‘Thank you,’ she replied, trying to press down the surprising shock of sentiment that rose from the simple compliment.
He paused and she was intrigued as she watched the play of emotions crossing his dark features as he realised what she meant.
‘You made this?’
‘Yes. Just after finishing school. I’d hoped to... I wanted to go university to study art and sculpture, but...’ She trailed off. Her mother, him, her daughter, the bed and breakfast...
Rather than filling the silence, Dimitri just stared at the sculpture in his hands, his thumb working over the edges of the two strangely comforting shapes. He pressed it back into her hands, and Anna was confused by the frown still marking his brow. He was hovering...and she didn’t quite know why.
‘Do you have our passports?’ she asked. Anything to fill the strange, awkward silence. ‘I wasn’t given them back when we landed.’
Something dark passed over Dimitri’s features, and the sick feeling that Anna had been trying to ignore rose fully in her chest.
‘I have them.’
‘I’d like them back.’
‘I’m afraid that’s not possible.’
‘What do you mean?’ Anna asked, her heart in her mouth.
‘I’m not giving them back to you.’
‘But—’
‘No buts. You are now in the position that I was in only a few hours ago. You are on Greek soil, and Amalia is my child.’ His eyes darkened, and the atmosphere between them became heavy with tension. ‘You cannot be trusted to raise my daughter in a safe environment. Your mother proved that quite successfully that first night. If you want any kind of rights over your child, if you wish to take her back to Ireland, then you will have to marry me.’
‘Marry you?’ Anna sputtered as she tried to comprehend what he was saying. ‘Marry you? Why would I...?’ Shock was short and sharp in her mind. Fear sliced through her like a knife. He thought she couldn’t be trusted to take care of her child? All she had ever done was take care of Amalia. Everything, she’d done everything, sacrificed everything for her. And her mother...? Betrayal thick and fast spread through her. All her instincts were to take her daughter and run. But where to? And who would help her? She was on an island in a country she didn’t speak the language of, and where she knew literally no one. How had she been so stupid? How had she allowed herself to trust this man? This man who, right now, she didn’t even recognise.
Dimitri could see the fear in her eyes. He knew what it was like to feel trapped and helpless. But he couldn’t allow himself to feel sorry. Not for a minute.
‘I’m not reneging on my offer. I will take care of your mother, and your business, should your mother ever want to return and continue to run it. But for now you will agree to marry me, giving me legal rights over my child. I will accept nothing less. And you will not get your passports back until you do.’
‘Get out!’ she shouted. ‘Just get out.’
CHAPTER FOUR
Dear Dimitri,
Will you ever trust me?
ANNA DIDN’T KNOW how she’d slept the night before, unless it was some kind of biological form of self-preservation. She opened her eyes to stra
nge surroundings. Light filtered through the floor-to-ceiling windows that offered the most incredible view of sea and sky. Her head hurt and her mouth was dry. Water. She needed water. She looked over at the side table beside the bed and caught sight of the clock.
Ten thirty a.m.? Shock crashed through her, propelling her up from the bed. She slipped on the sheets and tumbled off the mattress onto the floor. Where was Amalia? Why hadn’t she heard her daughter? She was in the room next door and would have heard her, should have heard her by now.
She ran to her daughter’s room, but it was empty. Had he taken her? Had he left her in this house on her own on the island? His threats from the day before rang in her ears as she headed for the stairs that led to the ground floor.
Her bare feet slapped the cold marble floor and, as she took the stairs two at a time, she slipped and lost her breath. Her feet struck air, gravity pulling her down so hard and so fast she had no time to prepare for the biting pain that struck her leg and back. Her teeth snapped together, cutting into the soft flesh of her tongue. She thrust out her hand to try to break her fall as bone met marble and distantly she was surprised not to hear a crack.
Shouts and cries came from somewhere else in the house and when Anna opened her eyes she saw the horrified look on Flora’s face, her arms reaching towards her. Arms that Anna batted away, unthinkingly, blind to all but the only face that she needed to see. Her daughter’s.
She tried to stand from where she had fallen, her shaking legs barely holding her up. She reached out to the wall to try and hold herself up but couldn’t understand why it kept moving further and further away.
‘Theos mou, Anna!’
‘She wasn’t in her room,’ she managed to get out.