Page 44 of Christmas Baby with Her Ultra-Rich Boss

‘A million pounds.’ He cleared his throat again. ‘The crediting account was K Siopis. The reference was Merry Christmas.’

Lena walked from her hotel at the top of the winding, sweeping road that cut through the town until she found the name of the restaurant she was looking for. Having arrived late in the evening, the town had been alive with Christmas lights and thrumming with people and groups of children singing Christmas carols. Now the town, as pretty by day as by night, lay silent.

She remembered Konstantinos telling her that you could open a door in the restaurant’s kitchen and be in the family home, which his parents adamantly refused to move from. Now all she had to do was find the other entrance to it.

The main restaurant door was locked so she climbed the steps to its L-shaped terrace and stopped for a moment to admire the view. It truly was spectacular. No wonder the place was a Mecca for sunset worshippers. Laid out before her, as far as the eye could see, the Aegean Sea, gleaming under the brightening skies, as picture perfect as anything a landscape artist could compose, the few boats sailing on it mere daubs of white paint.

A peal of female laughter made her close her eyes to the vista. In truth, it hadn’t been the view she’d paused for but a moment to gather herself before she saw him. So much hurt unbearably, but Konstantinos’s leaving her to make her own arrangements to get here hurt the most. She had no way of knowing if she was too early or too late.

She followed the laughter around the terrace corner.

Two glamorous women, maybe a decade older than her mum, were standing by a huge plant pot, deep in expressive conversation, smoking. The shorter one spotted Lena first and immediately elbowed the other, who frowned and yelled out something to her she didn’t understand.

Hesitantly, she inched farther forward. ‘Excuse me,’ she called, wishing she’d done a crash course in Greek. ‘Speak English?’

The taller one’s frown deepened. Her eyes dropped to Lena’s belly and then her eyebrows rose. With the same hesitation that Lena had spoken, she said, ‘Lena?’

She nodded.

The woman’s shock was so transparent that Lena instantly knew she’d made a massive mistake. She wasn’t supposed to be here. But before she could apologise for intruding and go find somewhere private to lick her humiliated wounds, the woman crushed her cigarette underfoot, gabbled something urgently to the other woman then hurled herself at Lena.

In the blink of an eye, Lena found herself enveloped in a cloud of perfumed smoke, the welcome so profusive and heartfelt that tears stabbed the backs of her retinas.

‘You came,’ the woman finally said when she decided to let Lena breathe again. Rubbing the tops of Lena’s arms, she smiled tremulously. ‘You came.’

She blinked back the tears and nodded before quietly asking the woman she was certain was Konstantinos’s mother, ‘Am I still welcome?’

The woman’s jaw dropped as if she’d been asked the most obtuse question in the world. ‘Eh?’ And then she gave her another powerful hug that answered more potently than mere words could that Lena was more than welcome in her home.

When she next released her, the other woman had reappeared on the terrace with two women of around Lena’s age and four men. The tallest of the men stared at her as if she were a ghost.

She could have thrown up on the spot. Luckily, his mother clasped her hand tightly, and Lena clung to her for support as she was brought forward for introductions. Names were thrown at her. Arms were thrown around her...all but Konstantinos, who stood back wordlessly.

Konstantinos watched the scene unfold before him as if he was watching a movie. It didn’t feel real. Lena had appeared like a mirage. If he blinked, she was sure to vanish.

But she didn’t vanish, and when his mother dragged her inside, he followed with everyone else, then watched with that same observer feeling as another chair was taken into the dining room, where the Christmas bread already had pride of place on the table, placemats and cutlery rearranged to fit another place setting, heard the loud laughter when his mother produced a surprise packet of English Christmas Crackers and placed them around the table, too. He watched his family fuss around Lena, his aunt stroke her hair, his father hand her a drink, his cousin offer her an almond biscuit, the other cousin then take her hand and drag her off to see the Christmas tree that stood proudly in the living room.

His uncle came over to speak to him once everyone else had congregated in the living room. He recalled nothing of the conversation other than the panic that grabbed his chest when he looked again to where Lena had just been sitting and found she’d disappeared. It took a long time for the beats of his heart to regain any kind of regularity after she returned, her hand held by his mother, a necklace that hadn’t been there before hung around her neck. From the way Lena kept pressing her hand to it, she was obviously enamoured.

‘She doesn’t bite,’ his father said, standing beside him.

‘What?’

‘Lena. She doesn’t bite.’

He tried to smile but couldn’t make his mouth form anything. ‘She isn’t here to see me.’ That much was clear. Other than that first clash of eyes, she hadn’t looked in his direction or gotten within three feet of him.

She was here, he knew, because she’d given her word.

He still couldn’t quite believe it.

‘She’s been here two hours and not looked at you once that I’ve noticed. No one avoids looking at someone for so long if they don’t feel something for them.’

‘She hates me.’

‘Hate is a feeling. Your mother often hates me. Talk to her.’

He took a long breath and nodded.

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