Six
MAY WAS SUPPOSED to be the best possible time to visit Greece. A time when the sun shone but the weather had yet to heat up to the baking temperatures of summer. Sadie had experienced some of that heat when she had visited Greece before and she had found it hard to cope. But then they had only stayed a couple of nights in the capital before flying to the tiny island of Icaros that had been owned by Nikos’s family for generations going way, way back. Once there, she’d found the breezes from the sea had helped to ease the scorching temperatures and made life more enjoyable.
But Icaros was no longer owned by the Konstantos family. Sadie’s father had seen to that. And the memory of just what Edwin had done was a troublesome worry, like the ache of a sore tooth, nagging at her mind all the time.
‘How are you this morning?’
Nikos’s voice startled her from her thoughts, making her jump nervously as he strolled out of the living room on to the wide main balcony where she had been trying to at least make a pretence of eating some of the breakfast that had been laid out on a table in the sunshine.
‘I trust you spent a comfortable night?’
‘That depends on what you mean by comfortable.’
Dressed more casually in the warmth of his native country, he was devastatingly dark and stunning in a soft white shirt and loose beige trousers. His feet were bare, lean and bronzed on the white stone of the balcony, so that he moved as silently and easily as some loose-limbed cat, every bit as lethally elegant and striking.
‘The room was not to your satisfaction?’
Nikos strolled over to the table and picked up a bunch of grapes, plucking one from the stalk and tossing it into his mouth.
‘My room was fine. As you know it had to be. This is a beautiful house.’
And if she needed anything to bring home to her just how far the Konstantos family had come since their lowest point five years before then this was it.
The villa had been a real surprise. The first of many. The first time Nikos had brought her to Athens they had stayed in his large apartment in the Kolonaki district, overlooking the Parthenon. That apartment had been impressive enough, but it was nothing when compared to the Villa Agnanti, where they had arrived late yesterday afternoon. Built into the side of a hill, the huge white house was on several levels, each one going lower down the cliff from the main road. From the lowest level you could walk out through the back gate, step out on to Schinias beach, where the crystal clear Aegean Sea lapped against the shore just metres away. Every single one of the bedrooms had a balcony that overlooked the ocean, but even the gentle sigh of the waves against the sand had not been soothing enough to ease Sadie into sleep last night. Instead she had lain awake and restless, wondering just what she had got herself into and how she was going to manage to handle things here.
‘It has everything I need,’ Nikos responded, but the flat, unemotional level of his voice somehow communicated far more than what he actually said. It was what he had not said that seemed to reverberate underneath the words and gave them a very different emphasis from the one he had used.
‘But you must know that I wouldn’t be able to rest properly without knowing what was going on at home.’
Sadie adjusted her position against the balustrade, turning so that she was resting her back against the white stonework and looking straight into Nikos’s dark, sculpted face, feeling the warmth of the morning sun beat down on the back of her head.
‘You phoned Thorn Trees just before dinner. All was well then.’
‘But I only had five minutes.’
Five minutes during which the door to the room she had been in was left open and she had been painfully aware of the way that Nikos was waiting for her beyond that door, no doubt listening to every word she said. She had felt like a prisoner under careful observation, unable to manage more than a few stilted sentences in response to her mother’s unrestrained delight at knowing that she was safe in Thorn Trees for the time being at least.
Not that Sarah fully understood that their reprieve was only temporary. The joy that had rung in her mother’s voice had been another twist of the knife in Sadie’s already worried and aching heart. Her mother might think that Nikos had been wildly generous and unbelievably forgiving, she might believe that the stay of execution was permanent and for all time, but Sadie knew it was just that—a stay. And the way Nikos had behaved on the flight here, the fact that her phone and her laptop, her only means of communication with the outside world, were still firmly in his possession left her in no doubt that he wasn’t planning on being forgiving or even kind, but on holding her ruthlessly to their bargain for as long as it took. And then…
And then?
The truth was that she had no idea at all what would happen next. When her time in Greece was up, when she had fulfilled her contract and Nikos and his fiancée were married, then what would happen?
Was the reprieve that he had granted them only for the length of time that she was working for him? And when that was done would he let them stay in Thorn Trees? She couldn’t see it happening.
‘Long enough to assure yourself that your mother is well. You are here to work.’
‘Then let me get some work done! There’s no way I can do anything without my laptop. And without meeting your bride.’
That came out more pointedly than she had planned. The truth was that just the thought of him marrying someone else twisted up her feelings so badly that she didn’t know what to think or how to feel.
‘My bride will not be here for some time. You will not be able to talk to her.’
‘But that’s ridiculous! How can I work on your—? We—’
To Sadie’s horror her mixed up feelings seemed to have tangled on her tongue, making her stumble over the word.
‘Your wedding—when I don’t know who she is or what she likes? I need to talk to her.’
‘You will talk to me.’
Nikos tossed another grape into his mouth and chewed on it before swallowing it down. Sadie found that the simple movement held her gaze transfixed on the lean line of his throat, the muscles moving under the smooth olive skin. She felt her own mouth dry in response, her own throat move as she swallowed too.
‘I will tell you everything you need to know.’
‘You will?’
Was that embarrassing croak really her voice? Sadie moved to the table set out on the balcony and reached for a glass of orange juice, gulping it down to ease the tight constriction of her throat.
‘A wedding is a woman’s most special day. She would want it to be absolutely perfect.’
‘And it will be,’ Nikos returned with smooth arrogance, clamping sharp white teeth down on another beautifully fresh grape. A tiny trickle of juice slid out on to his lips and he swept it away with a slick of his tongue.
Sadie forced her eyes down to study the surface of her drink as if it held the answer to some vitally important question. Anything to distract herself from the way that her thoughts were heading. Deep inside she was having to struggle
