by Lynne Graham
* * *
When they arrived back on the island it was very late and when Darius greeted Leo in Greek and spoke words that etched a look of astonishment on Leo’s lean strong face, Letty was sprung out of her drowsiness.
‘What’s happened?’
‘Apparently my father arrived here with a suitcase during the evening. Darius seems to think he’s broken up with Katrina, but I find that long-desired event very hard to credit,’ Leo mused with a curled lip.
As they entered the hall, Letty headed towards the stairs.
‘Where are you going?’ Leo questioned.
‘I thought that you and your father would appreciate privacy,’ Letty said uncertainly. ‘I mean, if he’s in the midst of a personal crisis...’
‘My father and I don’t have private or personal conversations,’ Leo parried drily, and he closed a hand round hers to turn her back in the direction of the main reception room. ‘A wife as a third party is very welcome. Panos can get very emotional.’
The distaste with which Leo admitted that truth about his father spoke volumes to Letty. Leo evidently respected men who concealed their feelings more, but Letty considered that attitude archaic.
As they entered the room the older man leapt to his feet and greeted his son in a flood of distraught Greek, which made Letty wish very much that she had made it up the stairs because it didn’t feel right to her to be present at such a meeting when she barely knew Leo’s father. Leo replied to him in Greek and in what sounded like a bracing tone but whatever he said etched an expression of grief-stricken horror on Panos’s face and he fell back down on the sofa and sobbed as though his heart would break.
‘What on earth did you say?’ Letty whispered.
‘That she’s been having affairs for over twenty years,’ Leo murmured in an undertone.
‘Is that how you would normally comfort someone who’s just had their heart broken?’ Letty snapped back in disbelief that Leo had chosen that particular moment to drop even worse news on his father about his estranged wife.
‘No, but it is essential that he understands right now that her betrayal is not an isolated episode which he can forgive or overlook,’ Leo proffered without shame.
‘I disagree,’ said Letty, approaching the older man and ordering some tea and supper for him before sitting down beside him to offer him the compassion that his son appeared to lack.
Yes, even at that point she grasped that Leo and his late sister had suffered as children at his stepmother’s unmaternal hands and that, as adults, they and even Ana’s children had been shoved out of their father’s life at Katrina’s behest. And Katrina had even tried to get Leo into bed. She fully understood that Katrina was a nasty corrupt woman, but she also understood that Panos Romanos genuinely loved her and was entitled to sympathetic support from his son, who was, aside of the children, his only surviving family. And what she saw was that Leo was not prepared to offer that support because he despised his father’s ongoing attachment to Katrina and the evidence of his grief over the loss of her.
Leo was aware that Letty thought he was being cruel but he knew better. He was being cruel to be kind. Now that Katrina’s infidelity was out in the open, it was time to be honest rather than offer empty consolations. Watching his father grip both of Letty’s hands and sob out English words, Leo rolled his eyes and walked out of the room. How could he have a father with so little control over his emotions? He cringed inwardly at the thought of ever allowing a woman to bring him down that low. It was shameful, utterly shameful for a man to be so infatuated with a woman that he thought his life was at an end because she had betrayed him. Leo assured himself that he would never descend to such a level of weakness. He didn’t need any woman and he never would, and seeing his father in such a state only reinforced that warning.
By the time Letty finally contrived to persuade Panos that he needed to go to bed and sleep, it was almost dawn and he had told her the whole story of his two marriages from start to finish. She wished Leo had stayed for those revelations because they might have made him a little less judgemental. If there was one thing she could do for Leo, it would be to persuade him to talk to his father about Leo’s mother and what their marriage had been like because Leo had put his mother on a saint’s pedestal at the age of six and had made a lot of wrong assumptions about his father. Unfortunately, Leo would probably be very resistant to the idea that there were two sides to every story.
When she entered the bedroom she had been using it was disconcerting for her to meet Leo walking out of the bathroom with only a towel linked round his lean hips. ‘Why are you in here?’ she queried wearily, too worn out by her hours of comforting Panos to voice it as anything more than a fleetingly curious question.
‘We are not sleeping apart any more,’ Leo informed her. ‘How is he?’
Letty stopped dead. ‘Do you actually care? I mean, you just walked out and left me with him!’ she said bitterly.
‘I’ve been waiting for over twenty years for Katrina to be exposed as the monster she is,’ Leo countered unapologetically. ‘Her infidelity was widely known. She made my father a laughing stock and the only reason I didn’t intervene and tell him the truth about her sooner was that she made him happy and I didn’t want to be the messenger. Forgive me if I find it too much of a challenge to cry crocodile tears over the reality that she’s now going to become his ex-wife.’
‘You need to talk to your father about his marriage to your mother. You need to hear what that was like.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are to drag my mother into this sordid situation?’ Leo launched at her, wholly taken aback by that advice.
‘Someone who, thanks to your walk-out tonight, knows rather more than I feel I should about your background,’ Letty observed heavily. ‘Seriously, Leo. You need to get over yourself and talk to your dad.’
Leo stiffened defensively. ‘It’s not a matter of getting over myself—’
‘No, it’s a matter of setting aside your prejudice and taking a fresh look at old history—’
‘You could simply just tell me what he told you,’ Leo stated impatiently.
‘No. It’s not my business,’ Letty said succinctly. ‘It’s father and son stuff. And now I’m going to bed and I’m going to sleep for hours.’
Leo was transfixed by that little conversation while cursing Letty’s sense of honour in feeling that it was not her place to share such stuff with him second-hand because he had never had a personal chat with his father in his entire life and he wasn’t looking forward to the prospect. How would he even approach such a challenge? Curiosity, however, was pulling at him.
* * *
‘Letty’s wonderful,’ his father assured him over lunch, when he came downstairs. ‘An amazing woman. So kind and thoughtful and loving. You’re very lucky.’
Leo ordered coffee on the veranda and sat down there with his father for the first time in many years. Panos still looked worn, his eyes bloodshot, his weathered face still puffy from his distress the night before. Leo was seriously hoping that he didn’t start crying again because he didn’t think he would cope very well with that but, now that the truth about Katrina was finally out, he was learning that he did feel more sympathetic towards his father’s plight than he had ever imagined he would.
Panos explained how, having missed his flight to Athens, he had returned unexpectedly to the hotel, where he had discovered Katrina in bed with one of Leo and Letty’s wedding guests. Leo nodded and answered his father’s questions about why he had remained silent for so long about Katrina’s affairs. Leo gave him the honest answer and went on to ask the kind of questions about his mother that it had never even occurred to him to ask before. And what he learned then rocked his world and his perceptions about his family. He discovered then that he could handle the tears shining in the older man’s eyes. He discovered that those tears didn’t seem so weak o
nce he was better aware of Panos’s experiences. He also appreciated that he owed his bride enormous gratitude for pushing him into that long-overdue dialogue with his only surviving parent.
For that reason, when Letty finally reappeared, surrounded by leaping, jumping kids and with Theon tucked securely on one hip, Leo experienced one of those increasingly rare moments when he wished there were no children in his life because he wanted Letty all to himself and he couldn’t have her. Even his father gravitated straight to her as though drawn by the magnet of her warmth and smiles. Leo wanted those smiles all to himself, he registered in surprise at that acknowledgement.
* * *
Over dinner, Letty rifled through the letters that had arrived that day for her and extracted one that provoked a huge grin from her. ‘I’ve got an interview next week,’ she told him.
Leo frowned. ‘For what?’
‘To return to medical school,’ Letty replied happily. ‘I’ve applied for entrance for next year because I thought the kids and I should have the rest of this year to bond.’
Leo wondered when he would get the chance to bond with her and then questioned why he was having such a weird thought when they were already married. ‘I’m sure they’ll rearrange the interview for you,’ he commented.
Letty frowned. ‘There’s no need to rearrange it. Popi returns to school next week, so it all dovetails perfectly.’
‘Popi can return to London with one of the nannies and the rest of the kids while you stay on here. I have meetings in Athens next week,’ Leo pointed out equably, certain he had found the perfect solution.
Letty wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, that won’t do. We can’t separate the children and Popi shouldn’t be in that huge house alone.’
‘Alone with a domestic staff of at least ten people,’ Leo slotted in drily, wishing yet again that Letty didn’t place literally everyone else’s needs ahead of his. ‘I want you to stay here with me next week.’
Letty opened and closed her mouth a couple of times and then encountered her father-in-law’s curious gaze and opted to remain silent. She would talk to Leo in private, fight with him without an audience because she had not the slightest doubt that it would be a fight when Leo spoke in that my way or the highway measured tone.
‘Leo...?’ she murmured from the office doorway once the children were in bed and his father had gone down to the village to catch up with old friends.
Leo frowned down at his laptop and then glanced up, immediately thinking how incredibly beautiful she was, even in worn jeans and a sweater. Maybe it was the appeal of au naturel to a man who had never had that option with a woman before, he reasoned absently. There was faint colour in her cheeks and with her hair tumbling round her shoulders just a little messily she still contrived to look amazingly appealing to his eyes, and thinking about that wildly sensual little encounter in his manager’s office made him instantly hard.
‘Yes?’ His voice emerged huskily.
‘I have to return to London next week and I’m taking all the kids as well,’ Letty told him bluntly.
Leo frowned. ‘But I’d prefer you to remain here with me.’
Letty drew in a deep breath. ‘Leo...you married me to be a mother figure to the children, so please allow me to occasionally know what’s best for them. Popi would be upset to be parted from her sister and brothers and I want to attend that interview, not rearrange it. Don’t forget that my right to return to studying medicine is in our prenup.’
All of a sudden Leo could feel his usually very even and controlled temper threatening to go nuclear on him. He realised that it was her reference to that wretched prenuptial agreement that set him off, not to mention his father’s disturbing revelations about his marriage to Leo’s mother. Had the document been sitting in front of him at that moment he would have ripped it to shreds. ‘Does that mean you can’t compromise?’ he pressed in a curt undertone.
‘I won’t compromise when it comes to being straight about what the children need,’ Letty countered squarely. ‘I’m sorry, that’s not something that can be or should be negotiated.’
Leo released his breath on a long slow hiss and vaulted upright. Stunning dark golden eyes locked to her like grappling hooks. ‘We’re newly married. I am trying to be reasonable here!’ he bit out in a harsh undertone. ‘I want you to make what I want a priority—your main priority.’
Letty suppressed a sigh and cursed all the very many willing-to-please women who had worked tirelessly together to imbue Leo, the ultimate Greek tycoon, with such an outdated set of values. ‘This time I’m going to say no because the children are still too vulnerable to suffer separation or too much disruption...but another time, when they are better adjusted to their life with us, I will try to accommodate your wishes.’
Leo ground his teeth together. He totally understood her reasoning, even sympathised, but they had been married only a week and had spent very little time together. Now they would be apart another week and soon after that he had a trip to the US planned. Exactly when was he going to find time to be with his wife? Surely that should be of crucial importance to her too because without a functioning marriage, where would the children be then?
Feeling very dissatisfied with Leo’s reaction, Letty went off to dig out a book and read while striving to put that exchange behind her and not brood. She had to be reasonable, she instructed herself. She was dealing with a pretty spoilt and selfish man, who was still learning to deal with the changes children brought to life. Leo wasn’t likely to turn into a gilded saint overnight and her constantly reminding him that the kids had to come first seemed to be a particular goad. She wondered why that was when he had only married her to be their substitute mother.
She was tossing and turning, sleepless and still trying to fathom the mystery that was Leo’s tangled and contradictory thought processes, when Leo slid into bed beside her, startling her. ‘I thought you were still working,’ she commented.
‘No. I need to make the most of my wife while she’s still here and available,’ Leo told her, stripping her out of her silky nightgown with ruthless efficiency.
Rather exciting efficiency, Letty conceded, pulses picking up speed, heart pounding before his mouth even enclosed hers. She lifted up to him, wildly enthralled by the lean, hard muscular length of him pressing down on her. She was learning so much about herself that her head was spinning, registering that even when Leo set her teeth on edge she continued to crave him and was reassured now rather than annoyed to find herself still an object of desire. She loved him so much, she thought passionately, small fingers smoothing caressingly over his satin-smooth broad shoulders and up into his silky hair. There was no rhyme or reason to it but Leo was it for her, the summit of her dreams, her most insane fantasies and the key to her happiness and accepting that reality unnerved her a little.
‘Get with the programme,’ Leo breathed, gazing down at her with eyes that glittered jet black in the moonlight. ‘You’re a thousand miles away inside your head.’
‘How do you know that?’ Letty asked with a look of guilt.
‘Because you’re the only woman who has ever treated me like that and it is not a compliment,’ he murmured ruefully.
‘Well, maybe I’m disconnecting because you’re always in control,’ Letty suggested, planting her hands against his chest and sending him flat on the mattress beside her because she was embarrassed by the truth that she had floated away inside her anxious thoughts.
Letty revelled in Leo’s surprise and she chuckled. ‘So lie back and think of Greece like Victorian women used to do—’
Obligingly, Leo stretched, naked and bronzed and awesomely attractive, all lithe and sexy and willing to be seduced. Letty grinned down at him. ‘Now, I warn you I may be a little clumsy at first, but practice is crucial,’ she pointed out.
Leo lay back and surveyed the wonder that was Letty, who never ever did anything the way he
expected and, as he was discovering, it was an extraordinarily fascinating quality in a woman. He had been seduced by women to whom sex was an art form, but every stroke of Letty’s uncertain fingers, every tiny enthusiastic kiss from her generous mouth had an infinitely stronger effect on him. And whether it was the medical training or the truth that he had married a superbly sensual woman, it was the sexiest hour he had ever enjoyed, and he told her so afterwards.
‘Nonsense,’ she told him, a little crossly because he had stopped her at what she considered to be a crucial point and before he could climax and she felt cheated.
Leo spread her out across the bed. ‘Now it’s my turn.’
He found her ready, aching for him, and he plunged and she gasped in delight at the sheer rush of sensation flaring and flaming through her needy body. She wanted more and he gave her more until containing that pleasure became too much and she rose against him with a keening cry as sweet gratification flooded her in an unstoppable rush.
‘You will miss me when you’re in London, meli mou,’ Leo pronounced with satisfaction.
And Letty saw no good reason to deny the truth because sometimes that was just the way the cookie crumbled. ‘Yes, but life throws you lemons occasionally when you really want peaches.’
Leo laughed out loud in appreciation and held her close because he was already thinking of round two.
And she lay there, feeling unexpectedly secure and happy, thinking I can do this.
CHAPTER TEN
LEO WATCHED IN near disbelief as his father climbed into the helicopter with the children, the nannies and Letty: he was going to London too.