had not hesitated to ditch his last lover at his late father’s memorial service. She supposed the truth was that he didn’t care; he only cared about what
But then Jeffrey had always seemed sincere, too, Abbey conceded wretchedly, bitterly. Her late husband had lied to her and cheated on her and she hadn’t suspected a thing! Obviously she was not very good at sussing out liars. Possibly she was not very good at understanding men either. But she was determined not to allow another man to make a fool of her. She was going to tell Nikolai what she thought of him. How shabby could a guy be? Disappearing with the hostess at a very well-attended party? If he had wanted out, he should have said before it hit the newspapers and humiliated her.
Nikolai was in the hall when she arrived. Her gaze lit on him like the dart of a flame and then cloaked as she mentally shut a door against his stunning dark good looks. ‘You have a very hot temper,
Abbey was thrown badly off balance by that opening speech, for she could think of no circumstance that could reasonably explain the presence of both Lysander and Ophelia Metaxis at his apartment at nine o’clock in the morning. ‘What on earth is going on?’ she demanded shakily.
Nikolai closed a hand over hers. ‘Ophelia and I have just had DNA tests taken. We suspect that her mother may also have been mine,’ he shared tautly. ‘If it’s true, it’s a discovery that would mean a great deal to me.’
Abbey’s fingers were almost crushed in the tense grip of his. That astonishing statement plunged her into a state of bewilderment. ‘DNA tests for siblingship?’ she prompted. ‘You think that you and Ophelia Metaxis might be related by blood?’
‘We hope so. Lysander and Ophelia tracked me down. Lysander came to see me yesterday and shared the evidence he had found. Together we were able to piece together the most likely explanation for the events that culminated in my birth over thirty years ago.’
‘You think that Ophelia may be your sister?’ Abbey’s brain was functioning extremely slowly. It was a challenge to take on board any facts which, on first hearing, struck her as beyond the bounds of credibility. ‘But surely that’s very unlikely?’
‘Before my grandfather put my father out of his life, he apparently used his influence to get his son a junior diplomatic position in the embassy in London. I was not aware of the fact that for several years my father and his family lived here. During that period he sent my half-sister, Feodora, to an exclusive English girls’ school,’ Nikolai advanced as he walked her into the elegant drawing room with its spectacular views. ‘That’s where Feodora met Ophelia’s mother, Cathy.’
Ophelia Metaxis sprang up from a sofa with the bubbling energy that characterised her and extended a photograph to Abbey. ‘I found this photo in my mother’s personal effects.’
Abbey stared down at the black-and-white snap of a strikingly handsome man who bore a strong resemblance to Nikolai. ‘Is this your father?’ she prompted, turning it over and striving without success to read the name scrawled on the back of it.
‘Yes. Kostya Arlov,’ Nikolai supplied. ‘Feodora was willing to confirm certain facts. She and Cathy became friends, and Feodora twice had Cathy to stay with her in London. My father had few moral scruples. He wouldn’t have thought twice about seducing a schoolgirl. She was only seventeen…’
‘And very impulsive,’ Ophelia piped up wryly.
‘But this long after the event we can only guess at what happened between them. Feodora remembered feeling envious of the attention her father gave to Cathy and she was able to confirm that Cathy disappeared from school several months later, supposedly suffering from glandular fever. Of course she had fallen pregnant. I was born in a private clinic and handed straight over to my father,’ Nikolai continued. ‘But his father-my grandfather-was not prepared to allow me to be adopted out of the family.’
‘My maternal grandmother, Gladys, would never have allowed my mother to keep an illegitimate child. The whole matter was hushed up and buried, and I’m afraid my mother died a long time ago,’ Ophelia explained. ‘I only found out that I might have an older brother recently and it’s taken a great deal of detective work to get us this far.’
‘We have already discovered that, like Ophelia, I, too, share our mother’s rare blood group,’ Nikolai murmured, closing a hand to Abbey’s spine and drawing her beneath the shelter of his arm.
‘What must you have thought when you saw that photo of us on the balcony last night?’ Ophelia commented with a grimace.
‘You were rather inconsiderate last night,’ Lysander Metaxis scolded his wife with a frown.
Ophelia gave Abbey an apologetic look. ‘I’m sorry, Abbey. I was gasping to meet Nikolai and too impatient to be polite about it. Then once I got him all to myself, I got very emotional telling him about Mum and my sister, Molly, and I started to cry and he hugged me.’
‘I don’t think I’ll tell you what I thought,’ Abbey confided, drawn by Ophelia’s natural warmth, her own defensive rigidity evaporating. ‘I knew something was going on between all of you-’
‘And Abbey always thinks the worst of me,’ Nikolai imparted above her head.
‘No, of course I don’t,’ she argued for the sake of appearances, but she knew his accusation was the truth.
‘We’ll have the DNA results in a couple of days,’ Lysander Metaxis pronounced with a note of finality.
‘I know already. I don’t need tests!’ Ophelia proclaimed with irrepressible conviction. ‘I know now in my heart that Nikolai is my brother.’
Lysander and his wife took their leave and Abbey did not accompany Nikolai to the hall to see them out. She was trying to be tactful and she had a lot to think about. Everything she had assumed when she saw that tabloid photo of Nikolai and Ophelia together had been knocked on its head and shown to be nonsense.
‘Why didn’t you tell me who Ophelia might be before we went to their party?’ Abbey questioned when Nikolai reappeared.
‘Why didn’t you tell me that your brother and you were being threatened by thugs?’ he riposted.
‘That was a little different. I thought if I told you about it, you would think I was asking you for financial help and I didn’t feel comfortable with that,’ Abbey answered truthfully. ‘I was too proud.’
His lean bronzed face was taut. ‘I said nothing because I thought there would be no real substance to Ophelia’s belief that we were related-’
‘Nor were you prepared to admit how important it was for you to find out who your mother was,’ Abbey guessed.
‘That, too. I always assumed that my mother must have been a prostitute,’ Nikolai revealed, shocking her with that blunt admission. ‘In the days when I knew him, my father was well known for consorting with hookers.’
Abbey could read in his brilliant dark eyes how much that belief had troubled him and her heart swelled inside her. Indeed it was only with the greatest difficulty that she restrained herself from rushing across the room to wrap comforting arms round him.
‘But a schoolgirl, his own daughter’s friend,’ Nikolai added with a disgusted shake of his handsome dark head. ‘Kostya was a nasty piece of work. Ophelia’s mother went on to lead a very troubled and unhappy life. Being forced into early motherhood and having to give up her child at that age would have done nothing to help.’
‘I’m sorry I thought the worst about you and Ophelia.’ Abbey felt light-headed with relief that all her worst nightmares had failed to come true.
‘I don’t mess around with married women and you should have known that.’ Nikolai closed a hand over hers to urge her in the direction of the hall. ‘Now that we have that sorted out, we have a busy day ahead.’
Abbey had nothing noted down in her diary. ‘Have we?’
‘But you’ll have to go home and change first. I’m afraid that you’re not dressed for the occasion.’
‘Not more diamonds, surely,’ Abbey muttered uneasily.
Nikolai laughed out loud at the note of dismay in her voice. He paused to tug down the scarf at her throat and press his expert mouth to the bruise there with a slow, sensual flourish. ‘Who knows what the day will bring? But I’d love to see you wearing something feminine and summery.’
At the touch of his lips, gooseflesh flared at the nape of her neck. She gazed up at him, marvelling at the potent masculine appeal of his lean, dark, handsome face, her attention lingering to admire the black curling ebony spikes
