The Kanellis Scandal

by Michelle Reid

  Then a sudden thought hit her. Greece … Frowning again, Zoe sat up. To enter Greece they needed passports …

  Ten minutes later, freshly washed and tidied, Zoe stepped out of the door into the main cabin. As her blue eyes were about to take in the sheer opulence of her luxurious surroundings she’d been too busy panicking to notice before, she was startled into staring at the half-dozen men who rose in unison to their feet.

  Lounging comfortably in his own seat, Anton raised his attention from the laptop he had open on his lap and reviewed this unilateral demonstration of respect from his staff for their passenger. He compared it ruefully to the deep freeze they had been treating him to in silent objection to his driving a grieving young woman to the place into which Zoe had tumbled due to his ruthless method for getting her onto this flight.

  Even Kostas wasn’t speaking to him. His head of security did not spare him a glance as he passed by his seat on his way to greet Zoe. Returning his gaze to the computer screen, Anton sat in his splendid isolation and listened to Kostas enquiring of Zoe if she had enjoyed a comfortable rest. Polite to an inch, his tough, bulky security chief then offered to settle the boy in the installed flight-bassinette, while the rest of his staff returned to their seats.

  He had glimpsed a new side to Kostas Demitris today, Anton mused ruefully, one which had wobbled years of total loyalty to him. Kostas had cornered him the moment he’d stepped out of the bedroom cabin after leaving Zoe to sleep, and he’d told him to his face that he should feel shame for the way he had behaved.

  That he did feel shame was something he chose not the share with Kostas. Nor was he going to share the other forces that had been driving him at the time: sex … desire … a dangerous attraction, unwillingly felt but felt all the same. Theo’s slender young granddaughter with the vivid eyes, flowing golden hair and pale, pinched vulnerability, stoked up his senses in ways which shocked even him.

  That she was prepared to take him on in a fight as if she was his equal only fired him up even more. She had Theo’s spunk, though she would be insulted if he told her so. A courageous creature with her life ripped apart, yet valiantly determined to cope. He admired her and lusted after her in equal measures. He’d felt so in tune with her from the moment he’d stepped into her tiny house that he’d failed to question if she would see what he had planned for her and her brother in the same sensible light.

  He’d been a man on a mission, focused, driven by the tactical cut and thrust, and so had failed to recognise that she was so fragile the slightest knock to her defences was bound to shatter them. Now he knew he was going to live for a long time with the crucifying sounds of her grief as it poured from her.

  His punishment; he deserved it. He even deserved the ‘gold-digger’ tag, when he still had not bothered to offer up a better side of himself.

  Her perfume arrived first, that distinct scent of apple shampoo assailing his nostrils, and he looked up. She had changed her clothes, he noticed, the creased grey dress and black jacket had been replaced by a black tunic that made her skin look startling white and her hair, which she’d brushed away from her face then caught loosely back at her nape, was finer than silk.

  ‘I need to talk to you,’ Zoe said, still warily on the defensive but anxious at the same time.

  ‘Of course.’ He set the computer aside on the table in front of him. ‘Please,’ he invited. ‘Take a seat.’

  He’d removed his jacket again, Zoe noticed, it lay folded on the seat opposite. As he indicated with one of those long brown hands to the chair beside him she bit down into the soft flesh inside her lower lip for a few seconds, not really wanting to sit down so close to him, but too aware of all the other people seemingly dedicated to observing her every move. In the end she sat down on the edge of the chair, so tense her back was ramrod straight.

  ‘You’ve forgotten something important,’ she told him.

  ‘I have?’ He frowned as he cast his mind over his meticulous planning.

  ‘Passports.’ She nodded. ‘Mine is in the box I gave to Kostas to look after, but Toby doesn’t have one. You’re going to have to turn this plane around because he can’t enter Greece without a passport, and I won’t have him taken away from me and stuck in some detention centre while I sort out the problem, so—’

  ‘All sorted,’ he cut in, feeling curiously pleased with himself that in this one area of concern he had everything covered.

  Leaning down to pick something up from the side of his seat, he lifted it onto the table.

  Zoe watched in frank bewilderment as he produced a fine leather document-case, set it down then fed back the zip. Sliding out the contents, he sifted through pieces of paper until he came across one bearing the official stamp of a UK government department which he passed across the table to her. Her eyelashes flickered as she looked down at it.

  ‘Your brother is travelling on an emergency visa,’ he explained. ‘I applied for it on the grounds of your grandfather’s ill health.’

  While Zoe sat trying to absorb this information, two more pieces of paper arrived beside the first one.

  ‘This one is a letter from your general practitioner saying that Toby is fit to travel, and this one is from Social Services giving you permission to take your brother out of the UK. We—’

  ‘You—you arranged all of this without any of these people applying to me to check if I was OK with it?’ Zoe interrupted.

  He nodded. ‘Mainly as a precaution because of the complications due to probate and your pending legal rights over Toby,’ he enlightened her. ‘A full passport for Toby will be couriered to you from the British Embassy in Athens in the next few days.’

  Zoe was still staring at the accumulation of formal letters lined up in front of her. ‘You need a photograph for a passport,’ she murmured.

  ‘I took one on my phone and texted it over to the appropriate government body.’

  ‘When did you do that?’ she demanded, beginning to simmer inside.

  ‘While you were upstairs packing your things,’ was the beautifully modulated response she received. ‘With all the press you have been receiving, it needed little explanation for everyone to sympathise with your plight and be eager to fast-track the process. And I know a few useful people.’

  He knew a few useful people, Zoe echoed, feeling a nice fresh wave of anger flush up from her chest until it mottled her cheeks. ‘Wealth and power have their uses, then.’

  He must have heard something in her voice because he turned his dark head. There was a moment of stillness in which he tapped the tips of his fingers against the table and Zoe glared at them as the pressure inside her built and built.

  ‘I’m in trouble again,’ he sighed out.

  ‘Where is my input?’ she responded tautly.

  ‘I did not need it.’ His tone had turned very dry now. ‘I put myself up as your attorney, you see.’

  ‘And nobody thought to contact me to check your credibility?’

  ‘As I said—’ one of those hands made a rolling gesture ‘—everyone was very sympathetic and understood that you already had enough on your plate.’

  Zoe released a little choked laugh. ‘And you are so darned charming and clever at manipulating people, aren’t you?’

  ‘I am told it is one of my most annoying traits.’

  At last she turned her head to look at him. He was wearing a hint of a smile on his lips and a hint of a rueful apology in his eyes. Sitting back in her seat, she gave a helpless shake of her head. Charm did not even begin to cover what this man was capable of, she thought as she felt her anger die beneath the weight of her incredulity, then felt her own lips being tugged at the corners, wanting to grin.

  Sensing an easing in the threatened resurgence of hostilities, Anton caught the eye of his flight steward and brought him striding down the aisle. ‘Tea for my guest,’ he ordered smoothly. ‘And ask Kostas if he will check on the baby. I heard a sound from that direction.’

  Nodding, the steward went back
down the aisle again. Zoe went to stand up so she could go and check Toby for herself but he covered her hand with his. ‘Stay and talk to me,’ he said huskily.

  She hesitated, which was probably her undoing. It wasn’t that she wanted to stay and talk to him—he was the enemy, after all—but those fingers resting on her fingers were gentle, requesting not insisting. She looked down them, saw the difference in his skin, warm and dark against the cool paleness of her own. A now familiar heat flared in her belly, locking her into an argument with herself. She either hated him or she fancied him, but she was sure she couldn’t feel both things.

  ‘I am not your enemy, Zoe,’ Anton murmured as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head. ‘I know I have given you little cause to believe me, but if you will give me the chance I will try my best to amend that.’

  She could feel herself wanting to give in. Was it a mild version of Stockholm syndrome? Was she being very stupid here by wanting to believe him again?

  Kostas strode past them on his way to check Toby. In a lightning-flash decision, she stopped him. ‘I will go,’ she told the security guard, and without allowing herself to glance at Anton she slid her hand out from beneath his, got up and walked away.

  They landed as the sun floated low above the glistening sea she’d glimpsed as they’d rushed towards the ground. Kostas, who seemed to have put himself up as her protector, took control of Toby’s disembarkation. Zoe didn’t brother to argue with him over it.

  Everyone was standing up and gathering their things together, including Anton Pallis, who stood with his back towards her between the table and his seat. He had the most disturbingly beautiful long, muscular back, Zoe found herself noticing, then blinked and made herself stop looking.

  The moment the plane shut down its engines he picked up his mobile phone and clamped it to his ear. Zoe heard him start firing out orders like soft bullets, the low growl of his voice a very good substitute to the engines’ roar, she thought with a dry smile.

  As she was about to draw on her jacket, Kostas said, ‘You won’t need that, thespinis. It is twenty-seven degrees outside.’

  Zoe was happy to take the jacket off again since it was now sadly creased after she’d slept in it. A movement just ahead of her in the cabin made her glance up to find that Anton had turned and was looking at her through low hooded eyes. Her chin went up—she didn’t know why—like she didn’t know why her cheeks started to heat.

  They filed out of the plane as if it was any ordinary scheduled flight. Anton was ahead of her and he clearly was not concerned about the heat outside because he’d pulled on his jacket again; the creaseless, elegant businessman was back, she saw as she followed him. Kostas brought up the rear with Toby’s seat secure in his big-handed grasp.

  At first she paused at the top of the steps to allow the heat to envelope her. It was filled with the most evocative aromas of what she recognised as jasmine, citrus and thyme. Ahead of her on the other side of the shimmering tarmac runway, a line of vehicles waited: two silver limousines, a people carrier and a dusty sedan with an official type standing beside it.

  Anton’s staff was heading towards him with what she recognised as passports in their hands. Anton followed, with a laptop bag swinging from one broad shoulder. He still had his phone clamped to his ear, his other hand making expressive gestures of irritation as he walked.

  Behind Zoe, the hard edge of Toby’s seat gave the base of her spine a gentle nudge. She started walking down the shallow flight of steps but there was a strange sensation beginning to swirl inside her legs. She didn’t recognise it for what it was until she had taken two strides across the tarmac then she pulled to a trembling stop.

  She was in Greece.

  Looking down the length of her legs to her shoes, she thought, I’m standing on the land of my father’s birth for the first time in my life.

  Of all the reasons she had been fighting against coming here, this one had never once entered her head, this strange, prickly, stirring sensation which began at her toes and was slowly spreading up her body until it encompassed all of her in the heart-clutching revelation that this moment was the most profound one she’d ever had.

  Closing her eyes, she just soaked in the feeling, the strangest impression that she had come home at last. It didn’t make sense. She was as British as afternoon tea, as scented roses in the summer, as Big Ben striking the hour with such very British reliability. She was a ‘grey cloud and cool climate’ girl, a pale blonde with delicate, light skin. She was her mother’s daughter, yet she was standing here feeling the Greek genes she’d never acknowledged tug themselves free from wherever they’d been hiding and scramble like hungry animals to the surface of her skin.

  Tilting her head back, she kept her eyes closed and just took it all in—the sultry heat, the exotic scents, the shimmering gold of the late-afternoon sunlight stroking the back of her eyelids—and she felt strangely at peace.

  Was this the reason why her father had never come back here? Because he’d known that he would have to experience the same things she was feeling—this almost spiritual sense of coming home? Home was special. Home was built into the very roots of everyone’s psyche. It called to you, drew you to it when you saw it on television—she’d witnessed her father’s stillness and seen the shadows cloud his eyes whenever a programme mentioned Greece.

  ‘Zoe …’ It was that voice again, the low, dark, modulated voice saying her name like her father had, only this time she recognised the difference.

  Lowering her chin, she opened her eyes and found Anton standing in front of her, more handsome, his skin more golden beneath his own sun. His eyes were not polished jet any more but deep, dark warm brown as if they too had been altered by the light. His expression was watchful, and both of his arms were raised in a curve either side of her, but not touching, as if he was waiting to catch her if she fainted away.

  ‘I’m all right,’ she whispered.

  ‘You don’t look it,’ he responded.

  ‘It—it’s a bit of a shock to be standing here after all these years,’ she admitted. ‘I did not expect to—feel anything.’

  Anton was beginning to realise that Leander Kanellis’s beautiful daughter felt everything deeply, passionately and with no compromises or restraint. Curiosity as to how all of that passion would translate itself in his arms in his bed fired up his senses, but also had him dropping his arms in an abrupt act of withdrawal.

  Forbidden, he told himself. Zoe Kanellis had put herself in forbidden territory the moment she’d accused him of being after her grandfather’s money.

  His movement brought her into focus with her surroundings for the first time. Everyone else seemed to have disappeared—the dusty sedan, the black people-carrier. Only the two expensive saloons were left standing there.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I’m holding you up.’

  ‘Not at all,’ he responded very politely. ‘I have dealt with the necessary formalities. Your brother has not been hauled off to jail.’

  ‘Make a joke of it if it amuses you.’ Zoe frowned at him. ‘But I was worried.’

  ‘Worry over, then,’ he came back smoothly.

  ‘Where is Toby?’ she asked then, scanning the two remaining cars for signs of occupation.

  ‘Safe with Kostas in the second car, out of the heat from the sun.’ Digging into his jacket pocket, he brought out a maroon leather-bound passport and offered it to her. ‘Yours,’ he told her. ‘Kostas recovered it from your box of papers. I hope it was OK for him to do that.’

  Too late if it wasn’t, thought Zoe, taking the passport from him with a mumbled, ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Then, if you have finished communing with the land of your ancestors, we should leave.’

  Drifting out a dry grimace because he almost used the same words she’d been thinking of earlier, Zoe nodded. He turned on his heel and started striding towards the two cars, all brisk, elegant grace and arrogant loftiness that made Zoe pull a wry face as she tagg
ed on behind. She was aware that she’d annoyed him somewhere in the last five minutes though she couldn’t work out which bit of their conversation had been the cause.

  With a shrug she glanced curiously around her as she walked. They seemed to have landed at yet another private airport which was nothing more than a landing strip with a white-painted concrete observation-tower set high on a plateau of land. She could see the sea glinting in the distance, and the slopes of the pine-coated hills.

  ‘Where are we in Greece, exactly?’ she asked curiously.

  ‘This is Thalia.’

  She quickened her pace to catch up with him. ‘Thalia was the daughter of Zeus,’ she said, trying to remember her Greek myths.

  ‘Or the nymph Thalia, deity of rejuvenation?’ he suggested. ‘No one knows for sure which one the island was named for.’

  ‘This is an island?’ The slow rumblings of cold suspicion pulled her to a sudden stop.

  Having reached the car, he turned to look at her, his expression growing impatient when he saw her standing still a couple of metres away. ‘Can we do the Greek-history lesson another time? It is growing late and I need to be back here in time to take off again before dusk.’

  It was like being hit with too much information. Zoe turned a full circle, casting her gaze out across the forest tops. They were surrounded by sea, glinting water everywhere she looked. The island could be no bigger than a few miles wide either way.

  ‘Island,’ she whispered, staring at him as if he’d grown horns out of his head. ‘You’ve done it again, haven’t you? You’ve promised me one thing then done something else!’

  Looking at her standing there pinned to the shimmering tarmac in her slender black clothes—which more and more were making him aware that there was a nicely shaped women hidden within—Anton let out a sigh. ‘Having a normal conversation with you is like treading on broken glass! What,’ he incised, ‘Are you getting so fired up about now?’

  ‘This!’ Zoe cried, flinging her arms out. ‘You are intending to just dump Toby and me here with Theo Kanellis before you fly off into the sunset!’