CHAPTER TEN
HURRYING clear of the helicopter’s rotor blades, Zoe paused to look around her new surroundings. They’d landed on a stretch of grass spread between a pretty crescent-shaped beach and a surprisingly modest-looking single-storey house with bright white walls and a wooden veranda shaded from the sun by the slope of the roof.
Arriving at her side with Toby still curled into his shoulder, Anton followed the track of her gaze. ‘Theo does not like change,’ he told her quietly. ‘The original house—the middle part you can see is different from the two outer wings—belonged to his fisherman grandfather who built it himself. When Theo bought the island he changed nothing until he married your grandmother. It was she who insisted the house be extended to accommodate her love of throwing parties here. When she died, Theo stopped coming here for years and the house more or less stagnated. He preferred to use his house in Glyfada on the mainland. He said it was more convenient for his offices in Athens and the airport, but I think he just hated coming here because he missed her so much.’
‘Kassandra.’ Zoe murmured the name of her paternal grandmother.
‘The same as your middle name,’ Anton confirmed.
And one of the very few marks of recognition her father had made of his Greek roots. ‘Did—did you ever meet her?’
‘She died before I came here. Shall we go up to the house?’
If that was his polite way of telling her this was not the time for this kind of conversation, it succeeded in shutting her up. Anyway, she was too nervous to hold on to a particular thought for more than two seconds before her attention returned to the house and, more particularly, who was waiting inside it to meet his grandson.
Anton was feeling no less tense about this meeting. He had fought with Theo against it until the stubborn old man had threatened to fly over to Thalia and gatecrash what he’d called, ‘Anton’s damned arrogant hijacking of his plans.’
Kidnapper, hijacker. His sins were piling up.
Melissa was waiting for them beneath the shade of the veranda. As they reached the steps which led up onto the wooden decking, the front door opened and an elderly woman dressed all in black stepped out. She shot a curious glance over Zoe and Melissa then turned the look at the small baby he held in his arms.
‘So you bring him at last,’ she announced like a reprimand, then took an eager step forward as if to grab the baby right out of his arms. Alarm went tumbling through Zoe; impulsively she made a move to halt the old woman but Anton got in first.
‘Behave, Dorothea,’ he censured mildly. ‘This is not the moment for snatching babies from their loved ones.’
Flushing a little, the old woman drew back again, then turned around and walked back into the house. They followed, Anton standing back to allow Zoe and Melissa to precede him into a surprisingly large square-shaped hallway which must have been the main room of the original house.
‘You had better go in before he blows a fuse. He is in there.’ Dorothea waved a hand at a door leading off to the left of them. ‘I will bring coffee.’
‘After you have shown Miss Stefani somewhere she can sit and be comfortable while she is not needed,’ Anton countered evenly.
He was pulling rank on the housekeeper and it did not need special powers to recognise that the two of them sparred like this as the norm. The old woman flashed him a look then gave a huff and walked off, with poor Melissa reluctantly trailing behind.
‘Dorothea has worked for Theo for so long she sometimes forgets her role in his house. She is harmless, however, if stood up to.’
Great, thought Zoe. So Dorothea was just another person she had to stand up to. That made two of them, and that was before she even got to meet Theo Kanellis.
Stepping up to the door the housekeeper had indicated, Anton waited for Zoe to catch him up. She watched him run his eyes over her as she walked towards him and knew he would see the nervous tension in control of her body inside the apricot dress she was wearing.
‘OK?’ he asked softly when she stopped beside him.
I wish, thought Zoe, taking a moment to breathe in and out a couple of times before she turned to him and lifted her arms up. ‘I will take Toby now.’
She felt him wanting to say something, felt his hesitation inch her stress levels up another whole notch. Perhaps he knew how she was feeling because he released a small sigh then lifted the sleeping boy from his shoulder and transferred him into her care. Toby uttered a quivery sigh and curled in against her as he usually did, and Zoe lifted up her chin then turned to face the door. ‘Taking him on, agape mou?’
You bet, Zoe thought. ‘I am ready for what’s coming next if that is that you’re asking me,’ she returned, then tensed up her spine when he reached out to gently ease a trapped lock of her hair out from beneath her brother’s resting cheek.
‘I won’t let him eat you,’ he promised.
Pressing her lips together, Zoe nodded her head.
On another small sigh—because it must be obvious to him that she was trying her best to shut him out right now—Anton reached for the handle and pushed the door open. She found herself staring down the length of the large, bright airy room with the sunlight softened by the creamy blinds lowered across the windows.
She saw him then and her heart gave a heavy thump against her ribs. He was standing in front of a thick stone fireplace, and that shocked her, because sickly and fading Theo Kanellis was not. He stood tall and proud, emitting a kind of inner strength that rolled into her, even if he was standing there leaning heavily on the walking stick he held clamped close to one long elegantly suited leg.
It was like looking at her father. Or how her father would have looked if he’d had the chance to reach his seventh decade, she amended, feeling that low ache of grief she carried around with her make itself felt. He was the same height and had the same-shaped eyes as her father, the same rapier-thin nose and striking bone structure—though there was no resemblance in this man’s head of thick silver hair or the unsmiling mouth.
He was staring at her with a fierce and fixed intensity that warned her he was not about to cower if she turned the hostility on. ‘Well, don’t just stand there as if you want to turn around again and run,’ he bit out.