The Greek Millionaire's Secret Child

Spencer Catherine

“No, but…” Again, she hesitated, bound by patient confidentiality, yet aware that as his son, Niko had the right to some information, especially if her withholding it might have an adverse effect on Pavlos’s future wellbeing. “How much do you know about your father’s general health?”

“Only what he chooses to tell me, which isn’t very much.”

She should have guessed he’d say that. There’s no need to contact my son, Pavlos had decreed, when the hospital had insisted on listing his next of kin. He minds his business, and I mind mine.

Niko pinned her in that unnerving green stare. “What aren’t you telling me, Emily? Is he dying?”

“Aren’t we all, to one extent or another?”

“Don’t play mind games with me. I asked you a straightforward question. I’d like a straightforward answer.”

“Okay. His age is against him. Although he’d never admit it, he’s very frail. It wouldn’t take much for him to suffer a relapse.”

“I can pretty much figure that out for myself, so what else are you holding back?”

Pavlos spared her having to reply. “What the devil are the pair of you whispering about?” he inquired irascibly.

Casting Niko an apologetic glance, she said, “Your son was just explaining that you might not care for the new bed he ordered. He’s afraid you’ll think he was interfering.”

“He was. I broke my hip, not my brain. I’ll decide what I do and don’t need.”

“Not as long as I’m in charge.”

“Don’t boss me around, girl. I won’t put up with it.”

“Yes, you will,” she said equably. “That’s why you hired me.”

“I can fire you just as easily, and have you on a flight back to Vancouver as early as tomorrow.”

Recognizing the empty threat for what it really was, she hid a smile. Exhaustion and pain had taken their toll, but by morning he’d be in a better frame of mind. “Yes, sir, Mr. Leonidas,” she returned smartly, and swung the wheelchair toward the bedroom. “Until then, let me do my job.”

Niko had seized the first opportunity to vacate the premises, she noticed, and could have slapped herself for the pang of disappointment that sprouted despite her best efforts to quell it. The faithful Georgios, however, remained on the scene, anxious and willing to help wherever he could. Even so, by the time Pavlos had managed a light meal and was settled comfortably for the night, darkness had fallen.

Damaris, the housekeeper, showed Emily upstairs to the suite prepared for her. Decorated in subtle shades of ivory and slate-blue, it reminded her of her bedroom at home, although the furnishings here were far grander than anything she could afford. Marble floors, a Savonnerie rug and fine antiques polished to a soft gleam exemplified wealth, good taste and comfort.

A lady’s writing desk occupied the space between double French doors leading to a balcony. In front of a small blue-tiled fireplace was a fainting couch, its brocade upholstery worn to satin softness, its once-vibrant colors faded by time. A glass-shaded lamp spilled mellow light, and a vase of lilies on a table filled the room with fragrance.

Most inviting of all, though, was the four-poster bed, dressed in finest linens. Almost ten thousand kilometers, and over sixteen hours of travel with its inevitable delays, plus the added stress of her patient’s condition, had made serous inroads on her energy, and she wanted nothing more than to lay her head against those snowy-white pillows, pull the soft coverlet over her body and sleep through to morning.

A quick glance around showed that her luggage had been unpacked, her toiletries arranged in the bathroom and her robe and nightshirt laid out on the bench in front of the vanity. But so, to her dismay, was a change of underwear, and a freshly ironed cotton dress, one of the few she’d brought with her, hung in the dressing room connecting bathroom and bedroom. And if they weren’t indication enough that the early night she craved was not to be, Damaris’s parting remark drove home the point in no uncertain terms.

“I have drawn a bath for you, Despinis Tyler. Dinner will be served in the garden room at nine.”

Clearly daily protocol in the Leonidas residence was as elegantly formal as the villa itself, and the sandwich in her room, which Emily had been about to request, clearly wasn’t on the menu.

The main floor was deserted when she made her way downstairs just a few minutes past nine, but the faint sound of music and a sliver of golden light spilling from an open door halfway down the central hall indicated where she might find the garden room.

What she didn’t expect when she stepped over the threshold was to find that she wouldn’t be dining alone.

A round glass-topped table, tastefully set for two, stood in the middle of the floor. A silver ice bucket and two cut-crystal champagne flutes glinted in the almost ethereal glow of dozens, if not hundreds, of miniature white lights laced among the potted shrubs lining the perimeter of the area.

And the final touch? Niko Leonidas, disgracefully gorgeous in pale gray trousers and matching shirt, which together probably cost more than six months’ mortgage payments on her town house, leaned against an ornately carved credenza.

She was sadly out of her element, and surely looked it. She supposed she should be grateful her dinner companion wasn’t decked out in black tie.

“I wasn’t aware you were joining me for dinner,” she blurted out, the inner turmoil she thought she’d conquered raging all over again at the sight of him.

He plucked an open bottle of champagne from the ice bucket, filled the crystal flutes and handed one to her. “I wasn’t aware I needed an invitation to sit at my father’s table.”

“I’m not suggesting you do. You have every right—”

“How kind of you to say so.”

He’d perfected the art of withering pleasantries, she decided, desperately trying to rein in her swimming senses. The smile accompanying his reply hovered somewhere between derision and scorn, and left her feeling as gauche as she no doubt sounded. “I didn’t mean to be rude, Mr. Leonidas,” she said, her discomfiture increasing in direct proportion to his suave assurance. “I’m surprised, that’s all. I assumed you’d left the house. I understand you have your own place in downtown Athens.”