And not just because she would eventually run out of money.
But because she’d run off with Georgy.
Run from the man who was trying to take him from her! The man she had trusted never to do that.
Pain knifed her. Pain that was so familiar now, so agonising, that she should surely be used to it? But it was still like a stab every time she felt it—every time she thought of Anatole. Every time she remembered him.
Being with him—being in his arms! Being with him by day and by night! All the time we spent together—all the weeks—all that precious, precious time...
She closed her eyes, pushing the buggy blindly around the little park that was not too far away from the shabby bedsit she’d taken here in Bristol, which had been the destination of the first flight out of Heraklion. As she walked, forcing one foot in front of the other, memories rushed into her head, tearing at her with talons of sharpest steel. Memories of Anatole walking beside her in another city park like this, in the cold north country spring, sitting down by the children’s play area. She heard his voice speaking in her head.
‘There is a way,’ he’d said. ‘There is a way that could solve the entire dilemma...’
Her hands spasmed over the buggy’s push bar. Yes, there had been a way to solve it! A way that he’d had all worked out—in absolute detail. Totally foolproof detail...
He had known—dear God—a man like him must have known from the off that she would be putty in his hands! That he could persuade her, convince her into doing what he wanted her to do!
‘I need you to trust me...’
The words that she had heard him say so often to her burned like fire in her head.
And what better way to win her trust, keep her doting and docile, than by the most foolproof method of all...?
He took me to bed to get me to trust him. Just to keep me sweet.
Until he did not need to any more.
Her heart convulsed and she gave a little cry, pausing in her pushing and hunkering down beside Georgy. He turned to look at her and patted her face, gazing at her. She felt her heart turn over and over.
I love you so much! I love you so much, my darling, darling Georgy!
Yet as she straightened again, went on pushing forward, she felt as if a stone inside was dragging at her. She could not go on like this.
The harsh, brutal truth was that, though she had panicked when Timon had smashed her life to pieces, had followed every primal instinct in her body and fled as fast and as far as she could with Georgy in her arms, she was now on the run.
Hiding not just from Anatole and Timon but from the authorities in whose ultimate charge her sister’s son still was...
It could not go on. She knew it—feared it—must face it.
Face, too, against the resistance that had cost her so much to overcome, that she was also hiding from the truth. The truth of what she’d done...
I used him too.
That was what she had to face—what Timon had thrown at her. Her own lie—her own deceit to get from Anatole what she wanted so desperately.
But it had all fallen apart—everything—and now she was reduced to this. Fleeing with Georgy—on the run—with no future, no hope.
It could not go on. There was only one way forward now. Only one future for Georgy.
If you love him, you must do it. For his sake!
In her head she heard the words she had cried out so often.
I can’t do it! I can’t—I can’t! Lindy gave him to me with her dying words...Georgy is mine—mine!
But as she plodded on through the scruffy urban park that was a million miles away from the Petranakos mansion, with its huge private grounds and pristine private beach, her eyes staring wildly ahead of her, her face stark, she could feel the thoughts forcing their way into her tormented mind as desperately as she tried to keep them out.
They would not be kept out.
You must not think of yourself—your own pain, your own feelings! What you must think of is Georgy! If you love him, then do what is best for him!
He could not go on living like this, in some run down bedsit, hand to mouth. Hiding and on the run. Being fought over like a bone between two dogs in a cruel, punishing tug-of-love.
Slowly, as if she had no strength left in her, she wheeled the buggy around and headed back out of the park.
She had a letter to write.
* * *
Anatole walked into the air-conditioned building that housed the London offices of his lawyers. It hardly needed air-conditioning, because the London summer was a lot cooler than the Greek summer, but the temperature was the last thing he was thinking of. He had only one thought in his mind—only one imperative. He gave his name at the desk and was shown in immediately.
‘Is she here?’ was his instant demand to the partner who handled his affairs as he greeted him in his office.
The man nodded. ‘She’s waiting for you in one of our meeting rooms,’ he said.
‘And the boy?’
‘Yes.’
The single word was all Anatole needed to hear. Relief flooded through him. It flushed away the other emotion that was possessing him—the one he was trying to exorcise with all his powers, which had possessed him ever since that fateful call from Timon.
‘Do you wish me to be present at the meeting?’ his lawyer enquired tactfully.
Anatole gave a curt shake of his head. ‘I’ll call you when I need you. You’ve outlined my legal position clearly enough, so I know where I stand.’ He paused, not quite meeting the man’s eyes. ‘Did she say anything to you?’
The lawyer shook his head.
Anatole felt another stab of emotion go through him. He tensed his shoulders. ‘OK, show me in.’
He blanked his mind. Anything else right now was far too dangerous. He must focus on only one goal—Georgy.
Nothing else.
No one else.
* * *
Lyn was sitting in one of the leather tub chairs that were grouped around a low table on which were spread several of the day’s broadsheet newspapers, a copy of a business magazine and a law magazine. Georgy was on her lap, and she was nuzzling him with a soft toy. It was one of the ones that she and Anatole had bought for him in London, at the very expensive department store and with Aladdin’s Cave of a toy department. It seemed they had bought it a lifetime ago—in a different universe.
She wondered what she was feeling right now and realised it was nothing. Realised that it had to be nothing—because if it were anything else she could not go on sitting there.
Waiting for Anatole to walk in, as she knew he would at any moment now.
There was a clock on the wall and she glanced at it. Time was ticking by. In a few minutes she would see him again, and then she would say to him what she must say.
But she must not think about that. Must only go on sitting here, absently playing with Georgy, while the minutes between her and her endless empty future ticked past.
The door opened. Her head jerked up and he was there. Anatole.
Anatole.
Here—now—in the flesh. Real. Live.
Anatole.
As overwhelming and as overpowering to her senses as he always had been, right from the very first...
The nothing she had been feeling shattered into a million fragments...
Like a tidal wave emotion roared into her, the blood in her veins gushing like a hot fountain released from a cave of ice. Her sight dimmed and her eyes clung to him as he walked in.
On her lap, Georgy saw him too—saw him, recognised him, and held out his chubby arms to him with a gurgle of delight.
In two strides Anatole was there, scooping him up, wheeling him into the air, folding him to him and hugging him, a torrent of Greek coming from his lips. Then, as he nestled Georgy into his shoulder, he turned to Lyn.
For a moment—just a moment—there was a flash of emotion in his eyes. It seemed to sear her to the quick. Then it was gone.
He stood stock-still, Georgy clutched to him, his face like stone. But she could feel his anger coming off him. Feel it spearing her.
‘So you brought him. I did not think you would.’ His voice had no expression in it.
She made herself answer. ‘I said in my letter I would.’ Her voice was halting. As expressionless as his. It was the only way she could make herself speak. Say the words she had to say.
He frowned a moment, his eyes narrowing. ‘So why did you? Why did you bring him here? What are you after, Lyn?’
She heard the leashed anger and knew that she had caused it. But his anger didn’t matter. She gave a faint, frail shrug. ‘What else could I do? I ran, Anatole, because I panicked. It was instinct—blind, raw instinct—but once I was back here I realised there had been no point in running. No point in fleeing.’ She looked at him. Made herself look at him. Made herself silence the scream inside her head against what she was doing. What she was saying. What she was feeling...
What you feel doesn’t matter. Seeing Anatole again doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter because you never mattered to him—you were just an impediment, in his way, a stepping stone towards his goal. It wasn’t real, what happened between you. You were nothing to him but a means to an end. An end he has now achieved.