Anatole’s name on the paper Timon had so triumphantly thrust at her.
Anatole’s name betraying her.
His message to her confirming his betrayal.
His breaking of all the stupid trust she had put in him!
Her mind cried silently in anguish. I trusted him! I trusted everything he said—everything he promised me!
But it had meant nothing, that promise. Only one thing had mattered to him—getting Georgy to his grandfather and thereby getting control of the Petranakos Corporation.
And if that promise had meant nothing to him... Her eyes stared blindly, haunted, pained. Nor had anything else...
The stabbing pain came again. Nothing about me mattered to him! Nothing!
Like a film playing at high speed in her head all the time she had spent with Anatole flashed past her inner vision. Their time together with Georgy...
I thought we were making a family together! I thought he was happy to be with Georgy and me, happy for us to be together.
Being with her when Georgy slept...
Anatole’s arms around her, his mouth seeking hers, his strong, passionate body covering hers, taking her to a paradise she had never known existed! Murmuring words to her, cradling her, caressing her...
But it had meant nothing at all—only as a means to lull her, to deceive her as to his true intentions. She heard his voice tolling in her head. Over and over again he’d said those words to her.
‘Trust me—I need you to trust me...’
Bitter gall rose in her. Yes, he’d needed her to trust him! Needed her to gaze at him adoringly and put her trust in him, her faith in him.
Like a fool...
She heard his words again, mocking her from the depths of her being. She had meant nothing to him. Nothing more than a means to an end—to get Georgy out here the quickest and easiest way.
To get him here and keep him here.
Keep him here without her.
He lied to me...
But he had not been the only one to lie.
Like a crushing weight the accusation swung into her, forcing her to face it. She did not want to—she rebelled against it, resisted it—but it was impossible to deny, impossible to keep out of her head. It forced its way in, levering its way into her consciousness.
The brutal accusation cut at her. You lied to him too—you lied to him and you knew that you were lying to him.
And it was true—she had lied...lied right from the start...
Sickness filled her as she heard Timon’s scathing denunciation of her—heard him telling her that she had got nothing but her just deserts...
A ragged breath razored through her as she stared out to sea, the wind buffeting her face, whipping away her tears even as she shed them. But even as the wind sheared her tears away they fell faster yet. Unstoppable.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ANATOLE RAISED A weary hand—a gesture of acknowledgement of what the union rep had just said. He was exhausted. His whole body was tired. He’d gone without sleep all night, going over and over figures and facts with the management team at the Thessaloniki plant, trying to find a viable alternative to the redundancies. Then he’d gone straight into meetings with the union representatives, trying to hammer out something that would preserve jobs.
At least he was making some kind of impact on the union . They were listening to him, even if they were still disputing with him. His approach was not that of the former manager, or his autocratic grandfather, issuing to the employees lofty diktats that had resulted in an instant demonstration outside the plant and ballots for full strike action. Instead he had disclosed the true finances of the division, pulled no punches, inviting them to try and find a way forward with him.
He sat back, weariness etched into his face. There was still muted discussion around the table. He wanted to close his eyes and sleep, but sleep could wait. It would have to. Would the deal he was offering swing it? He hoped so. Strike action would be costly and crippling, benefitting no one. Worse, in the terrifyingly volatile Greek economy it was likely to spread like wildfire through the rest of the Petranakos organisation, possibly even beyond, to other companies as well, with disastrous consequences.
To his intense relief the union reps were looking thoughtful, and a couple of them were nodding. Had he swung it? He hoped to God he had—then maybe he could get some sleep finally.
But not before speaking to Lyn. It was imperative he do so! He’d managed to find the time to text her about the cancellation of the wedding, but that brief text was utterly inadequate. He had to see her, talk to her, explain to her...
Frustration knifed through him. He had to sleep, or he’d pass out, but he had to talk to her too. Had to get back to her...
‘Kyrios Telonidis—’
The voice at the door of the meeting room was apologetic, but the note of urgency in it reached him. He looked enquiringly at the secretary who had intruded.
‘It is Kyrios Petranakos...’ she said.
He was on his feet immediately. ‘Gentlemen—my apologies. My grandfather...’ He left the sentence unfinished as he strode from the room. It was common knowledge how very gravely ill Timon was. In the outer office he seized the phone the secretary indicated. As he heard his grandfather’s distinctive voice his tension diminished. He had feared the worst. But then, as he heard what his grandfather was saying, he froze.
‘She’s gone! She’s gone—taken the boy! She’s taken the boy!’ It was all his grandfather could say, over and over again. Totally distraught.
* * *
‘What did you say to her? Tell me what you said to her!’
Anatole’s voice was harsh, but he needed to know what it was that had sent Lyn into a panic, making her flee as she had. Taking Georgy with her...
Since the call had come through to him in Thessaloniki life had turned into a nightmare. He had flown straight back to Athens, raced to Timon’s villa, stormed into Timon’s room.
His grandfather’s face was ravaged.
‘I told her what you’d done!’
Anatole’s eyes flashed with fury. ‘I told you to let me tell her! That I would find the right way to say it! I knew I needed to—urgently—but with that damn strike threatening I had to tell her to wait for me to talk to her! Why the hell did you go and do it?’
He wasn’t being kind, he knew that, but it was Timon’s fault! Timon’s fault that Lyn had bolted. Bolted with Georgy! He felt fear clutch at him. Where were they? Where had Lyn gone? Where had she taken Georgy? They could be anywhere! Anywhere at all! She’d taken her passport, and Georgy’s, but even with his instant alerting of the police at the airport there had been no reports of them. His face tightened. Athens Airport was not the only way out of Greece—there were a hundred ways she could have gone...a hundred ways she could have left Greece!
‘Why?’ Timon’s rasping voice was as harsh as his. ‘This is why!’ He seized a piece of paper from his desk, thrust it at Anatole.
Anatole snatched it, forcing his eyes to focus, to take in what he was reading. It was Latin script, in English.
As he read it he could feel ice congeal in his veins. He let the paper fall back on the desk, staring down at it with sightless eyes.
Beside him he could hear his grandfather’s voice speaking. Coming from very far away.
‘She lied to you—she lied to you and used you. Right from the start! So I told her—I told her exactly what you’d done.’
* * *
Lyn was pushing Georgy around a park. The buggy was not the swish, luxury item Anatole had bought. This one was third-hand from a jumble sale, with a wonky wheel, a stained cover and a folding mechanism that threatened to break every time she used it. But it was all she could afford now. She was living off her savings. Getting any kind of work was impossible, because it would never be enough to cover childcare.
She’d found a bedsit—the cheapest she could get—a single room with a kitchenette in a corner and a shared bathroom on the landing, so cramped and run down it made the flat she’d lived in while at college seem like a luxury penthouse! Whenever she stared round it, taking in every unlovely detail, a memory flashed into her head.
The beautiful colour photo from the estate agent that had come with the title deeds to the seaside house in the Witterings in Sussex...
Her expression darkened. She had thought in her criminal stupidity that it was a gesture of Anatole’s generous sensitivity to her plea that Georgy should not lose his English heritage...
She knew now what it really was—had known from the moment Timon had destroyed all her stupid dreams.
It was my payoff.
Well, she wouldn’t touch it! Wouldn’t take it! Would take nothing at all from him! She’d left all her expensive new clothes in the wardrobe in Timon’s beach house, leaving Greece in her own, original clothes. Clothes that were far more suited to the place she lived now.
Yet even taking the cheapest bedsit she’d been able to find was eating into her funds badly. She could not continue like this indefinitely. She knew with a grim, bleak inevitability that a time of reckoning was approaching—heading towards her like a steam train. The knowledge was like a boot kicking into her head. She could not go on like this...