By: Sharon Kendrick
Genre: Romance
Harlequin Presents
October 1, 2009
On Sale: October 1, 2009
Featuring: Constantine Karantinos; Laura
192 pages
ISBN: 0373128622
EAN: 9780373128624
Mass Market Paperback
Book Summary
Constantine Karantinos is Greek through and through! When he learns he has an heir he'll do anything to claim him. Even if he finds it hard to remember bedding Laura —she was nothing more than a mousy little waitress! Maybe if he were to have her again, it would refresh his memory….
Now that Constantine has summoned Laura to Greece, she's more stubborn than he recalls. Determined to pay her way as housekeeper, by day she insists on cooking and cleaning. However, by night Constantine demands she fulfill her bedroom duties….
It was hearing his name on the radio which made her senses
scream. Laura never had time for newspapers—even if her
dyslexia hadn't made reading so difficult—she relied on the
morning news programme to keep her up to date. Usually she
only listened with half an ear, and usually she wasn't
remotely interested in anything to do with international
finance.
But Karantinos was an unusual name.
And it was Greek. And didn't anything to do with that
beautiful and ancient land put her senses on painful alert
for very obvious reasons?
She had been busy making
bread—sprinkling a handful of seeds into the dough before
she popped the last batch into the oven. But with shaking
hands she stopped dead-still and listened—like a small
animal who had found itself caught alone and frightened in
the middle of a hostile terrain.
'Greek billionaire
Constantine Karantinos has announced record profits for his
family shipping line,' intoned the dry voice of the
news-reader. 'Playboy Karantinos is currently in London to
host a party at the Granchester Hotel, where it is rumoured
he will announce his engagement to Swedish supermodel Ingrid
Johansson.'
Laura swayed, gripping the work surface
to support herself, her ears scarcely able to bear what she
had just heard, her heart pounding with a surprisingly
forceful pain. Because she had preserved Constantine in her
heart, remembering him just as he'd been when she'd known
him— as if time had stood still. A bittersweet memory of a
man who still made her ache when she thought of him. But
time never stood still—she knew that more than
anyone.
And what had she expected? That a man like
Constantine would stay single for ever? As if that lazy
charm and piercing intellect—that powerhouse body and face
of a fallen angel—would remain unattached. She was just
surprised that it hadn't happened sooner.
She could
hear the sounds of movement from above as she took off her
apron. But her heart was racing as she mechanically went
through her morning routine of tidying up the kitchen before
going upstairs to wake her son. She often told herself how
lucky she was to live 'over the shop', and although helping
run a small baker's store hadn't been her life's ambition,
at least it gave her a modest income which she supplemented
with occasional waitressing work. But most of all it
provided a roof over their heads—which was security for
Alex—and that was worth more than anything in Laura's
eyes.
Her sister Sarah was already up, yawning as she
emerged from one of the three poky bedrooms, running her
fingers through the thick dark curtain of her hair, which so
contrasted with her sister's finer, fairer
mane.
'Mornin', Laura,' Sarah mumbled, and then
blinked as she saw her older sister's face 'What the hell's
happened? Don't tell me the oven's gone on the blink
again?'
Mutely, Laura shook her head, then jerked it
in the direction of her son's bedroom. 'Is he up yet?' she
mouthed.
Sarah shook her head. 'Not
yet.'
Laura glanced at the clock on the wall, which
dominated her busy life, and saw that she had ten minutes
before she had to get Alex up for school. Pulling Sarah into
the small sitting room which overlooked the high street, she
shut the door behind them and turned to her sister, her
whole body trembling.
'Constantine Karantinos is in
London,' she began, the whispered words falling out of her
mouth like jagged little fragments of glass.
Her
sister scowled. 'And?'
Laura willed her hands to stop
shaking. 'He's throwing a party.' She swallowed. 'And they
say he's getting engaged. To a Swedish
supermodel.'
Sarah shrugged. 'What do you want me to
say? That it's a surprise?'
'No… But I…'
'But
what, Laura?' demanded Sarah impatiently. 'You can't seem to
accept that the no-good bastard you slept with hasn't an
ounce of conscience. That he never gave you another
thought.'
'He—'
'He what? Refused to see
you? Why, you couldn't even get a single meeting with the
great man, could you, Laura? No matter how many times you
tried. He's never even taken your phone calls! You were good
enough to share his bed—but not good enough to be recognised
as the mother of his child!'
Laura shot an agonised
look at the closed door, straining her ears as she wondered
if Alex had done the unheard-of and managed to get himself
out of bed without his mother or his auntie gently shaking
him awake. But then, seven-year-old boys were notoriously
bad at getting up in the morning, weren't they? And they
became increasingly curious as they got older…kept asking
questions she wasn't sure how to answer…
'Shh. I
don't want Alex to hear!'
'Why not? Why shouldn't he
know that his father happens to be one of the richest men on
the planet—while his mother is working her fingers to the
bone in a bread shop, trying to support him?'
'I
don't want to…' But her words tailed off. Didn't want to
what exactly? Laura wondered. Didn't want to hurt
her beloved son because it was the duty of every mother to
protect her child? Yet she had been finding it increasingly
difficult to do that. Just last month Alex had come home
with a nasty-looking bruise on his cheek, and when she had
asked him what had happened he had mumbled and become very
defensive. It had only been later that she'd discovered he'd
been involved in some kind of minor skirmish in the
playground. And later still that she had discovered the
cause, when she'd gone tearing into the school, white-faced
and trembling, to seek a meeting with the
headmistress.
It transpired that Alex was being
bullied because he looked 'different'. Because his olive
skin, black eyes and towering height made him look older and
tougher than the other boys in his class. And because the
little girls in the class—even at the tender ages of six and
seven—had been following the dark-eyed Alex around like
eager little puppies. Like father, like son, she had thought
with a pang.
Laura had felt a mixture of troubled
emotions as she'd gone home that day. She'd wanted to ask
her son why he hadn't hit back—but that would have gone
against everything she had taught him. She had brought him
up to be gentle. To reason rather than to lash out. For two
pins she would have withdrawn her son from the school and
sent him somewhere else—but she didn't have the luxury of
choice. The next nearest state school was in the
neighbouring town, and not only did Laura not have a car but
the bus service was extremely unreliable.
Lately her
son had been asking her more and more frequently about
why he looked different. He was an intelligent
little boy, and sooner or later he wouldn't allowed her to
fob him off with vague and woolly pieces of information
about a father he had never seen. If only Constantine would
just talk to her. Acknowledge his son. Spend a
little time with him—that was all she wanted. For her
beloved boy to know a little of his heritage.
She was
distracted while she gave Alex his breakfast, and even more
distracted during the short walk to his school. Although it
was almost the summer holidays, the weather had been awful
lately—nothing but rain, rain, rain—and this morning the
persistent drizzle seemed to penetrate every inch of her
body. She shivered a little, and tried to chatter brightly,
but she felt as if she had a heavy lead weight sitting in
the pit of her stomach.
Alex looked up at her with
his dark olive eyes and frowned. 'Is something wrong, Mum?'
he questioned.
Your father is about to marry
another woman and will probably have a family with her.
Telling herself that the blistering shaft of jealous
pain was unreasonable under the circumstances, she hugged
her son to her fiercely as she said goodbye.
'Wrong?
No, nothing's wrong, darling.' She smiled brightly, and
watched as he ran into the playground, praying that the head
teacher's recent lecture on bullying might have had some
effect on the little savages who had picked on
him.
She was lost in thought as she walked back to
the shop. Hanging up her damp coat in the little cloakroom
at the back, she grimaced at the pale face which stared back
at her from the tiny mirror hung on the back of the door.
Her grey eyes looked troubled, and her baby-fine hair clung
to her head like a particularly unattractive-looking
skull-cap. Carefully, she brushed it and shook it, then
crumpled it into a damp pleat on top of her
head.
Pulling on her overall, she was still
preoccupied as she walked into the shop, where her sister
was just putting on the lights. Five minutes until they
opened and the first rush of the day would begin—with
villagers keen to buy their freshly baked bread and buns.
Laura knew how lucky she was to have the life she had—lucky
that her sister loved Alex as much as she did.
The
two girls had been orphaned when Sarah was still at school,
after their widowed mother had died suddenly and quietly in
the middle of the night. A stricken Laura had put her own
plans of travelling the world on hold, unsure what path to
take to ensure that Sarah could continue with her studies.
But fate had stepped in with cruel and ironic timing,
because Laura had discovered soon after that she was
carrying Alex.
Money had been tight, but they had
been left with the scruffy little baker's shop and the flat
upstairs, where they had spent most of their childhood
years. They had always helped their mother in the shop, so
Laura had suggested modernising it and carrying on with the
modest little family business, and Sarah had insisted on
studying part-time so that she could help with
Alex.
Up until now the scheme had worked perfectly
well. And if the shop wasn't exactly making a huge profit,
at least they were keeping their heads above water and
enjoying village life.
But recently Sarah had started
talking longingly of going to art school in London, and
Laura was horribly aware that she was holding her back. She
couldn't keep using her little sister as a part-time
child-minder, no matter how much Sarah loved her nephew—she
needed to get out there and live her own life. But then how
on earth would Laura cope with running a business and being
as much of a hands-on mum as she could to Alex? To Alex who
was becoming increasingly curious about his
background.
Sarah was giving the counter a final
wipe, and looked up as Laura walked into the shop. 'You
still look fed up,' she observed.
Laura stared down
at the ragged pile of rock-cakes and boxes of home-made
fudge under the glass counter. 'Not fed up,' she said
slowly. 'Just realising that I can't go on hiding my head in
the sand any longer.'
Sarah blinked. 'What are you
talking about?'
Laura swallowed. Say it, she thought.
Go on—say it. Speak the words out loud—that way it
will become real and you'll have to do it. Stop
being fobbed off by the gatekeepers who surround the father
of your son. Get out there and fight for Alex.
'Just that I've got to get to Constantine and tell him he
has a son.'
Sarah's eyes narrowed. 'Why the new
fervour, Laura?' she asked drily. 'Is it because Constantine
is finally settling down? You think that he's going to take
one look at you and decide to dump the Swedish supermodel
and run off into the sunset with you?'
Laura flushed,
knowing that Sarah spoke with the kind of harsh candour
which only a sister could get away with— but her words were
true. She had to rid herself of any romantic notions where
the Greek billionaire was concerned. As if Constantine would
even look at her now! He certainly wouldn't fancy
her any more—for hadn't hard work and a lack of time to
devote to herself meant that her youthful bloom had faded
faster than most? At twenty-six she sometimes felt—and
looked—a whole decade older than her years. And even if the
fire in her heart still burned fiercely for the father of
her son she had to douse the flames completely.
'Of
course I don't,' she said bitterly. 'But I owe it to Alex.
Constantine has got to know that he has a
son.'
'I agree. But aren't you forgetting something?'
questioned Sarah patiently. 'Last time you tried to contact
him you got precisely nowhere—so what's changed
now?'
What had changed? Laura walked slowly
towards the door of the shop. She wasn't sure—only that
perhaps she'd realised time was running out, that maybe this
was her last chance. And that she was no longer prepared to
humbly accept being knocked back by the tight circle which
surrounded the formidable Greek. She was fired up by
something so powerful that it felt as if it had invaded her
soul. She was a mother, and she owed it to her
son.
'What's changed?' Slowly, Laura repeated Sarah's
words back to her. 'I guess Ihave. And this time
I'm going to get to him. I'm going to look him in the eye
and tell him about his son.'
'Oh, Laura, exactly the
same thing will happen!' exclaimed Sarah. 'You'll be knocked
back and won't get within a mile of him!'
There was a
pause. Laura could hear the ticking of her wristwatch
echoing the beating of her heart. 'Only if I go the
conventional route,' she said slowly.
Sarah's eyes
narrowed. 'What are you talking about?'
Laura hadn't
really known herself up until then, but it was one of those
defining moments where the answer seemed so blindingly
simple that she couldn't believe she hadn't thought of it
before. Like when she'd decided that they ought to start
making their own loaves on the premises rather than having
them delivered from the large bakery in the nearby
town—thereby enticing their customers in with the delicious
smell of baking bread.
'The radio said he's giving
some big party in London,' she said, piecing her whirling
thoughts into some kind of order. 'In a
hotel.'
'And?'
Laura swallowed. 'And what
industry has the fastest turn-over of staff in the world?
The catering industry! Think about it, Sarah. They'll…
they'll need loads of extra staff for the night, won't they?
Casual staff.'
'Just a minute…' Sarah's eyes widened.
'Don't tell me you're planning—'
Laura nodded, her
heart beating faster now. 'I've done waitressing jobs at the
local hotel for years. I can easily get a
reference.'
'Okay, so what if you do manage to get on
the payroll?' Sarah demanded. 'Then what? You're going to
march over to Constantine in your uniform, in the middle of
his fancy party, and announce to him in front of the world,
not to mention his soon-to-be wife that he has a
seven-year-old son?'