Claiming His Hidden Heir: Claiming His Hidden Heir

‘A good bit older than I was then. In her thirties, I think,’ Luka said. ‘She was my first.’ He looked at her. ‘Who was yours?’

‘I don’t have to answer that.’

‘If you want to know more you do.’

‘Gordon.’

He wrinkled his nose and Luka was surprised as something that felt like it should be called jealousy surged in his chest.

Which was ridiculous when he was telling her about his own depraved past.

‘Well, my first was actually stunning—a divorcée. She was there with friends but had her own villa. I was there every night until morning and I thought I had found the keys to heaven. The morning she left she came into Reception and when Geo wasn’t looking she gave me an envelope. I thought it was a letter. When I opened it there was a whole load of cash. Until that point I had thought it was a romance.’

‘Were you hurt when she paid you?’

‘Hell no,’ he said. ‘To tell the truth I was already starting to get restless.’

Cecelia suppressed an eye-roll and refrained from saying that perhaps it was an indicator of things to come, as Luka spoke on.

‘I was trying to work out how to break it off but had decided to do so after her holiday. I was the naïve one back then.’

Cecelia gave a wry smile at that. ‘I doubt you were ever naïve. And after she’d gone there was another?’

‘Of course, although it wasn’t always cash. Sometimes they would take me shopping for a watch or such like. Once a car...’

‘A car?’

She started to laugh. An embarrassed laugh, but she was also very curious. ‘Luka!’

‘What?’ He shrugged. ‘I was always careful and it wasn’t all sex.’

‘What else?’

‘Romance. Dinner. Shopping. But mainly talking.’

‘You mean, saying what they wanted to hear?’

‘Yep.’

‘Did you care for them?’

‘Some I did,’ Luka said. ‘Mostly it was work.’ He met her eyes. ‘They didn’t all care for me, Cece. They paid for the full Luka Kargas treatment.’

For a few years the pool had been his playground and the pickings had always been rich.

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘once I had bought the restaurant I hired a decent chef and changed the décor.’

‘What about your father?’

Luka didn’t answer directly.

It felt disloyal to his mother to admit that his father hadn’t so much as lifted a saucepan.

‘The restaurant started to do well and was too busy for one chef. Though it didn’t do too well—I made sure of that.’

‘Why?’

‘Because I knew it wouldn’t be long until Geo blew things again and would be forced to sell. When that happened I had planned to be in a good enough position to put in an offer on the resort. With help, of course...’

‘Financial help?’ Cecelia checked.

‘No, one of the women I was seeing helped me get my papers in order to go to the bank.’ He didn’t add that the woman had also warned him not to bring his father into the hotel side of things.

It was advice for which he would be grateful for ever.

‘How old were you by then?’

‘Twenty-two. Once the resort was safely mine I hired the best chef I could find and things really started to happen. As the guests came in I started to buy up the houses and land around it. Out of all the hotels I own, it is still the jewel in my crown. From humble beginnings it’s magnificent now.’

She looked at him. He mesmerised her, he truly did. And she was nervous too, for the more she knew him, the more she wanted him.

‘Is your father still your business partner?’

‘Not fully.’ He shook his head. ‘The hotels are mine, the restaurants belong to us both.’ And then, a touch unguarded, he admitted a little more. ‘I should never have gone into business with him.’

‘I agree about not going into business with family,’ Cecelia said, because she had seen such things go wrong in her work before. ‘And, Luka, I also think it’s a really bad idea getting involved with an employer.’ It was Cecelia who brought it back to them. ‘I’m not saying that I regret last night, but it should never have happened. I take my career very seriously.’

‘I know you do, but you’re leaving anyway.’

‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘But I still don’t think it’s right and I don’t want Bridgette or anyone knowing that something once happened between us.’

‘Once?’ he checked, and he took her hand to move it to the sheet beneath which he was hardening, but she resisted and her palm came to rest on his flat stomach.

There was no solace there for his skin was warm and she could feel the silk hair that led from his navel to paradise and she ached to move her hand lower.

So much had changed since yesterday.

Not just that she was leaving.

And not just that they had slept together.

He was creeping further into her heart.

‘Luka, I really think we should just draw a neat line under what happened and when you come back from Xanero we’ll go back to how we were.’

She was trying so hard to hold onto her heart, while at the same time sitting on his bed and looking into his eyes.

He pulled her head towards him, and she let him, and they shared a lingering kiss. He was leaving this morning, Cecelia told herself.