‘Oh, that would be lovely!’ enthused Lyn.
So they took off the next morning, with Anatole driving this time, touring through the Greek landscape, eating lunch at a little vine-shaded taverna, then heading for the majestic temple of Poseidon at Sounion , which stood in breathtaking splendour on the edge of the sea.
The following day they took a launch across the Saronic Gulf to the holiday island of Aegina, and spent a relaxed day there.
It was bliss, Lyn thought happily, to have Anatole all to herself—to spend the day with him, enjoying Georgy between them. Happiness ran like a warm current through her—a contentment such as she had never known. Walking, chatting comfortably, eating ice cream, Georgy aloft on Anatole’s shoulders as they strolled along the seafront—it seemed to her so natural, so right.
We’re like a real family...
That was what it felt like. She knew it did! And if there were to come a time when they would no longer be united like this for Georgy’s sake then it was something she did not want to think about. Not now—not yet.
For now all she wanted to do was give herself to what she had, what there was between them—which was so, so much! For now this was enough. This happiness that bathed her in a glow as warm as the sunshine...
CHAPTER NINE
TIMON ARRIVED HOME from hospital at the end of the following week in a private ambulance and with his own large personal nursing team. Anatole had escorted him from the clinic, and when he was safely installed in his master bedroom, with all the medical equipment around him, Lyn brought Georgy in to visit him.
This second visit was less intimidating, and although Timon was polite and courteous to her most of his attention was, understandably, focused on his great-grandson. Now that he was back in his palatial mansion she would wheel Georgy up through the gardens to visit him every day, Lyn resolved.
The following day Anatole arrived back from Athens earlier in the evening than usual.
‘We’ve been summoned,’ he told Lyn wryly, kissing her in greeting. ‘Timon wants us to dine with him.’
Lyn frowned slightly. ‘What about Georgy? He’ll be in bed by then.’
‘One of the maids can babysit,’ answered Anatole, heading for the shower room. ‘Oh, and Lyn...’ His voice had changed. ‘I’m afraid Timon has gone ahead with hiring a nanny for us.’
She stared after him in some consternation.
Immediately he continued, ‘Please don’t be anxious—she will be based up at the villa, not here, and she will only be for our convenience. Nothing else. Such as for evenings like this.’
Lyn bit her tongue. It wasn’t an outrageous thing for Timon to have done, but it was unsettling all the same. And she would have preferred to have had some say in just who the nanny would be. Timon’s ideas were likely to run to the kind of old-fashioned, starchy, uniformed nanny who liked to have sole charge of her infant and keep parents—adoptive or otherwise—well at bay.
But she put her disquiet aside. She would deal with it after their wedding—which was approaching fast now that Timon was out of hospital. This time next week she and Anatole would be husband and wife. A little thrill went through her—a bubble of emotion that warmed her veins. But with it came, yet again, that sense of plucking at her heartstrings that always came when she let herself think beyond the present.
This time next week we’ll be married—and this time next year we might be already divorced...
She felt her heart squeeze, her throat constrict.
Don’t think about this time next year—don’t think about anything but what you have now! Which is so much more than you ever dreamed possible!
With a little shake she went to get ready herself for going up to the big house and dining in what she was pretty sure would be a much more formal style than she and Anatole adopted here in the little beach villa.
And so it proved.
Timon might still be an invalid, and in a wheelchair, but he commanded the head of the table in the huge, opulently appointed dining room as he must surely have done all his life. The meal was as opulent as the decor, with multiple courses and an array of staff hovering to place plates and refill glasses. Though she did her best, Lyn could not but help feeling if not intimidated, then definitely ill-at-ease. It didn’t help matters that Timon focused most of his conversational energies on Anatole, and that the main subject under discussion appeared to be a situation that was developing at one of the Petranakos factories in Thessaloniki, in the north of Greece.
Anatole elaborated a little to her, in English, as the meal progressed. ‘The workers there are on short time already,’ he said to her, ‘and now the manager is issuing redundancies. It’s not proving popular, as you can imagine.’
‘Redundancies are unavoidable!’ snapped Timon, interjecting brusquely.
Anatole turned back to him. ‘It’s been badly handled,’ he said bluntly. ‘Without any consultation, discussion or explanation. The manager there should be replaced.’
‘He’s my appointment,’ growled Timon.
Anatole’s mouth set, but he said nothing.
Timon’s dark eyes flashed as they rested on his grandson. ‘You’re not in charge of Petranakos yet!’ he exclaimed. ‘And I don’t have to put you in charge, I’ll have you remember—’
He changed to Greek, speaking rapidly, with little emotion, and then broke off as a coughing fit overcame him. Lyn sat awkwardly, aware of the strong currents flowing between grandfather and grandson. Anatole looked tense, and she longed to smooth away his worries.
She got her chance when they got back to the beach house finally. After checking on Georgy, thanking the maid who’d babysat and sending her off back to the big house, she went into the kitchen to make Anatole his customary late-night coffee. When she took it into the bedroom he was already in bed, sitting back against the pillows, his laptop open on his knees. He glanced at Lyn, gratefully taking the coffee.
‘I ought to be glad that Timon is—very clearly!—feeling better, but I have to say,’ he went on darkly, ‘it’s making him reluctant to relinquish his chairman’s role to me.’ He made a wry face. ‘The trouble is his management style is not suited to the current dire economic conditions. It’s out of touch, too authoritarian, and that’s far too inflammatory right now!’ He took a mouthful of coffee. ‘I need to get him to resign from chairing the executive board and put me in his place, so I can sort things out properly, in a more conciliatory fashion, without having all the employees up in arms! But Timon’s proving stubborn about it!’
Lyn knelt beside him and started working at the knots in his shoulders.
Anatole rolled his head appreciatively. He caught her hand. ‘I’m sorry this is erupting now,’ he told her, ‘so close to the wedding. But if things don’t calm down in Thessaloniki soon I may have to go there. And,’ he finished, his mouth tightening, ‘I am going to have to do whatever it takes to persuade Timon to hand over the reins of power to me irrevocably! Too much is at stake! He says he wants to wait until Georgy’s adoption is confirmed—but I can’t wait till then now that all this has flared up. If the workers in Thessaloniki come out on strike it will cost the company millions in the end! I have to stop it getting that far, and to do that I need to have free rein to take what action is necessary!’ He took a breath. ‘I’m going to tackle Timon tomorrow. Get him to agree to the handover finally!’
He set down his coffee cup, turned off his laptop, and wrapped an arm around Lyn.
‘The next few days are going to be tough,’ he warned her apologetically. ‘It’s going to be a race against time to get everything sorted out before the wedding.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘I’ll have to be up early tomorrow, just to tell you in advance, and you won’t see much of me for the rest of the week, I’m afraid. It makes sense for me to stay in my apartment in Athens until the weekend. There’s even a chance that the situation in Thessaloniki will require me to fly up there myself now. I hope not, but I’d better warn you about the possibility all the same.’
Lyn felt a little stab of dismay at the thought of being without Anatole, but knew she must not add to the heavy pressure on him already by showing it. Instead she put on a sympathetic smile and kissed his cheek.
‘Poor you,’ she said. ‘I hope it turns out all right.’
‘Me too,’ he agreed.
His eyes started to close, and Lyn reached to put out the light. Tonight, sleep was clearly on the agenda.
But in just over a week we’ll be on our honeymoon! she reminded herself.
That little thrill of emotion came again as she settled herself down, nestling against the already sleeping Anatole. She wrapped an arm around him, holding him close.
Very close...
* * *
‘Right, then, Georgy my lad—no use us sitting here moping!’ Lyn instructed her nephew and herself roundly as she carried him through into the bathroom to get dressed and ready for the day.