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The Greek tycoon’s gaze flared gold and veiled. ‘It’s Dr Greenaway, and our relationship is not up for discussion. Concentrate on my rights as a parent.’
‘Where there is no marriage, the UK legal system favours the mother. If you have the lady’s agreement to DNA-testing, to sharing parental responsibility and to granting reasonable access to the child, there won’t be a problem,’ the lawyer enumerated with quiet clarity. ‘Without that agreement, however, there would considerable difficulty. Applying to a court would be your only remedy and, in general, the judge will regard the mother and custodial parent as the best arbiter of the child’s interests.’
Always cool under pressure, Leonidas pondered those disconcerting facts, his lean, dark face aloof. Although nobody would have guessed it, he was very surprised by what he was finding out. ‘So I need her consent.’
‘It would be the most straightforward approach.’
Leonidas recognised what went unsaid but invited no further comment. He knew that there were wheels within wheels. For a man of his wealth, there was always a way of circumventing the rules. When winning was the goal, and it was usually the only goal for Leonidas, the concept of fair play had no weight and the innocent often got hurt. That was not, however, the route he wished to follow with Maribel, who had once been sincerely appalled to catch Imogen cheating at a board game. For the moment he was prepared to utilise more conventional means of persuasion…
Maribel lifted her office phone and jerked out of her seat the instant she heard Leonidas’ rich, dark-chocolate drawl in her ears. ‘What do you want?’ she demanded, too rattled to even attempt the polite small talk usually employed at the outset of a conversation.
‘I want to talk to you.’
‘But we spoke yesterday and I’m at work,’ Maribel protested in a near whisper, panic squeezing the life from her vocal cords.
‘You’re free for an hour before your next tutorial,’ Leonidas informed her. ‘I’ll see you in five minutes.’
Suddenly Maribel wished she were the sort of woman who put on make-up every day, instead of just on high days and holidays. She dug frantically into her bag to find a mirror and brushed her hair, while striving not to notice that her sleepless night was etched on her face and in the heaviness of her eyes. A split-second after that exercise, she was outraged by her instinctive reaction to his phone call. Instead of mustering her wits and concentrating on what was important, she had spent those precious moments fussing over her appearance. A waste of time, she told herself in exasperation, glancing down at her ruffled green shirt, trousers and sensible pumps. Only Cinderella’s fairy godmother could have worked a miracle with such unpromisingly practical material.
Leonidas strolled in with the unhurried grace that was so much a part of him. Deceptively indolent dark golden eyes skimmed over her taut expression and he sighed. ‘I’m not the enemy, Maribel.’
Maribel lifted her chin, but evaded too close a meeting with his incisive gaze. But that single harried glimpse of his lean strong features still lingered in the back of her mind. The bold, sculpted cheekbones, the imperious blade of a nose and the tough jawline were impressive even before the rest of him was taken into account. She had always got a kick out of looking at Leonidas. Denying that urge to look and enjoy hurt to an almost physical degree. Desperate to relocate her composure, she sucked in a steadying breath. ‘Coming here to see me is indiscreet,’ she told him stiffly. ‘This is a public building and my place of work. A lot of people would recognise you. You attract too much notice.’
‘I cannot help the name I was born with.’ His fluid shrug somehow contrived to imply that she was being wildly irrational. ‘You must’ve known that we would have to talk again. Possibly I felt that you would be less likely to threaten me with the police here.’
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake, you knew I wasn’t really going to call the police to get rid of you!’ Maribel’s patience just snapped at that crack. ‘And since when were you afraid of anything? I can see the headlines even as we speak. ATTEMPTED ARREST OF GREEK TYCOON, because you know perfectly well that your bodyguards wouldn’t give you up to anybody! Do you really think I would risk inviting that kind of attention?’
‘No?’ Leonidas filed away the obvious fact that she had a healthy fear of media exposure. Considering the many women who had boasted in print of an intimate association with him, he wondered if he should be offended by her attitude. She had always been so different from the women he was accustomed to that he was never quite sure what she might say or how she might react.
