…
‘I’m sorry about the cloak and dagger stuff,’ he said heavily. ‘I did not intend to frighten you so badly with it. I was afraid that if I had told you what I was going to do you would have panicked and warned your father.’
Which she would have done—Mia freely acknowledged that. ‘But why, Alex?’ she cried. ‘Why are you doing this when you must know it will be Suzanna and me my father is going to punish for this bit of senseless defiance!’
‘No defiance,’ he said, shifting his long, lean frame into the chair directly opposite her own, where he leaned forward, placed his forearms on his spread knees and then, with the grimly controlled expression of a man who was about to drop a bombshell on the heads of the innocent, he announced impassively, ‘I am calling the deal off.’
Mia just sat there, her blank, staring eyes telling him that she had not taken in what he was saying. He remained silent, waiting, watchful, noting the way her lips parted to aid the very frail thread of her breathing and the way her pale skin went even paler, the green of her eyes beginning to darken as the full import of his words finally began to sink in.
Her reaction, when it came, was not what he was expecting. ‘Our deal?’ she whispered tragically.
‘No.’ He frowned and shook his head. ‘That is a completely separate issue, which I am not prepared to deal with right now. I am talking about my deal with your father. I am calling it off and, because I know that my decision is going to have a direct effect on you, I am placing both you and Suzanna under my protection. Which is why we are flying to Greece.’
‘Protection?’ she repeated. He was placing them under his protection when the very act of how he was doing it was effectively removing the only form of protection they had! ‘How can you say that?’ she cried. ‘Legally, Suzanna is still his daughter! Legally, he can take her back whenever he wants to!’
‘You wanted to leave her behind?’ he challenged. ‘You wanted to dump her at that school and walk away?’
No. ‘But that’s not the point,’ she said with a sigh. ‘My father—’
‘Can do what the hell he likes,’ Alex cut in grimly, throwing himself back in his seat in an act of indifference. ‘But he will have to do it through legal channels because it is the only way he will get to see either of you again!’
Mia gasped, her mind burning up in horror at his cavalier attitude. ‘But, Alex—this is abduction!’ She pleaded with him to see the full import of what he was doing. ‘You could be arrested for it! You could go to prison!’
‘Try having a little faith,’ he said.
Faith in what? she wondered deliriously. In him? In what he was doing? ‘Suzanna doesn’t even have a passport!’ she told him shrilly.
His expression didn’t alter by so much as a flicker as he reached into his jacket pocket and came out with something he tossed casually onto her lap.
Two passports. Two new British passports. Her stomach began to quiver, her icy fingers trembling as she made herself open both of them. She stared down at the two similar faces, which were staring right back at her.
One was an adult, the other a miniature version of that adult.
‘H-how did you get this?’ she whispered, picking up Suzanna’s very own passport.
‘With careful planning,’ he replied drily.
‘But …’ Her eyes flickered downwards again, looking at the photograph of her daughter which was a match to the several sets she had tucked away in her bag.
Carol.
The full duplicity of what had been going on around her for the last weeks finally hit her. ‘You’ve all been very busy, it seems,’ she managed to say at last.
‘I am, by nature, very thorough,’ Alex casually attested.
‘Even to the point of getting my father’s written permission for this?’ she mocked,
‘You authorised it.’
‘What?’ She stared at him blankly—only her eyes didn’t remain blank because they were suddenly seeing that blur of forms Leon had got her to sign. ‘Copies,’ he’d called them, ‘in case I mess up.’
‘We will all end up in prison!’ she said wretchedly.
To her absolute fury, he started to grin at her! Mia wanted to hit him! He never smiled at her—never! Yet he chose to do it now, in this dire situation.
‘Oh, stop fretting,’ he told her, leaning forward to take the two passports back and replace them in his jacket pocket before she had a chance to stop him. ‘No one is going to question your connection with Suzanna when she looks so much like you!’
‘It’s still wrong, Alex!’ she flashed back at him. ‘And why go to all of this trouble, anyway?’ she cried. ‘It would all have been sorted out above board in a couple of months!’