Baby of Shame (7 page)

Then his eyes slid past her, out down on to the beach, and he stilled.

His son was paddling in the sea, laughing and splashing, jumping up and down over the tiny waves with glee.

Alexis
heart constricted.

It was a totally different child from the one he’d seen with the foster
carer
, withdrawn and
traumatised
.

Again, that overpowering emotion poured through him—a fierce, consuming protectiveness.

‘What are you doing here?’

The thin, high-pitched voice cut through his emotion.

He turned his head sharply, eyes turning cold. They locked on to the woman who had given birth to his son, then kept him from him for four long years.

She had gone stark white, her pallor
emphasising
the hollowness of her cheeks, the deep circles around her sunken eyes. Shock was etched through every line.

‘What are you doing here?’ she demanded again, in the same constricted voice.

He lowered himself into one of the rattan chairs. For a moment he said nothing, just studied her. As if she
were
some kind of cockroach. She was still looking shell-shocked. There were other emotions in her face, but he didn’t have time to waste identifying them.

‘We have matters to…discuss.’

She knew then just why he had come. There could be on only one reason.

‘You want me to sign papers, don’t you?
Legally preventing me from ever going to the press about Nicky.’

Despite the shock thudding through her, she fought to keep her voice
unshaky
.

Alexis’s dark, damning eyes hardened. So that was to have been her plan, was it? Threatening to expose his son in the gutter press for
all the
world to gawp at!

With deliberate slowness, to give
himself
time to still the stab of fury that her words had
catalysed
, he sat back.

‘You will never,’ he informed her, ‘speak to the press about my son.
With or without any legal binding.
Why do you imagine I brought you here?
For the sake of your health?’
The irony in his tone was scathing.

‘And when I take Nicky back to England?’ she retorted. He was bound to want some kind of legally enforceable silencing of her—but she didn’t care. She’d sign anything he wanted just to get rid of him as fast as possible. Preferably right now.

‘You will not be returning to England—and nor will my son.’

There was no emotion audible in his voice. Not a trace of it. It was like cold steel going into her.

‘From now on,’ he went on, in the same tone, ‘you will be living here. Later, when he is school age and fluent in Greek, other arrangements will be made.’

‘
School
age?
Fluent in Greek?
What the
hell
are you talking about?’

Dark, dead eyes rested on her.

‘I am talking about the way my son will live now.’

Rhianna’s
mouth flattened to a tight line.

‘Hand me the papers to sign,
Mr
Petrakis! It’s a lot simpler than the idiocy you’re proposing as an alternative!’

It seemed to her that the dark eyes went even
more dead
.

‘You don’t get a choice. My son stays in Greece. And while, as a child, he has
any
need of you, you stay too. This is non-negotiable.’

She stared—just stared.

‘You’re insane. Do you really imagine that I’m going to stay incarcerated here just for
your
sake?’

In the depths of his unblinking eyes there was a sudden dark flash.

‘What I “really imagine” is that from now on you will do
exactly
as I tell you! Understand this and understand it well! You have
no
negotiating power!’

She jerked forward in her seat. It hurt her ribs but she didn’t care. Disbelief and anger were boiling through her.

‘I wouldn’t negotiate with you if my life depended on it!’

‘That is as well.’ The retort was flat. ‘You are beginning—finally—to understand your situation.’

Rhianna’s
heart started to pound, heavy and thudding. Alexis Petrakis was speaking again. His voice was cold.
Deadly.
His eyes were as hard as obsidian.

‘Let me spell out your situation to you—so that even you can understand it. Whatever fond dreams you have been entertaining that I will set you up in luxury in England, content merely to see my son as a visitor, you may now set them aside. My son will be a permanent part of my life from now on. You will live here, under supervision, while I seek to rectify the damage you have done to my son by keeping him from me. I have lost four years—
four years
—of his life, and I should destroy you for that. But my hands are tied—while he is a child my son’s happiness is dependent on you, and for that reason alone I tolerate your presence in his life. Have absolutely no doubts about that.’

She felt nothing—nothing at all. Only drowning, disbelieving horror. She could not, could
not
have heard him say what he had just said!

‘And now—’ his voice bit, dark, killing fire scorching in his eyes ‘—I will start undoing four years of my son not knowing of my existence!’

She wanted to scream, to shout, but she could not. She was frozen—frozen with horror.

He was walking down the stone steps to the beach, moving lithely in his lightweight suit. It should have looked incongruous, walking across a beach with a hand-tailored business suit on, but it only reinforced his power.

Where she found the strength she did not know. But pressing down on the chair’s arms, she levered herself up, feeling the world wheel round her. She didn’t care. She staggered towards the steps, sick and faint. She could see Nicky, still splashing in the shallow water, happy and playful, while towards him walked a man who, if she could have, right now she would have obliterated on the spot.

She clutched at the stone balustrade at the edge of the steps, forcing her legs to work though her heart was pounding in terror. She opened her mouth to scream, to yell a warning, a negation, an utter negation of what was happening, but instead there was a black mist rolling in, like a diesel train rushing up to her. Her legs collapsed and suddenly she was pitched head forward into total darkness.

Alexis heard the thud of her body collapsing on the sand and wheeled round. Simultaneously he heard a gasp of shock from the nanny sitting on the towel, who had already started to get to her feet at his approach. Her eyes flew past him to
Rhianna’s
huddled form.

‘Look after Nicky!’ bit out Alexis, and strode back towards the villa. ‘Keep him away!’

She was out cold. With a sharp voice he called out for the nurse,
then
scooped the inert body up into his arms. She weighed hardly anything—but she was a dead weight for all that. He hurried up the steps with her and took her inside.

The nurse was hurrying towards him, exclaiming, but he silenced her.

‘Which bedroom does she have?’

‘In here,’ the woman replied, and opened the door to the master bedroom, which opened up onto its own section of the terrace around the corner from the beach terrace.

Ungently
, Alexis deposited his burden on the bed. ‘She tried to get down the steps and collapsed on the sand.’ He answered the nurse’s brisk enquiry tersely. At least the woman seemed competent enough not to make a fuss. She was checking pulse and heart, straightening her patient’s body.

‘Do you need to call a doctor?’ Alexis demanded.

The nurse looked up briefly and shook her head. ‘She’ll come to in a moment,’ she predicted, and returned her attention to her patient.

Alexis
nodded,
mouth tight. He left her to it and went outdoors again. On the beach he could see the nanny, crouching down beside Nicky, talking to him and clearly holding him back from rushing inside. Alexis felt another spurt of anger. Had
Rhianna
no sense at all? Frightening the boy like that? Or had she done it deliberately? His brow darkened. What was she trying now? Another affecting little scene like the one she’d put on for him when the boy had come out of care? Fawning all over him to prove how maternal she was suddenly?

Just like
his own
mother—

No. No memories.
None.
He would not allow it.

He slammed his mind shut.

Calming himself deliberately, he walked down to the beach and up to his son.
Rhianna
Davies was nothing to him. His son was everything.

As he approached he felt his emotions start to churn again, but he suppressed them. To the child he was a stranger. He must not forget that. And right now the boy’s main concern was his mother, after seeing her collapse like that. Fear was naked on his little face.

Alexis took a breath, forcing his voice to sound reassuring.

‘It is nothing to worry about,’ he said. He looked at the boy, dragging on his nanny’s hand. ‘Your mother will be better in a moment. Nurse Thompson is with her. She just felt dizzy.’

The nanny took up the cue. ‘Giddy—that’s all! Your mummy has to take it easy, remember? She’s been ill, but she’s getting better. Now, look—you’ve got a visitor!
Mr
Petrakis?’

She straightened up and looked at Alexis. She was very good, he registered.
Professional.
Whether she had guessed his relationship to her charge or not he neither knew nor cared. He gave her a brief, dismissing nod and she took her cue again, saying brightly, ‘Goodness me, look at the mess!
Time for me to tidy everything up!’
She headed back to the mound of beach toys, and started gathering them into a pile. Alexis watched his son look uncertainly from his nanny to him.

His nanny of one week was more familiar to him than his own father.

I’m a stranger.
A complete stranger to him.

Thanks to his mother.
Keeping him from me.

Bitterness seared through him.

And much more—a rush of fierce emotion.
This would be the last time in his life when he would be a stranger to his own son.
Starting now.

Carefully, very carefully, he took the first step on that crucial journey.

‘Hello, Nicky. Have you been having fun playing on the beach?’

For a moment Nicky’s expression wavered. Then it brightened.

‘I’ve been in the sea!’ he announced.

With his heart still tight in his chest, Alexis made himself smile. It seemed hard to make the muscles around his mouth do
that.
He wondered, offhand, when he’d last smiled.
Not since Maureen Carter had put the call through from the social
worker, that
was for sure.

‘Have you? What did you do in the sea?’

The big eyes shone.

‘Splashing!’

‘Show me.’

There was no hesitation. His son filled up his bucket and then ejected the contents seawards.

‘See?’ He twisted his head round to Alexis.

‘Very good.
Which do you think goes further?
A bucket of water or a stone?’

He watched as his son put down the bucket and picked up a small pebble.

‘Stone!’ shouted Nicky, as it
plonked
into the water, further out to sea.

He picked up another one and threw it.

‘I know a trick with stones,’ said Alexis. He walked forward, almost to the sea’s edge. A quick, crouching search in the sand revealed a couple of round, flat pebbles. He straightened, hoping he could still do what he’d promised. He looked out to sea, narrowing his eyes with concentration as he readied his aim and the angle of his throw.

‘It bounced!’ His son’s voice was amazed. He looked up at Alexis, astonishment and respect in his face. ‘Do it again!’

Alexis obliged.

‘
Two
bounces!’ shouted Nicky. He jumped up and down. The water splashed Alexis’s trouser leg. He couldn’t care less.

‘Make it
three!’
ordered Nicky.

‘Next time,’ said Alexis. He knew when to quit. He was amazed himself that he could still do that with flat pebbles. Memory stabbed through him. He’d taught himself how to do it as a boy, with painstaking, dogged, untaught practice during the endless summers he’d spent by the sea in the huge Petrakis summer villa on the coast of Attica. There’d never been anyone to play with. His father had always stayed in Athens, working.

As for his mother—

He sliced down the steel door, shutting out the past.

His son was picking up stones and trying to make them bounce, without success.

‘I can’t do it!’ His voice was frustrated.

‘It’s a trick. I told you. I’ll teach you, but when you’re older.’

‘When I’m five?’ said Nicky.

‘Older. I learnt the trick when I was older than five.’

‘How old?’

Alexis thought back. He didn’t want to, but he found himself doing it anyway.

‘Eight,’ he announced.

Exactly eight, he remembered. It had been his birthday. His father had been in New York, on business. Alexis had been in the villa on his own, apart from the staff. He’d spent the day on the beach, doggedly
practising
with stones until he could make them bounce.

‘I will be eight in…’ His son carefully counted on his fingers, bringing Alexis back to the present, shutting the past back into its bleak grave. ‘One, two, three,
four
years.’

‘Very good,’ said Alexis.
‘
Kala
.
That means good in Greek.’ He paused. ‘We are in Greece. This is one of the Greek islands. There are hundreds of islands in Greece. If you can count in English,’ he went on, ‘you can count in Greek.
Ena
,
thio
,
tria
.
That’s one, two,
three
. Can you say that?’