Ruthless Revenge: Sinful Seduction. Кейт Хьюит

wouldn’t make such a judgment.’

      ‘You already did.’ She spoke wearily, without accusation, but even so Alekos felt a sharp pang of guilt.

      ‘I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have phrased it like that.’

      ‘You wouldn’t be the first. And I’m sorry too. I shouldn’t take my frustrations out on you. It’s just that this kind of thing has been happening for so long.’

      ‘I understand.’ Iolanthe gave him a small, grateful smile that pierced Alekos to the heart. She was thankful for that negligible bit of grace? And yet he realised that they were actually having a civilised conversation. An important conversation. Standing there, seeing Iolanthe look so tired and disheartened, Alekos realised there were things he could not begin to fathom about her life.

      ‘Tell me more,’ he said, and moved to sit across from her.

      ‘What more do you want to know?’

      ‘I don’t know. Anything.’ He shrugged, spreading his hands. ‘I want to understand.’

      She pressed her lips together, her gaze distant. ‘Doctors suggested he was on the autism spectrum, but not all of his symptoms fit the classic diagnosis. Of course there’s a range, but they weren’t entirely comfortable with it and neither was I. Other doctors suggested a sensory disorder, but some of his emotional behaviours didn’t fit that either.’ She raised her slight shoulders in a helpless shrug. ‘In the end they slapped the PDD label on him and called it a day.’

      ‘PDD?’

      ‘Pervasive Developmental Disorder. A jack-of-all-trades diagnosis.’ Her smile was wan, heartbreaking. ‘We’ve both coped as best as we can. Taking him out of school helped—it was too much pressure on him to make friends, to behave a certain way. He gets along very well with his tutor.’

      ‘Where is his tutor? I thought he was going to be here this morning.’

      ‘I had him leave early, in anticipation of this meeting.’

      Alekos frowned. ‘Is that a good idea? If routine is important—’

      ‘Don’t question me please, Alekos.’ Iolanthe’s voice rose sharply. ‘I know you like to be in control. I know you want to be the one giving the orders. But please, please trust that I might have a better idea of how to handle my son than you do.’

      ‘Our son, and only because I was kept from being involved in his life until now,’ Alekos returned before he could keep himself from it. Iolanthe flinched.

      ‘Will you always throw that in my face?’ she asked quietly.

      ‘No.’ He let out a low breath. ‘But it’s a hard thing to accept, Iolanthe. To forgive.’

      ‘So you’ve said.’ She drew herself up, a new resolve entering her eyes. ‘So surely you can see there is no sense in us marrying. We would be at cross purposes all the time, arguing and throwing old hurts in each other’s faces.’

      ‘I would hope we are both mature enough not to act in such a way.’

      ‘It wouldn’t be a good environment for Niko,’ Iolanthe persisted. ‘He picks up on such undercurrents. Tension affects him very badly.’

      Alekos held on to his temper, keeping his voice both level and firm. ‘Then we will both have to make a concerted effort not to have such tension in our home.’

      Iolanthe let out a hollow laugh, falling back against the sofa with a weary shake of her head. ‘Talking to you is like battering a brick wall. The only thing that happens is I get tired and bruised.’

      ‘Perhaps you need to stop treating our conversations as battles,’ Alekos suggested. Iolanthe rolled her eyes.

      ‘It’s my fault, then, is it? Of course. Some things never change.’ Bitterness spiked her words, making him wonder. Admittedly, the history between them was fraught, but surely they didn’t have so much for her to speak with such cynical experience? No matter that they’d created a child together, they still hardly knew one another.

      ‘I don’t mean to apportion blame. But I believe strongly indeed that a child belongs with his parents, Iolanthe. Both his parents.’ Alekos heard the throb of emotion in his voice and inwardly cringed at it. He hated revealing such things.

      Iolanthe eyed him with tired curiosity. ‘It almost sounds as if you speak from experience.’

      ‘I do.’ This time Alekos kept his voice diffident. ‘My father left when I was young and I was separated from my mother soon after.’

      ‘I’m sorry.’ Her expression had softened into sadness, or maybe pity, which he couldn’t stand. ‘That must have been very hard.’

      ‘It was what it was.’ Alekos dismissed his miserable childhood with a flick of his shoulders. ‘But I do not want the same for Niko.’

      ‘He doesn’t do well with a disturbance in his routines, Alekos—’

      ‘And that is your justification for keeping his father out of his life?’ he demanded. ‘Routines have to be altered, Iolanthe. It is a fact of life. You can’t keep Niko up there in his ivory tower for ever.’

      ‘You don’t know—’

      ‘Maybe I know more than you think. Maybe I understand some of what Niko is going through—’

      ‘You do?’ She looked and sounded disbelieving.

      ‘He is my son. And he grew up with a man who was not his father, as I did.’ A sudden suspicion assailed him. ‘Was Callos close to him?’

      Iolanthe’s expression shuttered and she looked away. ‘He...he tried,’ she said in a low voice.

      ‘He tried? What does that mean?’

      ‘He knew Niko wasn’t his biological son...’ The words were a wretched whisper, cementing Alekos’s suspicions and making fury surge through his blood.

      ‘He knew that when you wed. He never should have married you if he couldn’t treat Niko as his own.’ He’d thought he hated Lukas Callos already, but he realised he’d barely plumbed the depths of his derision for a man who stole other people’s ideas as well as their sons—and failed in both regards.

      ‘Perhaps he thought he could.’ Iolanthe’s voice was thready. ‘I can’t blame him...’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because he married me when he knew what I’d done,’ Iolanthe stated starkly. ‘Which was more than anyone else was willing to do.’

      Guilt felt like acid corroding his veins. ‘You had sex,’ Alekos stated. ‘Hardly unforgivable in the twenty-first century.’

      ‘Unforgivable in the world I live in,’ Iolanthe returned. ‘No matter how the rest of the world sees it.’ She sighed and then steeled herself. ‘But we were talking about Niko.’

      ‘I want to spend more time with him.’ Even as he said the words, Alekos knew that carefully orchestrated visits to Iolanthe’s house would not suffice. He needed an environment where he could get to know Niko properly, completely—and, he realised, get to know Iolanthe as well. If he really intended to marry her, for Niko’s sake it couldn’t be the cold-blooded arrangement he’d initially intended. What it could be, he had no idea, but he needed time to figure it out. They all needed time...as a family. To become the family they could be, the family Alekos had been denied as a child himself, and Niko had too.

      ‘Let’s go away,’ he said, and Iolanthe’s eyes rounded, her lovely mouth dropping open in shock. ‘The three of us. Somewhere we can be alone and private together. It will give Niko time to get to know me, and also time for us to know each other and decide if we can make something of a marriage.’ He had no intention of allowing Iolanthe to make that decision by herself—it was far too important to leave to emotion