‘Oh, how very chauvinistic of you, Mr Karydis,’ she said cuttingly. ‘I gather you are one of those rather pathetic males who feel threatened by any woman who has a mind of her own and isn’t afraid to use it? What’s your view of the female sex? But no, let me guess. Our destiny is to be kept pregnant and barefoot, is that it? We’re all supposed to fall into your strong male arms and beg you to make love to us?’
‘If that is a subtle invitation, Sophy, you should wait to be asked,’ he said reprovingly.
She knew it was a calculated jibe to get under her skin but in spite of that she couldn’t disguise the furious anger his cool baiting had produced. It turned her cheeks scarlet and her eyes fiery as she spluttered, ‘You, you—’
‘Male chauvinist pig normally fits the description but you have already used that one,’ he said calmly. ‘However, being such a woman of the world I am sure you can find a more original definition if you try.’
He was laughing at her! It was there in the barely concealed curve of his lips and the glitter of amusement in the dark eyes, and Sophy would have given the world to be able to slap the smirk off his handsome face. But there was Michael just a few yards away, and it wouldn’t do the little boy any good at all if his aunt suddenly attacked his new uncle, Sophy cautioned herself desperately. Although it would certainly relieve her stress levels.
And as though he had read her mind, Andreas added softly, ‘Now, please, Sophy Fearn, do not force me to carry you kicking and screaming to the garages. It might upset the family.’
‘And of course the family is everything,’ she snapped hotly.
‘Just so.’ The grey eyes narrowed ominously. ‘I care very much for my parents and I am sure you care about your sister, so let us at least put on a facade of being civil, yes? It is only for two weeks, after all.’
Sophy drew on every little bit of will power she possessed and took a deep hidden breath. She had never met anyone she had disliked more—or so instantly. He was a brute, an arrogant brute, and she loathed and detested him, but this visit was not about her or her feelings. She had come to Greece to look after Jill and Michael and make things as easy as she could for them, and a feud with Theodore’s brother simply wasn’t an option in the circumstances.
She raised her chin a little higher, forced her voice into neutral and said flatly, ‘I can manage two weeks if you can.’
‘Excellent.’ He rose to his feet and held out his hand to her. ‘So, we will take Michael to see the cars and then return to the bosom of the family, yes? Smiling and calm.’
Sophy gritted her teeth as she ignored his hand and stood up. Thank goodness, thank goodness Andreas didn’t live with his parents. With all the best intentions in the world, she didn’t think she could have stood two weeks of seeing this man every day.
She looked at him as he walked across to Michael after a mocking smile, her senses noting the comfortable, almost animal-like prowl with which he moved. She felt shaky inside and that made her angry with herself. He had wound her up to screaming point and it was the first time she had allowed anyone to do that.
Unbidden, her mother’s wedding photograph suddenly flashed onto the screen of her mind. She had found it one day when she was about eleven or twelve, hidden in the attic where she and Jill had been rummaging about when their mother had been at w
ork. Their mother had spent nearly every waking hour working in an endeavour to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table, and although they had never wanted for anything on a material level the two girls had virtually brought themselves up.
From the time they had first asked questions about their father their mother had refused to discuss the man who had let her down so badly, but her bitter silence had spoken for itself. The twins had never dared to press the matter and they had assumed their mother had destroyed any photographs that might have been taken, so when they had discovered the picture of the handsome smiling man and his radiant happy bride they had pored over it for hours.
Their mother’s fragile fairness had seemed even more delicate beside the tall dark man at her side, and she had been looking up at her handsome husband so adoringly, so reverently, it was clear to anyone how much she had loved him.
Their father had not been looking at his new wife but straight into the camera, his stance confident and self-assured and his handsome face wearing an expression of cool self-satisfaction which had bordered on the arrogant.
It had somehow fitted exactly the bare facts they knew—that their father had run off with a local beauty queen just a couple of months after they had been born, and had never bothered with them from that day on or even spoken to his wife again.
Jill had seemed to take the photograph in her stride but somehow, and Sophy couldn’t have explained why, it had eaten into her soul like a canker. Their father had been aggressively handsome, very masculine and dark with a magnetism which had leapt off the paper. And she had hated him. Hated his swaggering bumptiousness, his insolent good looks and the dark charisma that had trapped her mother into a life of lonely, back-breaking hard work and embittered memories. He had ruined her life and he hadn’t given a damn.
‘Aunt Sophy? Come on.’
Michael’s impatient, childish treble brought Sophy out of the dark void and into the bright June sunlight again, but for a moment she stared almost vacantly at the small boy standing in front of her. And then she forced herself out of the blackness.
‘Uncle Andreas is going to take us to see the Lamborghini.’ Michael clearly couldn’t understand how anyone could fail to recognise the importance of this momentous event, and as Sophy looked down into the little eager face she found herself smiling and her voice was soft when she said, ‘Lead on.’
As before, Sophy hung back and let the other two walk a few paces in front of her, and as she followed the large figure of Andreas and the small dancing boy at his side through an arched trellis wound with richly scented white roses, she found herself looking across a velvety smooth lawn which stretched beyond the pool area and curved back round the house in the distance.
The air was rich with the heavy, warm perfume of the scented bushes and landscaped flowerbeds surrounding the green area, and she noticed several flowered arbours complete with low wooden benches as they passed. It was like a stately home in England!
The Karydis family must have an army of gardeners to keep the grounds in such perfect condition, she thought idly as she walked on. Everything was immaculate.
Pristine tennis courts stretched behind the row of pretty red-roofed garages at the rear of the house, and Sophy stood looking into the distance as Michael oohed and ahhed behind her, climbing quickly into the Lamborghini and sitting agog as Andreas went through the controls with his small nephew.
Jill had unwittingly married into fabulous wealth, that much was for sure, but what on earth had made Theodore cut himself off from his family the way he had? Although Andreas seemed to have his brother’s cold, authoritative nature, Evangelos Karydis had appeared quite warm and friendly and Dimitra even more so. Still, it was none of her business, not really, Sophy told herself silently. Only in as much as it affected Jill, that was. But one thing was for sure…
She turned and glanced back at the occupants of the Lamborghini, her face flushing in spite of herself as Andreas’s eyes met hers for an instant, a disturbing gleam at the back of the grey. She was going to make very sure Jill made no commitment to this family, either in terms of herself or Michael.
She didn’t trust these people, she didn’t trust them at all, and the big dark man so deftly charming his small nephew at the moment she trusted least of all.