The Secret Kept from the Greek

by Susan Stephens

  Tamping down her alarm, Lizzie accepted that they’d both changed. She was more savvy, and better able to handle Damon.

  ‘Why don’t we get out of here?’ he suggested.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ She looked at him in surprise, thinking she must have misheard him.

  ‘I’m not keen on holding our reunion here, are you?’

  His stare seared through her, and for a moment she didn’t know what to say. The thought of going anywhere with Damon Gavros was alarming.

  * * *

  Damon could understand Lizzie’s surprise at seeing him. Seeing her had been a shock for him too—especially finding her so changed. He was keen to know what had been happening to Lizzie over the past eleven years, and why on earth she was working here.

  ‘I’m sure Stavros can spare you for an hour or so,’ he insisted.

  Confident that Lizzie would follow him, he was already halfway to the door.

  ‘I can’t,’ she said flatly, bringing him to a halt. ‘As you can see...’ She spread her hands wide in the ugly rubber gloves when he turned around. ‘I’m working.’

  It had never occurred to him that she might say no. ‘Stavros?’ he queried, turning his attention to her boss, who was hovering at the back of the kitchen.

  ‘Of course,’ Stavros insisted with enthusiasm. ‘Lizzie deserves a break. She can join you at your table. My chefs will prepare a feast—’

  ‘I’d rather not,’ Lizzie interrupted.

  Damon had caught a glimpse of shabby jeans and a faded top beneath Lizzie’s overall and could understand her reservations. Stavros’s restaurant was seriously high-end, but now they’d met again he was determined to find out everything about her, and bury the hatchet so many years after her father’s trial.

  ‘We don’t have to eat here—somewhere casual?’ he suggested. ‘Another time, Stavros,’ he was quick to add, with a reassuring smile for his hovering host. ‘I’d like the chance to fill in the past eleven years, wouldn’t you?’ he said, turning to Lizzie.

  She gave a nervous laugh. This was so unlike the Lizzie he’d known that he felt instantly suspicious. ‘Unless your eleven years includes a husband or a fiancé?’

  ‘No,’ she said, lifting her chin to regard him steadily. ‘It doesn’t.’

  ‘Then, do you have a coat?’

  ‘Yes, but—’

  ‘An hour or so of your time?’ He shrugged. ‘What harm can that do?’

  Stavros intervened before she could reply. ‘How can you refuse?’ Stavros asked Lizzie, with a warm smile and an expansive gesture so typical of the genial restaurateur. ‘I’ll get someone to take over your work. Go now,’ he chivvied, ‘Lizzie never takes time off,’ he confided to Damon. ‘Half an hour for old times’ sake?’ he urged Lizzie, doing Damon’s work for him.

  Short of being rude to both of them, there was only one thing Lizzie could do.

  ‘I’ll get my coat,’ she said.

  * * *

  She went to the staff bathroom and sluiced her face in cold water. Staring at herself in the mirror above the sink, she wondered where eleven years had gone. Did it matter? Damon Gavros was back. She had to handle it.

  At least Stavros was delighted. He was always trying to fix her up with a man. Billionaire and pot-washer? Even Stavros couldn’t make that one fly, though Damon seemed happy enough. That had better not have been a smile of triumph on his lips. Lips that had kissed her into oblivion, Lizzie remembered, trying not to think back to the most significant night of her life.

  Her heart jumped when she walked out of the restroom to find Damon relaxed back against the wall. Had he always been so hot?

  Yes, she thought, smiling politely as he insisted on helping her with her coat.

  To his credit, his expression didn’t falter, though her coat, with its plucked threads and plastic buttons, and a collar that had already been bald when she’d bought it in the thrift shop, was miles too big for her. She’d just needed something warm, while Damon’s coat had probably been custom-made. It was a soft alpaca overcoat, in a blue so dark it was almost black.

  With a cashmere scarf slung casually around his neck, he looked like the master of the sexual universe. He had to be thinking, What the hell has happened to Lizzie Montgomery?

  Life. Life had happened to Lizzie Montgomery, Lizzie reflected as Damon held the door. And life changed people. For the better, she could only hope, in both their cases.

  ‘I’m driving myself tonight,’ Damon explained as he stopped by the passenger door of a fabulous brand-new black Bentley with a personalised number plate: DG1.

  ‘Of course you are,’ she teased in a pale imitation of her old self. ‘Chauffeur’s night off?’ she suggested.

  Damon chose not to answer as he opened the passenger door. The scent of money and leather assailed her the moment she sank into, rather than perched on, the most incredibly comfortable pale cream kidskin seat.

  ‘This is lovely,’ she observed, looking around as Damon slid in beside her.

  She didn’t want him to think she was so downtrodden and disadvantaged that she was overwhelmed by his obvious wealth. She’d been bold when they’d first met, and now, in spite of how she must appear to Damon, she had everything she could possibly need. He might have made millions, and she might be poor, but there were more ways than one to feel a deep sense of satisfaction with life and she’d got that.

  When Damon started the engine it purred—in contrast to the jangling conflict inside Lizzie. Pulling smoothly away from the kerb, he joined the sluggish London evening traffic. This was how the rich travelled, she concluded. They didn’t bounce along, crushed on every side in an over-full rush hour bus. They glided in their opulent private space, enjoying classical music playing softly in the background.

  ‘Do you enjoy your job?’

  The blunt question jolted Lizzie back to the unlikely reality of being cocooned inside the most luxurious vehicle in London with the world’s most eligible bachelor.

  ‘Yes,’ she confirmed, lifting her chin. ‘I have great friends at the restaurant—especially Stavros. I’m exactly where I want to be, working alongside genuine people who care for me as I care for them.’

  Damon seemed taken aback for a moment, and then he said, ‘Hungry?’

  She was—and for more than food, she realised as Damon flashed a glance her way. She hadn’t felt like this in eleven years, but he only had to look at her for her to remember how it had felt to be in his arms. Which was a complete waste of good thinking time, she accepted, drawing her shabby coat closer around her trembling body.

  ‘Surprising even myself, I’m hungry too,’ he admitted.

  ‘You can take me back.’

  ‘Now, why would I do that?’

  She stared down in shock as his hand covered hers. He’d better not be feeling sorry for her.

  He drew the Bentley to a halt on the Embankment running alongside the river Thames. By the time she had released her seat belt he was opening her door. It was such a romantic view it took her attention for a moment.

  ‘Burger or hot dog?’ he said.

  She almost laughed. Perhaps it was just as well he’d shaken her away from the romantic sight of the Palace of Westminster and stately Big Ben. It wouldn’t do to lose focus around Damon. ‘Hot dog, please.’

  ‘Ketchup and mustard?’

  ‘Why not be lavish?’ she said.

  He gave her a look and turned away, allowing her to take in the powerful spread of his shoulders as he started chatting easily to the guy behind the food stand not far from where they had parked. Damon had always got on well with everyone—but how would he handle what she had to tell him?

  Not yet, she decided. She would have to know this older, shrewder Damon better before she could tell him everything. She had to know what made
him tick and how he lived his life.

  As he handed the hot dog over their fingers touched and a quiver of awareness ran through her. It seemed that however hard she tried to remain detached, so she could think straight, her body insisted on going its own way. And her body wanted Damon as much as it ever had.

  ‘Thinking back?’ he said, reading her mind.

  Thinking back to when she had been an eighteen-year-old virgin with nothing certain in her future except that it would change? Yes—unfortunately. ‘I’m thinking maybe I have too much sauce?’ she suggested.

  ‘You always had too much sauce,’ Damon observed.

  She decided to ignore the jibe. Damon was standing under a street lamp, leaning back against it, and the spotlight suited him. He was so dark and swarthy—so compelling in every way. The shadowed light only enhanced his sculpted features.

  ‘I didn’t realise how hungry I was,’ she said, biting down hard on the delicious snack in an attempt to distract herself from Damon’s brazen physicality. And, truthfully, it was a treat to have someone other than Stavros buy her a meal and to care a damn if she enjoyed it.

  ‘Where did you disappear to after the trial?’ he asked with a frown.

  ‘Where did I “disappear to”?’ she repeated thoughtfully.

  Good question. Not to a loving home—that was for sure.

  ‘Who’ll support me now?’ That had been Lizzie’s stepmother’s first question when Lizzie had returned home to find her suitcases waiting in the hall.

  She should have known what was happening, but she had rushed up to her bedroom, thinking to bury her grief in her pillows, only to find her bedroom had been cleared. She had wasted a few precious minutes railing against fate before pulling herself together and accepting that this was her life now, and she’d better get on with it.

  On her way out of the house she’d found her stepmother in her father’s study, going through the drawers of his desk. ‘I guess we’ll both have to work,’ Lizzie had said.

  Her stepmother’s expression had twisted into something ugly. ‘I don’t work,’ she’d said haughtily. ‘And if you think you can persuade me to let you stay, you’re wasting your time. You’re one expense I can’t afford.’

  That had been the last time they’d seen each other, and it had taken Lizzie’s stepmother less than a week to replace Lizzie’s father with a richer man.

  She decided on a heavily edited version for Damon. ‘It wasn’t all bad,’ she said, thinking back. ‘The shock of finding myself homeless was good for me. I had to stand on my own two feet, and I found I enjoyed doing it.’

  ‘Sacrificing your dreams?’ He frowned.

  ‘Sometimes dreams have to wait,’ Lizzie said frankly. She’d done more than survive. She’d thrived, and had proved herself capable of far more than she’d imagined.

  ‘You’ve got ketchup on your chin—’

  She sucked in a fast breath as he wiped it off. His touch was still electric.

  ‘Next time I’ll take you out for a proper meal—’

  ‘Next time?’ she queried. ‘So you’re back for good?’ Her heart drummed a tattoo as she thought about all the implications of that.

  He chose not to answer her question. ‘Stavros says you work too hard. You have to take a break sometime,’ he insisted.

  What else had Stavros told him? she wondered. She had so much to lose. Damon had been absent from her life for a long time, but he was still a core part of her existence. He didn’t know it yet, but he could rip her world apart on a whim.

  ‘Soda or water?’ he asked.

  ‘Water, please.’ Her throat was tight and dry.

  As Damon turned to speak to the vendor she thought back to her first deception on their night together, when she’d been a virgin pretending not to be, embarking on a romantic adventure with a handsome Greek—or so she’d thought. Her life had been in chaos at the time. She hadn’t been thinking straight. Hated by her stepmother, she’d been desperate for her father to notice her.

  She’d failed.

  She’d almost failed with Damon too. Clinging to him, begging him to take her so she could forget her wretched home life, she had exclaimed with shock as he’d taken her, and he’d pulled back. It had taken all her feminine wiles to persuade him to continue.

  Of course she was on the pill, she’d insisted.

  He’d used protection anyway.

  Belt and braces? she’d teased him.

  Damon had proved to be a master of seduction, a master of pleasure, and they’d made love all night. But there had been chances to talk too, and it had been then that they had discovered a closeness that neither of them had expected. Surprising both of them, she was sure, they had enjoyed each other’s company.

  ‘Let’s walk.’

  She glanced up as Damon took the top off her bottle of water. ‘I’d like that.’

  A walk promised a welcome break from the past. She could take in the majesty of London instead...that was if she could stop looking at Damon.

  Life and responsibility had cut harsh lines into his brow and around his mouth, but those only made him seem more human. Harsh, yet humorous, ruthless, yet empathetic, Damon was an exceptional man.

  ‘When I’m in London I walk a lot,’ he revealed, glancing down, his eyes too dark to read. ‘Sometimes it’s good to be alone with your thoughts, don’t you think?’

  ‘That depends who you are and what you’re thinking, I suppose,’ she said, remembering how quickly their whispered confidences in bed had turned to mistrust the following day in court. It would take more than walking together to clear the air between them, she suspected.

  At the time the press reports—coming on top of everything else that had been happening at home—had destroyed Lizzie’s confidence. She’d lost her self-belief, as well as her confidence in her own judgement. She’d lost her trust in everyone—and in herself most of all. But then she’d realised that with no one to pick her up she’d better get on with it, and so she’d rebuilt her life along very different lines, far away from privilege and trickery.

  A pawnbroker had given Lizzie her first break, taking what few scraps had remained of her mother’s jewellery in exchange for enough money to pay her first week’s rent. She remembered begging him not to sell her mother’s wedding ring. ‘There’s nothing exceptional about it,’ she’d protested when he’d informed her that he wasn’t a charitable institution. ‘You must have dozens like it—’

  ‘Not with three seed pearls set in the centre of the band,’ he’d said as he’d studied the ring with his eyeglass.

  ‘I’ll clean your shop for nothing,’ she’d offered in desperation. ‘I’ll pay you back with interest, I promise...’

  But life had caught up with her, making the necessity of keeping a roof over her head more important than her mother’s wedding ring, so it would have to wait. Maybe one day...

  ‘Something wrong?’ Damon asked as she bit her lip and grimaced.

  ‘Nothing. Why?’ she gazed up at him evenly.

  ‘You made a sound like an angry kitten.’

  She made no comment. Being compared to a kitten would not have been her choice. She felt as if the past few years had required her to be a tigress.

  ‘Enough?’ he said, when she shivered.

  ‘I’d better get back,’ she agreed.

  The Bentley sat waiting for them, gleaming black and opulent. It was attracting admiring glances from passers-by, and now they were attracting interest too, as they approached it. The elegant vehicle was a fabulous representation of privilege, and Lizzie thought it the most visible proof of the yawning gulf between them. She couldn’t imagine what people must be thinking about the suave billionaire and the shabby kitchen worker getting into a car like that.

  Did there ever come a point when a cork stopped bobbing t
o the surface? she wondered as Damon opened the passenger door and saw her safely settled in?

  No. She hadn’t come this far to give up now.

  ‘Home?’ he asked.

  So he could see where she lived?

  ‘Back to the restaurant, please.’ She tried not to look at him. ‘There are things I need to pick up.’

  She didn’t want him visiting her home. She couldn’t risk it. This had been pleasant, but there was more to life than Damon’s riches and his personal success. What Lizzie was protecting was infinitely more precious, and she had no intention of risking everything she cared about by acting carelessly now.

  Damon had the power to steal everything away from her.

  She wouldn’t let him. It was as simple as that. Whatever it took, that wasn’t going to happen.

  He started the engine and the Bentley purred obediently.

  ‘Your mother was Greek, wasn’t she?’ he asked conversationally as he pulled onto the road.

  ‘Yes, she was.’

  ‘I suppose that accounts for your unusual colouring. I never thought about it before, but with your Celtic red hair and those chocolate-brown eyes and long black lashes your colouring is quite unusual...’

  ‘I suppose it is,’ Lizzie agreed, realising that she had never thought about it either, beyond the fact that when things had been at their bleakest she had sought refuge in the warm, home-loving Greek community in London, where there was always someone who knew someone, she reflected wryly. But wasn’t life like that? Paths crossed, then separated, and then crossed again.

  ‘I think we should see each other again.’

  She stared at Damon in amazement, feeling a little defensive. ‘Should we? Why?’ Her heart thundered as she waited for his reply.

  He shrugged. ‘I promised you a proper meal?’

  ‘I won’t hold you to that.’ But they would have to see each other again, she accepted. That was inevitable now.

  ‘We’ll make a date before I leave tonight,’ he said, glancing across at her.

  Would they? Could she risk spending an entire evening with Damon? Could she risk becoming relaxed with him and yet not telling him about anything of significance that had happened in her life over the past eleven years? Could she risk her feelings for him only to lose him again—and for good this time?