Without actually answering him, she picked up her bag and they walked to the foyer. Once outside, he opened the rear door to the limo and helped her in. Before she could take a breath, he kissed her for a long time. When he finally relinquished her mouth, he whispered, “I dare you to get any sleep tonight.”
“I haven’t slept well since we met,” she confessed, hearing the tremor in her own voice. “I love you, Andreas. Now you’d better go in. Ari might not be fully asleep and cry out for you. If he does, give him another kiss for me.”
Don’t look at me like that, Andreas.
To leave him was killing her, too.
He blew her a kiss as the chauffeur drove the limo away. The second he was out of sight, she phoned the Adonis hotel downtown where she’d first stayed until she’d found a bedsitter. They had a single room for one night. She booked it and told them she’d be arriving within the hour. But first she needed to pack her bags. Then she’d leave for the hotel in a taxi.
CHAPTER TEN
ANDREAS WENT BACK in the villa, but something wasn’t right. Her I love you had sounded more like...goodbye.
He checked on Ari, who’d played so hard he’d passed out.
Without hesitation he pulled out his phone to call Zoe. She’d left her voice mail on. That wasn’t like her. She would usually have answered after the first ring. A sense of dread swept through him.
After asking her to call him back, he rushed to the guest bedroom, fully expecting to find a letter telling him she was leaving Greece. He saw nothing!
Breaking out in a cold sweat, he went to his bedroom down the hall from the nursery to phone Gus. The private detective had left his voice mail on. Andreas told him what he needed and asked that he call him back as soon as he could. This was an emergency.
Frantic at this point, he raced to the kitchen to get a beer out of the fridge and call Yorgos. If he didn’t answer, Andreas was going to lose his mind. It was quarter to ten, not that late.
The phone rang until he got a voice mail prompt. On a groan, he said he was calling with an emergency and didn’t care if Yorgos phoned him in the middle of the night. They needed to talk.
While he paced the floor, Gus called him back, thank heaven. “I take it something serious is going on.”
“Life-and-death kind. I need you to track down a five-foot-six dark blonde beauty named Zoe Perkins. She’s a twenty-six-year-old American college professor who was staying at a apartment on Nikita Avenue downtown.” He gave him the numbers. “By now I know she’s left there in a taxi, or is planning to leave.
“I have every reason to believe she’s going to be headed for the airport on the first available flight. She could be flying to the US, Dijon, France, or possibly Venice, Italy. Her ultimate destination is Los Angeles, California.
“Gus—find her! Don’t let her get away. She’s my life!”
“I’m on it!” he exclaimed before hanging up.
He sat on one of the stools at the kitchen bar and called his housekeeper. Gaia had been with Andreas for the last five years. When Ari was born, she took perfect care of him at different times when needed. After she answered, he told her his dilemma. She assured him she’d come right over in her car and stay as long as he needed her.
“I might have to fly to Athens tomorrow.”
“That won’t be a problem. I’ll be there in a half hour.”
“Bless you, Gaia.” She could sleep in the guest bedroom nearest the nursery.
Once
he’d hung up, he phoned Zoe again knowing it was pointless, but he had to do something or go mad with frustration and anxiety.
Too restless to stay still, he finished his beer and walked through the house to look in on Ari again. Those hours that the three of them had been out in the pool had brought him such pleasure, he’d never wanted any of it to end.
By the time Gaia arrived, there was still no phone call from Yorgos. Andreas told her he might have to leave in the middle of the night and got her settled, then went to his bedroom. At eleven he heard his cell ring and clicked on.
“Yorgos? A lot has happened you need to know about. I was going to wait until Monday, but not now.” After filling him in that Lia had brought Ari to Patras and the threat she’d delivered, he said, “I want you to call an emergency meeting with the judge tomorrow that includes Lia’s attorney. The judge has to be told the real reason Lia keeps causing trouble. If you need me to be in court, I’ll fly to Athens.”
“I don’t think your presence will be required. I have all the facts. With this new information I’ll fax to his office tonight and to Lia’s attorney, the judge should be able to decide quickly.”
“He has to, Yorgos. When he learns about the lie and Lia’s need to keep the truth from her parents, he’ll have to rule on my terms of visitation. I’m through playing games and can’t wait any longer. I’ll convince the judge that although I may not be Ari’s biological father, I’m his father in every way that matters.”
“That should work. I’ll press for him to render his final decision tomorrow, but I can’t make promises for him.”