Nikos grabbed a new résumé. “Have you looked at this one?”
She refused to be distracted, and held the blue envelope a little higher. “When did you get this letter?”
“Yesterday,” he said, grinding his teeth.
She pushed back a long tendril that had escaped from her sleek chignon. “It hasn’t been opened, but it was in the trash.”
“And your point is?”
“Aren’t you going to read it?”
“I think my actions are self-explanatory.”
“But if your father’s widow wrote all the way from Greece to try to mend the breach in your family…”
“There is no breach, because there is no family,” he said shortly. “My father meant nothing to me, and now he’s dead, so why should I care about his widow? She can write me or not. That is her choice. I’m perfectly capable of throwing her letters in the trash without your advice.”
He still remembered all too well the first letter he’d received from the Greek woman. She’d broken the news of his father’s death, and informed him that he’d had left Nikos a share in his shipping business—the same shipping business that Nikos had tried to crush as an adult. Worse, she’d told him that his father had been the secret investor who had helped Nikos create Stavrakis Resorts. His father had been the one to help Nikos build his very first hotel.
Shaken, Nikos had still refused to go to the funeral, or meet his half-siblings. He’d also refused the shares in the company. He hadn’t wanted any part of the family who’d been more important to his father than he and his mother had been.
But it was the kindness in her letter that had shocked him the most. She’d been so gentle, when he’d expected only hate. The confusion and pain had driven him to Anna’s house. He’d instinctively sought her comfort, her arms, her bed, and they’d conceived Michael…
Anna gave him a piercing turquoise glance, as if she guessed his thoughts. “But how can you still hate your father now that you know that he helped you?”
“If I’d known he was the investor behind the venture capital firm that financed my first hotel, I would have tossed the money back in his face.”
“But—”
“He was a married man when he seduced my mother. He got her pregnant, then sent her packing to New York. The man is nothing to me.”
“But your stepmother—”
“Don’t ever call her that again.”
“Your—your father’s widow said he tried to send you money every month of your childhood. Your mother was the one who always sent it back.”
Yes, he remembered what the Greek woman had said—that his father had always loved Nikos, that he’d tried to visit and send child support but his proud mother had refused. She’d even said that his father hadn’t wanted his mother to go to New York, that he’d been heartbroken when she’d left. She’d said his mother was the one who had refused to let him see his son.
Nikos didn’t know who to believe.
His mother, of course, he told himself furiously. She had died taking care of him. She deserved his loyalty.
The last thing Nikos wanted to do was read another of the Greek woman’s letters. The past was dead and gone. Better to let it remain buried.
Unfortunately, Anna didn’t see it that way. Her lips pressed in a determined line. “I’m going to read the letter.”
He grabbed her hand as she reached for the letter opener on his desk. “You’re quick to arrange my family affairs. Is it to avoid dealing with your own?”
She hesitated. “What do you mean?”
“Why did your sister come here? You’ve evaded the question for over a week. I’d like an answer.”
She tugged on her hand, but he held her fast. “It’s nothing,” she mumbled. “A family quarrel.”
“Does it have anything to do with Victor Sinistyn?”
She pulled away with a savage force that he hadn’t expected. “Just stay out of it! I don’t need your pity and I don’t need your help. I can handle it on my own—”
She grabbed at the letter opener with a trembling hand, plunging the sharp edge of the blade into the side of the blue envelope with far too much vigor. It sliced her palm, and she squelched a scream, holding out her bleeding hand.
“Let me see your hand,” Nikos demanded.
She turned her face away in a fruitless attempt to hide her tears. He was relieved that she didn’t resist as he gently took her hand. Blood from the cut smudged against the cuff of his shirt as he narrowly examined the wound.