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The driven quality in his unfinished words made her shake her head in puzzled confusion.
‘You want to know what happens next?’
Diverted, she nodded.
‘The plan is for me to take you to Tackyntha via Athens, where you will meet your grandfather before his next surgery.’ The doctors had agreed with the utmost reluctance to Alekis’s plan to meet them at the airport, and then only after he had agreed to have a full medical team with him.
She shook her head. ‘Tackyntha?’
‘It is your grandfather’s home, an island.’
‘Where my mother lived.’
‘I presume so.’
‘So, you want me to go to the hospital.’
The obvious solution, but Alekis was determined that when he met his granddaughter he would not be lying in a hospital bed. ‘At the airport.’
‘And what if I say no?’
‘I’d say fair enough, though it’s a shame because your cause sounded pretty deserving.’
‘Do you work for him?’
His lips twitched. ‘He did offer, but, no, I do not work for Alekis.’
‘Does he think you can buy love? Buy me?’ Her words had an angry, forlorn sound.
‘That is not in my field of expertise.’
‘What is your area of expertise?’
‘Well, it’s not babysitting reluctant heiresses.’
She responded to the barely concealed disdain in his observation with an equally snooty glare of her own. ‘I do not require a babysitter, thank you.’
‘Let me rephrase it. You need to learn the rules of the society you’re about to enter.’
She pounced angrily on the refined definition. ‘So that I don’t embarrass my grandfather, you mean! Oh, to hell with this. My home is here. I’m needed here.’
‘Really? You already told me that you are not irreplaceable. That you have a talented second-in-command whose task, I think, would be a lot easier if your refuge had financial security. Besides, being an heiress does not make you rich in the present, but you will be a target for shady gold-diggers and tabloid journalists, which is where I come in.’
‘So, what are you—a bodyguard or a babysitter?’
‘I am a man at the end of his patience,’ he intoned grimly. ‘Look, the options are you flounce off or give me the details so that I can arrange a bank transfer into your refuge’s accounts.’
‘And what do I have to do?’
‘Come and say hello to a dying old man.’ For starters, he added silently, before reminding himself that her future and her happiness were not his business.
Who said be careful what you wished for? Maybe, she reflected grimly, someone who had dreamt of finding a family only to have it feel... How did she feel?
Unravelling the confused tangle of emotions she was struggling with, Kat knew that a dream come true wasn’t meant to feel this way. ‘So, who would he have left his money to if he hadn’t decided to make up for a quarter of a century and look for me?’
‘Me, I would imagine. However, you can relax. I don’t need it.’
Which explained the arrogant manner and the air of self-importance.
