and swept a dark glossy curl from the flushed face of her son. She would never be able to forget what Angolos looked like; she saw his face, or a miniature, childish version of it, every day.
‘So am I, darling,’ she said, raising her voice to a level that the two elderly women inside could not fail to hear. ‘Let’s go and see if Granny would like a lemonade too, shall we?’
CHAPTER THREE
ROYALTY was attending the charity performance and the media were out in force to record the event. On the red carpet the star of a soap was denying for the benefit of the TV cameras rumours that she was about to marry her co-star.
The foyer was thronged with other famous faces all wearing their best smiles and designer outfits. Despite the fact all the men present were for the most part similarly dressed in dark, formal suits, Paul had no problem locating the person he had come looking for.
Angolos Constantine stood out in a crowd. It wasn’t just his height and looks; it was that rare commodity—presence.
‘Angolos…?’ he called out in relief.
The tall figure, accompanied by an elegant brunette who was dripping with jewels, turned at the sound of his name. A smile spread across his lean face when he identified the speaker.
‘Paul!’ he exclaimed, detaching his partner from his arm and moving forward, his hand outstretched. ‘I didn’t know you were an opera buff…’
‘I’m not…and even if I was it wouldn’t have got me in here,’ the shorter man admitted frankly. ‘I only got this far by telling them I was your personal physician.’
The groove above Angolos’s strong patrician nose deepened. ‘That was resourceful of you.’ His head whipped slowly from side to side as he searched the crowd. ‘And where is the lovely Miranda?’
Paul Radcliff shook his head and scanned the olive-skinned face of the friend he had known since their university days. ‘Mirrie’s not here.’
‘I thought you two were joined at the hip.’
‘Her blood pressure was up a little…nothing serious,’ Paul hastened to assure the other man.
Angolos clapped his hand to his forehead. ‘I forgot!’ he admitted with a grimace of self-reproach. ‘When is my godchild due?’
‘Last week.’
Angolos’s brows lifted. ‘The plot deepens.’
‘You’re looking well, Angolos.’
It struck him that this was something of an understatement. Nobody looking at the lean, vital figure would have believed that a few years earlier his life had hung in the balance… Paul was one of the few people who did know, and he scarcely believed it himself!
One dark brow slanted sardonically. ‘Always the doctor, Paul?’ came the soft taunt.
‘And friend, I hope.’ It was friendship that, after a lot of heart-searching, had brought him here—that and his wife’s nagging.
‘The man has a right to know, Paul,’ she had insisted.
He had still been inclined to leave well alone, but very pregnant wives required humouring. She had insisted that he speak to Angolos without delay and, as she had pointed out, it wasn’t the sort of thing you could hit a man with on the phone.
So here he was and he wished he weren’t.
The hard features of the darker man softened into a smile of devastating charm. ‘And friend,’ he agreed quietly. ‘So what’s wrong, Paul?’
‘Nothing’s wrong, exactly,’ Paul returned uncomfortably.
Angolos didn’t bother hiding his scepticism. ‘Don’t give me that. It would take something pretty serious to make you leave Miranda alone just now. It follows that this is serious.’
That was Angolos, logical to his fingertips, except when it came to his wife. Where Georgie was concerned he got very Greek and unpredictable, reflected the Englishman.
‘She…Mirrie, that is, made me come,’ Paul admitted.
Angolos nodded. ‘And I’m glad she did. I would be insulted if you hadn’t come to me with your problem. Just hold on a sec and I’ll be with you.’
‘My…prob…? But I haven’t got…’ Paul stopped and watched with an expression of comical dismay as his friend exchanged words with the brunette, who looked far from happy with what he said. Seconds later Angolos had returned to his side.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Angolos suggested. ‘There’s a bar around the corner. We can talk.’
The first thing Paul said when they had ordered their drinks was— ‘Let’s get one thing straight. I’m not here to touch you for a loan, Angolos.’
‘I’m well aware that not all problems can be solved by throwing money at them, Paul.’ The level dark-eyed gaze made the other man shift uncomfortably. ‘But if yours ever can be I will throw money at them whether you like it or not.’ The hauteur in his strong-boned face was replaced by a warm smile as he added, ‘My friend, if it wasn’t for you I wouldn’t be here at all.’
‘Nonsense.’
The other man’s patent discomfort made Angolos grin, his teeth flashing white in the darkness of his face. ‘Your British self-deprecation borders on the ludicrous, Paul,’ he observed wryly. He set his elbows on the table and leant forward, his expression attentive. ‘Now what’s the problem?’
‘I wouldn’t call it a problem…It’s just that Dr Monroe retired and his patients have been relocated to us…’ In response to Angolos’s frown Paul breathed in deeply and went on quickly. ‘Yesterday my partner was called out on an emergency and I saw some of the new patients.’ He swallowed. ‘Georgie…your Georgie was one of them.’
Angolos’s expression didn’t change, but his actions as he picked up his untouched drink and lifted it to his lips were strangely deliberate. A moment later, having replaced the glass on the table, he lifted his eyes to those of the other man.
‘Is she ill?’
‘No, no!’
Almost imperceptibly Angolos’s shoulders relaxed.
He privately acknowledged that it was slightly perverse, considering he had cursed his faithless wife with all the inventive and vindictive power at his disposal three and a half years earlier, that the possibility of her being ill now should have awoken such primitive protective instincts.
‘Actually she looked fantastic…a bit thin, perhaps,’ Paul conceded half to himself. ‘She always had great bones.’
‘I have not the faintest interest in how she looks.’ Angolos’s jaw tightened as the other man turned an overtly sceptical gaze on his face. ‘And I don’t remember you mentioning her great bones when you told me I would be making the greatest mistake of my life if I married her…’
‘Ah,
