The Greek Tycoon's Secret Heir (2 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
The Greek Tycoon's Secret Heir by Katherine Garbera. Copyright 2008 by Katherine Garbera.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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ONE (CONT'D)

Ava was exactly as he remembered her. The strawberry-blond hair, the delicate features and those wide blue eyes that were more mysterious than the deepest fathoms of the ocean. She had been unique to him. An anomaly in a world filled with people who wanted to be near him because of his money, his connections or his pedigree, she'd wanted to be with him in spite of all that. Or so he'd thought. She'd seemed fresh and innocent, and he knew that was a large part of the reason he'd been so attracted to her.

He would have bet his vast fortune that Ava was incapable of lying. And he knew now that he would have lost. He let the silence grow between them, watching her, knowing it made her uncomfortable. He still wanted her. Damn her for that. Even knowing she'd given birth to his brother's child . . .

Ava deserved the discomfort, he thought. She'd slept with him and his brother, and now he needed the child. His brother's son. God, what a mess.

Christos was the playboy of the family, the jetsetter who, for the most part, had always been more interested in his own pleasures than anything else. But for a few brief months during that summer when Ava had been in Greece . . . forget it, he wasn't going to rehash that.

He'd cast her out of his life, but everything had changed with Stavros's death. God, he missed his older brother and his nieces. He didn't miss his sister-in-law as much, but then Nikki had never been the kind of woman who'd wanted to be friends with him. He'd always been the second son to her. Not the heir.

His own temper was legendary, as was Stavros's, and the fight they'd had over Ava . . . well, it had take non mythic proportions. And the part that stabbed him in the gut was that he'd thought they had years to work it out. In stead he'd never share a quiet moment with his brother again.

He knew what his father wanted from him. Take over the business, marry and produce more Greek babies. Ensure that the Theakis line continued. His father had sent him to Ava to claim the boy whom Stavros had paid her to keep quiet about.

He even knew what Stavros would say to him if he had been able to see into the future . . . he would advise Christos to marry Ava and claim the boy as his own. Move them back to Greece where the boy could be raised to inherit the shipping empire that had been in their family for generations. His father's advice had been the same, but then Stavros and Ari were cut from the same cloth.

"I'm surprised you're here. I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Ava said at last.

He couldn't deal with the circumstances that had brought him here and he wouldn't talk about them with her. Not now. Tristan, one of his best friends, assured him that grief lessened over time, but Christos couldn't imagine this pain fading. "What does the boy know about his father?"

"The boy? His name is Theo. And I . . . I told him that you were an important Greek businessman whose interests kept him busy."

That he was an important Greek businessman. God, he couldn't believe she was still clinging to the lie that he was the father. He'd been careful every time they'd come together. Only slipping up once, he thought. But even then he'd pulled out as soon as he realized what he'd done. And Stavros . . . well, his brother had always been blunt when it came to sex and condoms--he didn't use them.

"A lie."

"You are a businessman. And you're always busy, at least, according to Hello! magazine. I don't see how Stavros's death changes anything. You made your choice a long time ago."

He shrugged that aside. He wasn't going to get into the paternity issue again. That boy was a Theakis and he was returning to his family. They had the legal document she'd signed when she'd taken the money Stavros had offered.

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