Laying the phone aside again, Anton swung round to rest his hips against the edge of his desk and frowned thoughtfully down at his shoes. He felt like a juggler, he realised with a brief, dry twist of a grimace: one ball demanded he keep Theo’s business interests spinning happily up there in the air alongside his own global group of companies, another ball demanded he defend his own integrity and pride. And now a third ball had been tossed up there in the middle of the others, a far more unpredictable ball that belonged to the late Leander Kanellis—a man Anton only had a vague memory of, who had escaped from his arranged marriage at the youthful age of eighteen and had never been seen or heard of again.
Until now, that was, when the poor guy had turned up dead. A sigh slid from him. It was not even the death of Theo’s previously forgotten son that was causing the current storm raging out there. No, it was the discovery that Leander had left a family behind him.
Legitimate Kanellis heirs.
Stretching out a long-fingered hand, Anton gathered up the tabloid that had broken the story and looked down at the photograph some bright young spark of a junior reporter had unearthed from somewhere. It showed Leander Kanellis standing with his family on what looked like a fun day out. There was a lake, trees and sunshine shimmering in the background. An old-fashioned wicker picnic-basket rested on the bonnet of an old-model sports car. In front of the car Leander Kanellis stood, tall, dark and very good-looking, and with a startling likeness to how Theo had looked several long decades ago.
Leander was laughing into the camera. Happy, Anton saw. Proud of the two women he held clasped beneath each substantial shoulder. Both women were fair-skinned blondes. The older one, Leander’s wife, was so serenely beautiful it was no wonder their marriage had remained strong throughout twenty-three years of relative hardship—relative to what they could have had if Theo had not …
Anton stopped that thought before it formed fully, aware that the tension suddenly crushing his stomach muscles belonged to a previously alien sensation—guilt. From the age of eight, he had received the best of everything Theo’s vast wealth could offer him while these people had struggled to …
Again he cut the thought short, not ready yet to deal with what it was going to mean to him.
Happy; he dealt with that phenomenon instead, because in its own way it was significant. If there was one thing that Theo’s son had enjoyed which Anton had not experienced much of, then it was the happiness he could see shining out from all three people in this photograph.
His focus moved to the other female Leander hugged into his side. Though the photograph must have been an old one, because she looked about sixteen here, Zoe Kanellis was already showing promise of turning into a beauty made in her mother’s image: the same long, slender figure and bright golden hair, the same shining blue eyes and wide sensual smile.
Happy. The word hit him again, like an ugly blow this time. There was another photograph printed alongside the first one which showed the now twenty-two-year-old version of Leander’s daughter leaving the hospital with the newest member of her family cradled protectively in her arms. Shock and grief had wiped out the happiness. She looked pale, thin and drawn.
Zoe Kanellis, leaving hospital with her new baby brother, the caption read. The twenty-two-year-old was away at University in Manchester when her parents were involved in a fatal car accident last week. Leander Kanellis died at the scene from his injuries. His wife, Laura, survived only long enough to give birth to their son. The tragedy took place on the—
The sound of a tentative knock on his door brought Anton’s head up as Ruby, his PA, stepped into the room.
‘What now?’ he demanded curtly.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, Anton,’ she apologised with a fleeting glance at the still-buzzing phones. ‘Theo Kanellis is on my main line and he’s demanding to speak to you.’
A choice curse rattled around the tight casing of his ribs as he put the newspaper down then straightened up from the desk. He stood for a second, actually seriously considering turning chicken and refusing to take Theo’s call.
But, no, he could not do that—as Ruby had known he couldn’t, which was why she had interrupted him.
‘OK. Put him through.’ Anton strode around his desk and lowered himself back down into his chair, picked up the phone and waited for Ruby to connect the call.
He knew what was coming. Hell, he knew what was coming.
‘Kalispera, Theo,’ he greeted smoothly.
‘I want the boy, Anton.’ Theo Kanellis’s famously hard and irascible voice sounded in his ear. ‘Get me my grandson!’
‘I didn’t know you were a Kanellis,’ Susie said, eyeing with an expression of awe the famous business logo belonging to Kanellis Intracom which headed the letter Zoe had just discarded on the kitchen table with a contemptuous flick of her hand.
‘Dad dropped the “Kan” when he came to England to live.’ Because he was scared of being hunted down and dragged back to Greece by his bully of a father and forced into doing his duty, she tagged on bitterly, though she gave a different reason to Susie. ‘He thought Ellis was an easier name to use here in the UK.’
Susie’s eyes were still round as saucers. ‘But you’ve always known you are a Kanellis?’
Zoe nodded. ‘It’s on my birth certificate.’
And now it was on Toby’s birth certificate, she added silently, her eyes glossing over when she recalled where else she had been forced to use the Kanellis name recently.
‘I hate it,’ she choked, fighting back the ever-threatening burn of tears when she saw an image of herself sitting there looking at that name on two death certificates the same day that Toby’s birth had been registered.
‘Never mind about the name.’ Reaching across the table, Susie squeezed one of her hands. ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it.’
Why not? It was currently splashed all over every type of media there was out there, because some junior reporter for the local rag had happened to notice the Kanellis name while he’d been writing up the story about her parents’ accident. He had been curious enough to follow it up with a clever bit of sleuthing. Zoe wondered if the same reporter would soon be working for one of the major tabloids; he certainly deserved the promotion for uncovering such a huge scoop.
‘It feels weird,’ Susie said, sitting back in her chair to look around the homely kitchen which doubled as a sitting-room cum everything-room.
‘What feels weird?’ asked Zoe, blinking tears from her eyes.