by Sara Craven
‘So you can marry a penniless nobody, and I am expected to take Spiros Georgiou just because his family is rich. A man who wears glasses and has damp hands, besides being shorter than I am.’
There was real unhappiness mingled with the outrage in Ismene’s voice and Kate bit back her involuntary smile.
‘And you will mind your tongue, my girl,’ her father cautioned sternly. ‘Or go to your room.’
Ismene set down the jug with a crash. ‘It will be a pleasure,’ she retorted, and flounced from the room.
Kate heard Linda Howell sigh softly.
She said, ‘Katherine, shall we take our tea out on the terrace and leave the men to talk?’
Kate forced a smile. ‘That would be good.’
The terrace was wide and bordered by an elaborate balustrade. Kate leaned on the sun-warmed stone and took a deep breath, as she looked down through the clustering pines to the ripple of the sea. ‘It’s beautiful.’
Linda smiled. ‘It’s also a minefield,’ she said wryly. ‘As you must have noticed.’
‘Yes.’ Kate bit her lip. ‘Has there—always been friction between Mick and his father.’
‘Not when Regina was alive, although I know she could foresee problems when Mick became fully adult and challenged Ari’s authority.
‘Is that her portrait over the fireplace?’
‘Yes.’ Linda’s mouth tightened. ‘I’m surprised it’s still there. Each time I visit, which isn’t often these days, I expect to find it’s been consigned to some cellar.’
‘You and Regina were close?’
‘We were raised together. My father was a career diplomat, and always on the move, so I stayed in New York with my aunt and uncle. Regina and I were more like sisters than cousins. When she married Ari, the villa became a second home for me. After she died so suddenly, it seemed natural to stay on and care for Ismene.’ Her blue eyes were sad. ‘And apart from that Ari and I could help each other grieve.’
‘How did she die?’
‘She had this heart weakness. It was incredible because she was the strongest person I knew—she was a marvellous rider, and she sailed and played tennis like a champion. But she had a really hard time when Michael was born, and the doctors warned her against any more pregnancies. But she and Ari had always wanted a daughter, so she decided to take the risk.’ She shook her head. ‘She was never really well afterwards and one day—she just went.’
She pursed her lips ruefully. ‘I wish, for her sake, I’d done a better job with Ismene, but each time I tried to impose rules, Ari would undermine them. He wanted Ismene to be a free spirit like her mother. What he didn’t grasp was that Regina’s freedom came from self-discipline. Now he’s trying to close the dam, and it could be too late.’
‘Because of this Petros?’ Kate drank some of her tea. ‘You think they should be allowed to marry?’
‘He’s a great guy, and she’s known him for ever. I always guessed that one day she’d stop looking on him as just another big brother, and she could have made so many worse choices.’ She sighed. ‘But she approached it the wrong way. She should have let Ari think it was all his idea. Just before you arrived, she demanded that Petros come to tonight’s family dinner as her future husband.’ Linda pulled a wry face. ‘I tried to talk her out of it. The Theodakis men do not respond well to ultimatums.’
‘I’d noticed.’ Kate set her glass down on the balustrade. ‘Mick’s been in an odd mood ever since his father sent for us.’ She paused. ‘Of course there could be another reason for that,’ she added carefully.
‘Ah,’ Linda said. ‘So you’ve met Ari’s other house guest?’
‘Yes.’ Kate stared hard at the view.
Linda sighed. ‘If you want me to give an explanation, I can’t. She was with Mick, now she’s with Ari. End of story.’
Kate caught a sudden glimpse of pain on the calm face, and realised she’d stumbled on a different story altogether.
‘But whatever happened,’ Linda went on after a pause. ‘Mick married you, and not the dynastic heiress his father would have chosen.’ She gave Kate a swift smile. ‘Maybe we’d better check on them—see there’s no blood on the floor.’
‘Is there really that much friction?’ Kate asked, troubled.
‘It’s natural.’ Linda shrugged. ‘Mick’s the heir apparent, and he has a lot of support in the company, but Ari’s still king, and he’s not ready to abdicate—not by a mile. They’ll work it out.’ She paused. ‘And if things get too heavy, you can always retreat to the beach house.’
She pointed downwards through the trees to a splash of terracotta. ‘Ari had it built for when there was an extra influx of guests, but Regina really made it her own place. He was away a lot, and she found the villa big and lonely without him. It has its own pool, and this wonderful platform overlooking the sea where she used to sit and paint.’
She glanced at her watch, and uttered a faint exclamation. ‘Hey, I must be off.’
‘Aren’t you staying for dinner?’ Dismayed, Kate took the hand she was offered.
‘No, I was asked to meet you, which I’ve done, and now I’m going home.’ She smiled at Kate. ‘I hope you’ll come and visit at Sami. Get Ismene to bring you over. You didn’t see her best side today, but she has a lot going for her. And she could do with a friend.’
‘Perhaps,’ Kate thought as she watched her go. ‘Ismene isn’t the only one.’
She turned back to look down at the beach house. It sounded as if it could become a sanctuary. Tomorrow, she decided, she would find her way down there. Ask Ismene to show her the way perhaps.
She heard the sound of voices, and Mick and his father emerged from the saloni and came to join her.
‘Has Linda gone?’ Mick put his arm round her, resting his hand casually on her hip.
‘Yes, you’ve just missed her.’
‘I asked her to stay for dinner.’ There was a touch of defensiveness in Ari’s tone. ‘But she said she had plans.’
‘Well, perhaps she did.’ Mick shrugged. ‘I hope so. She’s a very beautiful woman.’
There was a silence, then Ari turned to Kate. ‘Well, pedhi mou. Do you think you will be happy here?’
‘I’m happy to be wherever Michael is,’ she returned quietly.
‘Good—good.’ He smiled. ‘I am glad my son is proving an attentive husband.’
The colour deepened in Kate’s cheeks, but she returned his gaze without wavering. ‘I have no major complaints, kyrie.’
Mick looked at her, his mouth relaxing into a faint smile. He said softly, ‘You will suffer for that tonight, my girl.’
‘Well restrain your ardour until after dinner,’ Ari said with sudden joviality. ‘Androula is preparing her special lemon chicken and she will not forgive if you are late.’
He clapped Mick on the shoulder. ‘It will be like old times, ne?’
Mick looked at the sea, his face expressionless. ‘As you say.’
They’re like a pair of dogs, Kate thought uneasily, circling each other, getting in the odd nip. But the main event is still to come.
‘I thought tomorrow I would ask your sister to show me around,’ she said later, when she was alone with Mick in their bedroom, changing for dinner. ‘Get to know her.’
‘A word of advice,’ Mick said, adjusting his black tie. ‘Don’t get drawn into Ismene’s intrigues. They always end in tears.’
‘I’m not,’ Kate protested. She was sitting at the dressing table in bra and briefs putting the finishing touches to her makeup. ‘But your father’s choice of a husband for her doesn’t sound very appealing.’
‘Don’t worry about it. There will be no enforced marriage.’ He paused. ‘Your hair looks beautiful.’
‘Someone called Soula did it.’ Kate touched the artfully careless topknot with a self-conscious hand. ‘Apparently your father sent her to look after me. She did all our unpacking, too, and would have helped me dress if I’d let her.’
‘Then I’m glad you s
ent her away,’ Mick said softly. ‘I wish to retain some privileges.’ He went into the adjoining dressing room, and emerged a moment later with a length of black silk draped over his arm. ‘Wear this tonight, agapi mou.’
‘Really?’ Kate’s brows lifted doubtfully. It was an elegant bias-cut dress with a low neck and shoestring straps that he’d bought her in New York. ‘Isn’t that a little much for a family dinner. I—I can’t wear a bra with it.’
‘I know.’ He undid the tiny clip, and slipped off the scrap of lace. ‘So—have this in its place.’
It was a diamond, cut in a classic tear-drop shape, and glowing like captured fire against her skin. Kate gasped in disbelief, as Mick fastened the fine gold chain round her neck. Her voice shook. ‘It’s—beautiful.’
His eyes met hers in the mirror. ‘But the setting,’ he told her gently, ‘is even more exquisite.’ And for a tingling moment, his hands grazed the tips of her bare breasts. ‘A jewel,’ he whispered. ‘For my jewel.’
He dropped a kiss on her shoulder and straightened. ‘Stand up, matia mou.’
She obeyed, and he dropped the black dress deftly over her head, without disturbing a strand of hair, and zipped it up.
She said unsteadily, ‘You are—almost too good at that.’
Laughing, he took her hand. ‘You inspire me, my Kate.’
Then why don’t you tell me you love me? she wondered fiercely. Because you never have. Not once in all these months.
When she entered the saloni on Mick’s arm, she found it deserted apart from Ismene who was glancing through a fashion magazine beside the log fire which had been kindled to fight the evening chill. The younger girl looked up. ‘Michalis, Papa wishes you to go to him in his study. There has been a fax you should see.’
‘Very well,’ Mick said. ‘But look after Katharina for me. Get her a drink—and call her no names,’ he added grimly.
Ismene came over to her with an ouzo, looking subdued.
‘I wish to apologise, sister. I was rude when I called you a penniless nobody. Although Papa said it first,’ she added, her brow darkening.
Kate laughed. ‘Let’s forget it and begin again, shall we?’
‘I would like that. But I cannot help being jealous, because Michalis has married whom he wishes, and I may not.’ She gave Kate a speculative look. ‘You are not like his other women,’ she offered.
Kate’s smile held constraint. ‘I’ve noticed.’
Ismene giggled. ‘So you have met her. I wish I had been there. How she must hate you.’
Kate said slowly, ‘But—that’s all in the past now—surely?’
‘Is it?’ The pretty face was suddenly cynical. ‘Maybe. Who knows?’
Kate struggled with herself and lost. ‘How did Victorine come to be with your father?’
Ismene shrugged. ‘It is a mystery. We thought at first that she had come to wait for Michalis—to be with him when he returned. We could not believe that Papa had invited her—and that she was his eromeni instead.’
She shook her head. ‘And when Michalis did come, he was so angry—like a crazy man. We could hear him with Papa, shouting at each other.’ She shuddered. ‘Terrible things were said.’
‘Did he care about her so much?’ Kate concentrated fiercely on her drink.
Ismene shrugged. ‘Naturally. She was the ultimate trophy woman, and Papa took her from him.
She brightened. ‘But now you and Mick are married, he need not stay away any more. Because he cannot still be in love with Victorine, and Papa need not be jealous.’
‘No.’ Kate said quietly, her throat tightening. ‘It’s all—worked out very well.’
‘I wish life could be as good for me. Do you know that Papa will not even allow my Petros to come to the house any more.’ She tossed her head. ‘But it makes no difference, because we are still engaged to each other.’
Kate picked her words carefully. ‘Perhaps your father feels you’re still young to be making such an important decision.’
Ismene snorted disrespectfully. ‘I am the same age as Mama when Papa married her. And I would not be too young if I agreed to marry that horrid Spiro. Although I would rather die.’
Kate’s face relaxed into a grin. ‘I’d say you had a point,’ she conceded.
Ismene looked at her hopefully. ‘Perhaps Mick would speak to Papa for me. Talk him round?’
Kate gave a constrained smile, but did not answer because at that moment Victorine entered the saloni. She was wearing another clinging dress in fuchsia pink, its low-cut bodice glittering with crystals.
She helped herself to a drink, then came across to Kate, her eyes fixed on the diamond pendant.
‘A new necklace, chère?’ She ignored Ismene. Her mouth smiled, but her eyes were venomous. ‘Men usually buy their wives expensive gifts because they feel guilty about something. I wonder what Mick has on his conscience?’
‘Bitch,’ Ismene whispered succinctly as Victorine moved off towards the fire, using the distinctive swaying walk which had graced so many catwalks. ‘Don’t let her wind you up.’
Easier said than done, Kate thought wryly.
Ari gave her the place of honour beside him at dinner, and talked to her kindly, but she had the feeling she was being screened, so it wasn’t the most comfortable meal she’d ever had.
It was undoubtedly one of the most delicious though, and she said so as she finished the famous chicken, fragrant with lemon.
‘I’m glad you liked it.’ He gave her an approving smile. ‘From tomorrow, it will be for you to order the meals, pedhi mou, and run the household. I have instructed Androula, and Yannis my majordomo, to come to you for your orders each day.’
Kate stared at him. ‘But I’ve never…’
‘Then you must begin.’ His tone demolished further protest, and alerted the attention of everyone round the table to Kate’s embarrassment. ‘You are the wife of my son, and you take your rightful place in his home.’
He gave Mick a fierce look, and received an unsmiling nod in reply.
‘And don’t keep me waiting too long for my grandson,’ he added, more jovially, turning back to Kate, who looked down at her plate, blushing furiously, aware that Victorine was watching her.
It was a long meal and, afterwards, there was coffee in the saloni, and another hissed diatribe from Ismene about her father’s injustice, and the general misery of her life.
In fact, meeting Linda had probably been the highlight of a rather fraught day, Kate thought, as she prepared for bed that night.
When she emerged from the bathroom, Mick was standing by the window in his dressing gown, staring into the darkness.
She slid her arms round his waist. ‘Coming to bed?’
‘Presently.’
She rested her cheek against his chest. She said softly, a smile in her voice, ‘Well, we have our instructions. Your father wants a grandchild.’
He detached himself from her embrace. He said coldly, ‘Understand this, Katharina. I give orders. I do not take them. And now I intend to sleep.’
He took off his robe and tossed it over a chair, then walked, naked, to the bed, and got in, turning on his side so that his back was towards her for the first time in the marriage.
Leaving her standing there, shocked, bewildered and suddenly totally isolated. With Mick’s diamond burning like ice between her breasts.
CHAPTER EIGHT
I BELIEVED, Kate thought flatly, that it wasn’t possible to be more unhappy—more alone than I was that night. But what did I know?
She looked round the impersonal luxury of the hotel room she now occupied alone, and shivered.
She should have realised, she thought. Made the connection there and then. Seen that her brief marriage had begun to collapse—and faced the reason.
Yet, on that following morning, when she’d woken to find herself in his arms, and heard him whisper, ‘I’m sorry, agapi mou. Forgive me…’ she’d been able to tell herself it was just a temporary glitch. That
he’d had a difficult day too.
And she’d drawn him down to her, her lips parting willingly under his kiss.
Of course, Kate thought flatly, as the memories stung at her mind, I didn’t realise just how much there was to forgive.
Because I was never a real wife—just a red herring, intended to draw his father away from the truth about his relationship with Victorine. The solution to a problem, just as I heard him discussing with Iorgos that night on Zycos.
And Mick didn’t want us to have a child because he knew the marriage wasn’t going to last. At least he didn’t pretend about that.
And that, too, is why he never said he loved me. It was as near as he could get to honesty.
She heard herself moan, softly and painfully. She got up from the bed and began to pace restlessly round the room, then paused, and took a deep breath.
She shouldn’t be doing this to herself, and she knew it. It was all still too new. Too raw.
After all, less than two months ago, she’d still been living in her fool’s paradise.
And soon now she would be back on Kefalonia, and all the old wounds would be open and bleeding again.
She would have to stand in the village church, and watch Ismene make her marriage vows to the man she loved, and see Petros’ rather serious face alight with tenderness as he looked at her.
And she would have to see Mick and Victorine together, exchanging their secret lovers’ glances. Become part of the betrayal she had run from. Until Mick chose to let her go.
I can’t do it, she thought, nausea acrid in her throat. No one should be expected to play a part like that. Pretend…
But no matter how battered she felt—how emotionally bruised—she couldn’t deny the magic of those first weeks she’d spent on Kefalonia.
Beginning at breakfast that first morning when Ismene, eyes dancing, told her that Victorine was no longer at the villa.
‘She’s on her way to Paris to do some shopping,’ she confided. ‘To buy a bigger diamond than yours, Katharina mou,’ she added naughtily.
Kate tried to look reproving. ‘Has your father gone with her?’