Kitabı oku: «The Greek Doctor's Secret Son»

CHAPTER ONE

IT HAD SEEMED like such a good idea back home in England. Now she wasn’t so certain any more. What if something went wrong, something she hadn’t foreseen? She could end up creating even more problems if she weren’t careful.

Amy Prentice could feel her anxiety mounting as she and her eight-year-old son, Jacob, joined the queue for the ferry that would transport them to the small Greek island of Constantis. It had all appeared so straightforward when they had set off that morning. She would take Jacob to Constantis for a holiday and whilst they were there, she would tell him about his father being Greek. At the moment Jacob knew very little about the man who had fathered him apart from the fact that he was a doctor and that he worked in America, which was why they never saw him. Jacob had accepted it without question, or he had done before the other children in his class had started teasing him. Although a lot of them came from single-parent families too, at least they had some contact with their absent parent. Jacob, however, had never met his father and that was all down to her.

Nicolaus Leonides had made his feelings abundantly clear nine years ago. He hadn’t been interested in the child Amy had been carrying and there was no reason to imagine that he had changed his mind. Not after everything she had read about him. Nico had achieved everything he had set out to do, establishing himself as one of the world’s foremost cosmetic surgeons. The name Nicolaus Leonides had become a byword for perfection and the fact that only those with a great deal of money could afford to be treated at his clinic in California was immaterial.

No, Nico wouldn’t be interested in Jacob’s problems even if she was prepared to contact him, which she had no intention of doing. Staying on the island where Nico had spent so much time when he was growing up had been the best way Amy could think of to give Jacob an idea of his paternal heritage. So why did she feel so unsure all of a sudden, so afraid that she might be opening up a whole new can of worms? She hung back, the weight of the suitcase dragging painfully on her arm as she debated the pros and cons of carrying on with her plan. Jacob had already skipped up the gangplank but he stopped when he realised that she wasn’t following him.

‘Come on, Mum! You’re going to miss the ferry if you don’t hurry up!’

Amy sighed when she heard the excitement in his voice. Coming on this trip had given Jacob a much-needed boost and it was good to hear him sounding so upbeat for a change. He would be bitterly disappointed if she announced that they were no longer going to the island. She worked such long hours in her job as senior sister on the acute assessment unit at Dalverston General Hospital and saw far too little of him. This trip had been a chance to redress the balance as much as anything else.

Amy took a deep breath then hefted their suitcase up the gangplank. She couldn’t give up now that they had come this far. And as for creating problems, well, there was no basis for thinking that. After all, there was no danger of them running into Nico. He was thousands of miles away, adding even more dollars to his bulging coffers!

* * *

Nico broke into a run. The last passengers had already boarded the ferry and the crew were preparing to cast off. If he missed this boat there wouldn’t be another one until the following day and he couldn’t afford to stay on the mainland overnight. There was an open surgery in the morning which was always packed full of people requiring his attention and he couldn’t let them down.

He put on a final spurt and just managed to leap aboard as the crew cast off the final rope. He nodded apologetically when one of the older men remonstrated with him. Maybe he shouldn’t have taken such a risk but it felt good to know that he was fit enough to push himself like that. When he’d had that heart attack three years ago, he had honestly thought that was it, that all he could expect from then on was a sedentary existence. It had taken him a while to adjust to the idea of his own mortality but once he had done so, he had realised that he could still enjoy life so long as he was sensible about it.

He had set about making changes to the way he had lived, starting with the biggest issue of all, the amount of stress he was under. Setting up the practice in California and making it a success had been his raison d’être. He had worked eighteen-hour days and then spent any free time networking; however his cardiologist had made it clear that he couldn’t do that any longer. Not if he wanted to avoid another heart attack.

He had sold the practice and moved back to Greece, taken a year out while he worked out what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. It had been hard to imagine doing anything other than what he had devoted himself to for the best part of twenty years and he had struggled to find a new direction. And then one day he had taken a trip to Constantis, the tiny island where he and his sister had enjoyed so many holidays with their grandparents, and he had realised in amazement that he had wanted to live there.

There had been no medical facilities on the island at the time. If anyone was taken ill, they had to be ferried to the mainland for treatment. Nico had contacted the IKA, the body which ran the Greek health service, and they had been cautiously enthusiastic about his proposal to build a clinic providing primary health care as well as a ten-bed hospital unit. It had taken a lot of negotiation but in the end he had been given the go-ahead, mainly, he suspected, because he had been willing to fund the building costs himself. The Ariana Leonides Clinic had been open for twelve months now and it was thriving.

Nico moved further along the deck, smiling as he passed several people he knew. Although he had a staff of ten working with him at the clinic, he was well known to the islanders and he had to admit that he enjoyed that aspect of the job too. Although he had led a busy social life in California, he had been aware that the invitations had been extended because of his status more than anything else. His name on a guest list had been seen as real kudos by the hostess, something to brag about. He was rich, successful and that was what had mattered most of all.

A sudden commotion made him glance round and he frowned when he saw a crowd starting to gather near the railings. Forcing his way through it, he spotted a girl lying on the deck. She was obviously a tourist from her clothing—tiny denim shorts and an equally skimpy top—and she appeared to be unconscious. There was a young man kneeling beside her and he looked up in panic when Nico approached.

‘I don’t know what happened. One minute she was taking photos with her phone and the next second she just collapsed!’

‘Does she have a history of fainting?’ Nico asked, crouching down beside the girl.

‘I don’t know! We only met a couple of days ago so I have no idea if this is something she does regularly,’ the young man explained.

‘I see. What’s her name?’ Nico asked, checking the girl’s pulse which was extremely rapid.

‘Jane.’ The boy gulped. ‘She’s from Australia although I don’t know where exactly. As I said, I only met her a couple of days ago and we’ve spent most of the time since then partying.’

Nico sighed. Partying implied that the young couple had been drinking and maybe even taking drugs. He had dealt with several such cases recently and the most difficult task of all was getting the youngsters to admit what they had taken so they could receive the appropriate treatment. He stood up and drew the boy aside so they could speak in private.

‘Has she taken something? I’m a doctor and you need to tell me if she has taken any drugs or I can’t help her.’

‘No, no! It’s nothing like that,’ the young man protested but Nico could tell he was lying.

His tone hardened. ‘This isn’t the time to worry about your own skin. If Jane has taken drugs then I need to know what I’m dealing with. To put it bluntly, she could die if she doesn’t receive the appropriate treatment.’

‘I don’t know anything about any drugs!’ the young man claimed. He suddenly spun round, forcing his way through the crowd and disappearing from sight.

Nico cursed under his breath as he knelt down beside the girl again. He couldn’t afford to go after him when he needed to stay here. He rolled her onto her side, working on the assumption that she had taken some kind of narcotic and could start vomiting. She was burning hot and her breathing was shallow which all supported his theory that an overdose of drugs was to blame for her collapse. The problem was finding out exactly what she had taken.

‘My mummy’s a nurse,’ piped up a small voice. ‘She can help make the lady better—shall I get her?’

Nico glanced up and saw a boy of about eight years of age watching him. He had light brown hair and dark brown eyes and for some reason he looked strangely familiar... He blanked out the thought and smiled at the child. It would be a huge help if he had someone to assist him, especially if Jane’s heart stopped beating, as could very well happen.

‘Yes, please. I could do with an extra pair of hands.’

The child nodded gravely then hurried away. Nico turned back to the girl, checking her pulse once more as well as her breathing. Neither seemed to have improved but there again they didn’t seem to have got any worse either which was something to be grateful for.

‘Jacob said you needed help.’

The clear tones cut through the babble of voices and Nico felt his heart come to a dead stop. He looked up, squinting against the glare of the sun. It couldn’t be her, he told himself, his gaze resting on the slender figure standing over him, not here, not now, not on this ferry. It was too big a coincidence to imagine that fate had brought them together after all this time.

‘You!’

The word exploded from her lips yet she hadn’t shouted; it was said so quietly, in fact, that only he could have heard her. Nico rose to his feet, his breath coming in laboured spurts as he tried to make sense of what was happening. He regretted very little that had happened in his life simply because he had worked out what he had wanted and how he would achieve it too. Every decision he had made had been thought through and deliberated upon. Except one. He had never planned for her to get pregnant.

‘Amy.’

Her name flowed so easily from his lips that it shocked him all over again. It was years since he had seen her and yet there was no hesitation about recalling who she was. His eyes skimmed over her, taking stock of the light brown hair falling to her shoulders, the brilliant gleam of her green eyes, the slender curves of her body. She didn’t look a day older than the last time he had seen her, he realised in amazement. It was hard to believe that all those years had passed...

‘Do you know what’s wrong with her?’

The abruptness of the question brought him back to earth with a bump. Nico crouched down beside the girl again, doing his best to steer his thoughts in the direction they needed to go. He had a patient who required his help and this wasn’t the time to start thinking about how much he regretted what had gone on between him and Amy Prentice.

‘I suspect it may be a drug overdose,’ he said, relieved that he was still able to function on a professional level. He nodded towards the girl’s backpack. ‘Can you take a look in there and see if there’s anything that may give us a clue as to exactly what she’s taken?’

‘Of course.’

Amy knelt down and unzipped the bag, trying her best not to let him see that her hands were shaking. Meeting Nico like this had been a massive shock and she could feel the aftermath of it rippling through her like a series of seismic explosions. It was difficult to maintain her control but she had to do so for Jacob’s sake. There was no way on this earth that she wanted her son to guess that this man was his father!

A moan slid from her lips and she hurriedly turned it into a cough when she saw Nico glance at her. She turned away, focusing on the contents of the girl’s bag. There were all the usual items: T-shirts, underwear, toiletries. And then right at the bottom, tucked into a corner, she found what they were looking for. Holding up the small glass bottle, she showed it to Nico.

‘GBL if I’m not mistaken. The bottle’s half full though there’s no way of knowing how much she’s taken today.’

‘Right.’ Nico’s tone was grim. ‘At least we know what we’re dealing with although that doesn’t guarantee that we’ll be able to help her.’

Amy nodded. Gammabutyrolactone, GBL for short, had become increasingly popular with the student population. Even a small dose could have a powerful sedative effect and if mixed with alcohol could be extremely dangerous, often leading to unconsciousness or even death. The girl would need immediate treatment if she was to have any chance of pulling through.

‘What’s that, Mummy? Is it medicine to make the lady better?’

Amy tried not to show her dismay that Jacob was witness to what had happened. He was only eight and she wanted to protect him from things like this for as long as possible. She opened her mouth to explain that it was nothing for him to worry about but Nico beat her to it.

‘It’s not medicine. Medicine makes people better but this is something very different,’ he explained quietly. ‘Something she shouldn’t have taken.’

‘Oh, you mean drugs.’ Jacob nodded sagely. ‘They told us about them in school. I don’t know why anyone wants to take them when they make them ill, do you?’

‘No, I don’t.’

Nico smiled up at the boy and Amy felt her heart turn over in fear. The resemblance between them at that moment was so marked that she couldn’t believe Nico hadn’t noticed it. Although Jacob had her colour hair, he had inherited Nico’s olive skin and chestnut-brown eyes. Even his nose was a smaller, childish version of Nico’s, arrow straight without even the hint of a tilt to it. It was all she could do not to whisk Jacob away and hide him so that Nico would never guess he was his son. After all, he didn’t deserve a son like Jacob, did he? Not after what he had said when she had suffered that miscarriage.

It’s for the best, he had stated coldly when she had told him that she had lost the baby. They had never planned on having a child and the fact that she had lost it made things simpler.

Even though Amy had known from the outset that Nico hadn’t been overjoyed when she had realised that she was pregnant, she had been deeply hurt. They had met at the hospital where Amy was completing her nursing degree. She was in her final year while Nico was on the exchange programme. The hospital was a centre of excellence in the field of plastic surgery and Nico had taken up the offer of a consultant’s post there.

They had both attended a fundraising event one evening. It had been very well supported and the room had been crowded. She had, quite literally, bumped into him and managed to spill her drink all down the front of his jacket. She had been absolutely mortified but Nico had taken it remarkably well, brushing aside her apologies and insisting on fetching her another drink. They had got talking and one thing had led to another; he had asked her out for dinner, she had accepted. After a couple of months, she had been more than a little in love with him and had thought—hoped!—that he had felt the same way. However, his reaction first to her pregnancy and then to the miscarriage had soon put paid to that idea. Amy had realised that all she had ever been to him was a pleasant little interlude, someone to spend time with while he was in London, someone to sleep with. He definitely didn’t want to tie himself to her with or without a child.

That was why she had ended their relationship. She simply couldn’t bear to carry on seeing him, knowing how he really felt about her. It was also the reason why she had decided not to tell him when she had discovered a couple of months later that she was still pregnant, that she must have been carrying twins and had miscarried only one of them. Nico had finished his stint on the exchange programme by then and had left London and moved to Los Angeles to further hone his skills. Although she could have tracked him down if she had wanted to, there hadn’t seemed any point. Nico hadn’t wanted her or their child, and he had made it clear.

He probably still wouldn’t want them now either, Amy thought bitterly. Which meant that she would need to be very careful. Maybe she had coped with having her heart broken but she wouldn’t allow the same thing to happen to Jacob. She took a deep breath. She couldn’t afford to panic, not when she had to make sure that Nico didn’t find out that Jacob was his son!