“You are determined not to mellow an inch, are you not?”

Andreas continued. “I am cast into the role of wicked philanderer, making it easier for you to ignore the truth,” he stated flatly.

“The truth?” Sophy asked warily, wondering what was coming.

“The truth your body recognized from the first moment we met, that we are compatible sexually in a way that happens with few couples.” He looked at her, daring her to deny it.

“We’re not a couple,” she pointed out swiftly, hot color burning her cheeks, “and you can’t possibly say that considering we’ve never even—slept together.”

“I am more than willing to put my theory to the test,” Andreas offered helpfully.

They’re the men who have everything—except a bride…

Wealth, power, charm—what else could a heart-stoppingly handsome tycoon need? In the GREEK TYCOONS miniseries you have already been introduced to some gorgeous Greek multimillionaires who are in need of wives.

Now it’s the turn of favorite Presents® author Helen Brooks, with her attention-grabbing romance THE GREEK TYCOON’S BRIDE

This tycoon has met his match, and he’s decided he has to have her…whatever that takes!

The Greek Tycoon’s Bride
Helen Brooks

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER ONE

‘YOU’RE not seriously telling me you’re actually considering going to Greece, Jill? You can’t, you just can’t.’ Sophy tried very hard not to glare as she looked at the small, slim girl sitting opposite her but it was hard. ‘You don’t owe Theodore’s family a thing and you know it. Michael is seven years old now and they have never so much as acknowledged his existence.’

‘Well, they didn’t know about it for the first couple of years,’ Jill said reasonably.

‘And when they found out? You’d have expected some sort of contact—a letter, a phone call, something.’

‘According to Christos, the family did try to write but they never received an answer to any of their letters.’

‘And you believe that?’ Sophy’s voice was scornful, her violet-blue eyes expressing her opinion of Jill’s in-laws as forcefully as her voice.

‘It is possible, Sophy.’ Jill gazed miserably at her twin, her own violet-blue eyes dark and tragic and her face very white. ‘Theodore was a very proud man, excessively so—you know that. He said he would never forgive them and he meant it. He…he could be implacable when he made up his mind about anything.’

‘But he would have talked to you about it,’ Sophy pressed urgently. ‘At least to tell you he’d received some correspondence?’

‘No.’ Jill turned away, busying herself folding some washing she had just brought indoors. ‘Not necessarily, not if he’d already made up his mind. When we got married he told me I was his family from that point on and that he had no other, and he meant it. I wasn’t allowed to even discuss them, if you want to know the truth.’

Sophy stared at her sister’s bent head and not for the first time wondered how happy Jill’s marriage had really been. But that was irrelevant now anyway. Six weeks ago Theodore had been killed in a freak accident when the car he had been driving had been crushed by a falling tree at the height of a bad storm.

With that in mind, Sophy now said gently, ‘But the funeral, Jill? They never even came to Theodore’s funeral.’

‘Christos told them it had been Theodore’s wishes.’ And at Sophy’s loud snort of disbelief, Jill raised her blonde head and looked straight at her sister. ‘It was true, Sophy. There were letters which Theodore had placed in Christos’s safe-keeping some years ago. I didn’t even know anything about them until Theodore died and then Christos felt he ought to tell me before he sent them to Greece. I think he suspected what they contained.’

‘Letters?’ Sophy took a quick gulp of coffee as she watched Jill continue to fold the washing in the big wicker laundry basket on the kitchen table. ‘Letters to whom, exactly?’

‘To his family. In…in the event of his illness or death. Of course he didn’t expect it would happen so soon or suddenly—’ Jill stopped abruptly, taking a deep breath before she continued, ‘Anyway, Christos and I made the decision to open the letters and read them before we sent them, the day after the accident, and then…then we destroyed them. But Christos felt he had to phone the family and just say Theodore had left instructions he didn’t want them there.’

Jill now stopped speaking, laying her head on the edge of the laundry basket in front of her and bursting into tears. Sophy jumped to her feet, rushing to her twin’s side and putting her arm round Jill’s shaking shoulders as she said urgently, ‘Oh, love, what is it? Come on, everything will be all right.’

‘They were awful, Sophy.’ As Jill raised streaming eyes, she was choking on the sobs she was trying to stifle. ‘Really awful. So bitter and hard and cold. I…I couldn’t send them. Not to his mother and everyone. Think how they’d feel after what has happened to Theodore. So—’ she reached into the laundry basket and extracted a newly dried handkerchief from the pile of sweet-smelling washing ‘—so I burnt them. I burnt them all. Do you think that was wrong of me?’

She raised haunted eyes to her sister’s face and Sophy stared at her, her blue eyes reflecting her concern for her beloved twin. ‘Of course not,’ she said softly, smoothing back a lock of fine, ash-blonde hair from Jill’s brow. ‘What good would it do to just perpetuate all the misery? Heartache breeds heartache.’

‘That’s what I thought.’ Jill dabbed at her eyes as she said, ‘Christos said the decision had to be mine and mine alone, and once I’d made it he said he agreed with me, but it’s been like a lead weight round my heart ever since. Theodore gave those letters to Christos, believing Christos would do what he wanted, and I…I burnt them. He would never forgive me if he knew.’

It seemed to her that Jill’s husband had majored in unforgiveness, Sophy thought grimly. She had always had reservations about Theodore and the two of them had never hit it off, something Sophy knew Jill had sensed from the first time she had introduced them. Consequently Jill had been guarded in anything she said about Theodore and for the first time the two girls had had an area in their lives in which they were less than totally frank with each other, although neither of them had acknowledged it.

It had been less of a problem than it might have been, owing to the fact that within three months of Jill meeting Theodore—just after the two girls had finished university— Sophy had been offered a wonderful opportunity on the strength of her degree in Maths and Business Studies to work in London as a trainee buyer for one of the top fashion companies.

She had left Cambridge—her home town—within the month, just days before Jill had discovered she was pregnant with Michael, necessitating a hasty register office wedding which Sophy had attended before shooting off back to the capital. From that point the twins’ lives had gone in very different directions—Jill looking after her family and helping her husband in his very successful restaurant business, of which Christos was a partner, and Sophy following her own star in her dream career and rising to her present position of fashion buyer.

Sophy had always held the private opinion that Theodore had got her sister pregnant purposely, knowing Jill was unable to take the Pill due to being the one woman in several hundred thousand it made ill—but she had been wise enough to keep her suspicions to herself. However, over the years she had seen her sister change from the bright, sparkling, happy creature of former days to a mere shadow of the old Jill: quiet, withdrawn and totally under her dominant husband’s control. But Jill had never complained and had always changed the subject when Sophy had tried to ascertain if all was well, and so she had had to leave the matter of Jill’s marriage alone and respect her twin’s privacy.

‘So…’ Sophy brought their attention back to the letter lying at the side of the laundry basket which had started their discussion in the first place. ‘You feel you ought to go and meet Theodore’s family, then.’ She could understand her sister’s decision a little better in view of what had transpired, although it still felt like allowing a lamb to walk into the wolf’s den.

‘Just for a short holiday, like they’ve suggested. They can meet Michael and, more importantly, Michael can meet them and get to know the only grandparents he has.’ The twins’ father had walked out just after they were born and their mother had died some years ago.

‘And then?’ Sophy asked gently.

‘Then we’ll come back and carry on like before,’ Jill said quietly. ‘I can help Christos in the business; we’ve already talked about that, and Michael can carry on at his present school with all his friends. I wouldn’t even think about staying out there, Sophy, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

She didn’t know what she was worried about exactly, except that if the family were anything at all like Theodore they would persuade her easy-going sister that black was white. Jill had always been the malleable, docile one, acquiescent to a fault and utterly unable to stand up for herself.

‘Look, if you’re uneasy about me going alone with Michael, why don’t you come too?’ Jill said matter-of-factly. ‘Theodore’s father has already offered to pay for me and Michael and a friend—his suggestion, Sophy. He wrote I might feel more comfortable if I brought a friend along too. I’d much prefer you to come with me but I thought you’d probably be too busy. I know you’ve been backwards and forwards to Paris like a boomerang the last few weeks and I didn’t want to add to your stress levels!’

‘That’s all finished now the collections are reviewed,’ Sophy said thoughtfully. ‘The next few weeks will be more low-key, besides which I’ve still got some holiday left from last year, let alone this! When are you thinking of going?’

‘Any time. I’ll fit in with you,’ Jill said quickly. ‘Do you think you could come, then? Oh, Sophy, it’d make all the difference!’ And she burst into tears again which immediately settled the issue as far as Sophy was concerned, without another word being said.

Jill needed her. The job, work commitments and anything else came a very poor second to that.

The Greek airport was typical of all airports, crowded and noisy and confusing, but the journey had been relatively comfortable and Michael’s excited chatter had kept both women occupied and taken their minds off the forthcoming meeting with Theodore’s estranged family. Sophy had been busy with making sure their luggage was intact and that Michael didn’t disappear for the last few minutes—Jill being in something of a daze—and so she only became aware of the tall dark man waiting for them when Jill gripped her arm and breathed, ‘Sophy, that’s Andreas, Theodore’s brother—it has to be. Look how he’s watching us.’

She turned to look in the direction in which her sister was staring, keeping one hand on Michael who was jumping about like a small jack-in-the-box, and then became transfixed herself as her eyes met the hard, black, narrowed gaze riveted on the women.

There was no time to make any comment because in the next instant the man was making his way towards them, his tall, lean powerful body cutting through the crowd as though it didn’t exist.

‘Mrs Karydis? Jill Karydis?’ His voice was deep and gravelly and strongly accented, and dark eyes flashed from one twin to the other, eyes that were set in a face that was cold and handsome.

Jill seemed to have gone into some sort of frozen limbo, and after waiting a second Sophy was forced to say, ‘This is Jill,’ as she indicated the pale silent figure at her side, ‘and Michael too of course,’ as she brought her small nephew in front of her. ‘How do you do, Mr…?’

‘Please call me Andreas.’

As soon as she had spoken, he had transferred his attention to Jill, who was gripping Sophy’s arm as though her life depended on it, and still didn’t seem able to speak. And then, as he held out his hand, Jill seemed to come to life—much to Sophy’s relief—saying, ‘Hello, Andreas,’ as she let go of her sister’s arm. ‘Thank you so much for coming to meet us.’

‘It is a pleasure,’ Theodore’s brother said coolly.

Sophy could well understand Jill’s present state of shock because she was feeling a bit that way herself. The man in front of them was nothing like Theodore—which was a relief in one way. Theodore had been just a little taller than Jill, his light brown hair and brown eyes pleasant but unremarkable, and his body stocky if anything.

His brother was aggressively handsome, at least six foot tall, with a powerful top-heavy masculinity that didn’t detract from the lean muscled body’s impact on the senses. His eyes were not dark brown, as she had thought, but a deep compelling grey, and his hair was black—jet-black.

But there was one area in which Andreas’s resemblance to his brother was evident: there was no sign of softness about him at all. He could have been fashioned from a slab of granite.

And then Sophy had to recant the last thought as the grey eyes fastened on Michael’s inquiring young face, and, letting go of his sister-in-law’s hand, Andreas knelt down in front of his young nephew and said softly, ‘Manchester United, eh?’ He nodded gently at Michael’s tee-shirt—his favourite, which Sophy had bought her nephew for his last birthday—as he said, ‘I, too, am a fan of the football. We will have to have a kick around together, yes? You would like this, Michael?

‘Yes.’ It was said with great fervency. And then Michael added, his voice quieter, ‘You’re my daddy’s brother, aren’t you?’

Andreas didn’t move and his face didn’t change as he said softly, ‘Yes, Michael, I am your daddy’s brother, which makes me your uncle. This is good, eh? This means that already we are friends?’

Brown eyes, very like Theodore’s, stared into grey, and for a long moment Michael surveyed his new uncle. And then, coming to a decision which was self-evident, he smiled sunnily and nodded.

Andreas ruffled the boy’s hair before standing again, and Sophy was glad of the extra moment or two. This big, virile male was a little daunting, to say the least. Before he had spoken to Michael, she would have said he didn’t seem quite human, but then the complete metamorphosis had thrown her even more.

And then Andreas was looking directly at her, his grey eyes smoky dark and almost black, and his voice was smooth and expressionless as he said, ‘And this must be Sophy, yes? Jill’s letter did not prepare us for the event of there being two of her; she said merely that her sister would be accompanying her.’

Sophy stiffened immediately. She and Jill had been devoted to each other from tiny children, but both girls had always fought for their individuality from those around them, recognising that the fact that they were identical was a mixed blessing.

Some people automatically assumed that because they looked so uncannily alike they functioned with one brain and one voice. The truth of the matter was that they were dissimilar in temperament and behaviour. In fact, they were almost direct opposites.

‘How do you do, Andreas?’ Sophy said politely, but with a certain edge to her voice which was not lost on the dark man watching her so intently. ‘I’m Jill’s twin, as I’m sure you’ve guessed.’ She forced a cool smile and hoped he’d take the hint.

Andreas nodded, his gaze going over her steadily as though he was endeavouring to read what she was thinking. ‘I am pleased to meet you, Sophy,’ he said evenly, before turning again to Jill with an abruptness which made Sophy feel she had been cursorily dismissed. She blinked, staring at the cold male profile with a feeling of dislike as she heard Andreas say, ‘The car is waiting outside, if you are ready, and I know my parents are anxious to welcome you into their home. Shall we go?’

‘Yes, of course. Thank you,’ Jill said quickly.

Andreas had summoned a porter with an inclination of his head as he had been speaking and Jill’s quiet voice fell into an empty void as he spoke to the young man in rapid Greek.

Jill looked, and had sounded, utterly bemused, and as Sophy watched her sister smooth her straight silky fringe with nervous fingers, she frowned to herself. Jill was supposed to be coming here to relax and meet Theodore’s family in a spirit of reconciliation, and in Sophy’s opinion the Karydises were darn lucky her sister had bothered to make the effort, considering past history. This brother certainly needn’t act as though it was the family doing Jill a favour, she thought aggressively.

She watched her sister’s face, framed by its curtain of wispy ash-blonde hair which hung to her shoulders, and noted the tension written all over it with a further deepening of dislike for Andreas Karydis. She flicked back her hair, which was shorter than Jill’s and cut to frame her face in a gleaming chin-length bob, as her soft full mouth tightened. Who did this family think they were, anyway? Royalty, by the look of it.

And then she cautioned the quick temper which her mother had always insisted came from her father’s side of the family, and of which Jill had no trace. She didn’t know what Andreas was thinking; she could have read all this wrong. Maybe the distant, aloof manner he had displayed with her and Jill was habitual with the man. Jill had told her that Theodore’s argument with his family had begun long before he’d met her, but that when Theodore had chosen an English wife it had been the final straw.

That had been in the early days of her sister’s marriage, and when she had asked Jill why Theodore had quarrelled so bitterly with his kith and kin and come to England, Jill had been vague and changed the subject.

It had been two or three years later before her sister had admitted Theodore had refused to discuss his past life with his wife, and that she had no idea what had caused the rift. Even Christos, whose name Theodore had been given by a friend of a friend back in Greece before he’d left his native land, and with whom Theodore had struck up an immediate rapport on seeking him out on arriving in England, did not know, according to Jill.

A mystery. And Sophy had never liked mysteries. Everything had to be clear and straightforward, as far as she was concerned; she couldn’t have married Theodore for all the tea in China! Not that he would have asked her in the first place. A rueful smile touched her mouth. Jill’s husband had always made it plain in a hundred little unspoken ways that he’d had as little time for her as she had had for him. She had just never been drawn to the strong, silent, macho type of male; Heathcliff might be great in the book but a dark, brooding, moody type of man would be sheer murder to live with, as far as she was concerned.

And then she came out of her reverie as, the luggage being in place on the trolley, Andreas turned and took Jill’s arm, saying politely, ‘Shall we?’, his glance taking in Sophy and Michael before he strode off with Jill pattering along at his side.

Sophy smiled stiffly and hoped she hadn’t betrayed the jolt her senses had given as the piercing eyes had met hers. Strength and authority seemed to radiate from the man and it was too much, too overwhelming to be comfortable. Even the clothes he wore were a representation of the dark power that was in every glance, every gesture. All around them were colourful dresses and bright shirts, Bermuda shorts and cheeky tee-shirts vying with more elegantly flamboyant clothes worn by both sexes, but still undeniably cheerful and showy.

Andreas was wearing a brilliant white shirt, open at the neck, and plain charcoal trousers, and he was a monochrome of severity in all the brightness.

As they exited the building the full force of the June sun hit, the heat wrapping them round like a hot blanket, and Michael’s awe-struck voice as he said, ‘Wow! It’s really, really hot,’ brought his uncle turning round with a smile on his face.

‘England is not so warm, eh?’ he said indulgently, his tone of voice and the look on his face completely different with his small nephew than it was with the two women. ‘It is normally in the eighties here in June, but even hotter in July and August. You will find yourself spending much time in your grandparents’s swimming pool, I think. Like a little fish, eh?’

‘A swimming pool?’ Michael was elated, his big brown eyes shining. ‘They have one of their own?’ he asked in wonderment. He had recently learnt to swim at the local swimming baths and, although barely proficient, adored the water.

Andreas nodded. ‘But one end is very deep,’ he warned quietly, his eyes smiling into the little round face topped by a mass of curly light brown hair. ‘You must never venture into the water unless you are with a grown-up, Michael. This is a rule for all the children who visit my parents’s home, yes?’

‘Who are the other children?’ Michael asked immediately.

‘Relations and friends of the family. Do not worry, little one. You will meet them all in good time,’ his uncle said easily.

Andreas had been leading them across the vast car park as he had talked to Michael, and now, as he approached a long sleek limousine complete with driver, Michael’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. ‘Is this your car?’ he asked breathlessly. Cars were his passion. ‘Your very own?’

‘Yes, do you like it?’ Andreas asked, smiling at the enthusiasm.

Sophy had been viewing the light exchange between the two with something akin to amazement, and as she glanced at Jill she saw the same emotion in her twin’s eyes. The youngest member of their little party was clearly not in the least intimidated by his formidable relation!

‘It’s beautiful,’ Michael breathed reverently, stroking the silver metal with a respectful hand. ‘And this is my favourite colour.’ He walked round the car slowly, goggle-eyed.

‘Mine too.’ Andreas grinned at the small boy, and the two women exchanged a cryptic glance, reading each other’s minds as they so often did. It looked as if Andreas and Michael were friends already.

The chauffeur had been busy piling the luggage into the cavernous boot of the vehicle, and now Andreas called him over, his voice composed as he said, ‘This is Paul, my driver and also my friend.’ As the small lean man smiled a smile which showed blackened teeth, Andreas continued, ‘Mrs Karydis, Paul, and my nephew, Michael. And this is Miss…?’ as he included Sophy in the sweep of his hand.

‘Sophy Fearn. Mrs Sophy Fearn,’ Sophy said, smiling sweetly into the gnomelike face of the driver. The ‘Mrs’ was a small victory, nothing at all really, but it felt wonderful to be able to trip Theodore’s brother up on even a tiny detail.

There was a startled pause for just a second or two and then Andreas recovered immediately, his hard, handsome face hiding his thoughts as he said quietly, ‘I do apologise, Sophy. I was not aware you were married but of course I should not have assumed.’

No, you shouldn’t. Sophy held his eyes for just a moment, allowing her gaze to say the words she couldn’t voice, and then she smiled coolly, her voice polite and unconcerned as she said, ‘Not at all, Andreas, it’s perfectly all right. And I’m a widow actually,’ she threw in for good measure.

The grey eyes widened for a split second and again she knew she had surprised him. ‘I’m sorry.’

Sophy was aware of Michael fidgeting at the side of them and knew her nephew was longing to ride in the car, and so she kept the explanation brief, merely shrugging as she said, ‘My husband died three years ago and time helps.’ She hoped, she did so hope he wasn’t as crass as one or two of their friends had been with their sympathetic remarks after Theodore’s death along the lines of, ‘Such bad luck, the pair of you having such tragedies,’ and ‘I can’t believe you’ve both lost your husbands,’ as though she and Jill had been unforgivably careless.

But Andreas merely nodded, the compelling eyes holding hers for a moment longer before he opened the door of the limousine and helped them in, his manner formal in the extreme.

It was the first time he had touched Sophy, and the feel of his warm, firm flesh through the thin cotton sleeve of her light top was unnerving, although she wasn’t quite sure why.

Once inside the overtly luxurious car, Michael’s oohs and ahhs filled the air space and provided a bridge over any difficult moments, and then Paul was negotiating the big car out of the car park and they were on their way.

‘Have you been to northern Greece before?’ Andreas asked politely after a few minutes, his glance taking in both women.

‘I haven’t been anywhere,’ Jill answered quickly, ‘apart from a holiday in France with a load of other students when we were at university, but Sophy’s always dashing off somewhere or other abroad with her job. She’s used to travelling.’

‘Really?’ The dark gaze focused on Sophy’s face.

‘A slight exaggeration,’ Sophy said quietly. ‘I’m a fashion buyer so I have to pop over the channel now and again, and there’s been the odd visit to Milan and New York, but most of the time I’m sitting at my desk with piles of paperwork in front of me.’

‘A fashion buyer.’ It could have been her imagination but Sophy thought she detected a note of something not quite nice in the deep voice. ‘So you are a career woman, Sophy? An ambitious one?’

It was a perfectly reasonable question and if anyone else had asked it she wouldn’t have minded in the least, but somehow, coming from Andreas Karydis, it caught her on the raw. ‘I’m a woman in an extremely interesting job which I’ve worked very hard to attain and enjoy very much,’ Sophy said coolly, ‘but I don’t care for labels.’ It was dismissive but she kept it polite. Just.

She felt Jill shift uncomfortably at the side of her but Theodore’s brother appeared quite unmoved, his eyes holding hers for a moment longer before he nodded unconcernedly, turning to Jill again as he said, ‘I might be prejudiced, of course, but I consider this part of Greece one of the most beautiful. Halkidiki is mainly an agricultural area with pine woods and olive groves, and you’ll find it’s picturesque but with a timeless feel about it. In many places the people’s way of life is still little affected by the twenty-first century, and the land is lush and green with wide open spaces and plenty of golden beaches. It is a pity you did not come in the spring; the fields are hidden under a blanket of flowers then, although they are still pretty in summer.’

‘Have you lived here all your life?’ Jill asked nervously after a few seconds had ticked by in silence.

Andreas nodded, and then the piercing gaze swept over Sophy’s face for an instant as he said, his mouth twisting sardonically, ‘But, like your sister, I travel a little. My father has olive, lemon and orange groves on his estate, but his main interest has always centred in shipping. Now he is older he prefers to take things easy and leave the main bulk of the Karydis business interests to me to handle. This suits us both.’

Jill nodded and said no more, but Sophy’s mind was racing with a hundred and one questions she knew she couldn’t ask. Was Theodore’s family as wealthy as this car and the way Andreas had been speaking was making her think they were? Had Theodore been the younger or the elder son, and were there any more brothers and sisters? What had caused Theodore to leave this wonderful part of the world and make a new life in England? Question after question was presenting itself to her, but she forced herself to turn and look out of the car window as though she wasn’t aware of the big dark man sitting opposite her, Michael at the side of him chattering away nineteen to the dozen.

They had been travelling along a wide dusty road with rows of cypress trees flexing spearlike in the faint hot breeze on either side, but now they approached a small village dozing gently in the noonday sun. The glare of whitewashed walls was broken only by purple and scarlet hibiscus and bougainvillaea, and chickens were pecking desultorily here and there at the side of the road, their scrawny legs only moving with any purpose when the limousine nosed its way past.

‘Oh, there, Jill, look.’ Sophy nudged her sister as she pointed to a spring some way from the road, where a collection of women had brought amphora-shaped earthen jars to collect the pure sparkling water, the overspill from the spring filling a trough from which a small brown donkey was drinking. ‘Isn’t that just lovely?’ The two women were quite entranced.

‘The water is quite untainted,’ Andreas said quietly. ‘Most of the villages have their own water supply plumbed in these days, but still the women prefer to come to the meeting place and chat and gather the water for their families in the time-old tradition. I think maybe very few people have the need to see the doctor for this epidemic called stress which is so prevalent in the cities, eh?’ he added a touch cynically.

‘Will I be able to drink from a stream like that?’ Michael asked hopefully, ‘at my grandparents’s home?’

All attention drawn back inside the car, Sophy saw Andreas was smiling indulgently, his voice faintly rueful as he said, ‘I’m afraid not, Michael. Your grandparents have all the conveniences of the twenty-first century, which includes water coming out of taps. However, if that were not so you would not be able to enjoy your own pool during your stay, so maybe it is not so bad?’

The village passed, the car took a winding road where the occasional stone house set among lemon, fig and olive groves broke the vastness of green fields baking under a clear blue sky.

‘Why are those ladies wearing big boots?’ Michael asked his uncle a few minutes later, pointing to where sturdy women were busy working in the fields, their legs encased in enormous neutral-coloured leather knee boots and big straw hats on their heads. ‘Aren’t they too hot?’

‘It is for protection against the bite of snakes,’ Andreas said soberly. ‘It is not wise to work in the fields without them. This is Greece, little one. It is very different from England.’

He was very different too. Andreas was giving his attention to his small nephew, and it gave Sophy the chance to watch him surreptitiously. And she dared bet he was just as dangerous as any snake. How old would he be? She looked at the uncompromisingly hard handsome face, at the firm carved lips and chiselled cheekbones, the straight thin nose and black eyebrows. He could be any age from his late twenties right up to forty; it was that sort of face. A face that would hardly change with the years.

Theodore, at thirty-six years of age, had been eight years older than she and Jill, and in the last couple of years before his death had put on a considerable amount of weight and lost some of his hair. His brother was as different from him as chalk to cheese. But that happened in some families.

And then Sophy came to sharply as she realised he had finished talking to Michael and that he was looking straight at her, his eyes like polished stone and his eyebrows raised in mocking enquiry.

She flushed hotly, turning away and staring out of the window as her heart thumped fit to burst. He might look different, she qualified testily, but inside he was certainly a one hundred per cent Karydis, all right. Arrogant, cold, self-opinionated and dominating.

She had never understood what had drawn her sister to Theodore and how she could have remained married to him all these years, although once Michael had been on the way perhaps there had been little choice about the matter. Whatever, she couldn’t have lasted a week, a day—an hour with him! And, although she was sure Jill was unaware of it, her sister was already beginning to lighten up a bit and show more evidence of the old Jill who had become buried under the authoritative weight of her husband.

This might be exactly what it was purported to be—a pleasant holiday for Jill and Michael to meet their in-laws and establish a long distance relationship for the future, but for herself she wasn’t so sure about the purity of the Karydises’s motives. And there was no way, no way she would stand by and see her sister come under the oppression of another dictator, be it Theodore’s parents or his brother or the whole jam pack lot of them.

She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin as though she was already doing battle. She would keep her eyes and ears open whilst she was here. She had always been far better than Jill at picking up any undercurrents, and she was doubly glad she had made the effort and accompanied Jill out here.

The Karydises might find Jill accommodating to a fault and somewhat naive, but they would discover her sister was a different kettle of fish if they tried to pull any fast ones!

CHAPTER TWO

IT WAS another half an hour before Andreas announced they were close to his parents’s home, but the journey through the Greek countryside where the vivid blue backdrop of the sky had provided a perfect setting for small square whitewashed houses with red tiled roofs, pretty villages and countless olive groves, and the odd dome-shaped spire dazzling in the sunshine, could have continued for much longer as far as Sophy was concerned. Apart from one factor, that was—the proximity of Andreas in the close confines of the car.

Since the moment he had caught her watching him she had been very careful to avoid any eye contact, but she knew without looking at him every time the grey gaze was levelled in her direction and it was unnerving. He was unnerving.

She hadn’t met a man who exuded such a stark, virile masculinity before, and the open-necked shirt he was wearing had enabled her to catch a glimpse of the bronzed, hair-roughened flesh beneath which had caused her stomach muscles to tighten. And she liked that reaction even less than her earlier irritation and dislike because it suggested a kind of weakness.

It wasn’t as though she liked the caveman type, she told herself crossly. Matthew had had the sort of looks she was drawn to: thick fair hair and blue eyes, a slim, almost boyish frame and classical fine features in an academic sort of face. Matthew had been gentle and mild, non-threatening, and that was her ideal man. Matthew. Poor, dear Matthew.

As the car turned off the main road into what was virtually a narrow lane, Sophy’s thoughts were far away. She and Matthew had met at university and she had liked him right away. He had been funny and warm and easy to be with and, although at uni they had just been friends, once she had moved up to London—Matthew’s home territory—their relationship had moved up a gear, and they had slowly begun to get to know each other better.

They had been married for just eight months before Matthew had fallen ill, and it had been a happy time. He had been her first lover and their sex life had been tender and comfortable, which had summed up their life together really, Sophy silently reflected, as the car came to a halt outside a pair of eight-foot-high wrought-iron gates set in a gleaming white wall.

And then, within two months of the liver cancer being diagnosed, Matthew had died, leaving her alone and utterly devastated.

Friends had rallied round and her job had helped, but it had been a full twelve months before she had felt she was beginning to enjoy life once again. And she hadn’t dated since, in spite of several offers; shallow affairs weren’t her style, and whether she had just been unlucky or men as a whole assumed a young widow was fair game she didn’t know, but certainly the ones of her acquaintance seemed to assume a dinner and a bottle of wine meant a bed partner. And the married ones were the worst of the lot. It had been quite a disillusioning time, if she thought about it. She frowned to herself, oblivious of her surroundings.

‘…Aunty Sophy?’

She came out of her reminiscences to the realisation that Michael’s chatter had been directed at her for the last few moments and she hadn’t heard a word. ‘I’m sorry, darling,’ she said quickly. ‘I was day-dreaming. What did you say?’

But Michael was talking to his mother now, and it was left to Andreas to say quietly, ‘He was merely pointing out the gates opened by themselves, courtesy of Paul’s remote control of course.’

Sophy nodded, forcing herself to meet the level gaze without blinking. She noticed his grey eyes had turned almost silvery in the blinding white sunlight, throwing the darkness of his thick black lashes into startling prominence and yet earlier, at the airport, the grey had been nearly black. A human chameleon, she thought drily, and no doubt his nature was as enigmatic as his appearance. Some men liked to project an air of mystery.

More in an effort to show she was not intimidated than anything else, she said politely—the car having passed through the gates and into the spectacular gardens beyond—‘It must be wonderful to live in such beautiful surroundings. Have your parents always lived here?’

‘For the last thirty-two years,’ Andreas said softly. ‘I was actually born here twelve months after they first moved in.’

So he was only thirty-one; he seemed older somehow. And then her attention was taken by Jill who touched her arm, her voice awe-struck as she said, ‘Look, Sophy, banana trees.’

They were travelling very slowly down a long winding gravel drive, the tyres scrunching on the tiny pebbles, and either side of the car was a cascade of vibrant colour. Masses of exotic, brilliantly coloured flowers and small shrubs were set strategically among silver spindrift olive trees, and the feathered leaves of jacarandas and the broad polished leaves of banana trees were also etched against the blue sky. The effect was riveting.

And then the car turned a corner and a long and very beautiful house was in front of them, its white walls and deep red roof perfectly complemented by the riot of colour at its many balconies, the same lacy ironwork reflected in the veranda which ran the full length of the house and which again had bougainvillaea, anemones, lobelia and a host of other trailing flowers winding over it.

‘Oh, wow!’ Michael, with the innocent ingenuousness of a child, verbalised what both women were thinking as he turned to his uncle, his brown eyes wide, and said, ‘Are my grandparents very rich, Uncle Andreas?’

‘Michael!’ Jill turned as red as the scarlet roof. ‘You mustn’t ask things like that, darling,’ she said reprovingly.

‘Why?’ Michael stared at his mother in surprise.

‘Because it isn’t polite.’

Polite or not, it was a pretty valid point, Sophy thought bemusedly. She could see tennis courts to the left of the house and Andreas had already mentioned the swimming pool; these people were loaded. She had always thought Theodore was nicely set up—what with his restaurant business and the lovely house he and Jill had lived in—but this, this was something else. Why hadn’t Theodore ever said he came from such a wealthy family?

Jill must have had the same thought because her voice was small when she turned to Andreas and said, ‘Theodore never talked about his family, Andreas, as I suppose you’ve guessed. You’ll have to excuse our surprise.’

There was a moment’s hesitation on Andreas’s part, and then he surprised both women as he leant forward slightly, saying quickly under his breath, ‘I understand this, Jill, but I would implore you not to reveal it to my mother. My father and I would expect nothing else, but she…she is desolate and it would serve no useful purpose to know he has not mentioned her to his wife and child. You understand?’ he added urgently.

‘Yes, yes of course.’ Jill stared at Andreas as he settled back into his seat and then glanced once at Sophy.

Understand? She didn’t understand anything about this family, Sophy thought militantly, but she was so glad she had come here with Jill. If the parents were anything like their offspring, they might soon be on the next plane home rather than enjoying a couple of weeks in the sun! Overwhelming wasn’t the word for it.

However, she had no time to reflect further as the car had drawn to a halt at the bottom of the wide, semi-circular stone steps leading up to the house, and Andreas had already exited, turning to extend his hand as he helped both women out on to the immaculate drive.

The heat struck again with renewed vigour after the cool air-conditioning inside the limousine, but it wasn’t that which caused the colour to flare in Sophy’s cheeks. For a brief moment as she had slid out of the car and risen to stand beside her sister, she had been just a little too close to Andreas. Close enough to sense the muscled power in the big frame next to her and smell the faint, intoxicatingly delicious scent of his aftershave, and she couldn’t believe how her body had reacted.

Fortunately the front door to the house was already opening and all attention was diverted to the couple standing framed in the aperture. ‘There are your grandparents, Michael,’ Andreas said very softly as he touched his small nephew on the shoulder. ‘Would you like to take your mother and say hello?’

‘Sophy?’ Jill had turned to her, her hand reaching out, and Sophy said quickly, ‘Take Michael and introduce him, Jill. I’m right here, don’t worry.’ She smiled encouragingly, her eyes warm, and after a split-second of hesitation Jill turned and did as Sophy had suggested leaving Sophy and Andreas standing together at the bottom of the steps.

That the women’s swift exchange had not gone unnoticed by Andreas became clear in the next moment when, Jill and Michael now out of earshot, he said softly out of the corner of his mouth and without glancing down at her, ‘So, it is true what I have read. I have always wondered if the text books are right.’

‘I’m sorry?’ Her voice was as quiet as his and Sophy didn’t take her eyes off her sister and nephew either. Immediately Jill and Michael had reached the couple standing at the door to the house they had been enfolded in Theodore’s parents’s arms; Michael’s grandfather lifting him up and hugging him to his chest, and Jill’s mother-in-law embracing the younger woman with an embrace which looked to be welcoming. Sophy relaxed slightly.

‘Dominant twin and submissive twin?’ Andreas drawled coolly.

It was less an observation and more an implied criticism, and directed specifically at her. Sophy recognised it at once and, true to her nature, rose instantly to the challenge. ‘It is both dangerous and naive to believe everything you read, Mr Karydis,’ she said icily, her eyes leaving the party framed in the doorway and sweeping with cold dislike over the dark profile next to her. ‘I would have thought you knew that?’

‘So it is not true, then?’ he returned evenly, the phantom of a smile playing round the hard mouth suggesting he found her attitude amusing rather than anything else.

She opened her mouth to fire back another put-down but Jill was already turning back down the steps, calling her name as she urged her sister to come and meet Theodore’s parents. All Sophy could do was to stitch a bright smile on her face and keep it there during all the enthusing of how very alike they were, and how amazing it must be to have a mirror image, and so on and so on. But there was no edge to Theodore’s parents’s greeting—unlike their younger son’s—and Sophy found herself relaxing still more. After a little while the five adults and Michael entered the huge, marble-floored hall behind them which was vast by any standards.

Evangelos, Theodore’s father, was an older version of Andreas, but try as she might Sophy could see nothing of Jill’s husband in the tall, handsome man in front of her. And Dimitra, Theodore’s mother, was not at all what she had expected. The doe-eyed and still quite exquisitely beautiful woman was clearly overjoyed to see her grandson and daughter-in-law and couldn’t take her eyes off Michael. ‘He is so like my Theodore at that age,’ she said brokenly more than once, clutching hold of her husband’s arm as though for support. ‘You remember, Evangelos? You remember his curls and what a pretty child he was?’

Sophy saw Andreas and his father exchange a glance over the top of Dimitra’s light-brown hair which was liberally streaked with strands of silver, and it was Andreas who gently walked his mother through to the beautiful drawing room off the hall, the others following with Evangelos.

‘I am sorry.’ Dimitra’s glance included Sophy as well as Jill once they were all seated and she had composed herself. ‘I just wasn’t expecting Michael to be so like his father. It…it is wonderful, of course, but…’

As the older woman’s voice trailed away and an awkward silence ensued, Sophy said quietly, ‘Just at the moment a mixed blessing? But that will pass and it’s perfectly understandable in the circumstances. Jill was only saying on the plane coming over that, having had Michael, she could understand a little of what you must be feeling.’

Jill flashed her sister a grateful glance and took her cue, moving off the sofa on which she and Sophy and Michael were seated and kneeling down in front of Dimitra before taking her mother-in-law’s hands and saying softly, ‘I would like us to be friends and for you all to get to know Michael, Dimitra. I know it won’t take away the pain of your loss, but perhaps in time you could feel a little part of Theodore is still with you in the form of your grandson?’

‘Oh, my dear…’ Now the tears were pouring down Dimitra’s face as she held out her arms to Jill and Jill, still kneeling, hugged her mother-in-law.

Andreas cleared his throat before saying to a now silent and subdued Michael, ‘How about if I show you the pool? You would like this? And also your grandfather has something in the garages that might take your fancy. Have you ever sat in a Lamborghini, Michael?’

‘A Lamborghini? A real one?’ Michael was over the moon.

‘And there is a Mercedes too in your favourite colour,’ Andreas told the small boy in a stage whisper, ‘but don’t tell your grandfather I’ve told you. Perhaps you and your aunt would like to come and see now and we can have a cold drink by the pool, yes?’ The question was spoken in a tone which made it rhetorical.

Sophy stiffened slightly. It was one thing to remove Michael from the overwhelming emotions throbbing about the room, but from the way Jill turned and looked at her as Andreas spoke she knew her sister wasn’t at all sure about being left alone with Theodore’s parents, even if things did seem to be going well. And Jill was still the only person she was concerned about.

She squared her shoulders. ‘I don’t think—’

And then, to Sophy’s surprise and anger, she found herself lifted up from the sofa by a determined, strong hand at her elbow. ‘Come along, Sophy.’ Andreas was smiling and his voice was soft and pleasant, but the granite-hard eyes were another matter. ‘Ainka is going to serve refreshments in a few moments, so it is better I tell her now we will have ours by the pool in the sunshine. It is lovely there this time of the day.’

She glared her protest at his cavalier treatment. ‘Now look—’

And then she found herself literally whisked across the room and out of the door, Michael padding along behind them, and it wasn’t until Andreas had shut the drawing room door and had pointed down the wide expanse to his nephew saying, ‘That door down there, Michael. That is the way,’ that she came to her senses. And she found she was mad. Spitting mad.

‘Let go of me, this instant!’

It was a soft hiss—Sophy was well aware of Michael’s ever-flapping ears—but none the less vehement for its quietness, and Andreas immediately complied, his voice as low as hers as he said, as they both watched the small boy dance off down the hall, ‘Your sister and my parents need time to themselves, Sophy. Surely you see that? This is an important time for them all.’

‘What I see is me being man-handled and Jill left alone at a difficult time,’ she snapped hotly. ‘That’s what I see! And who do you think you are, anyway, telling everyone what to do?’

‘My parents’s son,’ he bit out with soft emphasis.

‘And I’m Jill’s sister,’ she snarled with equal ferocity.

‘What on earth do you think they are going to do to her in there?’ Andreas asked testily, lifting a hand to Michael who had now reached the end of the hall and was waiting for them.

‘I’ve no idea, have I?’ Sophy returned cuttingly. ‘Jill and I don’t know you or your family from Adam! All we do know is that, for some reason, you all fell out with Theodore years ago and there’s been no meeting point until now.’

‘You cannot lay that at my parents’s feet. My mother was inconsolable when he left Greece and would have done anything to bring about a reconciliation.’ He glared at her, only moderating his expression when Michael called to them impatiently. ‘And there was no “falling out” in the way you have suggested. My brother left Greece because he wanted to and in the same way it was Theodore who cut his family out of his life.’

‘He had a family, Jill and Michael,’ Sophy snapped back quickly. ‘And, from what I can gather, the fact that he married my sister was the final nail in his coffin. Well, let me tell you that he was lucky to get her! Darn lucky, in my opinion. Jill is worth ten of any high society girl he might have had paraded in front of him by your parents.’

‘Now, look here—’

‘I don’t have to look anywhere, Mr Karydis. Jill might be inclined to give you all the benefit of the doubt, but I tell you here and now that my sister and Michael are my only concern. I don’t have to like you, any of you, and I intend to make sure that Jill’s good nature is not taken advantage of. Now, you promised Michael a look at the pool and the cars, so I think we should get on with it.’ She glowered at him, her eyes shooting blue flames, before she turned to face Michael fully and arranged her features into a more harmonious whole.

As she went to walk away, she felt his hand catch her wrist again and she shot round to face him, grinding out through clenched teeth, ‘You touch me once more, just once, and so help me I’ll forget Michael is standing there watching us and give you the sort of come-uppance you should have had years ago.’

The stunned outrage on his face almost made her smile—almost—but she was too angry to fully appreciate that it was probably the first time Andreas Karydis had ever been well and truly castigated. And by a mere slip of an English girl at that.

As his hand dropped from her arm she swung round and made her way to Michael—who was hopping about with fretful eagerness—sensing Andreas was just behind her, and then they were all entering a long corridor leading off the hall. The kitchens were on one side and—according to Andreas’s terse voice—the resident housekeeper and the maid’s private quarters on the other.

Andreas stopped to poke his head round the kitchen door and ask that their refreshments be served in the pool area, and then they continued to the end of the corridor and passed out of that door into the grounds of the estate and into hot bright sunshine.

Sophy let Andreas and Michael walk in front of her once they were outside for two reasons. One, she wanted to let Andreas establish a nice easy rapport with Michael for the little boy’s sake and for the atmosphere to lighten generally, and two, she found she needed to dissect all that had been said and determine if she had been hasty at all. The truth of the matter was that she was feeling slightly guilty about some of what she’d said, and the more she went over their conversation in her mind the more she acknowledged she had gone too far.

She bit her lip as she glanced at the tall powerful man and small boy in front of her, the blistering afternoon sun beating down on one jet-black head and a smaller golden-brown one. Oh, darn it—what a way to set the ball rolling!

She had only been in Greece two minutes and she’d already dug a big deep hole for herself as far as Andreas Karydis was concerned! Not that it bothered her personally, if she was being truthful—he was a hateful, arrogant pig of a man and she thoroughly loathed him—but she was here as Jill’s sister and Michael’s aunt, and Andreas was Jill’s brother-in-law and Michael’s uncle. Unfortunately, the family connection was close.

They had almost reached the Olympic-sized swimming pool which glittered a clear blue invitation in the sultry heat but, although the magnificent surroundings and acres of landscaped grounds were breathtaking, their beauty was curtailed by her thoughts. Which had become clearer in the fresh air.

It was a less than auspicious start to their two weeks in Greece! Sophy groaned inwardly. But maybe Andreas wouldn’t be around much anyway? They’d established earlier in the car that he had his own property some miles away, so apart from an odd call or two to be polite he probably wouldn’t waste his time calling on his brother’s widow and her sister.

But then there was Michael. And the two of them seemed to be getting on very well. Which was good—great, in fact. Of course it was. Or it would have been, if Michael’s uncle had been anyone rather than Andreas! Oh, she didn’t know what to think any more and she had a headache coming on. And it was all Andreas’s fault.

‘Why don’t you sit down in the shade?’ Andreas suggested as they reached the pool area and he turned round to look at her, his voice expressionless as he pointed to the far corner of the tiled surround where the dark shade produced by an overhanging and thickly blossomed tree was broken into patches by dappled sunlight. ‘The sun can be fierce to the uninitiated.’

‘Thank you.’ It was stiff but the best she could do. The whole area was scattered with plump sun loungers and several tables and chairs, and she could see a vast brick-built barbecue in one corner and a pretty wooden sunhouse in another. Sophy glanced about her and then forced herself to say, ‘This is very pleasant, idyllic in fact.’

He nodded, leading the way to a table and four chairs, and they had no sooner seated themselves than Christina, the plump little housekeeper, appeared, pushing a trolley containing an iced jug of lemonade and three glasses, along with a plate of sweet pastries and another of small rich cakes. A large bowl of fruit and several smaller bowls of different kinds of nuts and dried fruits was also placed before them, Christina smiling and nodding at them all before she ruffled Michael’s curls and waddled back off to the house. It was some snack, Sophy commented silently.

‘I like her.’ Michael was blissfully unaware of the tense atmosphere as he helped himself to a nut-filled and honey-flavoured pastry. ‘I like everything here.’ He took a big bite of the sugared pastry before adding, ‘Don’t you, Aunty Sophy?’

Sophy sipped her lemonade and her voice was carefully neutral when she said, ‘Yes, it’s lovely, Michael.’

Andreas was looking at her, one eyebrow raised provocatively and she couldn’t believe anyone could say so much without uttering a word. ‘This is good,’ he said gravely, ‘as you have two whole weeks to enjoy everything.’

If there was one thing she loathed it was sarcasm, Sophy thought militantly, glaring again before she could stop herself.

As soon as Michael had finished his pastry he made his way to the pool edge, sitting down and removing his socks and shoes and dangling his feet in the water as he hummed a little tune to himself, completely happy for the moment as only children can be.

Sophy had had to restrain herself from stopping the child’s move, but Michael’s departure had somehow heightened the tense atmosphere to breaking point. She was almost relieved when Andreas said quietly, ‘He seems remarkably well adjusted already to the loss of his father,’ as he turned to look at her.

Sophy made the mistake of meeting the dark eyes trained on her face, and the way they all but pinned her to the spot brought a thudding in her chest which made her hand tremble slightly. ‘They…they weren’t close,’ she said stiffly, wrenching her gaze away with some effort. ‘Theodore spent most of his time working.’

In actual fact she had always felt Theodore was a severe father and that Michael feared rather than loved him, but she wasn’t about to tell Andreas that. Besides, she could be wrong. She had only seen the two of them together a few times.

‘You didn’t like my brother.’ It was a cool observation.

Surprised into looking at him again, she saw the intense eyes were narrowed and thoughtful but not hostile. Nevertheless she wasn’t about to trust him an inch, and she stared at him for a moment before responding, ‘What makes you say that?’

‘Am I wrong?’ he asked smoothly.

‘He was Jill’s husband and she loved him.’

‘That’s no answer,’ he said softly.

‘It is to me.’ She raised her chin, her soft mouth tightening as he continued to study her with what Sophy considered to be intrusive intensity. ‘The only answer you’re getting.’

‘You’re very defensive about your sister’s marriage,’ he said at last, his body inclining slightly towards her as he spoke.

Was she? She didn’t think she was, but certainly there was something about Andreas which made her uptight and on edge. ‘No, I’m not,’ she said sharply, moving her body irritably. ‘But I happen to think their relationship was their own business.’

‘I agree absolutely,’ he said with silky composure, ‘but if I remember rightly it was your attitude towards Theodore I was remarking on.’ He smiled what Sophy considered a supercilious smile.

‘And as you’ve only met me today and haven’t seen your long-lost brother for years, I would suggest any remarks of that nature are extremely presumptuous,’ she shot back quickly. Game, set and match.

He settled back in his seat, shifting his large frame more comfortably, and her senses registered the movement with acute sensitivity even as she steeled herself not to reveal a thing to the lethal grey eyes. He was very foreign, very alien somehow—far more than Theodore had been—but she didn’t think it was altogether his Greek blood that made her feel that way. It was the intimidating nature of his masculinity, his bigness, the muscled strength which padded his shoulders and chest and the severe quality to his good looks. There was no softness anywhere, and in spite of herself she recognised such overwhelming maleness fascinated even as it threatened.

He looked cynical and hard and ruthless, but sexy too, very sexy. She bet he would be dynamite in bed.

The thought was such a shock that it literally brought her upright in her seat. She couldn’t believe she’d thought it about him.

‘What is it?’ The grey gaze hadn’t missed a thing.

‘Nothing.’ She forced her voice to sound cool and remote. ‘But I would prefer to get back to the house now, if you don’t mind.’ She eyed him firmly, sensing what his answer would be.

‘I do.’ His voice was very smooth. ‘There are still the cars to see, if you remember?’

‘It’s Michael who’s interested in cars, not me,’ Sophy said sharply, ‘as you very well know. I don’t want to see them.’

He stared at her with an enigmatic smile which didn’t reach the cold intent eyes. ‘That is a pity,’ he drawled easily, ‘because you are going to see them.’

‘I see.’ She was glaring again, she thought angrily, but she just couldn’t match his irritating composure. ‘Hospitality and putting a guest at ease aren’t your strong points, are they, Mr Karydis?’ Each word was coated in sheer ice.

He stiffened at her words and then laughed quietly, his face hard. ‘Would you be offended if I said it depended on the guest?’ he said with insulting politeness. ‘Or that women like you make me think my countrymen were right to wait until 1952 before they gave the female sex the right to vote?’

‘Oh, how very chauvinistic of you, Mr Karydis,’ she said cuttingly. ‘I gather you are one of those rather pathetic males who feel threatened by any woman who has a mind of her own and isn’t afraid to use it? What’s your view of the female sex? But no, let me guess. Our destiny is to be kept pregnant and barefoot, is that it? We’re all supposed to fall into your strong male arms and beg you to make love to us?’

‘If that is a subtle invitation, Sophy, you should wait to be asked,’ he said reprovingly.

She knew it was a calculated jibe to get under her skin but in spite of that she couldn’t disguise the furious anger his cool baiting had produced. It turned her cheeks scarlet and her eyes fiery as she spluttered, ‘You, you—’

‘Male chauvinist pig normally fits the description but you have already used that one,’ he said calmly. ‘However, being such a woman of the world I am sure you can find a more original definition if you try.’

He was laughing at her! It was there in the barely concealed curve of his lips and the glitter of amusement in the dark eyes, and Sophy would have given the world to be able to slap the smirk off his handsome face. But there was Michael just a few yards away, and it wouldn’t do the little boy any good at all if his aunt suddenly attacked his new uncle, Sophy cautioned herself desperately. Although it would certainly relieve her stress levels.

And as though he had read her mind, Andreas added softly, ‘Now, please, Sophy Fearn, do not force me to carry you kicking and screaming to the garages. It might upset the family.’

‘And of course the family is everything,’ she snapped hotly.

‘Just so.’ The grey eyes narrowed ominously. ‘I care very much for my parents and I am sure you care about your sister, so let us at least put on a facade of being civil, yes? It is only for two weeks, after all.’

Sophy drew on every little bit of will power she possessed and took a deep hidden breath. She had never met anyone she had disliked more—or so instantly. He was a brute, an arrogant brute, and she loathed and detested him, but this visit was not about her or her feelings. She had come to Greece to look after Jill and Michael and make things as easy as she could for them, and a feud with Theodore’s brother simply wasn’t an option in the circumstances.

She raised her chin a little higher, forced her voice into neutral and said flatly, ‘I can manage two weeks if you can.’

‘Excellent.’ He rose to his feet and held out his hand to her. ‘So, we will take Michael to see the cars and then return to the bosom of the family, yes? Smiling and calm.’

Sophy gritted her teeth as she ignored his hand and stood up. Thank goodness, thank goodness Andreas didn’t live with his parents. With all the best intentions in the world, she didn’t think she could have stood two weeks of seeing this man every day.

She looked at him as he walked across to Michael after a mocking smile, her senses noting the comfortable, almost animal-like prowl with which he moved. She felt shaky inside and that made her angry with herself. He had wound her up to screaming point and it was the first time she had allowed anyone to do that.

Unbidden, her mother’s wedding photograph suddenly flashed onto the screen of her mind. She had found it one day when she was about eleven or twelve, hidden in the attic where she and Jill had been rummaging about when their mother had been at work. Their mother had spent nearly every waking hour working in an endeavour to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, and although they had never wanted for anything on a material level the two girls had virtually brought themselves up.

From the time they had first asked questions about their father their mother had refused to discuss the man who had let her down so badly, but her bitter silence had spoken for itself. The twins had never dared to press the matter and they had assumed their mother had destroyed any photographs that might have been taken, so when they had discovered the picture of the handsome smiling man and his radiant happy bride they had pored over it for hours.

Their mother’s fragile fairness had seemed even more delicate beside the tall dark man at her side, and she had been looking up at her handsome husband so adoringly, so reverently, it was clear to anyone how much she had loved him.

Their father had not been looking at his new wife but straight into the camera, his stance confident and self-assured and his handsome face wearing an expression of cool self-satisfaction which had bordered on the arrogant.

It had somehow fitted exactly the bare facts they knew—that their father had run off with a local beauty queen just a couple of months after they had been born, and had never bothered with them from that day on or even spoken to his wife again.

Jill had seemed to take the photograph in her stride but somehow, and Sophy couldn’t have explained why, it had eaten into her soul like a canker. Their father had been aggressively handsome, very masculine and dark with a magnetism which had leapt off the paper. And she had hated him. Hated his swaggering bumptiousness, his insolent good looks and the dark charisma that had trapped her mother into a life of lonely, back-breaking hard work and embittered memories. He had ruined her life and he hadn’t given a damn.

‘Aunt Sophy? Come on.’

Michael’s impatient, childish treble brought Sophy out of the dark void and into the bright June sunlight again, but for a moment she stared almost vacantly at the small boy standing in front of her. And then she forced herself out of the blackness.

‘Uncle Andreas is going to take us to see the Lamborghini.’ Michael clearly couldn’t understand how anyone could fail to recognise the importance of this momentous event, and as Sophy looked down into the little eager face she found herself smiling and her voice was soft when she said, ‘Lead on.’

As before, Sophy hung back and let the other two walk a few paces in front of her, and as she followed the large figure of Andreas and the small dancing boy at his side through an arched trellis wound with richly scented white roses, she found herself looking across a velvety smooth lawn which stretched beyond the pool area and curved back round the house in the distance.

The air was rich with the heavy, warm perfume of the scented bushes and landscaped flowerbeds surrounding the green area, and she noticed several flowered arbours complete with low wooden benches as they passed. It was like a stately home in England!

The Karydis family must have an army of gardeners to keep the grounds in such perfect condition, she thought idly as she walked on. Everything was immaculate.

Pristine tennis courts stretched behind the row of pretty red-roofed garages at the rear of the house, and Sophy stood looking into the distance as Michael oohed and ahhed behind her, climbing quickly into the Lamborghini and sitting agog as Andreas went through the controls with his small nephew.

Jill had unwittingly married into fabulous wealth, that much was for sure, but what on earth had made Theodore cut himself off from his family the way he had? Although Andreas seemed to have his brother’s cold, authoritative nature, Evangelos Karydis had appeared quite warm and friendly and Dimitra even more so. Still, it was none of her business, not really, Sophy told herself silently. Only in as much as it affected Jill, that was. But one thing was for sure…

She turned and glanced back at the occupants of the Lamborghini, her face flushing in spite of herself as Andreas’s eyes met hers for an instant, a disturbing gleam at the back of the grey. She was going to make very sure Jill made no commitment to this family, either in terms of herself or Michael.

She didn’t trust these people, she didn’t trust them at all, and the big dark man so deftly charming his small nephew at the moment she trusted least of all.

CHAPTER THREE

JILL was chatting quite happily when they re-entered the drawing room a little while later, and although Sophy was pleased to see her sister apparently relaxed and at her ease she felt a moment’s disquiet too. Jill had always been the one to take everyone at face value and blithely assume people were as nice and straightforward as they appeared to be, and Sophy had picked up the pieces of her sister’s trusting heart more than once when things had gone wrong when they were young girls. But this wasn’t a case of schoolfriends being two-faced or a boyfriend letting her sister down. This was the Karydis family—Jill’s in-laws and Michael’s grandparents—and that was something very different. And it could be very dangerous.

Michael ran to his mother immediately, full of the swimming pool and the cars, and as Sophy stood in the doorway for a moment Andreas turned and looked straight at her. His voice was low as he murmured, ‘Smile, Sophy. My parents will think you do not like them if you look at them like that, and that would never do,’ but in spite of the silky sarcasm coating the words the threat underlying them was very plain.

She started slightly before she could control the action and then responded immediately to the challenge, her eyes fiery and her gaze fearless as she said, ‘No one tells me what to do, Mr Karydis. Least of all you,’ her voice as quiet as his but with a quality that made his mouth tighten. ‘Remember that, will you?’

She had annoyed him. Good. Sophy brushed past him and walked across to the others, the satisfaction she felt at puncturing his massive male ego just the slightest putting a smile on her face as she said politely, ‘You have a beautiful home, and the grounds are quite magnificent,’ as she glanced at Dimitra and Evangelos.

‘Thank you, my dear.’ Dimitra smiled back at her. ‘And I understand you have been a tower of strength to Jill since—’ She faltered and then swallowed quickly, continuing almost immediately, ‘Since Theodore died.’

Sophy opened her mouth to make some polite social reply, but then as she looked into Theodore’s mother’s eyes she saw what Jill had seen. Pain, anguish, an almost tangible desperation that her son’s wife and sister-in-law would like her, and it swept away anything but the desire to comfort the grieving woman in front of her. She sat down and then leant towards Dimitra.

‘I’ve helped a little,’ Sophy said gently, ‘but I know how important it was to Jill to come here and meet you, and for Michael to get to know his grandparents.’

Dimitra’s gaze moved to Michael as she murmured, ‘So much lost time. So many wasted years and heartache.’

‘But now Jill and Michael are here and this is a new beginning,’ Andreas’s voice said just behind Sophy, the warmth of his breath touching the slender column of her neck and making her shiver inside. ‘Yes? And you will have many happy sunny days gossiping and putting the world to rights, no doubt.’

His voice had been tender, indulgent, and as different to the way he had spoken to her as it was possible to be, Sophy thought. But she didn’t understand any of this. According to Theodore, the break from his family had become set in concrete when he had married an English girl, and yet here was his family welcoming Jill with open arms. Something didn’t add up.

She continued to worry at the thought like a dog with a bone once the little maid, Ainka, had shown her to her truly sumptuous room next to Michael’s, Jill’s being on the other side of her son’s. It had been suggested the two women rested before they freshened up and changed for dinner at eight. Andreas had offered to take Michael to the pool for a swim—an invitation his nephew had accepted with alacrity—before the child had his own tea and was put to bed by his mother, and now the house was quite silent.

Sophy lay down on the massive double bed the room boasted but after five minutes or so gave up all thought of a nap, and walked across to the wide glass doors leading on to her balcony.

The luxurious bedroom and marbled en-suite were decorated in cool pinks and pastel blues and lilacs, reminiscent of a bunch of sweet-peas, and the efficient air conditioning had made the temperature comfortable, but as Sophy drew back the gossamer-thin voile curtains and opened the doors the heat struck with renewed force, reminding her she was in a foreign country.

The balcony was furnished with a small table and two chairs, and was a riot of colour with masses of white and purple hibiscus and bougainvillaea winding over the wrought iron, and tubs of scarlet geraniums set on the biscuit-coloured tiled floor. The scent was heady and the tiles were so hot they burnt her feet before she flopped down on to one of the chairs with a little sigh of pleasure. This was more like it!

She was wearing a thin, sleeveless summer dress which she now hoisted up to her thighs as she stretched her long legs out to the rays of the sun, letting her head relax back over the edge of the chair as she shut her eyes and let the warmth toast every bit of her. Gorgeous. Gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous. It would do Jill the world of good to relax and soak up some sun for a couple of weeks, and it was clear Michael intended to make the most of his unexpected holiday. Perhaps things would work out?

And for herself? She continued to slump motionless in the chair as her thoughts moved on. She’d been in dire need of a break for months, if she was being honest. Although she and Matthew had decided a family wasn’t for them for years, and that they would both put all their energies into their careers and then each other—in that order—it had been different after he had died. She had driven herself at a frantic pace then, and it had somehow become a habit. The rewards had been great, of course, and her job was certainly one in a million and she counted herself incredibly fortunate to be in such a position, but…nevertheless she was worn out. Exhausted. She hadn’t realised just how much until this moment. She felt she could sleep for a week.

She must have fallen into a light doze because when she heard voices below the balcony it was as though she was emerging from thick layers of cotton wool. She opened her heavy lids slowly and moved just as cautiously as she silently straightened in the chair, wincing slightly as her neck muscles gave protest at the awkward position she’d adopted as she slept.

‘Can we come to the pool again tomorrow, Uncle Andreas? Please? Can we?’ Michael’s voice, high with excitement, caused Sophy to peer through the screen of green leaves and flowers which hid her from sight as effectively as a small wall.

Michael was below, his curls wet and dripping and his small body gleaming like a baby eel’s, but it wasn’t her nephew who caused Sophy to become transfixed as her heart almost stopped beating and then raced in a most peculiar way.

Andreas was walking at the side of his small charge and he had clearly been more than a watchful bystander, as his brief—very brief—black trunks and the towel slung casually over one broad male shoulder indicated. His thickly muscled torso was tanned, and the black hair on his chest glistened with droplets of moisture before narrowing to a thin line bisecting his flat belly as it disappeared into the swimming trunks.

There wasn’t a shred of fat anywhere on the hard, lean frame, nor on the powerful thighs or sinewy arms and legs. He was a magnificent male animal in the prime of life, and the easy way he was moving and the total lack of concern at the fact that he was as near naked as he could be showed how comfortable he was with his body.

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