“Like you, you mean?” he asked shrewdly.
Her heart stuttered. “What do you mean?”
“You think I don’t know what’s going on, but I’m a teenager, not an idiot.” He gave her the most serious look he ever had. “If you are doing it for me, don’t.”
She leaned forward and kissed his cheek with spontaneous affection. “Don’t worry about me, little brother. I’m a grown-up. I can take care of myself.”
“Just so long as you aren’t sacrificing yourself to take care of everyone else.”
Her brother’s concern when there had been nothing of the kind from her parents was almost enough to destroy her cool facade, but she took a deep breath and bucked up her resolve. “Thank you, but I will be fine.”
They had been speaking in whispers, and when she looked up she caught a speculative look on Spiros’s features, the same stoic expression on her father’s, and a slightly worried frown on her mother’s.
Phoebe pasted a smile on her face. “Has anyone phoned Tio Theo to find out what the hold-up is?”
“I will call Dimitri,” Spiros said, and got up from the table to make the call.
He returned moments later, looking pale and shaken.
“What is the matter?” she asked, before she could think better of it.
“It is Grandfather. He’s had another heart attack.”
“
Another?” Phoebe asked with dismay. She loved that old man like family. “I did not know he had one before.”
Her father looked guiltily away, while Spiros merely shook his head as if trying to clear it. “You were studying…learning of it would only have distressed you. He would not have had another if he had agreed to have the bypass surgery when the doctor recommended it.”
“But he didn’t?” she asked in shock.
Anger flashed in Spiros’s golden-brown eyes. “The stubborn old man refused until Dimitri promised to marry and give him grandchildren.”
Thank goodness she was sitting down. Because if Phoebe had been standing her legs would not have held her up. Dimitri had had to be blackmailed into this marriage too? No wonder he had not contacted her. But how on earth did their families expect them to have any kind of happiness together when both the bride and groom were marrying against their will?
She turned to her father and asked in an angrier voice than she had ever used with him, “Have you and Tio Theo lost your minds? Did nothing but family legacies mean anything to you?”
Her father had the grace to look abashed, but it was far too little and far too late. Her own father was setting her up for the marriage from hell and he did not even care. The only thing that mattered to him was his precious company and his equally important—to him—pride.
She said a word that had her mother gasping her name.
Spiros looked like he’d been thinking the same one. “I have to go to the hospital.”
And, despite everything that had happened, she could not let him down in his time of need. “I’ll come with you.”
“We all will,” her mother said. “After all, Phoebe is practically family.”
“Mom! Sheesh!” Her brother’s exasperated exclamation almost made Phoebe smile.
Almost.
After arranging transportation for everyone, Spiros led Phoebe to his car. No one said anything about her not riding to the hospital with her own family. Why would they? As far as anyone else was concerned Spiros and Phoebe were still the best of friends.
And honestly? She couldn’t fathom leaving him to his own devices at a time like this.
Theopolis Petronides had raised his grandsons after the death of their parents and his own beloved wife. Neither Spiros nor Dimitri were outwardly demonstrative, but there was no doubt how devoted they were to that old man.
Spiros’s tightly clenched jaw and white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel spoke eloquently of how worried he was.