‘You do realise that he’s not in the same class as a Fotakis?’ her grandfather said, frowning with disapproval. ‘That in getting to marry you he was punching above his weight? That the very fact that he is now known to be my grandson-in-law is likely to make him even richer? And that for an ambitious man, he’s done very, very well for himself?’
‘Eros is more interested in being a good father to Teddy than in profiting from any association with you,’ Winnie told the older man proudly. ‘And I’m not a snob. I don’t care that he doesn’t come from some aristocratic family that have ties stretching back to ancient Greece.’
‘But surely it is important to you that Nevrakis is honest with you?’ Stam prompted, subjecting her to a troubled appraisal and pausing before continuing wryly, ‘Well, I’m sorry to disappoint you and damage your faith in Nevrakis, but he hasn’t been honest with you.’
Stam watched as Winnie turned white before his eyes. He was being cruel to be kind, he told himself soothingly. She had to know the truth, had to accept it. He would keep no more secrets where Winnie was concerned.
As Winnie sipped the coffee she held cradled in one hand, her grip on the saucer had tightened and the cup rattled betrayingly. With great difficulty she held herself still as she stared back at the older man. ‘I presume you can prove what you’re saying...?’ she asked shakily.
Stam breathed in deep. ‘Nevrakis agreed to marry you to get his family island back. I scooped Trilis up for a song over thirty years ago when his father went bust and Eros naturally wanted to reclaim it. In recent years he’s tried to buy it back on several occasions but I wasn’t interested. On the day of your wedding, however, the island of Trilis became his. A little sweetener to the deal, as it were. It cost him nothing,’ Stam completed heavily, watching anxiously as her expressive face telegraphed her shock. ‘Didn’t he mention that bribe? It was a bribe. Didn’t he admit that he had never in his life before set foot on that island until I agreed to him flying over there to check the place out for the wedding?’
‘No...he didn’t mention any of that,’ Winnie almost whispered, leaning forward to set down the cup and saucer on his desk before she embarrassed herself by dropping it.
‘If I hadn’t bribed him to marry you, he wouldn’t even have considered giving up his freedom,’ her grandfather emphasised. ‘And this is the man you’re willing to sacrifice a splendid future for?’
‘What splendid future?’ she questioned blankly half under her breath.
‘Without Nevrakis, you and Teddy could live here with me and eventually you would meet a man more worthy of your attention.’
‘A man you chose, who meets your approval,’ Winnie guessed sickly. ‘A man who doesn’t fight back, a man who allows you to call all the shots.’
‘Am I that arrogant?’ Stam dealt her a reproachful look.
‘I don’t think you can tolerate or like anyone who defies you,’ Winnie muttered ruefully, struggling desperately not to think about what he had just told her about Eros.
She felt as though she had been dropped from a height and had landed on her head, because it was aching and full of chaotic, unhappy thoughts. Eros had married her to regain a stupid island? How did that make sense? Trilis was, admittedly, a beautiful island and Eros had ties there that went back over a hundred years: the little graveyard on the headland contained worn headstones etched with the Nevrakis name. His family had helped to build the church and the little primary school on the steep cobbled street running up out of the village. She had dreamt of Teddy starting school there one day... In a daze, she shook her thumping head in a vain effort to clear it.
‘I like you,’ the older man reproved her gently. ‘And yet you are in your quiet little way every bit as defiant as your father was. I don’t want Nevrakis to hurt you again. That is why I told you about the island.’
‘I’m afraid I’ve nothing more to say to you right now,’ Winnie said tightly as she rose from her seat, striving not to recall Eros’s forecast that her grandfather would hurt her.
Or had it been more of a case of Eros fearing what the older man might choose to tell her? A faint shudder of distress and revulsion racked Winnie’s slight frame, her eyes prickling a tearful warning and forcing her to blink rapidly. Eros had got an island out of marrying her, a sort of marital buy one, get one free offer. How was she supposed to feel about that? Of course he hadn’t told her. He wasn’t a fool. He was bright enough to know how any woman would feel if she knew a man had had to be bribed into marrying her. Oh, she perfectly understood his silence on the subject, just as she understood the anguished regret flooding her.
Once again, she had walked, blindfolded by love, into a disaster. To make that mistake once with a man was unpleasant, but to make it twice was unforgivable...
‘You’ve only just arrived. You can’t leave now,’ Stam protested in dismay.
‘But you’ve said what you wanted to say to me. You pushed me into marrying him and now you’re trying to push me into leaving him, and I won’t be pushed again,’ Winnie told him flatly. ‘What happens next is my business.’
Only she didn’t know what would happen next, didn’t know what she intended to do with the information she had been given. Beyond confronting Eros, she could see no further, but she paused at the door of the office to look back at her grandfather. ‘Whatever happens between Eros and I, I still hope to see you visiting your great-grandson on Trilis some day soon because he shouldn’t be affected by adult squabbles.’
‘Squabbles?’ Stam echoed in disbelief at that insulting term for what he deemed to be a perfectly natural hostility towards the man who had dared to wrong his granddaughter. ‘I’ll never visit you or Teddy there!’
‘That’s sad,’ Winnie murmured ruefully. ‘Family should come first, even if you can’t always approve of what they’re doing with their lives.’
Winnie walked stiffly back out to the foyer, where her bodyguards awaited her. She was in a daze. Eros had married her to get the island back. Eros had forced her to marry him to ensure that he got that island back. Evidently, her grandfather had employed the perfect carrot to tempt. On her own, she hadn’t been tempting enough for a man who had already been through one unsatisfactory marriage and would naturally have been chary of locking himself into a second marriage with a woman he might lust after but didn’t love.
And that was her situation in a nutshell, she decided sickly while her security team engaged in a series of frantic phone calls to organise a departure that had come much sooner than anyone had expected. Pale as death, she stared at the wall, willing herself to be strong and make decisions. Eros had never loved her and that was unlikely to change. Even for Teddy’s sake she couldn’t stay in a marriage in which his essential indifference would chip away at her self-esteem every day until she had nothing left.
She was strong, independent, she reminded herself resolutely. She would confront him and deal with the situation without getting overemotional or crying or shouting. Shouting would be pathetic. Shouting would reveal that she had been hurt. She would be cool, dignified. As she worked that out, her shoulders eased back, her head lifted higher...and at the same time she would somehow make Eros Nevrakis very, very sorry that he had ever been born...
CHAPTER TEN
EROS SPRANG OUT of the helicopter and took a shortcut across the grass to the house. His lean, darkly handsome features were tense. Winnie had stayed barely half an hour with her grandfather, and after leaving she had ignored his phone calls and his texts. That wasn’t like her. Winnie was never petty or moody and it took a lot to rile her. But nothing could silence Eros’s conviction that something had gone badly wrong.
Even so, there was no way that he could have persuaded her not to visit Stam Fotakis. Winnie might be petite but she could fight like a heavyweight if anyone tried to drive her in a direction she didn’t want. That was why he had let her fly free. He was determined not
to make her grandfather a source of contention between them. After all, he wanted Winnie to be happy.
And she had been happy before she’d left him earlier that day even if she had been nervous about confronting her grandfather, a man known the world over for his stubborn intransigence. Had the wretched man threatened her in some way? Rage gripped Eros at that suspicion, rage as volatile and blinding as a lightning storm on a dark night. Had he made a major mistake when he’d stood back and allowed her to see Stam again so soon after the debacle of their wedding day? Disappointed by Winnie’s decision to stay with her husband and child, the older man must be gnashing his teeth in frustration. Had he taken that dissatisfaction out on Winnie?
Eros strode into the hall, which was curiously empty of staff, and frowned, slowly turning in a half circle.
‘You’re home...’ Winnie commented in an odd, flat voice as she walked out of the spacious lounge. ‘Sooner than expected.’
He wheeled round. Winnie was wearing an elegant black knee-length dress, her slim legs and delicate ankles on display. He breathed in deep because she looked superb, the outfit clinging just enough to hint at her spectacular curves. He wouldn’t tell her how fantastic she looked because she tended to argue with him when he tried to pay her compliments. But no other word could have better described the tumbling mass of lustrous dark hair bouncing on her slim shoulders and the bright brown eyes sparkling with vivacity above her soft pink mouth.