Baby of Shame (14 page)

And if that was wrong—

Again he halted himself.

No. Even if she hadn’t deliberately offered herself to him on a plate, to soften him up to plead her case over her father’s company, it did not exonerate her! She was
still
guilty of keeping Nicky from him—deliberately and knowingly keeping a son from his father.

Cruel, vindictive, vengeful.

His mouth thinned. Why did that sound so familiar…?

‘Tell me what he was like as a baby. Do you have any photos?’

Rhianna’s
eyes lifted again. There was a curious expression on Alexis’s face. Reserved, almost shuttered. Yet there was something else there too. It was hunger, she
realised
. Something pricked inside her, and she
realised
what it was.

Guilt.

Guilt that he had never seen his child as a baby.
That those lost years would never come back for him.

A hollowness opened inside her, filled with stabbing pain.

Loss.

‘Some,’ she answered, feeling awkward. It was hard enough speaking to him when Nicky was present. Now, with him asleep in her lap, and it was only her and Alexis, and it was even harder.

‘I—I would like to see them some time.’

Had he sounded hesitant? Alexis Petrakis?
Rich, powerful, domineering, demanding Alexis Petrakis?
A man who simply clicked his fingers and things happened the way he wanted them? A man who felt he could throw the
most foul
insults in her face and they were justified?

A man who had no memories of his baby son…

‘They’re…they’re in my flat. I haven’t got many, though. He…he was a very good baby.’ She paused. ‘That sounds terrible. It usually means placid—no trouble. He wasn’t any trouble. I was—’ she caught her breath ‘—very grateful. My father…’ She swallowed. ‘Well, he wasn’t well—I made allowances. I had to.’ She shrugged.

‘Did he resent Nicky?’

She looked away, out over the azure water that was a million miles away from the cramped, poky flat on the rundown housing estate where she and Nicky and her father had lived.

‘Yes,’ she answered briefly, and she did not hear the edge of bitterness in her voice as she spoke. ‘My father resented anything and anyone that came between him and his work.’

‘Do you miss him?’

Her lips pressed together.

‘No. It’s an awful thing to say, but I don’t. He didn’t care about my mother, or about me, or about his grandchild. So why should anyone care about him? I—I did my best for him. It was all I could do. But it was never enough. I could never get back for him the one thing he loved—his company. And so after a while—eventually—I stopped caring that he didn’t care. I had Nicky and that was enough.
More than enough.’
Her voice lowered. ‘He was everything—everything to me. And he still is. And he always will be.’

Her jaw
tightened,
defiance in her eyes. ‘Nicky’s happiness is the only,
only
reason I am here now. You’ve made Nicky happy—’

Her voice broke off. There was a long, constrained moment,
then
abruptly Alexis spoke.

‘Why did you cry when I told him I was his father?’

She pressed her lips together again.

‘I was happy for him. You’ve—you’ve—’ She took a deep breath, lifted her chin, then said what she knew she had to say. ‘You’ve done well by him. I—I was surprised. You really do seem to…to want him, to care for him.’

Alexis spoke slowly, his eyes not quite meeting hers. ‘Why did you think I would not? Did you think—’ his eyes suddenly went back to hers ‘—that I would be like your father?’

There was a heaviness, sudden, crushing, in the air.

She swallowed, her throat felt dry.

‘I—I—’ She closed her eyes. ‘Yes.’

Alexis looked at her. For a long, long moment he said nothing. Then quietly, very quietly, he spoke.

‘I will love Nicky with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my being, until the day I die. When I first set eyes on him and knew him for my son I knew that I would never,
never
reject him. As—as my own father had rejected me.’

She stared at him, her face stilling. His eyes were holding hers steadily, unflinchingly.

‘You see, like you,’ he said, in that same quiet, steady voice, ‘I spent my childhood, my adolescence, wanting my father to love me. But he never did.’ He took a breath, his voice changing. ‘He never did.’

She heard the tightening in his voice, and without conscious thought, only impelled by an instinct it was impossible to suppress, she suddenly reached forward and touched—oh, so lightly; oh, so briefly—his hand, splayed on the rug, taking his lounging weight. She drew back immediately, but it was done.

Between them, for the briefest moment, there flowed something that brought them together. Two people whose childhoods had been blighted by the cruelty of adults.

And suddenly—quite, quite suddenly—
Rhianna
knew with a certainty that filled her being that Nicky was safe—safe with the man who had fathered him, who would never, never betray a child’s love.

She felt the tears prick in her eyes.

‘We can do this. We can do this,
Rhianna
.’ Alexis’s voice was low, steady and compelling. ‘We can be good parents for Nicky—the kind of parents every child needs.
Loving parents.
We both love him, and for his sake we can do this.’

He didn’t say what ‘this’ was, but he did not have to.
Rhianna
knew.

‘This’ was what he had asked her to do—put aside their hatred and mistrust of each other just enough for Nicky’s sake.

Emotions sifted through her like sediments shifting, finding new levels.

Cautiously, very cautiously, she answered him, feeling her chest tighten.

‘I—I will try,’ she said.

He nodded. His eyes still held hers.

‘Thank you,’ he said quietly.

It was late afternoon before they returned to the villa. Nicky had awoken, refreshed and eager for more
snorkelling
, more swimming and a lot of exploring of the rocks and beach with his father.
Rhianna
had watched them. Something had changed, she knew. Something about the way she thought of Alexis.

Knowing that his childhood had been blighted, as hers had been, had done more than explain to her why he was so determined to be a good father to Nicky—it had made him somehow more human. Not just a rich, powerful man, using his wealth to bully or buy others, but vulnerable.
Human.

Not the way she had had cause to think of him for five long years.

But now?

Her mood was strange as they arrived back. Nicky went rushing off to find Karen and extol the wonders of his day to her over nursery tea, Alexis went off to shower and then go into his office, and
Rhianna
surrendered to Nurse Thompson’s ministrations.

She took her medicines and did her
physio
exercises docilely, but her mood was abstracted. So abstracted that as she sat at her dressing table after her bath, and Nurse Thompson set to drying her newly washed hair, she was taken aback, when the hairdryer was finally silenced, by the reflection that looked back at her from the mirror.

‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed faintly.

Nurse Thompson had
blowdried
her hair as
skilfully
as if she’d been a professional hairdresser. Not that she’d been to a hairdresser for five years,
Rhianna
thought. It was a luxury she hadn’t been able to afford, and, given her utterly absent social life, not something she’d needed.

Not that she needed it now, either. But Nurse Thompson was standing behind her, looking so pleased with her efforts that
Rhianna
hadn’t the heart to say anything other than, ‘It looks wonderful!’

And it did.

Her hair, just skimming her shoulders, flicked inwards, lifting her brow, setting off her face in a way that reminded her, with a strange, yearning pang, of how she had once looked many long years ago.

Nurse Thompson smiled, satisfied.
‘Make-up next.’

On cue, Karen walked in with a make-up bag.

‘What’s going on?’
Rhianna
asked, bemused.

‘Nurse Thompson says patients get better faster when they know they look nice. Psycho-
whatsit
, but it works,’ said Karen cheerfully.

‘Quite right,’ said Nurse Thompson. ‘Now, just sit still. Consider it part of your convalescence.’

Rhianna
gave in. She let Karen make up her face, lend her a brightly patterned red and yellow summer dress, put a string of beads around her neck and squeeze her feet into a pair of her sandals.

At the end of it all, Karen stood back.

‘Wow!’ she announced. ‘You look fantastic!’

Behind her, Nurse Thompson nodded approvingly.

‘Yes, indeed,’ she agreed. ‘No one would ever think you’d been ill!’

Rhianna
stared. No, she thought slowly. She did not look ill any more. What she looked was—

Like I used to look.

She stared wonderingly. For five years her appearance had been something of total irrelevance to her.

It still is.

The words thudded in her head. They were joined by more, thudding just as heavily.

You don’t have anyone to look good for.
No one.

And especially not Alexis Petrakis.
He’s Nicky’s father—that’s all he is to you.
All.
Remember that.

She took the self-admonishment unflinchingly. After all, it was only the truth.

But her changed appearance did not pass unnoticed by Nicky. As she went in to kiss him goodnight his eyes widened.

‘Mummy!
You look beautiful!’

She gave a smile. ‘Thank you, my darling.’

He held out his arms to her.

‘Need a kiss,’ he said.

Rhianna
obliged, wrapping him up tight in her arms.

‘I can only blow a kiss,’ she said, holding him back a little. ‘Or I’ll get lipstick on you.’

Nicky kissed her instead, smacking kisses on each cheek.

‘Mummy,’ he said in a satisfied voice, and lay back again. He snuggled into the pillow. ‘Mummy, Nicky, Daddy,’ he announced.
‘And Teddy.’
He hugged the battered bear close to him.

‘Daddy has said goodnight already,’ he informed her. ‘He said we could go on the boat again tomorrow. He said I could drive again. He said…’ His voice started to fade.

Rhianna
sat beside him, holding his hand as he drifted off to sleep. Then she reached and clicked off the bedside light, leaving the nightlight glowing in the dimness. For a long moment she just went on sitting there, her hand touching his, feeling endless love for her son just pouring and pouring out of her, like a bottomless blessing. Then, at length, she leant forward to bestow a last, light air-kiss on Nicky’s brow, stood up, and turned to go.

And stopped dead.

Alexis was standing in the open doorway to the hallway. The light behind him made him look darker, but there was something about his stillness that made her freeze.

Then he stood to one side, holding the door back for her.

Feeling incredibly, ridiculously self-conscious, she walked towards him, squeezing past him to gain the hall. How long had he been there? Since before she’d turned the bedside light out?

As she reached the hall she paused, and half turned. What she wanted to do was go off and find Nurse Thompson and Karen and share whatever meal they were having. It was what—blessedly—she’d done the evening before. She’d had tea with Nicky and his father, but then Alexis had disappeared off into his office—presumably to pay attention to his business empire via his PC and telephone.
Rhianna
had helped Karen put Nicky to bed, and afterwards had eaten with her and Nurse Thompson.

Neither, she’d noticed, had made the slightest reference to the fact that their employer was now openly acknowledging that Nicky was his son. Well,
Rhianna
had thought, they were good, discreet staff who mutely accepted whatever happened in the rich households they worked in.

The household staff behaved with similar discretion, and now, as
Stavros
emerged from the kitchen regions and came to hold open the door at the dining room side of the hall, he simply murmured, ‘
Kyria
…
’ in his usual polite tone.

Inside the dining room
Rhianna
could see that the table had been laid for only two. Instant recollection of the last meal she’d eaten in here rushed back at her—the ugly scene that had sent her running from the room.

But she had to put that behind her. Strive with all her effort for the rapprochement that Alexis wanted. Not for her sake, but for their son’s.

And for Nicky’s sake she would have to comply.

She took the chair
Stavros
was holding out for her. Alexis took his place opposite her. As she settled herself, her eyes flicked across the table.

He was staring at her, transfixed.

It was the past come to life. Alexis’s eyes worked over
Rhianna
as she sat there, a few feet away. Shock ricocheted through him.

Yes, she was five years older, in her late twenties, not her early twenties, and her hair was shorter, her face thinner.

But still quite, quite stunning.

And wearing at last, he
registered,
something that did not look as if it had been thrown away on a rubbish tip. The dress was only a
chainstore
garment, but it was a universe away from the faded T-shirts and worn, baggy cotton trousers that she’d worn till now.

The dress even showed that she still possessed breasts…

His eyes flickered over the two delineated mounds. The neckline might be modest, but the material of the bodice curved lovingly.