by Marinelli, Carol; Hayward, Jennifer; Stephens, Susan; Anderson, Natalie
And there was another way of looking at it. Damon might not want to know. What respectable billionaire would want to hear that he had a child with the daughter of a convicted felon? Would Damon believe Thea was his child? The shame of her father’s crime had tainted Lizzie. Sometimes she believed she would never throw it off. That same shame taunted her now, with the thought that even if Damon were prepared to accept that Thea was his daughter he might not entrust her to Lizzie’s care?
Whatever the consequences, her course was clear. She must first tell Thea, and then Damon.
‘We’re down,’ he said, startling her.
‘Yes…right…’ she said, glancing around to see the cabin had settled on its stand. ‘What a relief.’
‘Vertigo can be devastating, can’t it?’ Damon commented, but his look was shrewd and it stripped her lie bare.
They didn’t stay at the funfair. By mutual silent consent, they headed back to the bike.
‘Where did you live when you left home after the court case?’ Damon asked as the noise of the fair began to fade into the background.
‘On a park bench,’ Lizzie said bluntly, thinking back.
‘I’m being serious,’ Damon insisted.
‘And so am I,’ she admitted. ‘I spent the first night on a park bench—well, most of it…until it started raining.’
‘And then?’ His face had tightened into a grim mask.
Lizzie thought back to her first and thankfully her only terrifying, freezing night as a homeless person. She had quickly figured out that she must find a place to live fast or, quite simply, her appearance and the fact that she couldn’t wash properly would make respectable people turn her away. With no money, that had meant finding a job—any job.
‘I got a job the next morning,’ she remembered. ‘As a cleaner. I was good at that. I’d had plenty of experience,’ she said dryly. ‘My stepmother was too mean to pay anyone to do her cleaning, but she had me and she was very particular. It stood me in good stead,’ she admitted.
‘I can imagine.’
Could he imagine the woman who had insisted Lizzie must clean the floors on her hands and knees, rather than with a mop, and take a toothbrush to the corners of the room? Could he imagine that same woman making Lizzie do it all over again, after her stepmother had thoughtlessly trampled on the floor in her muddy boots?
‘Actually, the cleaning jobs I managed to get were easy after my work at home,’ she reflected.
‘And where do you live now?’
‘Haven’t you asked Stavros?’
Damon dipped his chin to stare into her eyes. ‘That’s not fair.’
‘You’re right,’ she agreed as they drew to a halt in front of the bike. ‘Stavros has been nothing but kind to me.’
‘Whereas I haven’t?’
‘You’ve only just come back to London. It remains to be seen,’ she said bluntly.
‘What makes you think I’d want to investigate your life?’
‘Nothing,’ she said quickly—too quickly. ‘I have a small bedsit, if you’re interested.’
‘I am,’ Damon insisted as he picked up her helmet.
‘I know that look,’ she said.
He frowned. ‘What look?’
‘The look that says, She grew up like a princess and her fall has been swift and hard. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen that same look over the years. But you should know that I’ve never been happier than I am now.’
That was the truth, Lizzie reflected, calming down. She had a daughter who loved her, and jobs that paid the rent. And, yes, it was tough sometimes, but she had never once fallen into debt.
‘Okay?’ she challenged Damon as he handed over her helmet. ‘Are we done with the third degree now?’
‘We’re done,’ he conceded.
‘I think we should talk about you for a change—’
‘No,’ he said flatly, startling her into silence with the force of his response. ‘I’m a very private man.’
‘Then perhaps you should understand how I feel.’
Damon regarded her coolly. ‘Aren’t you going to get on the bike?’
‘Shall I salute first?’
He gave her a look that might make some people blink, but it only made Lizzie more determined to stand up to him.
This had definitely been an interesting encounter, Lizzie concluded as they roared back to the city. Neither of them was exactly soft or malleable. She had a daughter to protect, which gave her mama tiger claws as well as an iron will, while Damon was the hardest man she knew by some margin. For all his outward charm, which he could turn on when it suited him, Damon Gavros was rock through and through.
He drew to a halt outside the restaurant. ‘Drink?’ he suggested as she removed her helmet.
‘I don’t think so, but thank you—it’s been an interesting evening.’
‘One drink,’ he insisted, getting off the bike.
In spite of her reservations, she had to admit that it was a pleasant change to be this side of the tastefully lit bar. Stavros had peeped around the kitchen door and had then retired with a broad smile on his face. That in itself was worth the sacrifice of sitting with Damon. All the drinks were on the house, the barman insisted, but Damon still paid.
‘So,’ he said, glancing at her over his bottle of beer. ‘Tell me more about your stepmother, Cinderella.’
‘Less of that,’ she warned. ‘There’s nothing needy about me.’
Damon’s lips pressed down, almost as if he agreed. ‘So…she sounds like a fascinating character?’ he pressed.
‘Luminous,’ Lizzie said dryly.
She would credit her stepmother with one thing: she’d helped Lizzie to face reality fast. Before her stepmother had arrived on the scene Lizzie would have been the first to admit she’d been spoiled. She might have reached adulthood with no concept of responsibility if she hadn’t been thrown out of the house, had her faith in her father destroyed, her dreams crushed, and discovered she was pregnant—all in one and the same month. That would have been enough to wake the dead. And she certainly wasn’t spoiled now. Her life was devoted to Thea.
‘I don’t want to talk about me. It’s your turn,’ she said.
‘Maybe it’s time for me to go,’ Damon countered.
‘Please yourself.’ Burying her face in her glass of water, she sucked on the straw, refusing to say any more about a time when life had seemed to stretch ahead of her in an endless stream of promise—promise that had turned out to be fantasy.
Her father had appeared to have money to burn when she was young. Now she knew it had been other people’s money he was burning—Gavros money, mostly. Nothing made him happier than lavishing money on his darling daughter, her father had told her as they’d planned one treat after another.
He’d been showing off to her stepmother, she realised now; hoping to catch another big fish like Lizzie’s mother, the heiress. The joke of it was, the woman he’d chosen to bring home as his second wife had been a chancer like him, captivated by his apparent wealth.
Thinking her father was lonely, Lizzie had welcomed her stepmother to begin with. She had wanted nothing more than to see her father happy again. It hadn’t taken long to find out how wrong she could be.
‘You told me that night that you loved to paint,’ Damon reminded her. ‘Another dream down?’ he suggested.
‘I don’t have time to dream now.’
‘That sounds dull.’
So dull he stood up to go.
‘I’ll take you home,’ he offered.
‘No need,’ Lizzie insisted quickly. ‘Stavros arranges a cab for staff when we stay late.’
Damon nodded his head. ‘Okay. Another time.’
Or maybe not. She wasn’t sure she could live through this t
ension again. Wanting someone and knowing they were out of reach for ever was a torture she could well do without.
‘You must enjoy heading up the family business,’ she observed, for the sake of maintaining polite chit-chat as she walked him to the door. ‘The press refers to you as a billionaire—’
‘I hope I’m more than that.’
She could have cut off her tongue. The way Damon was staring at her made her wonder if he thought she was a mercenary chip off her father’s swindling old block. There was a lot more to him than money and sexual charisma—she knew that—but everything was in such a muddle in her head she couldn’t get the words out straight.
The newspapers often referred to Damon Gavros as ‘educated muscle’, with the recommendation that no one should even dream of crossing him—which was a great thought to say goodnight on.
His phone rang and he turned away to answer, putting a hand up, indicating two minutes as they stood outside the door.
‘Business call,’ he explained succinctly when he cut the line. ‘So, I guess I’ll see you again sometime…’
After all her prevaricating about seeing him at all, she now felt rocked to her foundations as Damon mounted the Harley and roared away. She had to see him again. She must. She stared after him as he disappeared into the night. That was Damon. A massive presence when he was around, and then gone so quickly it was as if he had never been there at all.
She did well to rely on no one but herself, Lizzie thought as she turned back to the restaurant.
But could there be a more mesmeric sight than Damon Gavros astride a Harley?
Damon Gavros naked…?
CHAPTER FOUR
LIZZIE, LIZZIE, LIZZIE… What are you hiding?
As he opened the door to his Thames-side penthouse flat Damon was still brooding. It had been shock enough to see Lizzie Montgomery again. To discover he could still read her as he had eleven years ago was even more unsettling—because he knew there was something she wasn’t telling him.
He’d called in at the apartment to pick up his overnight bag. It was his father’s seventieth birthday in a couple of weeks and his PA had called to remind him that Damon’s go-ahead was still required for number of arrangements. They included a rather special youth orchestra from London that had been booked to play at his father’s birthday party.
Too many loose ends had been generated by his absence abroad, Damon reflected as the driver took his bag. Lizzie had briefly derailed his plans, but they were back on track now. He’d like to see her again, but she’d have to fly out to the island. He’d fix it with Stavros, and his PA would make the arrangements.
That was how simple things were for him. He saw no reason for them to change.
* * *
As usual, Lizzie could hardly get a word in. She was meeting Thea for their daily snatched chat over brunch in a café just across the road from the music college, and today Thea was particularly excited.
‘The new Gavros building is right next door to the music conservatoire,’ Thea was enthusing. ‘You should see it. Everything’s been changed around and made super deluxe since that boring insurance company owned it.’
And the Gavros building was as dangerously close to the music conservatoire as it could possibly be Lizzie realised as she called for the bill. She hated it that the tension generated by the Gavros name was threatening to distract her from this precious time with Thea, but she had to find out more.
‘You’ve been inside the Gavros building?’ Her heart hammered nineteen to the dozen as she waited for Thea’s answer.
‘Of course!’ Thea enthused, sucking gloopy milk from her fingers. ‘We had to audition for the man—’
Lizzie’s heart dived into her throat. ‘What man? Was he tall and dark?’
‘No. Short, fat and bald,’ Thea said—to Lizzie’s relief. ‘He said he worked for the Gavros family. We’re playing at a birthday party in Greece, on an island owned by the Gavros family.’
The Gavros family?
Thea glanced up as Lizzie inhaled sharply. Lizzie quickly distracted Thea with talk of new clothes. ‘You’ll need a sunhat, a swimming costume, and perhaps a couple of sundresses—What?’ She laughed as Thea mimed thrusting her fingers down her throat whilst gargling theatrically.
‘Sundresses are for old ladies,’ Thea insisted. ‘And you need new clothes more than me,’ she added with engaging honesty. She frowned. ‘You are coming to Greece to hear us play, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am,’ Lizzie confirmed, her stomach clenching with alarm as she thought about it. ‘I haven’t missed a concert yet, have I?’
‘Good.’ Thea relaxed.
Lizzie’s concerns about the Gavros family would have to be put to one side. She’d take any job to pay her way. Practical considerations—like where the money for her airfare would come from—were secondary to Lizzie’s determination that she would do whatever it took to support Thea.
‘Do you know whose birthday party it is?’ she asked casually as they went up to the counter to pay the bill.
‘Some old gentleman, I think,’ Thea said vaguely, clearly not too interested.
It didn’t have to be Damon’s father. Thea’s grandfather.
Lizzie’s stomach clenched tight. Sucking in a breath, she jumped straight in. ‘You know we never talk about your father—’
‘Because we don’t need to,’ Thea cut across her, frowning. ‘And I don’t want to,’ she added stubbornly. ‘Why do I need a father when I’ve got you?’
‘It might be nice to—’
‘Ha!’ Thea exclaimed dismissively. ‘We don’t even know where he is. He’s probably on the other side of the planet.’
‘What if I did know?’
‘But you don’t,’ Thea insisted. ‘And if you talked to my friends at school about parents at war you wouldn’t be so keen to look for him either.’
‘Not all marriages are like that.’
‘Just most of them,’ Thea said confidently. ‘And we’re happy, aren’t we? Why would you want anything to change?’
‘But what if things did change?’ Lizzie tried gently.
‘I’d change them back again.’
Thea sounded as confident as Lizzie had once been. And now their precious time together was up, Lizzie realised. She had to go to work and Thea had to go to school.
‘We’ll talk again,’ she promised.
‘In Greece,’ Thea reminded her.
‘In Greece,’ Lizzie confirmed as she raised her umbrella to shelter them both.
* * *
Organising his father’s party was a welcome change from Damon’s usual work. He was enjoying it far more than he’d expected to. The high spirits of the volunteers was heartening. Everyone wanted to do their bit for the man who had done so much for them. Damon’s father was universally loved. He’d brought prosperity to the island, and now he’d retired and passed the baton on, Damon was determined to do the same for those who had remained loyal to his father.
They would do more events like this, he decided. Mixing with good people had reminded him that not everyone was a fraudster or a gold-digger.
As he’d learned during the course of his meteoric rise, massive wealth brought vultures flocking, and they came in all shapes and sizes. Which was the only reminder he needed that what he’d seen in Lizzie eleven years ago had been the possibility for something more. He looked forward to his plans where Lizzie was concerned coming to fruition. And Stavros had proved a staunch ally.
The setting for his father’s concert couldn’t be bettered, he concluded as he walked across the sugar sand beach. An open-air stage had been erected on the playing fields behind the school where the youth orchestra were staying. The orchestra was already here and rehearsing and, like everyone else within earshot, he’d been ent
ranced by their music.
One particular young livewire, with black bubbly curls and mischievous eyes, had just played the most extraordinary solo. She was the young violin prodigy everyone was talking about. She wasn’t self-conscious or inflated by her success, as she might have been. She just loved her music—as Thea had told him.
He smiled as he remembered her explaining, ‘Thea’s a Greek name. I’m a bit Greek.’
He’d laughed. ‘I’m a bit Greek too,’ he’d told her.
‘No. You’re all Greek,’ she’d argued, staring up at him intently. ‘I can tell that from the colour of your eyes.’
‘Is that such a bad thing?’
‘No. It’s a very good thing,’ she’d assured him. ‘My mother’s half-Greek, and my grandmother was all-Greek. I’m a bit Greek because I choose to be. You should meet my mother,’ she’d added, squinting against the sun as she studied his face.
‘Should I?’ Another matchmaker, he’d thought, groaning inwardly.
But this matchmaker was different, he thought, remembering Thea’s dramatically mournful expression as she’d explained, ‘My mother’s young, and very beautiful, and she’s all alone.’
‘Tragic,’ he’d agreed, playing along. ‘But I’m sure that if she’s anything like you she won’t be alone for long.’
After which he’d thought he should extricate himself as diplomatically as possible. Thea might have the makings of a great matchmaker, but he wasn’t looking for a match.
* * *
Stavros had saved Lizzie. His cousin had a beach restaurant on the island owned by the Gavros family, and his cousin just happened to be desperate for more staff…according to Stavros.
Another coincidence? Or not?
Lizzie had known she couldn’t afford to be picky when Stavros had adopted a dreamy expression as he’d described the island of his birth, adding, ‘You haven’t heard from Damon, I suppose?’