Latin Lovers: Greek Tycoons: Aristides' Convenient Wife / Bought: One Island, One Bride / The Lazaridis Marriage

Controlling her instinct to follow the pair, she glanced around the empty kitchen with a heart as heavy as lead as the enormity of the news hit her. Delia dead and Nicholas had yet to be told.

Oh, God! She groaned and slumped down in the chair she had recently vacated. She eyed the wine bottle and for a second was tempted to drown her sorrows, but only for a second. She had to be strong for Nicholas. She owed it to her friend to make sure the boy was happy, never mind what the indomitable Leon Aristides wanted.

Rising to her feet, she picked up the glasses and washed them in the sink. No way was she going to quietly slip to the sidelines of Nicholas’ life, she silently vowed. She had dealt with enough sorrow and death in her life and she was not going to let this latest tragedy beat her.

Contrary to what Leon Aristides obviously thought with his dig about money and his patronising comment about her job at the crèche, at five feet two she was not a tiny ineffectual woman. The ‘tiny’ still rankled as she picked up the bottle from the table and put it on the back of the bench. She had a core of inner strength that had seen her through a lot of adversity that would have defeated a lesser woman.

She had nursed her grandfather for four years and continued her studies at the same time, eventually enrolling for a home-study degree. A few months after his death she had taken on the full-time care of baby Nicholas and continued her studies and last year she had obtained a degree in History of Art. Plus she was nowhere near the poor little woman Aristides thought.

Her grandfather after his first stroke at the age of sixty, had sold off the fifty acres of land that surrounded their home to an international hotel chain for development while making sure they kept the house and right of way. It was his way of ensuring there was money for his long-term care and Helen.

On inheriting her grandfather’s estate after his death, and the life insurance from her parents that had been held in trust, Helen was hardly penniless.

While she was nowhere near as wealthy as Aristides, the money she had invested assured her of a reasonably comfortable living and left her free to indulge her own interests. As a freelance illustrator she had already completed the illustrations for three best selling children’s books, and had a lucrative deal with the author and publisher to complete the illustrations on the full series of eight, her time spent at the crèche was a personal pleasure, but her greatest love was looking after Nicholas. Under the circumstances her life was as near perfect as she could have wished. Until today.

She opened the fridge and took out a carton of juice, then reached for Nicholas’favourite plastic mug from an overhead cupboard. She placed them both on the table with the biscuit tin, and straightened up, wondering what to do next.

Quietly she walked into the hall and stood at the foot of the stairs. She could hear the murmur of voices, and then childish laughter. She wanted to go upstairs and join them, but instead she walked the length of the hall and halfway back. She stopped at the hall table and picked up the post she had dropped earlier and looked through it. A couple of circulars and a letter. She turned it over in her hand and did not recognise the sender’s address but tensed as she realised it was a solicitor’s firm. She read the letter three times, and then slipped it in the table drawer.

Back in the kitchen she stared sightlessly out of the window. The finality of the situation hit her; Aristides was telling the truth. The solicitor’s letter was brief but informative, simply confirming Delia was dead and Helen was a beneficiary of her will.

Sighing, she turned. She needed something to do, something mundane so she didn’t have to think of what might lie ahead. Perhaps if she began preparing supper. They always had their meal about six, then bath and bed. Scrambled egg with crispy bacon and grilled tomatoes was a favourite of Nicholas’ and she was reaching for the china chicken that held the eggs when Nicholas and Leon walked back into the kitchen.

‘Uncle Leon likes my bed,’ Nicholas said, a broad grin on his face. ‘He said he is going to get me another one just like it for when we stay at his house in Greece.’ His eyes were huge with wonder. ‘Isn’t that great?’

With a malevolent glance at the tall dark man hovering over the boy, she bent down and picked Nicholas up. ‘Yes, marvelous,’ Helen got out between clenched teeth and deposited the boy on his seat at the table. ‘Now drink your juice and have a biscuit, while I get supper ready.’ She could do nothing about the stiffness in her tone; she was so angry it took all her self-control to speak civilly.

And it only got worse.

CHAPTER FOUR

THREE HOURS LATER Helen sat on the side of Nicholas’ bed and read him Rex Rabbit and the Good Fairy. The first book she had illustrated. Nicholas loved the stories about Rex, a rather naughty rabbit, and the fairy that helped him out of his troubles, and the original drawing of the fairy hung proudly on his bedroom wall.

Usually this was her favourite time with Nicholas. But with Leon Aristides sitting like some huge dark spectre on the opposite side of the bed listening to every word tonight was different. She came to the end of the story and nervously glanced across at him.

His dark eyes rested on her. She watched them narrow in silent command, and she knew what he meant. She glanced quickly back at Nicholas, her nerves on a razor edge.

‘Now your prayers,’ she murmured, smiling softly down at him. It was their usual ritual, but tonight it held only sadness for Helen. She knew she had to tell Nicholas his mother was dead. Not least because Leon had told her so earlier in no uncertain terms when Nicholas had been otherwise occupied with his toys. If she didn’t he would.

The childish voice ended with, ‘God bless my Helen and God bless Delia. Amen.’

‘Mum Delia,’ Helen murmured automatically, and was ignored.

‘Oh, and God bless Uncle Leon,’ Nicholas said with a grin. Then he added, ‘When is Delia coming? I haven’t thanked her for my bed yet.’

No time was good for what Helen had to say, but she had no choice, and, reaching out a finger to stroke his smooth cheek, her eyes moist with tears, she told him, ‘Mum Delia will not be coming back, sweetheart,’ and, moving, she slipped an arm around his small shoulders.

‘You know she lived a lot of the time in Greece. Well, so does Uncle Leon and that is why he is here today. He came to tell us Delia was badly hurt in an accident and she died.’ Her voice broke. Saying the words out loud seemed so final.

‘You mean she is never coming back?’ Nicholas’ bottom lip trembled, and the big dark eyes so like Delia’s filled with tears. ‘But why not?’

Helen tightened her arm around him and snuggled him closer. ‘Remember when your hamster died and you and I had a little service and I told you he had gone to heaven where he would still be able to watch you even though you could no longer see him?’

He looked up into her face and then glanced at Leon and back to Helen. ‘Has Delia gone to heaven?’ he asked, big fat tears rolling down his soft cheeks.

‘Yes, but she will still be watching over you.’

‘But I want to see her again.’ He began to sob in earnest.

‘Shh, it’s all right,’ Helen husked.

‘You won’t leave me like Delia?’ he gasped between his sobs, his little hands clinging to her shoulders, his body shaking.

Whether he understood the meaning of death, Helen wasn’t sure, or whether he was simply picking up the enormity of the news from the tension in the two adults, she could not say. She simply held him close and stroked his dark curly hair, murmuring soothing words of love and reassurance, telling him not to worry, she would always be there for him.

Eventually the sobbing ceased and Helen laid him gently down in the bed and kissed his brow.

‘Promise you won’t die and leave me?’ he pleaded, his eyes huge in his flushed damp face. ‘Promise.’

‘Don’t worry, my love, I will always be here for you,’ Helen said softly, brushing her lips against his brow again, and she saw exhaustion overtake him as his eyes closed and she kissed the slightly swollen lids, the smooth cheeks, and tenderly placed his car-printed duvet around his shoulders. ‘I promise.’ And a tear dropped from her eye to his cheek. His little nose wrinkled and he sighed and slept.

Ten minutes later at Leon’s insistence Helen was seated alone in the living room while he went to make coffee. She had been too emotionally exhausted to argue and now she laid her head back against the soft cushions of the sofa and closed her eyes.

Grief and guilt washed over her in waves, and her mind spun like a windmill in a gale. What a mess, and most of it of her own making. She should never have agreed to Delia’s mad idea, she should never have let her own circumstances influence her judgment, but then she would never have known the deep love she felt for Nicholas. To lose him would break her heart, yet she had always known Delia would claim him one day and somehow that had never felt so bad.

‘Here, take this.’ She opened her eyes to find Leon looming over her with a cup of coffee in his hand. ‘I’ve laced it with a little cognac I found in a cupboard. You look like you need it.’

She took the mug from him and raised it to her lips and swallowed down a mouthful of the hot liquid. She grimaced as the spirit caught her throat, but the warmth seemed to spread through her veins inducing a kind of calm. Slowly she sipped the refreshing brew until she had drained the cup and put it on the coffee table in front of her.

Finally she glanced across at Leon reclining on the sofa opposite. He had finished his coffee and he was watching her from beneath heavy-lidded eyes, a brooding expression on his rugged face, and she wondered what he was thinking. A moment later she found out.

‘Did you mean what you told Nicholas about never leaving him?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she asserted. ‘I know it will be difficult, and obviously I don’t expect to be physically with him all the time,’ she said gathering her thoughts into some kind of order. ‘I understand you will want to spend some time with him. You could take him for the holidays, as I know it is a custom in your family, plus apparently you have already told him.’ She couldn’t resist the dig. ‘Given the circumstances it is inevitable Nicholas and I will be apart for some periods, but I will still keep in touch with him by telephone on a daily basis so he will never feel I have left him,’ Helen offered and thought she was being reasonable.

‘I hear what you are saying, but I don’t agree. I can see Nicholas is happy with you and you don’t want to part with him. But as his uncle, his only blood relative, I think we should share his upbringing. Nicholas can live with me for six months of the year and you for the other.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Helen exclaimed, her eyes widening in astonished disbelief on his darkly attractive face. ‘That would be absurd. Nicholas switching home every six months, switching schools, doctors everything—only a man could come up with such an idiotic suggestion,’ she declared, for once feeling superior to the arrogant devil.

His mouth hardened. ‘Exactly.’

‘Then why suggest it?’ she queried warily, no longer feeling superior as she realised he had set her up for something, but what?

‘Don’t get me wrong. I think you have done a wonderful job with Nicholas, with little help from my sister, though his knowledge of the Greek language is quite good, so she did do something right. But I have noted he calls you my Helen. But he rarely adds the prefix Mum to Delia’s name unless you prompt him. He is upset at the news of her death, but, though it pains me to say it, nowhere near as upset as he would be if he lost you. To all intents and purposes you are his mother, and I think it would be in his best interest if he stays with you.’

‘You mean you agree he can stay with me? ‘Helen asked, hardly daring to believe Aristides could be so reasonable.

‘No, I mean the boy has had a confusing start in life with you as the only constant adult and he deserves more. He deserves two parents and a stable home and I can provide that.’