‘Wait for God indeed,’ Gabriela mocked as she went to sit down and the older woman crossed the room to set down the tray. ‘What you need, Thea, is to be taken out of yourself. When was the last time you left this brown dot of an island?’
‘This brown dot is Pascalis land,’ the old lady responded. ‘And you might not have liked it here, but I love it.’
‘Which did not answer my question.’
‘I do not recall when I last left it.’
‘Then it is high time that you did. Since Alexander refuses to let me make-over his wife, I think I will take you to Milan, Thea, and we will give you a complete make-over then find you a passionate man who will stop you talking about waiting for God.’
To Nell’s surprise the old lady let out an amused chuckle. ‘He will be too old to fulfil my hidden passions.’
‘Not these days, carisima,’ Xander’s mother came back. ‘Today the old men have the Viagra to maintain their flagging passions and will be very useful indeed to you. No, don’t sit down right over there, Helen. Come and sit here beside me.’
‘Wicked creature.’ Sophia spoke over Gabriela’s command while Nell meekly did as she had been told. ‘If my nephew were still alive he would lock you in your room for speaking so disrespectfully to me.’
‘Ah, four years and I still miss Demitri,’ Gabriela sighed wistfully.
‘I was twenty-three when the war took my Gregoris and made me a widow but I still miss him every single day.’
It was news to Nell that Thea Sophia had been married!
‘You miss his passions, Sophi
a?’ Gabriela prodded teasingly.
‘Of course!’ the old lady declared. ‘He was a big, strong, handsome man—as with all the Pascalis men. My bed felt cold for years.’
‘I understand the feeling,’ Gabriela sighed. ‘Maybe we should go to Milan to find ourselves a new man each. A cold bed is no pleasure, Thea. You would have liked my husband, cara.’ She turned to include Nell in the conversation. ‘Alexander is just like him—hewn from rock on the outside and deliciously protective by nature, but so jealously possessive of me that he rarely let me out of his sight. Yet what did he do but go and die in two short seconds while I was out of the room!’
‘What is this—a wake?’ Xander strode in on the conversation, wearing pale chinos and a fresh white shirt.
‘Your father was my one abiding love,’ his mother said sadly.
‘Maybe he was, but you …’
The rest of the ‘but’ was completed in some cutting Italian that literally froze the discussion and turned Gabriela pale.
Thea Sophia recovered first, bursting into a flurry of chatter as she handed out the small cups of strong black Greek coffee and Nell puzzled over what Xander could he have said this time to destroy his mother as effectively as that.
She cast him a hateful look, which he returned with a grimace that seemed to say he was already regretting whatever he’d said. But no apology was offered and after giving him as long as it took him to lower himself into the chair he had been occupying earlier, Nell flicked him another hard look then turned to Gabriela.
‘A trip to Milan sounds very exciting,’ she said. ‘I’ve never been there and I’ve had a yen to have my hair cut—short and spiky,’ she added for good measure while Gabriela’s eyes began to glow. She knew what Nell was doing and it was working. Xander shifted in his chair. ‘Perhaps I could come with you,’ she suggested. ‘It would be fun to spend lots of money on new clothes and things, try out a new image—’
‘Try for a full recovery before you make any plans,’ Xander grimly put in.
‘I am recovered,’ Nell insisted. He was eyeing her narrowly, warning sparks glinting at her now instead of his mother. ‘I’ve had two whole weeks under Thea Sophia’s tender care to aid my recovery.’
‘You were the good patient,’ Sophia put in, bending to pat Nell’s cheek fondly as she handed her a cup of coffee. ‘You should have seen the extent of her bruising, Gabriela,’ she declared in dismay. ‘No wonder Alexander could not bear to look at them. Where were his protective instincts when this poor girl drove her flimsy car into a tree? She was bruised from here to here.’ A gnarled hand drew a slashing left-to-right diagonal line in the air across Nell’s chest then added the other line across her stomach.
Nell saw Xander’s brows shift into a sharp frown as he watched the vivid demonstration take place.
‘Car seat-belt burns, Helen called them,’ his aunt continued in disgust. ‘I call them criminal. Who would want to ever wear a seat belt again if they had suffered such damage?’
‘Think of the damage without the belt, Thea,’ her great-nephew pointed out. ‘Nell lost her appendix, cracked her ribs and got off lightly into the bargain, if you want the truth.’
‘While you were on the other side of the world getting your name in the newspapers and—’
‘That is enough, Sophia …’