She looked at him holding Georgy, the baby sitting content in Anatole’s arms. She had seen them like that a hundred times—a thousand. She felt her heart crash.
You were nothing to him—Georgy is everything!
And that was what she must cling to now. That and that alone. It was the only way to survive what was happening. What was going to happen.
‘I thought,’ he bit out, ‘you might have gone to the house.’
She frowned. ‘House? What house?’
A strange look flitted across his face. ‘The house by the sea—the house I gave you.’
She stared. ‘Why would I have gone there?’ Her voice was blank.
‘Because it’s yours,’ he riposted flatly. But the flatness was the flatness of the blade of a knife...
‘Of course it isn’t mine! Nothing’s mine, Anatole. Not even—’ She closed her eyes, because the truth was too agonising to face, then forced them open again. ‘Not even Georgy.’
There—she had said it. Said what she had to say. What she should have said right from the start.
If I had just admitted it—admitted the truth—then I would have been spared all this now! Spared the agony of standing here, seeing Anatole, knowing what he came to mean to me!
Dear God, how much heartache she would have saved herself!
She took another breath that cut at her lungs, her throat, like the edge of a razorblade.
‘I’ll sign whatever paperwork needs to be signed,’ she said. ‘I can do it now or later—whatever you want. I’ll have an address at some point. Though I don’t know where yet.’
As she spoke she made herself stand up. Forced her legs to straighten. She felt faint, dizzy, but she had to speak—had to say what she had come to say.
She took a breath. Forced herself to speak.
‘I’ve brought his things—Georgy’s. There isn’t much. I didn’t take much with me. And I’ve only bought a little more here in the UK. It’s all in those bags.’ She indicated the meagre collection on the floor by the chair. ‘The buggy isn’t very good—it’s from a jumble sale—but it’s just about useable until you get a new one. Unless you brought his old one with you... Be careful when you unfold it, it catches—’ She pointed to where it was propped up against the wall.
She fumbled in her bag. Her fingers weren’t working properly. Nothing about her was working properly.
‘Here is his passport,’ she said, and placed it on the little table. There was the slightest tremble in her voice, but she fought it down. She must not break—she must not... ‘I hope—’ she said. ‘I hope you can take him back to Greece as quickly as possible. I am sure...’ She swallowed. ‘I’m sure Timon must want to see him again as soon as he can.’
Her voice trailed off. She picked up her bag, blinked a moment.
‘I think that’s everything,’ she said.
She started to walk to the door. She must not look at Anatole. Must not look at Georgy. Must do absolutely nothing except keep walking to the door. Reach it, start to open it...
‘What the hell are you doing?’
The demand was like a blow on the back of her neck. She turned. Swallowed. It was hard to swallow because there was a rock the size of Gibraltar in her throat. She blinked again.
‘I’m going,’ she said. ‘What did you think I would do?’
He said something. Something she did not catch because she was looking at his face. Looking at his face for the very last time. Knowing that it was the very last time was like plunging her hand into boiling water. But even as she looked his expression changed.
‘So he was right.’ The words came low, with a lash that was like a whip across her skin. ‘Timon was right all along.’
Slowly he set Georgy down on the thickly carpeted floor, pulling off his tie to keep him happy. Lyn found her eyes going to the strong column of his neck as he unfastened the top button of his shirt now that he was tieless. Felt the ripple in her stomach that was oh, so familiar—and now so eviscerating.
‘Timon was right,’ he said again. His voice was Arctic. ‘He said you only wanted money out of all of this! I didn’t believe him. I said you’d turned down cash from me to hand over Georgy. But he read you right all along!’ His voice twisted. ‘No wonder he set his private investigators on to you—and no wonder you took his money to clear out!’
She didn’t answer. Only picked up Georgy’s passport. Thrust it at him.
‘Open it,’ she said. Her voice was tight. As tight as the steel band around her throat, garrotting her.
She watched him do as she had demanded. Watched his expression change as he saw Timon’s uncashed cheque within, torn into pieces.
‘I took it from him to give me time to make my escape. Because I could think of nothing else to do.’ She took a ragged shredded breath. ‘I never wanted money, Anatole,’ she told him. ‘I never wanted anything except one thing—the one thing that was the most precious in my life.’
Her eyes dropped to Georgy, happily chewing on Anatole’s silk tie.
She was lying, she knew. Lying because she’d come to want more than Georgy—to want something even more precious to her.
You! You, Anatole—I wanted you so much! And a family— you, and Georgy and me—I wanted that so much! So much!
That had been the dream that had taken shape in Greece—that had made her heart catch with yearning! Anatole and Georgy and her—a family together...
She lifted her eyes to Anatole again. To his blank, expressionless face.
‘I kept telling you Georgy was mine,’ she said. ‘I said it over and over and over again. As if by saying it I might make it true.’ She stopped. Took a razoring breath that cut at the soft tissue of her lungs. Then said what she had to say. Had to say.
‘But he isn’t mine. He never was.’
She looked at Anatole—looked straight at him. Met his hard, masked gaze unflinchingly as she made her damning confession.
‘Not a drop of my blood runs in his veins.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
ANATOLE’S FACE WAS stark. Hearing Lyn say what he now knew...
‘I know that now,’ he said. His voice was strange, but he kept on speaking all the same. ‘I know that Lindy wasn’t your sister. She wasn’t even your half-sister. She was nothing more than your stepsister. Timon showed me what his investigators found. She was the daughter of your mother’s second husband, who left her with your mother and you when he abandoned the marriage—and his daughter.’
He shook his head as if he were shaking his thoughts into place—a new place they were unaccustomed to.
‘When he told me it made such sense. Why Georgy doesn’t look like you. Why your name is so similar to Lindy’s—no parent would have done that deliberately—and why I sometimes caught that look of fear in your eyes. Like when you didn’t want a DNA test done.’ He paused. ‘Why didn’t you tell me, Lyn? You must have known I would find out at some point?’
She gave a laugh. A bitter, biting laugh.
‘Because I wanted to be married to you before you did!’ she cried. ‘I was scheming to get your ring on my finger—the ring you never intended to put there!’
His expression changed. He opened his mouth to speak but she ploughed on. ‘Timon told me! He told me that the whole damn thing had been nothing more than a ruse! All that stuff about getting married to strengthen our joint claim to adopt Georgy between us! All that was a fairy tale! You never meant a word of it!’
‘What?’ The word broke from him explosively.
She put her hands to her ears. ‘Anatole—don’t! Please—don’t! Don’t lie to me now—we’re done with lies! We’re done with them!’ That brief, bitter laugh came again. It had no humour in it, only an ocean of pain, and she let her hands fall to her sides. ‘Timon threw it at me that I deserved everything I was ending up with because I’d lied to you by not telling you that Lindy was only my stepsister. I knew perfectly well that your claim to Georgy would be stronger than mine ever could be! Because you were a blood relative and I wasn’t! I was trying to trap you into a marriage you never needed to make!’
She threw her head back.
‘When he tried to give me money to leave, told me he knew I only wanted to marry you because you were rich, I was angry! I’ve never wanted your money—never! I only wanted Georgy!’