‘I don’t think I’d be allowed to fly at this stage…’
‘Private jet,’ he pointed out gently.
Lindy could not think of a ready excuse that he would not shoot down in flames. When Atreus got an idea in his head he was unstoppable. ‘Suppose…just suppose I went into labour,’ she urged, trying to scare him away from the idea.
‘We’ve got plenty of doctors in Athens,’ Atreus responded cheerfully, already resolving to ensure that there was a contingency plan for any emergency…
CHAPTER NINE
DURING the flight Lindy asked Atreus about his family.
‘Since my grandfather died my Uncle Patras and Aunt Irinia have become the most important people to me. When I was seven years old, they took me into their home,’ Atreus advanced with studied casualness.
‘I didn’t realise that your parents died while you were still a child.’
‘They didn’t. My mother was a heroin addict and my father couldn’t cope with her and a child. When the social services got involved because I was rarely at school my father’s family intervened. Patras and Irinia agreed to bring me up. Their own children were already adults, so it was a considerable sacrifice for them to take on a seven-year-old.’
‘A heroin addict?’ Lindy repeated, settling shocked and concerned eyes on his lean strong face, for it had never occurred to her that he might not always have enjoyed a happy, privileged and secure background.
‘She was an artists’ model, famed for her wild bohemian lifestyle. Before he met her my father was an exemplary husband and businessman who never put a foot wrong. But he walked out on his marriage for her and even turned his back on his responsibilities at Dionides Shipping. He never worked again. He lived on his trust fund,’ Atreus shared with biting contempt. ‘He did marry my mother, but they were too different for it to work.’ His handsome mouth twisted. ‘I barely remember them, but I do remember the violent arguments and the fact that the house was always full of noisy strangers coming and going at all times of the day and night.’
‘It must have taken a lot of guts for your father to stand by your mother. I suppose he had given up so much to be with her that he felt he had to make the best of things,’ Lindy mused.
‘That’s not the family point of view,’ Atreus said drily.
Lindy didn’t say that she already knew the family point of view just by watching him and listening to what he had to say and how he said it.
‘My father let everyone who ever depended on him down—his first wife, his family, his child, even our employees at Dionides Shipping.’
‘Is he dead now?’
‘He died in a car crash ten years after my mother died of an overdose. He was a weak, self-indulgent man. He lived abroad and he never made a single attempt to see me again.’
Lindy was heartbroken on his behalf. She could see how deep that final omission and hurt had gone. Indeed, it was obvious to her that Atreus had been taught to be deeply ashamed of both his parents, and she thought that was a cruel burden to give a child to carry into adolescence and beyond. She now understood why Atreus had once confidently assured her that he would only marry a woman from a similar background to his own. But this awareness only made her marvel at the reality that, in spite of the undoubted conditioning he had undergone, he had still asked her to marry him. What she had just discovered gave her a whole new view of him and of his marriage proposal.
When he escorted her into the Dionides family home, a handsome country mansion outside Athens, Lindy was elegantly clad in a terracotta linen dress and matching light jacket.
‘Before we join my relatives, I should warn you that they are very much shocked by the fact that we are not even engaged, not to mention married. I told them that they needed to move with the times, but I doubt if they took my advice on board,’ Atreus drawled wryly.
Lindy groaned. ‘You have a great sense of timing. I wouldn’t have got off the jet if you’d told me that any sooner.’
‘I’m the head of the family and they have excellent manners. No one will be rude,’ he told her with some amusement.
But, even though he spoke the truth on that score, Lindy hated every moment of the meeting that followed. The interior of the house had a formal funereal gloom, and an echoing silence that seemed a fitting backdrop for the very reserved group of people waiting to greet them. There were about fifteen people in a big room shaded by lowered blinds. The atmosphere, for all the heat outside, was distinctly chilly and unwelcoming, and Patras and Irinia Dionides were the chilliest of the lot. Eyes were swiftly averted from her pregnant stomach, and the fact that a baby was on the way was never once mentioned.