‘It’s a long story,’ he smiled, ‘and one I think you will enjoy more if I let Eve tell it to you.’
The smile was rueful and turned her heart over because it reminded her of when he’d used to offer her sexily rueful smiles all the time. Rueful smiles which said, I want you. Rueful smiles which said, I know you want me but we will have to wait.
This smile was rueful because he knew what she was thinking about his precocious cousin Eve. But Isobel didn’t smile back because she was remembering that, for all her staunch Englishness, Eve was adored by her Greek family. It was Eve’s mother who had never made the grade. As Eve had once told her, ‘They accept me because I do have their blood in my veins, even if I like to annoy them all by pretending I don’t. But my poor mother was looked upon with suspicion from the moment she came here with my father. Thankfully, we spent the first ten years of my life living in London so the family didn’t have a chance to put any spanners in the works of my parents’ marriage. When they died and I was sent here to live with Grandpa they felt sorry for me so I got the sympathy vote. But that doesn’t mean I don’t know what they can be like, Isobel. Just do me one great favour and don’t let them win.’
But they had won in the end. And, although Isobel remembered that Eve’s grandfather had always been pleasant to her, she had never trusted his genial manner. Because like his much younger sister, Thea Petronades—Leandros’s mother—Theron had no real wish to see the Herakleides blood-line further diluted with yet more English blood.
‘Who did she marry?’ she asked Leandros. ‘Someone from a great Greek family no doubt?’
‘Eve, meet Theron’s expectations?’ He grinned. ‘No, she married a tough British bulldog called Ethan Hayes. And I don’t think he is ever going to recover from the shock.’
‘Who, Theron?’ she prompted with just enough cynicism to wipe the grin from his face.
‘No, Ethan Hayes,’ he corrected. ‘And your prejudice is showing, agape.’
Her prejudice? She opened her mouth to protest about that accusation then closed it again when she realised that he was right. She was prejudiced against these people. The knowledge did not sit comfortably as he turned the red car in through a pair of gates that led to the house that had once been her home.
This house was not as grand as the Herakleides mansion—or the Petronades mansion further up the hill. Leandros’s mother still occupied the other home along with the rest of the Petronades family. But still, this building had its own proud sense of presence and made no secret of the fact that it belonged to a very wealthy man. Leandros had bought it just after they were married in an attempt to give them some private space of their own in which to work out the problems they were already having by then. His mother had taken offence, said it was not the Greek way, and if Isobel could not live with the family then maybe it should be Thea and the rest of the family who should move out, since the Petronades home had belonged to Leandros since his father’s death.
Problems—there’d been problems whichever way she’d turned back then, Isobel recalled with a small sigh. Leandros heard the sigh, pulled the car to a stop in front of the neat entrance, switched off the engine then turned to look at her.
Her expression was sad again, the flush of sensual awareness wiped clean away. He wanted to sigh too, but with anger. Was the sight of their home so abhorrent to her? He glanced at the house and recalled when he’d bought it as a desperate measure in the hope that it would give them some time and space to seal up the cracks that had appeared in their relationship. He’d even got a friend in to refurbish the whole house before he’d brought Isobel down here to surprise her with his new purchase.
But all he had achieved was yet another layer of discontentment. For she’d walked in, looked around and basically that was all she could do. He had realised too late that to have the house decorated and furnished ready for occupation by some taste-sensitive interior designer had been yet another slight to Isobel’s ability to turn this house into a home for them.
Home being an awkward word here, he acknowledged bleakly. For it had never become one—just a different venue for their rows without the extra pairs of ears listening in. He had still worked too many hours than were fair to her. She had still walked away from him down this sunny driveway each morning without a backward glance to see if he cared when he watched her go.
It was her one firm statement, he realised now, as they sat here remembering their own history of events. Because his working day had begun later than Isobel had been used to in England, she had left him each morning with her best friend, her camera, when really she knew he would much rather have been lingering over breakfast with her—or lingering somewhere else. If he came home at siesta time, she had rarely ever been here to greet him. After he’d burned the midnight oil working, she had been very firmly asleep when he’d eventually joined her in the bed. If he’d woken her she’d snapped at him and the whole circus act had begun all over again. Stubbornness was her most besetting sin but his had been gross insensitivity to the lonely and inadequate person she had become.
Strange, he mused now, how he did not move back into the big family house after she had left him for good. Strange how he’d preferred to leave Athens completely, having continued alone here for almost a year.
Hoping that she would return? he asked himself as he climbed out of the car and walked around its long, shiny red bonnet to help her alight.
Long legs swivelled out into the sunlight, cased in sheer silk; he caught the briefest glimpse of lacy stocking tops before the dress slid back into place. Classically styled and an elegant blue, the dress was not dissimilar to the one Diantha had been wearing the day he’d made his decision to break his marriage link to Isobel. But as she took his hand to help her to rise upright, there was nothing else about this woman or the dress that reminded him of any of those thoughts he’d had back then. In fact he could not believe his own thick-skinned arrogance in believing he could prefer Diantha’s calming serenity to this invigorating sting of constant awareness that Isobel never failed to make him feel.
She was beautiful, stunningly so. As she came to stand in front of him he watched the loose fall of her shining hair as it slid silk-like across her slender shoulders, the curving shape of her body moving with innate sensuality beneath her dress. The length of her legs would make a monk take a second look but, for him, they made certain muscles tighten because he could imagine them wrapped tightly around his waist.
He was just contemplating that such a position might not be a bad
idea with which to make the transition from here into the dreaded house, when he noticed a familiar car parked beneath the shade of a tree. His brows came together on a snap of irritation. Drawing Isobel towards him, he made do with dropping a kiss to the top of her head as he closed the door to the Ferrari and wondered how he was going to explain this away.
There was no explanation, he accepted heavily. He was in deep trouble and the only thing to do was to get it over with.
CHAPTER SIX
WALKING towards the house took more courage than Isobel had envisaged. The moment Leandros swung the front door open her stomach dipped on a lurching roll of dismay. The late-afternoon heat gave way to air-conditioned coolness in the large hallway, with its white glossed banister following the graceful curve of the stairs to the landing above. The walls were still painted that soft blue-grey colour; the tiles beneath her feet were the same cool blue and grey. To the left and the right of her stood doors which led into reception rooms decorated with the same classy neutral blend of colours and the kind of furniture you only usually saw in glossy magazines.
This house had never felt like home to her but instead it was just a showcase for this man and a bone of contention to everyone else. She had been miserable here, lonely and so completely out of her depth that sometimes she’d used to feel as if she was shrinking until she was in danger of becoming lost for good.
A strange woman dressed in black appeared from the direction of the kitchens. She was middle-aged, most definitely Greek, and she offered Isobel a nervous smile.
‘This is Allise, our housekeeper,’ Leandros explained, then introduced Isobel to Allise as my wife.
Wondering what had happened to Agnes, the cold fish his mother had placed here as housekeeper, Isobel smiled and said, ‘Hérete, Allise. It’s nice to meet you.’
‘Welcome, kiria,’ the housekeeper answered politely. ‘Your guests await you on the terrace. I shall bring out the English tea for everyone—yes?’
It felt odd to Isobel to be referred to for this decision while Leandros stood beside her. Agnes used to look to Leandros for every decision, even those simple ones regarding pots of coffee or tea. ‘Yes—thank you,’ she replied in a voice that annoyed her with its telling little tremor.