Uncomfortably aware of his scrutiny, she blushed and walked across to the window, turning her back to him.
He was so different from his father. Hard where his father had been soft. Intimidating where his father had been approachable.
Remembering just how much she’d liked the older man, she felt something tug deep inside her and felt a sudden pang of regret that he was now so poorly.
She remembered how delighted he’d seemed that his son was ‘in love’ and her expression softened. Clearly the son hadn’t inherited his knife-sharp cynicism from his father.
From her vantage point on the balcony, Chantal stared down at the streets of Paris. She could see the Seine, winding through the city, and the bold jut of the Eiffel Tower, its structure glinting in the warm sunshine.
And across the city, in the dirtiest, cheapest, most forgotten part of Paris, was the room that she’d vacated that morning. The price had become prohibitive. Too much for a waitress. It was time to move on.
Why not to Greece? She had no other place to go. Nowhere else she needed to be.
Wouldn’t that solve all her problems in the short term as well as helping out a man she genuinely cared about?
If her presence helped his recovery, then wasn’t that reason enough to go?
She could stay as long as she was needed, and then use Greece as a base for her next adventure. The only drawback was being in the company of Angelos Zouvelekis. He unsettled her more than any man she’d ever met.
But he’d be working, wouldn’t he? Adding more noughts to his billions?
All she had to do during the day was lie by the pool and chat to his father.
‘You’ll have to tell him the truth at some point.’
‘Obviously. But not until he is stronger and has something else to focus on. Having had such a close brush with death, it seems that the only thing on his mind is the fact that I haven’t yet given him grandchildren. When he is properly recovered he will find something else to occupy him.’
She turned. ‘You don’t intend to give him grandchildren?’
‘At some point. But only when I find a woman whose genes I would be proud for my children to inherit.’ His tone left her in no doubt that he wouldn’t be allowing her genes anywhere near his offspring.
And that was an attitude she was more than familiar with.
She’d never fitted in, had she?
All her life she’d felt displaced.
As a child she’d lived her life around the edges of a world to which she didn’t belong. And rarely had anyone shown her kindness.
His father had shown her kindness.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said firmly. ‘If you think it will help.’
‘It never occurred to me that you wouldn’t,’ he drawled, contempt flickering in his eyes. ‘From what I’ve heard, you never spend your money if you can spend someone else’s.’
She tensed. ‘I’m doing this for your father.’
‘Of course you are. Your generosity is legendary.’
Chantal was almost relieved that she wasn’t Isabelle. ‘No matter what you think,’ she said quietly, ‘I’m not interested in your money.’
It had been something else entirely that had drawn her to him. A powerful connection that she couldn’t explain. A chemistry that taunted both of them, because it was something that neither wanted to pursue.
* * *
The Aegean Sea stretched beneath them, the changing light producing more shades of blue than an artist’s palette.
‘It’s beautiful,’ she murmured, but she was talking to herself—because Angelos had been on the phone since his private jet had lifted off from Paris. And he was still on the phone. He lounged on a sofa opposite her, his eyes fixed on a computer screen, the table in front of him strewn with papers. Occasionally he broke the conversation for long enough to scan a set of figures, then he was talking again, in rapid Greek.