he’d appeared in her life.

Instead, she told him a far safer version. ‘I decided that my aunt and uncle’s version of the perfect man for me didn’t fit mine.’

‘Your aunt and uncle?’ he checked, recalling that Cecelia’s aunt was her next of kin on her résumé.

‘I was raised by them after my mother died.’

‘How old were you then?’

‘Eight,’ Cecelia said through taut lips, for she was terribly uncomfortable with the subject, but Luka seemed very intent on finding things out tonight.

‘What about your father?’

She gave a slight shake of her head, which told him nothing other than the subject was out of bounds.

Not just with Luka.

She had never told anyone about the time she had come face to face with him.

He had dark hair and had worn a wedding ring.

That was all Cecelia knew. That and the fact he had shouted at her mother. When the money had run out, Harriet had called him to tell him he had a child, but it hadn’t produced the result her mother had obviously hoped for.

There had been no joyful greeting. His eyes had been furious when they had met hers, and Harriet had quickly sent her daughter to her room.

A lot of shouting had ensued and Cecelia had found out that her mother had once been given a considerable sum of money for... Cecelia had frowned when she heard a word that a seven-year-old Cecelia didn’t understand.

Termination.

Soon after, to her terrible distress, she found out what her father had meant.

‘I don’t want to talk about my father,’ she said to Luka.

‘Fine.’ He shrugged and then gave that wicked smile. ‘Tell me more about your fiancé, then.’

‘Ex,’ she pointed out.

‘That’s right.’