Kate Hewitt - Greek Mavericks - The Greek's Unforgettable Secret

Lizzie cheeks burned red with guilt beneath Thea’s scrutiny. ‘I put the dress on for you. I went back to the restaurant specially—’

‘You went back? From where?’ Thea queried, fully in sleuth mode now. ‘Where were you before the restaurant?’

‘None of your business.’

Lizzie laughed. In spite of her tension, Thea’s suspicious expression could always crack her up.

Thea narrowed her eyes. ‘You were with him, weren’t you?’

If only life was as simple as making a choice between a blue dress and a yellow dress, Lizzie thought, feeling a flutter of nerves now the moment had come to tell Thea the truth about her father.

‘I love both dresses equally. You’ve got excellent taste.’

‘That’s not the question I asked you. What I want to know is, how did you get on with Damon?’

‘Thea!’ Lizzie tried and failed to be stern. ‘As far as I can tell, he’s a very nice man.’

‘A “very nice man”?’ Thea pulled a face.

‘He’s a good man,’ Lizzie conceded carefully. She had to begin somewhere, but she could hardly pretend that she and Damon were bosom buddies right now.

‘And…?’ Thea pressed. ‘Will you see him again soon?’

‘I think it will be hard to avoid him on the island,’ Lizzie said, speaking her thoughts out loud. ‘But we should see him together next time—’

‘No!’ Thea cut in with disapproval. ‘How is your romance going to flourish with me there? You have to see him on your own.’

‘I thought you liked him?’

‘I do—but only if he makes you happy.’

‘He enjoyed hearing you play,’ Lizzie said, to break the sudden tension.

‘He can come to a concert and hear the entire orchestra play,’ Thea dismissed, clearly eager to move on the subject at the top of her agenda. ‘It’s you I’m worried about, not him.’

Lizzie’s sinking feeling increased. ‘We really need to talk about this.’

‘Why?’ Thea demanded.

‘Because—’

Lizzie could see that Thea wasn’t interested. Thea might be a musical prodigy, but she could be as difficult as any other ten-year-old child, and right now Thea’s ears were closed to reason.

Lizzie still had to try. ‘Because there’s something I should have told you a long time ago. Why don’t we sit in the shade and chat as we wait for the bus?’

Thea shrugged, but she plopped down on the bench next to Lizzie.

‘So…you like Damon?’ Lizzie began cautiously.

‘A lot,’ Thea said with a frown. ‘We hit it off right away. But you already know that, so what’s this about?’

Would Thea hate her when she told her? Would the reasons for her not telling her sooner about Damon matter, or would Thea believe that Lizzie had kept Damon away from her on purpose?

This wasn’t about her, Lizzie concluded, or how she felt about the situation. This was about Thea and Damon, and Thea deserved to hear the truth.

‘I’m glad you like Damon, because there’s something I need to tell you about him—’

‘He’s asked you to marry him?’ Thea exclaimed, leaping up from the bench.

‘Not exactly,’ Lizzie confessed. ‘What I’ve got to tell you goes a lot further back than this trip to Greece.’

‘Is he my father?’

Lizzie was stunned speechless. ‘What?’ She felt as if she’d been punched.

‘Well? Is he?’ Thea demanded. ‘Is Damon Gavros my father? Yes or no?’

‘I wanted to break it to you gently—’

‘There’s only one way you can break news like this,’ Thea insisted, ‘and that’s with a brass band. Yes!’ she exulted, punching the air. ‘I knew it!’

Lizzie put a steadying hand on Thea’s arm, and for once wished someone would do the same for her. ‘We’re still all right, aren’t we? I mean, you and me…the two of us?’

‘Of course we are,’ Thea confirmed impatiently. ‘We’ll carry on exactly as before. Won’t we…?’

Lizzie would have walked over hot coals to take the look of uncertainty from Thea’s face. ‘Of course we will,’ she said fiercely. ‘No one’s going to interfere in our lives.’

‘Good,’ Thea said. Her slender shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘He’s never been around before, so why would he want to interfere now?’

‘He will want to have some part in your life, Thea. He’s your father, and you can’t blame him for not being around when he’s only just found out about you.’

‘That doesn’t give him any rights over me,’ Thea said stubbornly. ‘Believe me,’ she said with agonising certainty, ‘I’m quite an expert on this. Most of the kids at school have parents who are divorced, or about to be divorced—I listen to everything they say about it.’

‘But I’m not married to Damon.’

‘What difference does that make?’ Thea demanded.

‘I wanted to tell him as soon as I knew that I was pregnant with you, but I couldn’t—’

‘I don’t care,’ Thea declared, hugging Lizzie fiercely. ‘I only care about you. I don’t need anyone else,’ she blurted on the brink of tears, instantly on her mother’s side. ‘We’ve done all right together, haven’t we?’

‘Of course we have.’ Thea needed reassurance far more than she did, Lizzie thought as she dropped kisses on the top of Thea’s head. ‘And we’ll continue to do all right, you and me.’

‘Well, then…’ Thea said, pulling back and looking up. ‘Why does he have to be part of my life?’

Holding Thea so she could look into her daughter’s eyes, Lizzie said quietly, ‘You’ve got nothing to worry about—nothing—do you hear me?’

‘I hear you,’ Thea said with absolute confidence.

This was not at all the way Lizzie had imagined things would turn out. Knowing Thea liked Damon, she had imagined Thea would be thrilled to learn Damon was her father. She had seemed thrilled, to begin with, but now Thea appeared to be more threatened than pleased by the news.

The important thing was that Thea understood that nothing would change between Thea and Lizzie because of these new circumstances.

‘Why don’t we meet him?’ Lizzie suggested. ‘You don’t have to worry because I’ll be there. You can get to know him slowly—in your own time. We both can, and then we’ll take it from there. The one thing I promise is that you will never have to do anything you don’t want to do.’

‘Does that mean I can stay with you?’ Thea blurted, her cheeks red and shiny with bottled-up emotion.

‘Of course you can!’ Lizzie drew Thea close.

‘Because some of the girls at school never get to see their other parent, and I don’t want that. I don’t want to be away from you. I love you!’ she exclaimed.

When Thea threw her arms around Lizzie, to give her the tightest hug ever, the dam finally broke and Lizzie cried.

He was waiting for Lizzie’s call. Take as much time as you need, he’d told her. He’d step in when Thea was ready to meet him, and then Lizzie and he would have a discussion as to how to proceed from there.

He was confident all the problems could be ironed out. All that mattered to him, and to Lizzie too, was Thea’s happiness. He did have one irritation to handle, and that was the media who were sniffing around. His people had contacted him to warn him.

Rumours always followed him. He was one of the richest unmarried men in the world, so he supposed media interest was inevitable. He’d told his team to downplay it.

‘If you do, they will,’ he’d said.

‘I doubt it, when Ms Montgomery has a dark-haired child who happens to be the spitting image of you and happens to be the child prodigy playing at your father’s birthday party,’ the head of his legal department had informed him.