The Greek Tycoon's Tarnished Bride (Men of the Zodiac) Read online

  “Jeez, you’re not a man, you’re a machine.”

  Tito looked around the tiny room as he spoke. “Maybe I am. A mechanical pump for a heart, molten lead in my veins. Sometimes it’s better to be rational and detached.”

  “That must be why you believe I’ll hand my child over to you without a fight. You’re insane. You’ll be offering me money to hand him over next.”

  His gaze darted back to her face “Would that be the answer? Because if that’s what it takes just name your price.”

  “My son is not for sale and neither am I. He’s my only reason for living, and you’ll only get him over my dead body.”

  “Very dramatic. Well done. But you won’t have to ‘hand him over’ if you see sense and marry me. Being Mrs. Makris will make you sufficiently respectable in Cretan society. Hopefully.” He tipped his head to one side “At least you’re not ambivalent about your offspring. I thought you might be.”

  She wanted him to go and go soon. “Hoped, don’t you mean?”

  “You must be incredibly selfish. What kind of a mother would deny her child the best kind of life? Food, warmth—”

  She was getting really angry now. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. He has plenty of food and when he’s here it’s warm.”

  His eyebrows lifted, and his expression changed to one that would go with suddenly finding out he’d won a nice prize. “So where is he now?”

  “With a friend.”

  “He sleeps apart from you every night while you work?” He made a tutting sound. “Some mother.”

  How dare he speak to her like that! “I only work nights occasionally, maybe once a fortnight. I don’t like it either, but he has a travel cot and his comfort toy. My friend is a registered childminder. I trust her implicitly, and he’s used to it. I’m his mother, I know.”

  His expression was impassive. “I’m not convinced.”

  “Like that bothers me?” She glared at him coldly. “It’s no different than what rich people do with their nannies and maternity nurses. I do believe even our royal family do it when the need arises!”

  “However you look at it, Nick is spending a lot of time with strangers instead of his mother. Is that how it will be until you can dump him on a state school during the day? Or until you get state benefits to send him to a government nursery even earlier?”

  “I don’t like claiming state handouts, but without them—”

  “Exactly.”

  “I’m providing for my child. We’re fine.”

  “But you could make his life so much better, can’t you see that? And your life so much easier.” Tito sighed crossly. “How long can you hold down a night job, study, and look after Nick properly? You’ll burn out. You are not giving him the best start in life.”

  Erica sidled around the side of her small battered sofa, subconsciously trying to put a barrier between them. “I can’t give him up, he’s all I have. I’m his mother, and I love him.”

  “So do his blood family in Greece.”

  “He doesn’t even know them.”

  His voice dropped an octave and softened. “Listen, if the UK government gets its claws into you, he’ll be sent to a foster family he doesn’t even know either if they find out how you’re living.”

  “Rubbish. And he has family here,” she said defiantly. “My mother for one.”

  “Your mother really is a whore.” He stalled for a second at the horror that was likely showing on her face. “Sorry to be so blunt, but you must be aware she does sexual favors for money. My people have been very thorough in investigating everything about you.”

  She shook her head with disbelief. “Why are you being so cruel? I love my son, I would die for him. He’s healthy and happy.”

  “And that’s great, but he’s a baby now. In the coming months and years he will need so much more. More than you can give.”

  She wanted to throw something at the arrogant Greek’s head. “You have experience of this kind of thing?”

  “Personal experience, yes. I wasn’t born into wealth.”

  Her heart hammered painfully in her chest. “You could be anyone, a trafficker. How would I know anyway? You must think I’m stupid, desperate. I insist you leave.”

  “I will go now. Here’s my card, check me out, contact the lawyers on the documents, Google everything if you have Internet access in this place.” He raked his fingers through the black silk of his hair. “Or let me know any other way I can prove who I am and that my intentions are genuine. Consult a lawyer or a private detective. I’ll pay for it. Oh, and there’s something I forgot about.” He took a black leather wallet out of his inside pocket. “A photograph of me and Yannis, more proof that I am who I say I am. And when I come back I’ll have my passport.”

  Erica took the small piece of paper he offered her, careful not to let their fingers touch. “Yannis…yes, that’s him. Look, I need some time.”

  “Of course. I’ll come back later when Nick is here.” He took a couple of strides towards the door. “In an hour? Two?”

  “Yes, in two,” Erica mumbled, saying what he wanted to hear just to get rid of him. Desperate for him to leave, she turned the latch and pulled the door open.

  He leaned down so that she could feel the warmth of him on her face. “But please don’t do anything stupid.”

  She swallowed and felt dizzy through holding her breath. “Like what?”

  His voice dropped to a murmur. “Like trying to disappear.”

  Her fingers tightened on the door catch and the cold metal bit into her flesh. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think you know. This is all in Nick’s best interests, and you’ll come to see that in the end. Whatever it takes.”

  Erica slammed the door behind him, her breath now coming in harsh and rapid bursts. It had taken everything she had not to become hysterical in the face of the deadly gorgeous stranger who was intent on taking her child. He was ruthless and uncompromising like the devil himself, but now she felt close to emotional collapse. Every day since Nick had been born, a voice in the back of her mind taunted her about being a bad mother, about how she wasn’t good enough to look after a hamster let alone a baby on her own. Tito Makris had made it feel even more real. It was as if a chilling prophecy was about to be fulfilled. His condemnation of her hurt almost as much as the contempt her own mother had shown at how she’d allegedly screwed up her life by getting pregnant and risking her university degree to look after Nick. As if her mother were a shining paragon of virtue.

  For a fleeting moment she wondered what life would be like now if her father was still alive and whether she would run to him for help. She shook the thought away almost immediately and slammed shut the iron gates in her heart against the pain of missing him so badly. Everything would be different if he were still alive. Different and better. Well, she’d just have to fight them all off, and she couldn’t do that at arm’s length. She needed to face it head on, deal with the horror of the situation before it took over, and she didn’t have the strength to fight it anymore.

  Taking a deep breath, she wrenched open the front door and shouted after the tall, dark figure hunched against the torrential rain. “Makris!” He turned, his black hair whipped into unruly peaks by the wind, and stared back at her. His mouth was set in a grim line. “Come back. I want to talk about all this now rather than later.”

  He hesitated for a moment and then nodded before striding quickly back. Once back inside, he shook the raindrops from his hair.

  She swallowed and looked down at the photograph he had left with her. “I only have a few pictures of Yannis, from when we met on holiday, that’s all.”

  “There are many more back in Greece.” He ran the flat of his palms down the sides of his face to dry it. “Nick will have plenty of history about his father when he’s older.”

  She felt winded at the sight of her dead lover. “You both look so young here. And you’re in uniform…”

  “We saw out o
ur military service together. He was nineteen there.”

  “You still have conscription in Greece?”

  He nodded and more raindrops fell from his hair onto his collar. “Yes, all men between nineteen and forty-five have to do a few months.”

  “So that would include Nick?”

  He shrugged. “A lot will change in the seventeen plus years before Nick will to have to worry about that.”

  “It’s like something out of the dark ages.” Erica handed back the photograph. She felt sick. “But let’s talk while Nick isn’t here in case I feel the need to shout at you. And I think there’s a high chance of that. I have to get him in thirty minutes, so I’m sure we can settle a few things in that time.”

  “Good. That’s very—”

  “Very what? There are no words to describe this situation really, are there?” She turned away and filled a kettle at the sink. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “No, but it’s not a problem. I’ll get something later. Or I could send out for something. I saw a café round the corner.”

  “You’re okay. I have food in the house, which may come as a surprise.” She set the kettle on to boil and then walked two steps into the room to flick the gas heater on, glad she hadn’t been caught out by her offer of food. “I know you think I’m a cheap slut, but I only work at the club when things get really tight financially.”

  He shivered, raindrops dripped from the black fabric of his coat onto her worn carpet. “Is that often?”

  She returned to the small worktop area between an old fridge and a two ring electric hob. “More often than I’d like, but I have bills to pay, especially after the winter we’ve just had. And are still having. Coffee?” She waved a spoon over the jar, and he nodded. “I have to pay the club to let me work there, you know, they don’t employ me. I make my money from tips.”

  “So why do it? Why not get a part-time job doing something else?”

  “Because it pays better than anything else I can do part-time. Let’s face it, my landlord takes days to respond to problems in this place, so if I have to pay an emergency plumber or an electrician they’ll charge me at least fifty quid for thirty minutes. I have to earn what I need to pay out somehow. And the hours are flexible, even if they’re not sociable.”

  He didn’t look convinced. “It’s far from ideal.” He took the mug she held out to him and folded his large hands around it. “Listen, I know you hate the idea, but you could break this cycle of poverty even if it’s just for you, in your lifetime, for your child.”

  She shook her head because she didn’t want to hear it, whatever it was. Being in denial was so much easier. “It’s not that easy.”

  “It was never going to be easy. My suggestion—I know you don’t like it—but it’s the only possible solution I can see.” He took a step closer, putting his coffee mug down on the table as he did. “It would work for all three of us, you, me, and Nick.”

  “Well, you will have gathered by now that I’m not handing over my son however rich it will make him. But marriage…” She threw her head back and laughed sadly. “That is an insane idea. Surely you marrying an English woman of allegedly loose morals with no money or connections is going to make things a whole lot more complicated.”

  “Not for you.”

  Tito rocked back on his heels. He hadn’t expected her immediate agreement. He couldn’t be sure exactly when the idea for Plan B—marriage—had occurred to him in that tatty, claustrophobic flat, but the more his brain analyzed the notion, the more feasible a solution it seemed.

  “It’s a ridiculous plan, what you’re asking me to do.” There was a telltale catch in her voice. “And just for the sake of money…I wish things were different, that I could turn the clock back. But I can’t just give him up and hand him over because that would be unthinkable, and I seriously don’t think Nick will thank me for it by the time he is a man.” She took a hasty swig of coffee and it was still too hot, making her cough and her eyes water.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Coffee is too hot.” She sniffed belligerently. “I’m not crying, if that’s what you think.”

  He frowned. “He might thank you for it when he’s mature enough to get over the fact that his mother gave him away to secure a privileged future. Alternatively, if you keep him here in poverty, and he finds out what you didn’t do for him when he was small, he may be resentful for his entire life afterward.” He looked down at the ugly, spiral-patterned orange and brown carpet. “There are no guarantees that he will love you in either scenario.”

  “You have no idea what it’s like to have a parent that doesn’t care if you live or die. Unfortunately, I do.”

  He clenched his jaw before continuing. “So, as I said, there is a solution.”

  She stared at him with those pale blue eyes as if he was a maniac, clearly not thinking in the same rational way as him. “Well, I might have considered marrying Yannis, but not this! Not you.”

  “Because you were in love with Yannis?” He tried not to be insulted that she thought marrying him would be so preposterous, that he wasn’t good enough for her to even consider the possibility.

  “Listen, we had a week-long holiday fling in Majorca. I liked him a lot, and we had a lot of sex. Accidents happen. There’s no such thing as love at first sight, or even love in seven days, so no, I didn’t love him.”

  “Accidents? Are you sure it was an accident?”

  Her jaw dropped, and he caught a glimpse of her pink tongue, the tongue that had been so suggestive and inviting in the club. “Are you suggesting I got pregnant deliberately?”

  “Women do.”

  “Well, not me! I had just discovered what freedom and living was all about, life was good. And then it all stopped.”

  He glanced around the tiny apartment again, noting how cramped everything was and how uncomfortable he felt being in it. Having a baby here, on her own would be hard. “But you decided to keep an unwanted baby?”

  “An unplanned baby. An unexpected baby. Maybe it was my fate for it to happen and the alternatives were unthinkable. I loved my child from the moment I did the pregnancy test.” She straightened her neck and looked him so hard in the eye it made him blink. “I can’t put my hand on my heart and say I loved Yannis, but that doesn’t mean I’m not gutted that the father of my child is dead.”

  He snatched his gaze way before he showed any sign of weakness. “I miss him too.”

  “Yes. As you said, this isn’t just about me. Sorry.” He heard her sigh and it sounded kind of apologetic. Her tone softened. “Do you want to take that coat off and sit down?”

  He shook his head. “It’s freezing here. I’ve not acclimatized to your English chill.” She could make what she wanted of that remark.

  Her neat fingers clawed gently at the back of the brown velour sofa, like a cat with long electric blue fingernails. “Not much I can do about that.”

  “Look, marry me and all your problems will disappear in an instant, and together we can make sure Nick has the best possible life and future.” He leaned forward and made a gesture with his hands like he was offering her a palm full of grain. “You will have access to everything your heart could desire as long as you don’t embarrass me or bring the Frangos or Makris names into disrepute.”

  “And how would I do that?” Her eyes narrowed. “By pole dancing? Too late for that, darling.”

  His hands dropped to his sides, and he stepped towards the window. “You’ll need to quit those jobs immediately.”

  “I told you earlier, I’m self-employed,” she said to his back.

  He bit his tongue for a second as he stared through the glass. He could be just as obtuse as her, and he would win this game of words. “Then you don’t even need to give notice,” he said with a stab of sarcasm and turned his head to look at her. “Excellent.”

  Her expression was petulant, soft rose-petal lips trembling, presumably with anger. “So, I appear to get everything. Apart from my dignity.”
r />   He pressed his advantage quickly. “You said you would die for your son. A marriage of convenience would achieve more and be much less painful. Or permanent.”

  She was silent for a moment, and he saw the movement of her long, slender throat as she swallowed. Hopefully it was her pride going down there. “So what’s in it for you?”

  “I fulfill my promise to Yannis and get to antagonize my mother without having to seek out a totally unsuitable wife myself.”

  An incredulous smile lit up her face. “You want an unsuitable wife to antagonize your mother? Hell’s bells, you know how to make a woman feel good.”

  “Whatever,” he quipped as coldly as he could. “But there’s not a single negative in this for you.”

  Her eyes widened, and her arms visibly tightened under the full breasts he had last seen spilling over red satin bra cups. She wasn’t wearing a bra now and they were even more enticing, a distraction he could do without at this stage of negotiation. “What about my freedom?” she said fiercely. “My education?”

  “Being my wife won’t make you any more of a slave than you are now. You can study anything you want at my expense. I’m offering you a chance to change your life entirely.” He could see she was holding her breath. He had her interest. “This won’t ever happen to you again so please don’t insult me by attempting to bargain.”

  “I don’t know…you could still be a complete fraud.”

  “I am not a con man. It will take a week to get Nick his first passport during which time I will give you all the proof you need. I assume he doesn’t have travel documents already?”

  She shook her head and a strand of wet hair fell over her face. “Actually, he does. I had it done just in case…in case Yannis did get back in touch and wanted us to join him or something.”

  “Then that’s good news. We can get things moving a lot faster.”

  “Whoa there, slow down. You don’t even know if he’s the genuine article yet.”

  He needed to get a hook into her, gain her trust and then reel her in. “I’m not in much doubt about Nick’s parentage in the circumstances.”

  “Really?”