The Sarantos Baby Bargain

His quiet response shuddered through her. That he claimed she affected him as he did her tipped her beyond endurance.

“Enough, Andreas,” she groaned. “Whatever you came here for, just spit it out.”

He gazed at her in silence until she felt her every cell begin to crackle.

Then, in absolute tranquility, he inclined his head. “As you wish. I’m here to claim Dorothea.”

Three

Naomi found herself on her feet, looking down at Andreas. He only tipped his head back as he met her flabbergasted stare, his gaze steady and earnest.

And she exploded. “What kind of sick joke is this?”

He rose with the utmost economy and composure, was towering over her before she could take a breath or a step back.

“It isn’t a joke. When Petros called me—”

“You didn’t come back.”

“I didn’t need to. He was calling me to—”

“I don’t give a damn why he called you, or about anything you’re going to say. Dora is mine.”

“Dorothea is Petros’s.”

Naomi’s heart pounded until it felt like a wrecking ball inside her chest. “And my sister’s.”

But she’d lost Nadine so recently, the loss so overwhelming and fresh, she hadn’t yet started Dora’s adoption process. But she’d been sure there was no rush, that her claim to Dora was uncontestable.

She said so. “With Petros being an only child, and with his parents dead, Dora has no other family but me. That makes her mine.”

“Petros wanted her to be mine.”

Naomi shook her head, trying to stop the world that was suddenly spinning, feeling as if he’d punched her square in the face. “God...every time I think I know what depths you can sink to, I discover there’s no limit to your callousness. But this...this is a new depth, even for you. This is...evil.”

He moved past her, giving her a sideways glance that froze her blood and started it boiling all at once. “As I said, what you think of me is your prerogative. That doesn’t change the fact that Petros, Dora’s father, wished me to have her.”

Afraid she’d keel over if she moved too fast, Naomi turned to face him, found him across the coffee table, both hands back in his pockets, staring at her broodingly.

He wasn’t joking. He meant it. This was real.

A hysterical giggle burst out of her.

He only inclined his head in what looked like a nod. “I can understand your shock. I’d hoped I could introduce the subject in a better way, at least gradually. But we couldn’t even establish any semblance of a conversation, with you being so hostile and uncooperative.”

“Sure, I’m to blame for that. I’m the one who tormented you for six months for laughs, before granting you your freedom. I’m the one who disregarded my dying friend’s plea for me to be there for him in his last hours. I’m the one who’s standing right there pretending I’m willing to take on a baby, when I made it cuttingly clear I never wanted a child.”

“It doesn’t matter what I want anymore.”

“But it matters what you can or can’t do. And I’d sooner believe you’d give birth to a baby rather than take one on.”

He had the temerity to huff in what sounded like amusement.

But even if all she wanted was to scratch his eyes out, she had to summon all her diplomacy and end this. This was too...huge for her to let it go any further.

“Listen, Andreas, if you’re suffering from belated guilt, for not being there for Petros when he needed you, and you think you should do something for his daughter when you never did a thing for him, don’t bother. Petros is dead and gone, and nothing you do or don’t do can hurt or help him anymore. If some anomalous sense of duty regarding Dora has been roused inside you, just steer it away until it dies down, as I’m sure it will as soon as this misguided mission is over and you walk out of here. Dora doesn’t need your guardianship and is perfectly safe and happy and provided for with me.”

“I have no doubt you are an exemplary aunt—”

“I am more than Dora’s aunt. I gave birth to her!”

At her cry, it was as if all the air was sucked out of the room. Something fierce reverberated from him in shock waves.

He didn’t know?

She rushed to explain. “Nadine and Petros wanted a baby so much, but it was impossible for her to get pregnant or to carry her own baby to term. So I became their surrogate for the baby they made together.” She’d wanted to help them, and also thought it would be the only way she’d ever have a baby. “Dora is my flesh and blood in every way.”

“I know.”

His quiet words lurched through her.

So what had caused that fierce reaction? Or had she imagined it? Probably. Andreas experienced no such reactions.

He went on. “Not that it makes a difference what you are to her. It’s what Petros wanted me to be to her that’s the issue here.”

Hanging on to control with all she had, she asked, “When did he even make that so-called last wish? Over the phone? In that call you now claim wasn’t to ask you to come back before he died?”

“That’s what I tried to say when you interrupted me. He didn’t ask me to come back for him, but for Dorothea.”

“Wow, this keeps getting better. He asked you that three months ago, and you just got around to it now? If Dora had you to count on, she would have been lost somewhere in the system by the time you deemed it convenient to come for her.”

“I knew she was safe with you.”

“So there was no rush, huh? And there will never be one, so you can return to wherever you’ve disappeared for the past four years, and just never come back again.”

“I can’t and won’t do that.”

“Don’t posture. It was just something Petros said.”

“It was something he wrote. In his will.”

That felt like a resounding slap across her face.

A minute passed before she stammered, “I—I can’t believe Petros wrote such a will. If he did, he must have been panicking after the accident, when he suspected from everyone’s evasions that Nadine was dead, and realized he’d die, too.” Naomi shook her head. “And it still doesn’t make sense he’d think you’d make Dora a better guardian than me.”

“He didn’t ask for me to be her guardian. He wanted me to give her my name.”

She gaped at him. He looked deadly serious. And she found herself staggering back and collapsing on the armchair he’d just vacated.

Then denial surged, pitching her forward. “This is preposterous. I know Petros loved me, but he loved you way more—God only knows why, or how he could love you at all. But how could he think that Dora would be better off with you rather than with me, who’s been her other mother all along? How could he believe you’d make a better parent for her? I could have understood it if he wanted you to be her guardian, financially, though he also knew I’d need no help in that area.”

She gulped down the agitation that threatened to suffocate her. “Though he never cared about money beyond being comfortable, maybe it was different when it came to his daughter. Maybe he wanted you to secure her future beyond anything I could afford. But to ask you to be her father? You of all people? Who never nurtured a living thing, not even a pet or a plant? You, who hates children?”

“I don’t hate children. I never said I did. I said I would never have any. If it had been my choice, I wouldn’t have. But this is no longer a matter of choice. Petros was specific in his will in what he needed me to be to Dorothea. And I will fulfill the terms of his will to the letter.”

“And I say again, don’t bother. I will have his will overturned. He was on death’s door and not of sound mind when he had it written.”

“He drew up his will seven months before the accident. As soon as Dorothea was born, in fact.”

Naomi slumped back, the world collapsing around her like a burning building. “I don’t believe you! If there is such a will at all, his attorney should have informed me of it, should have let me know of your alleged claim, since it directly clashes with mine.”

“Petros used my attorney to draw up the will, and had it delivered directly to me. He told me not to inform you of it until it was possible for me to come do it in person.”

Andreas approached her as he spoke, and she felt as if she was waiting for a tidal wave to crash on top of her and crush her.

Once in front of her, he bent smoothly. She lurched backward, unable to bear his physical closeness now, feeling she’d lose all control if he touched her.

He didn’t. He just reached for the briefcase at her feet. Straightening, he opened it, produced a file. Bending once more, he placed it, opened, on her lap.

She tore her gaze from his, dragged it to what felt like a slab of ice on her legs, freezing every spark of warmth and life. Her vision blurred on the lines, as if to escape registering the evidence of his claims.

Then her focus sharpened, and every word she read struck her to her marrow with horror.

It was true. Every word he’d said. Apart from the framework of legalese, this was a letter from Petros, in his inimitable voice. Dated two days after Dora’s birth. Signed unequivocally by him.

Suddenly, she felt she’d been stabbed through the heart. That Petros would bypass her in favor of Andreas, giving him Dora...Dora...her baby.

She closed the file with a trembling hand, shoved it to the table as if it burned her, and looked up at him, red-hot needles prickling at the back of her eyes.

Andreas was watching her intently, analyzing her reaction, documenting its every nuance. Didn’t he already know how hard this blow would hit her?

He finally exhaled. “You’re welcome to verify the will’s authenticity.”

“You mean if you wanted to fake a document, I’d have a prayer of proving it was a forgery?”

His head tilted, as if he was accepting praise. “I know for a fact no one would.”

“Spoken like an expert counterfeiter. Forge anything major lately?”

“Not lately, no.”

How blasé he was as he admitted to past and no doubt frequent fraud. But then, why not, when he was certain there was no possibility of exposure?

“But there’s no forgery this time,” he said. “This is authentic.”

She gritted her teeth. “Why should I believe you?”

“What reason do I have for doing this, if it wasn’t?”

“How should I know? No one in this world has any idea what goes on inside your mind, what drives you. For all I know you might be doing this to spite me.”

“Contrary to what you seem to believe, I never wished to spite you. If anything, I only ever wished to do the opposite. I have clearly failed.”

“Gee, I wonder why? Just how did Petros not only love and trust you, but will his daughter to you?”

“So you believe this is his will.”

“I’d give anything for it not to be, but yes, I believe it.” She dropped her head in her hands, feeling it would snap off her neck if she didn’t. “The only reason I can think why Petros might have done this is that he thought it a precaution that would never come into play. He was your age, had every reason to think he’d live another fifty years.”

“Actually, Petros discovered he had an inoperable heart condition two years after he married Nadine.”

Naomi jerked her head up. “What?”

“Once he was diagnosed, he believed his father and grandfather had it, and it was why they died at around forty. Fearing the condition ran in his father’s family, afflicting males only, when he and Nadine decided to resort to IVF through surrogacy, they ensured the gender of the baby to avoid the possibility of passing on the problem. He actually didn’t want to have a child at all after he discovered his condition, hating to think he’d die and leave Nadine and his baby prematurely. But she wanted one so much, he had to do everything in his power to give her one. You know how impossible it was not to give Nadine what she wanted.”

“But...but he never told her of his condition. If he did, she might have never persisted in having a baby.”

“He did tell her. She just didn’t tell you. She insisted that his condition might never threaten his life, and she wasn’t letting it stop them from living their shared life to the fullest. She turned out to be right. It wasn’t his condition that ended up killing him, but a drunk driver.”

Naomi found herself on her feet again, mortification at being left in the dark tightening her every muscle until she felt they’d snap. “I can’t believe she kept this from me!”

Andreas took a step closer. “Don’t feel bad that the kid sister you believed shared everything with you kept something of this magnitude from you. I believe she made the right choice. By not telling you, she was refusing to acknowledge the whole thing, refusing to let it poison their daily lives. She felt she’d imposed on you enough to solve their conception problems, didn’t want to burden you with a dread she’d decided to ignore. And she was right again. By pretending his condition didn’t exist, she managed to give them that full life they craved together. While they lived.”

Naomi stared at him, feeling as if she were plummeting into an alternate universe. She’d never heard Andreas talk so much. That was a week’s worth of words in his book.

But it was the words themselves that bewildered her. And that there was an actual expression on his face, in his voice, as he’d said them. As if he was concerned, was trying to ameliorate her shock. Which was the most improbable thing in this whole situation.

“Is there more?” she finally whispered. “I’d rather you hit me over the head with it all at once and get it done with, rather than prolong the ordeal.”

His shrug said he had nothing more to relate. She didn’t believe that. There was more, and he knew it all, but would tell her only what suited him.

But even in what he’d deemed to tell her, there were too many question marks. “So Petros believed he might not live long enough to be Dora’s father, but there was no reason he’d fear for Nadine’s life, too. How could he think of willing you to be Dora’s father when her mother was around?”

“He wanted Dorothea to have more than just her mother. He wanted her to have a family.”

“He didn’t consider me family?”

“He thought it would be too much for you, being all the family Nadine and Dorothea had.”

“I was always all the family Nadine had. And she was all my family, too, as Dora is now. How could he have thought I’d find it too much? What the hell did he think he was doing, deciding what I’m capable of, and making decisions for me?”

Andreas’s gaze grew more serene, as if to counteract her rising agitation, and she wanted to hit him over the head with something. That file, preferably.

“Petros knew his wife, knew how dependent she was on you all your lives, the dependence she only partially transferred to him when they got married. He feared if he died, Nadine would be too destroyed to care for Dorothea properly. He believed she couldn’t bring up a baby alone and would lean on you completely. He also knew you would have let her, would have supported her and Dorothea fully, at the expense of your own life. He didn’t think it fair to you.”

“Did he tell you all that?”

“Yes.”

Naomi pressed trembling hands to her eyes as her voice quavered. “And he considered you the one qualified to carry Nadine’s and Dora’s burden? He thought you were equipped to deal with a bereaved woman and a fatherless baby? That you can become the first’s pillar of strength and the second’s stand-in father? Are you sure it was his heart that had something wrong with it and not his brain?”

“I didn’t argue with him about my eligibility for the role he wanted me to play in the event of his death. I always did, and will always do, whatever he wanted, no questions asked.”

“Are you out of your mind then, thinking you can do what he asked you to do? You’re not equipped to feel anything for anyone, let alone a baby, and a girl at that. And wait a minute! He wanted you to be her father, so she would have a family? How are you supposed to provide her with that?”

“As you pointed out earlier, I wasn’t grown in a lab. I do have a family. A big one.”

“A family you have nothing to do with, and have never been a part of. A family in name, but never in reality. A family you didn’t even inform that you got married and divorced.”

“For Petros’s sake, for his daughter’s, I’m willing to change that.”

Feeling his calm, ready answers singeing her insides with oppression and frustration, she raised both hands, needing to abort this conversation and its possible catastrophic outcomes. “You don’t have to go to the trouble of establishing a relationship with your family to give Dora one. Dora already has a family. Me, Hannah, Hannah’s family, my friends and colleagues. She will grow up surrounded by people who love her, and she certainly doesn’t need someone like you in her life, someone who knows nothing about emotions, nor cares anything about other people, let alone children.”

As her last words rang in the room, he exhaled. “Are you done? I can stand here and listen to you enumerating my fatal flaws as long as you wish.”

“How kind of you. Your every word is just another display of the depth of your insensitivity. But I’m done. And you’re gone. Take that will with you and forget that Petros ever wrote it. Forget all about us.”

“I can’t. And I won’t. Petros was my only friend, and his wishes are sacred to me. I will carry out his last will and testament, Naomi. There’s nothing you can do to stop me.”

“Don’t be too sure about that. I don’t care if that will is authentic. I will contest it. I will contest Petros’s mental state at the time he made it. He thought he would die, and the validity of his decisions while under that conviction is questionable. And you can bet I will contest you. Any court would take one look at you and realize you’re not father material. No judge would give you custody of Dora over me.”

“Then you have no idea how family courts work. I am far richer and more powerful than you, than almost anyone. There’s no contest. Any court would give me custody.”

“We’ll just have to see if they’ll consider money and status over the proof of existing emotional bonds and stability and previous healthy relationships.”

“If it comes down to comparing pros and cons, I have what would tip the scale in my favor. Dorothea’s father’s direct endorsement. Do you have any such thing from your sister?”

That had Naomi’s heart stopping for a terrible beat, before it detonated with a gush of dread. They’d never even thought of any provisions for a situation like this.

Even after Nadine was gone in the blink of an eye, Naomi had never thought her claim to Dora would ever be contested, let alone in jeopardy. And for the rival claim to be Andreas’s! It was so preposterous she could almost believe this whole visit was a vivid nightmare.

But she would fight him to her last breath. Not because he would be snatching away the one thing she had to live for, but for Dora herself.

She told him so. “You might be able to trump my claim to Dora, but did you think what you’ll do once she’s yours? You, the ultimate example of emotional dysfunction? Dora would be better off in an orphanage than with you.”

In answer, he bent, swept the file off the table, and calmly put it back into the briefcase. “Again, Naomi, your opinion of me is irrelevant. As far as I am concerned, Dorothea is a Sarantos already. The rest is just formalities. Ones we can conclude with minimum conflict, for Dorothea’s sake. Though she’s very young, I’m sure she’d sense the discord if you turn this into a needless struggle.”

Pivoting, he walked away now that it suited him, leaving destruction in his wake, as he always did.

Before he disappeared from the room that now felt like a battlefield, he drove icicles into her heart. “If you choose to do it the hard way, I’m ready for as long and as costly a battle as it would take. One you’ll end up losing, anyway.”

Four

“There’s no doubt, Ms. Sinclair.”

Naomi stared at the immaculate man, the regret on his face and in his voice making her heart give another painful thud against her ribs, before spiraling into her gut.

“Are you absolutely certain, Mr. Davidson?”

“Positive. Mr. Sarantos’s claim is far stronger. He has a bona fide will from Dorothea’s father, and you have nothing of equal strength in your favor. With his being who he is, no matter what you cite as your superior qualification as a parent or that you are her surrogate mother, his claim will have precedence. The one thing we could do is petition for you to remain a regular presence in the child’s life, but that would also be at Mr. Sarantos’s and the judge’s discretion. Though I have no doubt we would get you generous visitation rights, as I don’t see why Mr. Sarantos would contest them, since there’s no dispute as there would be in a custody case after a divorce.”

A scoff almost escaped Naomi. If only Mr. Davidson knew that with Andreas, anything was a dispute. He shredded his opponents on principle, even if he had nothing to gain by it. She had their divorce as solid proof of how vicious he could be, just because he could.

But her attorney had no idea, because he hadn’t handled her divorce battle with Andreas. His daughter, Amara, had. Amara had been a good friend before becoming an attorney, and Naomi had trusted her to keep the divorce proceedings a total secret. As Andreas’s own attorney had, since there hadn’t been a word about their marriage or its dissolution in any media outlet. Not that she was about to enlighten Mr. Davidson now. At this point she felt any more information might be fuel that would burn any bridges to having Dora in her life at all.

She let out a shaky exhalation. “So in a fight, I don’t stand a chance of keeping Dora?”

“As only her aunt, and with the will you describe, and with Mr. Sarantos’s enormous influence, regretfully, no.”

She’d already more than half known that, was here hoping against hope. Hearing the words still felt like a burning coal sliding down her throat.

Feeling she was pushing the lump of agony back out, she whispered, “Any advice?”

“Just this. Keep this out of court if you possibly can. Your best hope is not to antagonize Mr. Sarantos, but to appeal to him. His goodwill is all you can count on.”

* * *

In an hour’s time, she was staring in the mirror in her building’s elevator.

Her reflection looked worse than what had looked back at her after she’d left Andreas four years ago. Or even after Nadine’s death. Her complexion was mottled, the blue of her eyes was muddy, even the luster in her blond hair was gone. Two people who’d met her on the way from her attorney had been so alarmed they’d both thought she was ill. One had tried to convince her to let him take her to the emergency room.

The ping announcing her floor lurched through her, had her stumbling out of the elevator. At her apartment door, she stopped, her hand clenching the keys until it ached.

The delightful baby sounds coming from inside, which always lifted her heart even at its most leaden, only sank talons of misery in it now. It was unimaginable, unbearable, unsurvivable—the thought of losing Dora. A life without her constantly there, hers to love, to take care of and to worry about, wasn’t worth living.

Leaning her clammy forehead on the cool wood, Naomi drew in a ragged breath, trying to suppress the tears that threatened to pour. She had to get her act together, couldn’t walk in looking as if her world had ended. It had disturbed Dora when Naomi had been unable to control her anguish after Nadine’s death, and she’d been only seven months old then. Now she was much more aware, and supremely sensitive to moods. Whenever a wave of desolation swept Naomi, it got to Dora bad. She couldn’t expose her baby to her current condition.

God, this was all her fault. Everything had snowballed from the moment she’d allowed her desire for Andreas to overrule her logic and self-respect. And again, when she hadn’t escaped with minimum damage that first time she’d walked away.