‘You had a right to be angry, Anatole—knowing I’d hidden from you how weak my claim to Georgy was compared to yours.’ Her voice was the same—dull, self-accusing.
He stared at her. ‘You think I am angry at you for that?’
‘Just as I was angry,’ she countered. ‘Angry that you said we would marry but you never meant it. That document was proof of that!’
His expression changed. ‘I would never,’ he bit out, his eyes flashing darkly, ‘have signed such a document of my own free will! But,’ he said, ‘I signed it in the end because I didn’t think it mattered. Not in the long term. I didn’t have time to argue with my grandfather. I didn’t have time to debate the issue—question why he was insisting on that condition. I had to focus on what was going on in Thessaloniki! Afterwards I would sort it out! I’d have had to postpone the wedding anyway—because of the strike threatening—and if you’d given me a chance, Lyn, when I got back I would have explained what my grandfather had made me do, why I agreed to it! I would have explained everything to you.’ He took a razoring breath. ‘If you’d trusted me enough not to run away back to England...’ His face worked. ‘If you’d only trusted me, Lyn.’
‘Trust me—I need you to trust me...’
The words he had said so often to her. And he was saying them again!
Emotion speared within her—emotion she could not name. Dared not name.
‘Trusted me as I need you to trust me now.’
His voice came through the teeming confusion in her head.
‘As I trust you, Lyn—as I trust you.’
He stepped towards her and she could only gaze at him—gaze into his face, his eyes, which seemed to be pouring into hers.
He levered himself down beside her, hunkering on his haunches. ‘You have proved to me that I can have trust in you now, in the most absolute way possible! There is no greater proof possible! None!’
He reached a hand forward. But not to her. To Georgy, who was contentedly sucking at his fingers now, clearly getting sleepy. Anatole stroked his head and cupped his cheek, smoothed his hand down his back. His face softened. Then his gaze went back to Lyn. Clear and unflinching.
‘I trust you, Lyn—absolutely and unconditionally. I trust you to do the one thing that shines from you, that has shone from you like a beacon of purest light from the very first!’ His expression changed. ‘Your love for Georgy, Lyn. That is what I trust—and it is why I trust you. Why I will always trust you!’
There was a wealth of emotion in his voice, pouring from his eyes, from his whole being. She felt herself sway with the force of it.
‘What does it matter, Lyn, whether Lindy was your sister—?’ he began.
But she cut across him, her voice a cry. Anguished and trembling with emotion. ‘She was! She was my sister! My sister in everything! I loved her as just as much! And when she died a piece of me died as well. But she gave me—’ her voice broke ‘—she gave me her son, for me to look after, to love the way I’d loved her. And that’s why...that’s why...’ She couldn’t go on. But she had to—she had to. ‘That’s why I have to give him to you now, Anatole— because it’s for him.’
Now it was Anatole who cut across her. ‘And that is why I know how much you love him! Because you are willing to give him up!’ His voice changed, grew husky. ‘And there is only one kind of love that does that, Lyn—only one kind.’ He looked at her. ‘A mother’s love.’ He took a shaking breath and swallowed. ‘You are Georgy’s mother! You! And it doesn’t matter a single iota whether your blood runs in his veins! Your sister knew that—knew that when she entrusted Georgy to you! She knew you loved her and she knew you would love Georgy all his life, Lyn—all his life! With the love he needs to have—a mother’s love...your love!’
He reached forward again, and now he was taking her hands with his, so warm and so strong, and he was placing her hands around Georgy’s sturdy little body, pressing them around him, his own covering hers.
‘And I love him too, Lyn,’ he said. ‘I love him with the love that Marcos was not able to love him with. I will always love him—all his life.’ He paused and took another ragged breath. ‘Just as I love you, Lyn.’
There was a sudden stillness. An absolute stillness. An immobility of all the world. All the universe.
She could not move. Could not move a muscle.
But she could feel Anatole lifting her hands—lifting them away from Georgy, who slumped his slumberous body back against her, his eyelids closing. Anatole lifted her hands to his lips, kissing first one and then the other. The softest, sweetest kisses...
‘How could you think I didn’t?’ he whispered. His voice was cracking—cracking and husky. ‘How could you possibly think I didn’t love you? How did you think I could hold you in my arms night after night, be with you, at your side day after day, and not come to love you as I do?’
Her eyes clung to his. Was this true? Oh, was this true? These words he was telling her? Those sweet kisses he had blessed her hands with? Was it true? Her heart swelled with hope—with yearning that it might be so—that she was really hearing him say those wonderful words she had so longed to hear and had thought could never be said by him.
But she was hearing them—hearing him say them—and feeling the blissful brush of his lips on hers, the glowing warmth of his gaze, his fingers winding into hers...
He was speaking still, saying what was bliss for her to hear. ‘And I know—I know—you love me too! I can see it now—in your face, your eyes, your tears, Lyn, which are pouring down your face. You love Georgy and you love me—and I love Georgy and I love you. And that’s all we need, my darling, darling Lyn—all that we will ever need!’
He reached with his mouth for hers and found it, kissed it, tasting the salt of her tears.
‘All we’ll ever need,’ he said again, drawing away. He looked at her. ‘You must never, never doubt me again. Never! To think that you thought so ill of me that you fled back here—that you felt you had to give up Georgy to me. To think that is like a sword in my side!’ He kissed her again—fiercely, possessingly. ‘We are family, Lyn! Family. You and me and Georgy—and we always will be! Always!’
She swallowed, fighting back the longing to believe everything he was telling her. ‘Our plan was to marry and then divorce,’ she said. Her voice sounded wonky to her, the words coming out weirdly. It must be because there wasn’t any room for them, she thought. There was only room for the tidal wave of emotion coursing through her—filling her being.
‘That,’ he answered her roundly, ‘was the stupidest plan in the universe! What we are going to do is just marry. And stay married! For ever!’
‘That document you signed...’
‘Timon will tear it up—or I will do it for him!’ He gave a ragged laugh. ‘Timon will only have to take one look at us to know his fears are groundless—pointless.’ His expression changed, and so did his voice, becoming sombre, worried. ‘Can you forgive him, Lyn? For lying to you and saying that I never intended to marry you so that he could drive you away? It was fear that made him do what he did. I can see that now. The fear of losing Georgy.’
Her eyes shadowed. She knew what fear was. Knew it in her bones—knew the fear of losing Georgy...knew just what that fear could make one do...
She took a breath, looked at Anatole straight. ‘I lied to you because I was so frightened I might lose Georgy,’ she said, swallowing. ‘I understand why Timon lied to me for the same reason.’