been waiting for over twenty years for Katrina to be exposed as the monster she is,’ Leo countered unapologetically. ‘Her infidelity was widely known. She made my father a laughing stock and the only reason I didn’t intervene and tell him the truth about her sooner was that she made him happy and I didn’t want to be the messenger. Forgive me if I find it too much of a challenge to cry crocodile tears over the reality that she’s now going to become his ex-wife.’
‘You need to talk to your father about his marriage to your mother. You need to hear what that was like.’
‘Who the hell do you think you are to drag my mother into this sordid situation?’ Leo launched at her, wholly taken aback by that advice.
‘Someone who, thanks to your walk-out tonight, knows rather more than I feel I should about your background,’ Letty observed heavily. ‘Seriously, Leo. You need to get over yourself and talk to your dad.’
Leo stiffened defensively. ‘It’s not a matter of getting over myself—’
‘No, it’s a matter of setting aside your prejudice and taking a fresh look at old history—’
‘You could simply just tell me what he told you,’ Leo stated impatiently.
‘No. It’s not my business,’ Letty said succinctly. ‘It’s father and son stuff. And now I’m going to bed and I’m going to sleep for hours.’
Leo was transfixed by that little conversation while cursing Letty’s sense of honour in feeling that it was not her place to share such stuff with him second-hand because he had never had a personal chat with his father in his entire life and he wasn’t looking forward to the prospect. How would he even approach such a challenge? Curiosity, however, was pulling at him.
‘Letty’s wonderful,’ his father assured him over lunch, when he came downstairs. ‘An amazing woman. So kind and thoughtful and loving. You’re very lucky.’
Leo ordered coffee on the veranda and sat down there with his father for the first time in many years. Panos still looked worn, his eyes bloodshot, his weathered face still puffy from his distress the night before. Leo was seriously hoping that he didn’t start crying again because he didn’t think he would cope very well with that but, now that the truth about Katrina was finally out, he was learning that he did feel more sympathetic towards his father’s plight than he had ever imagined he would.
Panos explained how, having missed his flight to Athens, he had returned unexpectedly to the hotel, where he had discovered Katrina in bed with one of Leo and Letty’s wedding guests. Leo nodded and answered his father’s questions about why he had remained silent for so long about Katrina’s affairs. Leo gave him the honest answer and went on to ask the kind of questions about his mother that it had never even occurred to him to ask before. And what he learned then rocked his world and his perceptions about his family. He discovered then that he could handle the tears shining in the older man’s eyes. He discovered that those tears didn’t seem so weak once he was better aware of Panos’s experiences. He also appreciated that he owed his bride enormous gratitude for pushing him into that long-overdue dialogue with his only surviving parent.
For that reason, when Letty finally reappeared, surrounded by leaping, jumping kids and with Theon tucked securely on one hip, Leo experienced one of those increasingly rare moments when he wished there were no children in his life because he wanted Letty all to himself and he couldn’t have her. Even his father gravitated straight to her as though drawn by the magnet of her warmth and smiles. Leo wanted those smiles all to himself, he registered in surprise at that acknowledgement.
Over dinner, Letty rifled through the letters that had arrived that day for her and extracted one that provoked a huge grin from her. ‘I’ve got an interview next week,’ she told him.
Leo frowned. ‘For what?’
‘To return to medical school,’ Letty replied happily. ‘I’ve applied for entrance for next year because I thought the kids and I should have the rest of this year to bond.’
Leo wondered when he would get the chance to bond with her and then questioned why he was having such a weird thought when they were already married. ‘I’m sure they’ll rearrange the interview for you,’ he commented.
Letty frowned. ‘There’s no need to rearrange it. Popi returns to school next week, so it all dovetails perfectly.’
‘Popi can return to London with one of the nannies and the rest of the kids while you stay on here. I have meetings in Athens next week,’ Leo pointed out equably, certain he had found the perfect solution.
Letty wrinkled her nose. ‘Oh, that won’t do. We can’t separate the children and Popi shouldn’t be in that huge house alone.’
‘Alone with a domestic staff of at least ten people,’ Leo slotted in drily, wishing yet again that Letty didn’t place literally everyone else’s needs ahead of his. ‘I want you to stay here with me next week.’
Letty opened and closed her mouth a couple of times and then encountered her father-in-law’s curious gaze and opted to remain silent. She would talk to Leo in private, fight with him without an audience because she had not the slightest doubt that it would be a fight when Leo spoke in that my way or the highway measured tone.
‘Leo…?’ she murmured from the office doorway once the children were in bed and his father had gone down to the village to catch up with old friends.
Leo frowned down at his laptop and then glanced up, immediately thinking how incredibly beautiful she was, even in worn jeans and a sweater. Maybe it was the appeal of au naturel to a man who had never had that option with a woman before, he reasoned absently. There was faint colour in her cheeks and with her hair tumbling round her shoulders just a little messily she still contrived to look amazingly appealing to his eyes, and thinking about that wildly sensual little encounter in his manager’s office made him instantly hard.
‘Yes?’ His voice emerged huskily.
‘I have to return to London next week and I’m taking all the kids as well,’ Letty told him bluntly.
Leo frowned. ‘But I’d prefer you to remain here with me.’
Letty drew in a deep breath. ‘Leo…you married me to be a mother figure to the children, so please allow me to occasionally know what’s best for them. Popi would be upset to be parted from her sister and brothers and I want to attend that interview, not rearrange it. Don’t forget that my right to return to studying medicine is in our prenup.’
All of a sudden Leo could feel his usually very even and controlled temper threatening to go nuclear on him. He realised that it was her reference to that wretched prenuptial agreement that set him off, not to mention his father’s disturbing revelations about his marriage to Leo’s mother. Had the document been sitting in front of him at that moment he would have ripped it to shreds. ‘Does that mean you can’t compromise?’ he pressed in a curt undertone.
‘I won’t compromise when it comes to being straight about what the children need,’ Letty countered squarely. ‘I’m sorry, that’s not something that
