Kitabı oku: «Double Trouble: Newborn Twins: Doorstep Twins / Those Matchmaking Babies / Babies in the Bargain»

REBECCA WINTERS, whose family of four children has now swelled to include five beautiful grandchildren, lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, in the land of the Rocky Mountains. With canyons and high alpine meadows full of wild flowers, she never runs out of places to explore. They, plus her favourite vacation spots in Europe, often end up as backgrounds for her Mills & Boon^® romance novels, because writing is her passion, along with her family and church.

Rebecca loves to hear from her readers. if you wish to e-mail her, please visit her website at www.cleanromances.com.

Chapter One

“I’M SORRY, MS. Turner, but Kyrie Simonides says he can’t fit you in today. If you’ll come next Tuesday at three o’clock?”

Gabi’s hand tightened around the leather strap of her taupe handbag. “I won’t be in Athens then.” The outcome of this visit would determine how soon she left Greece…that was if she were allowed to see him now.

She fought not to lose her composure in front of the retirement-age-looking receptionist who was probably paid a lot of money not to lose hers. “After waiting over three hours for him, surely he can take another five minutes to talk to me.”

The woman with heavy streaks of silver in her hair shook her head. “It’s the weekend. He should have left Athens an hour ago.”

At twenty after six on a hot Friday evening Gabi could believe it, but she hadn’t come this far to be put off. There was too much at stake. Taking a calming breath, she said, “I didn’t want to have to say this to you, but he’s left me no choice. Please tell him it’s a matter of life and death.”

Because it was the truth and her eyes didn’t blink, the receptionist’s expression underwent a subtle change. “If this is some kind of a joke, I’m afraid it will backfire on you.”

“This is no joke,” Gabi replied, standing her ground at five feet five in her comfortable two-piece cotton suit of pale lemon. She’d already undergone a thorough vetting and security check upon entering the building, so the receptionist knew she didn’t pose a threat.

After a slight hesitation the taller woman, clearly in a dilemma, got up from her desk and walked with a decided limp back to her boss’s office. That was progress.

While businessmen came and went from his private domain on top of the building complex in downtown Athens, she’d been continually ignored until now. If Gabi had just come out with it in the first place, it might not have taken her most of the day to get results, but she’d wanted to protect him.

Gabi only knew three facts about the thirty-three-year-old Andreas Simonides: First, he was the reputed new force majeure at the internationally renowned Simonides Corporation whose holdings were tied up in all areas of metallurgy, including aluminum, copper and plastics.

Her source confided that their vast fortune, accumulated over many decades, included the ownership of eighty companies. With a population of twelve thousand employees, the Simonides family ruled over a virtual empire extending beyond Greece.

Second, if the picture in the newspaper didn’t lie, he was an exceptionally attractive male.

The third fact wasn’t public knowledge. In truth no one knew what Gabi knew…not even the man himself. But once they talked, his life would change forever whether he liked it or not.

While she stood there anticipating their first meeting, she heard the woman’s footsteps. “Kyrie Simonides will give you two minutes, no more.”

“I’ll take them!”

“You go down the hall and through the double doors.”

“Thank you very much,” she said with heartfelt sincerity, then rushed around the reception desk, her golden jaw-length curls bouncing. At first she didn’t see anyone as she entered his elegant inner sanctum.

“Life and death you said?” came a voice of male irony from behind her. Though deep, it had an appealing vibrant quality.

She spun around to discover a tall man shrugging into an expensive-looking gray suit jacket he’d just taken from a closet. The play of ripcord muscle in his arms and shoulders beneath a dazzling white shirt attested to the fact that he didn’t spend all his time in the confines of an office. Helpless to do otherwise, her gaze fell lower to the fabric of his trousers molding powerful thighs.

“I’m waiting, Ms. Turner.”

Heat stole into her cheeks to be caught staring like that. She lifted her head, but her voice caught as she looked up into eyes of iron gray, half veiled by long black lashes that gave him an aloof quality.

He possessed a healthy head of medium-cropped black hair and an olive complexion. Rugged of feature, his dark Greek looks fascinated her. The picture she’d seen of him hadn’t picked up the slight scar partially hidden in his left eyebrow, or the lines of experience she could detect around his eyes and wide male mouth. They revealed a life that had known every emotion.

“You’re a difficult man to reach.”

After shutting the closet door, he walked across the room to his private elevator. “I’m on my way out. Since you refused to come back next Tuesday, say what you have to say before I leave.” He’d already stepped inside the lift, ready to push the button. No doubt he had a helicopter on the roof waiting to fly him to some exotic vacation spot for the weekend.

Standing next to him, she’d never felt more diminutive. Even if she didn’t have an appointment, his condescension was too much. But because she might never have another opportunity to get this close to him, she hid her reaction.

Without wasting time she opened her handbag and pulled out a manila envelope. Since he made no move to take it, she undid the flap and removed the contents.

Beneath a set of DNA results lay the front page of a year-old Greek newspaper revealing him aboard the Simonides yacht, surrounded by a crush of people partying the night away. Gabi’s elder half sister Thea, whose dark Grecian beauty stood out from the other women on board, was among the crowd captured in the photo. The headline read, “New CEO at Simonides is cause for celebration.”

Along with these items was a photograph taken a few days ago of two baby boys wearing diapers and shirts. Gabi had gone to a store to get it enlarged into an eight-by-ten.

She held everything up so he couldn’t miss looking at the identical twins who had a crop of curly black hair and gorgeous olive skin like his and Thea’s. He’d had his hair cut since the photo.

Up close she picked out many of the other similarities to him, including their widow’s peaks and the winged shape of their dark eyebrows. The strong resemblance didn’t stop there. She quickly noticed they had his firm chin and wide mouth. Her list went on and on down to their sturdy bodies and same square-cut fingertips.

Yet nothing about the set of his features indicated the picture had made any kind of impression. “I don’t see you in the photograph, Ms. Turner. I’m sorry if you’re in such a desperate situation, but darkening my doorstep wanting a handout isn’t the way to get the help you need.”

Gabi’s jaw hardened. “And you’re not the first man to ignore the children he helped bring into the world.”

His black eyes narrowed. “What kind of a mother sends someone else on an errand like this?”

Somehow she got around the boulder in her throat. “I wish my sister could have come herself, but she’s dead.”

The moment the words left her lips, she sensed his body quicken. “That’s a tragedy. Now if you’ll excuse me.”

Andreas Simonides was a cold-blooded man. There was no way to reach him. As his hand moved to the button on the panel, alerting her that this conversation was over, she said, “Are you saying you never saw this woman in your life?”

Gabi pointed to Thea’s face in the newspaper picture. “Maybe this will help.” She put the items under her arm while she pulled out Thea’s Greek passport. “Here.”

To her surprise he took it from her and examined the photo. “Thea Paulos, twenty-four, Athens. Issued five years ago.” His black brows formed a bar. He shot her a penetrating glance. “Your sister, you say?”

“My half sister,” she amended. “Daddy’s first wife was Greek. After she died, he married my American mother. After a while I came along. This was the last passport Thea held before her divorce.” Gabi bit her lip. “She…celebrated it with friends aboard your yacht.”

He handed the passport back to her. “I’m sorry about your loss, but I can’t help you.”

She felt a stab of pain. “I’m sorry for the twins,” she murmured. “To lose their mother is tragic beyond words. However, when they’re old enough to ask where their father is and I have to tell them he’s alive somewhere—but it doesn’t matter because they never mattered to him—that will be the ultimate tragedy.”

The elevator door closed, putting a definitive end to all communication. Gabi spun around, angry and heartsick. For two cents she’d leave the incriminating evidence with his receptionist and let the other woman draw her own conclusions.

But creating a scandal within the Simonides empire was the last thing Gabi wanted to do, not when it could rebound on her own family, especially on her father whose diplomat position in the consulate on Crete might be compromised. In his work he met with Greek VIPs in business and governmental positions on a regular basis. She couldn’t bear it if her presence here brought on unwanted repercussions.

No one had asked her to come. Except for Mr. Simonides himself now, no one knew the nature of this visit, especially not her grieving parents. Since Thea had died in childbirth from a heart condition brought on by the pregnancy, Gabi had taken it upon herself to be the babies’ advocate. Every child deserved its own wonderful birth mother and father. Unfortunately not every child was so lucky.

“Mission accomplished,” she whispered to the empty room. Her heart felt like an anchor that had come loose and had plunged through fathoms of dark water to the lowest depths of the Mediterranean.

Once she’d put everything back in the envelope and stashed it in her handbag, she left his private office. The venerable receptionist nodded to Gabi before she disappeared into the hall. In a few minutes she arrived at the ground floor of the building and hurried outside to get a taxi back to her hotel.

To her surprise, the chauffeur of a limo parked in front got out and approached her. “Ms. Turner?”

She blinked. “Yes?”

“Kyrie Simonides said you had to wait a long time to get in to see him. I’ve been asked to drive you wherever it is you wish to go.”

Her adrenaline kicked in, causing her pulse to speed up. Did this mean the twins’ father wasn’t a complete block of ice after all? Who wouldn’t melt over seeing a photo of his own flesh and blood? If the boys’ picture didn’t completely convince him, the printout of their DNA would provide infallible proof of a match.

By sending a limo for Gabi, it could mean he planned for a second meeting with her, but he was forced to be discreet. With his money and power, not to mention his looks, the head man had learned how to keep his former liaisons private.

“Thank you. If you wouldn’t mind taking me to the Amazon Hotel?” She’d purposely checked in there because it was near the Simonides building in the heart of the Plaka.

He nodded as he helped her in.

Before carrying out her plan to meet with Mr. Simonides today, Gabi had told her parents that one of her female coworkers from Alexandria, Virginia, was in Athens on a trip. They’d decided to get together and see a little of the sights. Gabi felt awful for outright lying to them, but she didn’t dare let them know her true agenda.

Until Thea’s fifth month of pregnancy when she’d developed serious heart complications and was hospitalized, Gabi hadn’t even known the name of the babies’ father. But as the end drew near and it became apparent Thea might not make it, she told Gabi to look in her jewel box at home and bring her the envelope she’d hidden there.

Gabi brought it to the hospital. Thea told her to open it. She took one look and gasped when she realized who the man was. “This is all I have of him. Like everyone else on board, we’d both had way too much to drink,” Thea whispered. “We were ‘strangers in the night’ kind of thing.”

Her confession elicited a moan from Gabi.

“It didn’t mean anything to him. He didn’t even know my name. I’m ashamed it happened and he shouldn’t have to pay for a mistake which was as much mine as his. I wanted you to see him so you’ll know what kind of genes the children have inherited. Now promise me you’ll forget everything.”

Gabi understood how Thea felt and planned to honor her wishes. Besides the unsuspecting father, she realized that any news would be exploited if linked to the Simonides family. As they had recently lost the daughter of her father’s first marriage, Gabi wanted to save her parents any added grief.

While she sat there deep in thought the rear door opened. Surprised they’d already arrived in front of the hotel, she gave a start before getting out.

“Please thank your employer for me.”

“Of course.”

Once he’d gone, she hurried inside, anxious to eat something at the snack bar before going up to her room. Whatever Mr. Simonides intended to do, he was in the driver’s seat and would be the one to set the timetable for their next conversation. If there were to be one…

She could only hope he would make the arrangements before morning. Tomorrow she needed to fly back to Heraklion on Crete and rejoin her family. On top of their sadness, they had their hands full with the twins who’d been born six weeks premature.

When it had looked as if Thea was in trouble, Gabi had taken an undetermined leave of absence from the advertising agency in Virginia to fly to Heraklion. Since then she’d taken over the care of the babies because her busy parents’ demanding diplomatic position didn’t allow for the constant nurturing of the twins without full-time help.

That was four months ago and Gabi’s job as public relations manager had been temporarily filled by someone else at Hewitt and Wilson, so she had a vital decision to make. If Mr. Simonides chose to claim his children, then she needed to get back to her work in Virginia ASAP.

Her immediate boss had been made regional director of the East Coast market and hinted at an important promotion for her. But she needed to get back home if she wanted to expand her career opportunity with him. The only other career more important would be to become the mother to Thea’s children. But if she chose to do that, then it meant she would have to give up her advertising career until they were school age.

Having been burned by Texas rancher and oil man Rand McCallister five years ago, Gabi had no intention of ever getting married or having children, but if the twins’ birth father didn’t want them, then she would take on the responsibility of raising them because they were her family. As such, she needed to go back to Virginia where she could rear them in familiar surroundings.

Her family’s home in Alexandria was the perfect residence in a guarded, gated community with other diplomats’ families, some of whom had small children. Gabi had always lived in it with her parents when they weren’t in Greece on assignment. Since Gabi’s father owned the house outright, she wouldn’t have to deal with a mortgage payment.

If she combined the savings from her job with her dad’s financial help, she could be a stay-at-home mom until they were both school age, then get back to her career. It could all work. Gabi would make it work because she’d grown to love the twins as if they were her own babies.

In all likelihood Mr. Simonides wasn’t interested in the children and had only made certain she got a ride back to wherever she’d come from. Therefore she would fly the twins to Alexandria with her next week.

After a quick meal, Gabi went up to her room on the fourth floor, reasoning that her mother would go with her to help the three of them settle in before returning to Crete. The consulate was no place for two new infants. Her parents would never admit it, but the whole situation had grown out of control.

No sooner did she let herself inside with the card key than she saw the red light blinking on the telephone. Her mother could have left a voice message rather than try to get her on her cell phone. Then again…

With an odd combination of curiosity and trepidation, she reached for the receiver to retrieve it.

“Another limo is waiting for you in front of the hotel, Ms. Turner. It will be there until eight-thirty p.m.” Her watch said eight-ten. “If you don’t appear with your luggage by then, I’ll understand this isn’t a life and death situation after all. Your hotel-room bill has been taken care of.”

Gabi hung up the phone feeling as if she were acting in a police procedural film, not living real life. He’d had her followed and watched. The fabulously wealthy Mr. Simonides inhabited a world made up of secrecy and bodyguards in order to preserve, not only his safety, but the privacy he craved.

She imagined the paparazzi constituted a living nightmare for him, particularly when someone unknown like Gabi materialized. Her intrusion reminded him there were consequences for a night of pleasure he couldn’t remember because everyone partying on the yacht had been drinking heavily.

Thea had confided he was a Greek god come to life. Unlike Gabi, who’d inherited her mother’s shorter height and curves, Thea had been fashionably tall and thin. Growing up, she could have any boy she wanted.

She’d always had a man in tow, even the bachelor playboy Andreas Simonides touted in the press, now the crowned head of the Simonides empire. When he’d picked Thea out from the other women on board and had started making love to her in one of the cabins, she’d succumbed in a moment of extreme weakness.

How tragic that in celebrating her divorce she’d become pregnant, the consequences of which had brought on her death…

Gabi couldn’t imagine Mr. Simonides forgetting her sister no matter what. But if he’d been like Rand, then there’d been many beautiful women in his life. As both sisters had learned, they’d only made up part of the adoring horde. What a huge shock it must have been to discover he’d fathered baby boys whose resemblance to the two of them was nothing short of astounding.

Gabi only had a few minutes to freshen up and pack her overnight bag before she rushed down to the lobby. It was a simple matter since she hadn’t planned to be in Athens more than a night and had only brought one other change of outfit with her.

Through the doors she spied a limo with dark glass, but a different driver stood next to it. She assumed she would be driven to an undisclosed location where Mr. Simonides was waiting for her.

“Good evening, Ms. Turner.” He opened the rear door to help her in with her case. “I’ll be taking you to Kyrie Simonides.”

“Thank you.”

Before long they were moving into the mainstream of heavy traffic circulating about the old Turkish quarter of Athens. Again she had the feeling she was playing a part in a movie, but this time she experienced a distinct chill because she’d dared to approach a complete stranger who had all the power.

The sky was darkening into night. If she were to disappear, her family wouldn’t have a clue what had happened to her. Their pain at such an eventuality didn’t bear thinking about. In the desire to unite the babies with their only living parent, she’d been blinded to the risks involved. Now it was too late to pull out of a possibly dangerous situation she’d created.

At this point she wasn’t quite sure what she’d hoped to achieve. Unless a bachelor who partied and slept with women without giving it a thought were to give up that lifestyle, he wouldn’t make the best father around. But for the sake of the twins who deserved more, she couldn’t just take them back to Virginia and raise them without first trying to let their father know he was a father. Would he want any part in their lives?

She wanted him to be a real man and claim his children, invite them into his home and his life…be there for them for the whole of their lives. Give them his name and seal their legacy.

But of course that kind of thing just didn’t happen. Gabi wasn’t under any illusions. No doubt he was convinced she’d approached him to extort money and was ready to pay her off. He would soon find out she wanted nothing monetary from him and would be leaving for the States with her precious cargo.

Before Thea died, she’d asked Gabi to help get the babies placed for adoption with a good Greek couple. She wanted them raised Greek. Both sisters realized the impossible burden it would put on their older parents to shoulder the responsibility of raising the children. For all their sakes Gabi had made Thea that promise.

But after her death, Gabi realized it was a promise she couldn’t keep. In the first place, the twins’ birth father was alive. Legally no one could adopt them without his permission.

And in the second place, over the last three months Gabi had learned to love the boys. She’d bonded with them. Maybe she wasn’t Greek, but, having been taught Greek from the cradle, Gabi was bilingual and would use it with them. They would have a good home with her. No one but their own father could ever pry them away from her now.

Suddenly the rear door opened. “Ms. Turner?” the driver called to her. “If you’ll follow me.”

Startled out of her thoughts, she exited the limo, not having realized they’d arrived at the port of Piraeus. He held her overnight case and walked toward a gleaming white luxury cabin cruiser probably forty to forty-five feet in length moored a few steps away along the pier.

A middle-aged crew member took the bag and helped her aboard. “My name is Stavros. I’ll take you to Kyrie Simonides, who’s waiting for you to join him in the rear cockpit. This way, Ms. Turner.”

Once again she found herself trailing after a stranger to an ultraleather wraparound lounge whose sky roof was open. Her dark-haired host was standing in front of the large windows overlooking the water lit up by the myriad boats and ferries lining the harbor. The dream vessel was state of the art.

Since she’d last seen him in the lift, he’d removed his suit jacket and tie. He’d rolled his shirtsleeves up to the elbow. Thea had been right. He was spectacular-looking.

She understood when the man announced to her host that the American woman had come aboard. He turned in her direction. The lights reflecting off the water cast his hard-boned features into stark relief.

“Come all the way in and sit down, Ms. Turner. Stavros will bring you anything you want to eat or drink.”

“Nothing for me, thank you. I just ate.”

After his staff member left the room, she pulled the envelope out of her purse and put it on the padded seat next to her, assuming he wanted a better look at everything. He wandered over to her, but made no move to take it. Instead his enigmatic gaze traveled over her upturned features.

She had an oval face, but her mouth was too wide and her hair was too naturally curly for her liking. Instead of olive skin, hers was a nondescript cream color. Her dad once told her she had wood violet eyes. She’d never seen wood violets, but he’d said it with such love, she’d decided that they were her one redeeming feature.

“My name’s Andreas,” he said, surprising her. “What’s yours?”

“Gabi.”

“My sources tell me you were christened Gabriella. I like the shortened version.” Unexpectedly he reeked of the kind of virile charm to turn any woman’s head. Thea hadn’t stood a chance.

Gabi understood that kind of potent male power and the money that went with it. Once upon a time she’d loved Rand. Substitute this Greek tycoon’s trappings for seven hundred thousand acres of Texas ranch land with cattle and oil wells and voilà—the two men were interchangeable. Fortunately for Gabi, she’d only needed to learn her lesson once. Thea had learned hers, too, but it had come at the cost of her life.

One black brow quirked. “Where are these twins? At your home in Virginia, or are they a little closer at your father’s consulate residence in Heraklion?”

With a mere phone call he knew people in the highest places to get that kind of classified information in less than an hour. Naturally he did. She wanted to tell him that, since he possessed all the facts, there was no need to answer his question, but she couldn’t do that. Not after she’d been the one to approach him.

“They’re on Crete.”

“I want to see them,” he declared without hesitation, sending Gabi into mild shock that he’d become curious about these children who could be his offspring. She felt a grudging respect that he’d conceded to the possibility that his relationship with Thea, no matter how short-lived, had produced them. “How soon are you due back in Heraklion?”

“When I left this morning, I told my parents I was meeting a former work colleague from the States in Athens and would fly home tomorrow.”

“Will they send a car for you?”

“No. I told them I wasn’t sure of my arrival time so I’d take a taxi.”

He shifted his weight. “Once I’ve delivered you to Heraklion, there’ll be a taxi waiting to take you home. For the time being Stavros has prepared a room for you. Are you susceptible to the mal de mer?”

They were going back by sea?

“No.”

“Good. I’m assuming your parents are still in the dark about the twins’ father, otherwise you wouldn’t have needed to lie to them.”

“Thea never wanted them to know.” She hadn’t wanted anyone to know, especially not Thea’s ex-husband Dimitri. For the most part their marriage had been wretched and she hadn’t wanted him to find out what she’d done on the very day she’d obtained her divorce from him. Dimitri wouldn’t hesitate to expose his ex-wife’s indiscretion out of simple revenge.

“Yet she trusted you.”

“Not until she knew she might die.” Thea hadn’t wanted to burden anyone. “Though she admitted making a mistake she dearly regretted, she wanted her babies to be taken care of without it being Mom and Dad’s responsibility. I approached you the way I did in order to spare them and you any notoriety.”

“But not my pocketbook,” he inserted in a dangerously silken voice.

“You would have every right to think that, Mr. Simonides.”

“Andreas,” he corrected her.

She took a deep breath. “Money isn’t the reason I came. Nor do you have to worry your name is on their birth certificates. Thea refused to name the father. Though I promised to find a good home for the twins with another couple, I couldn’t keep it.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’re alive. I’ve looked into the law. No one can adopt them unless you give away your parental rights. In truth, Thea never wanted you to know anything.”

He shrugged his elegant shoulders. “If not for money, then why didn’t you just spirit them away and forget the legalities?”

Gabi stared hard at him. “Because I plan to adopt them and had to be certain you didn’t want to claim them before I take them back to Virginia with me. You have that God-given right after all.” She took a fortifying breath. “Being their aunt, I don’t.”

Her lids prickled, but she didn’t let tears form. “As for the twins, they have the same God-given right to be with their father if you want them. If there was any chance of that happening, I had to take it, thus my presence in your office today. Naturally if you do want them, then I’ll tell my parents everything and we’ll go from there.”

The air seemed to have electrified around them. “If you’re telling me the truth, then you’re one of a dying species.”

His cynical remark revealed a lot. He had no qualms about using women. In that regard he and Rand had a lot in common. But Gabi suspected Mr. Simonides didn’t like women very much.