on each other where they lay in her lap. So it was with a sense of escape that she watched the land, the first they had seen for the last twenty minutes of a journey which had been mostly over sparkling blue sea, come closer and closer as the helicopter descended.
‘Where are we?’ she asked when at last they were on the ground, with the engine turned off, and she was able to look around.
But Nikos was already out of the craft and, ducking to avoid the slowing blades, coming round to open the door on her side. It was as she set foot on the ground, the blast of heat hitting her after the controlled temperature inside the plane, that recognition hit, and with it a cruel wave of desperate memory. She knew this rugged shoreline, the steep cliffs that rose above the sea. And there in the distance was the low, white-painted, unexpectedly simple house where she had once spent a magical couple of days when Nikos had first brought her to Greece and to his family home.
‘This is Icaros!’
She knew she looked as startled as she sounded, her head coming up sharply in surprise, green eyes locking with cool gold. And it was then that she realised he had been aiming for just this response.
‘You got the island back?’
Nikos’s response was a curt nod.
‘I got the island back,’ he confirmed.
‘Oh, I’m so glad about that.’
That made his eyes narrow in frank disbelief.
‘You are?’
‘Of course! I know how much this island means to your family.’
It was in the tiny chapel here that his father and mother, his grandparents and every great-grandparent they could remember had been married. A tradition that was vital to the man Nikos was. And his sister, who had died as a baby, was buried in the chapel grounds.
‘So did your father.’
Nikos’s tone was so savage that Sadie actually flinched away from it, recoiling in her chair as if from a blow to her face.
‘That was why he sold it to someone else instead of keeping it for himself. An extra fortune for him, and more of a problem for me to get it back if I ever tried it. I would have to negotiate with someone else and he thought he would be able to watch.’
Sadie shivered both at that icy tone and at the thought of how her father had behaved. The island had been one of the weapons Edwin had used against her when she had refused to believe that Nikos didn’t really love her. If it was a lovematch, her father had said, wouldn’t she be marrying in the little island chapel, like every other Konstantos bride before her? And faced with that and so much other evidence, she had had no choice but to believe him.
She hadn’t wanted to think that her father was right. Hadn’t wanted to accept his bitter, cynical way of thinking about everything. He had been so totally obsessed with getting revenge on the Konstantos family that it had taken over his life. But she had no idea why.
‘Do you know what started this crazy feud in the first place?’ she asked impulsively, not caring if the question was wise or if it would push her even further into trouble with Nikos, raking up old bitter memories that were far better left buried.
‘There was always rivalry between the families—in business dealings. But then it became personal, when the woman my grandfather was supposed to marry ran off with your grandfather instead. Pappous never forgot—or forgave. And he made sure that the Carterets paid for it financially. After that, if one family could attack the other in any way, they did.’
Nikos moved away from the helicopter and paced over to the edge of the cliff to stand staring out at the sea. His long body was silhouetted dark against the sunlight, the width of his shoulders seeming even more impressive than ever.
Suddenly, painfully, Sadie was reminded of the days when they had been together. When, if she had seen him like this, she would have been able to go up to him, slide her arms around that narrow waist until they met over the flat stomach. She could have rested her head against the powerful back, felt the heat of his skin through his shirt and inhaled the rich, intimate scent of his body.
That was how she had always dealt with difficult times in the past. Whatever mood he had been in, she had always been able to bring him round that way, to make him relax and smile again. More often than not he would turn in her arms, gathering her close to kiss her fiercely, until her head was spinning with happiness and desire.
That was how they had ended up in bed together the first time on that weekend before her wedding…
No, no, no!
Desperately she dragged her thoughts back from the painful path they were following. She must not let herself remember how it had once been. It was too cruel, too distressing. And all those ‘once had beens’ had never really existed. She had been living in a dream world, swallowing every deliberate lie that Nikos tossed her way and believing she had found the love of her life. The risks of even allowing such memories back into her life was too great to contemplate with any degree of safety. If she let them back into her mind, into her heart, then she would never be able to cope.
‘There was more to it than that.’ She tried to continue the conversation in order to distract herself from the torment of her memories. ‘Something more recent that had made things even worse. My father was…obsessed is the only word. He’d always perpetuated the feud in a business sense, but something new happened to drive him even further into the depths of hatred for the Konstantos family. Into a determination to ruin them once and for all.’
‘And you didn’t know what that was?’
‘No,’ Sadie managed, her eyes now fixed on the horizon. Her heart was thudding erratically, making it difficult to breathe. She was too much on edge, too aware of the difference between being here now like this and the way things had been that first time to manage to control her voice.
‘But I do know, in the end, it never truly brought him any real satisfaction. He drove his family and friends away because nothing else mattered to him. And he broke my mother’s heart. I found out later that my mother had had an affair. It destroyed their marriage, but I’m sure it was because she felt neglected, abandoned because he was so obsessed.’
It was so much easier to talk like this when Nikos had his back to her. When she couldn’t see his dark, stunning face and the cold contempt that burned in his eyes, thinned his beautiful, sensual mouth. Like this she could still pretend that they had some sort of a civilised relationship.
‘We could—we could end it,’ she suggested, buoyed up on a sudden rush of hope. ‘We could say it stops right here and now and—’
‘And what?’ Nikos enquired, turning suddenly to face her again. ‘And what, Sadie, agapiti mou? Hmm? We end it now and—what? Become close friends?’
He didn’t have to explain how he felt about that. It was there in the disgust stamped clearly onto the beautifully carved features, in the twist to his lips, the bite of the words he flung into her face.
‘No—not friends. We could never be that…’
‘Not friends,’ Nikos repeated with a brutal emphasis, his tongue curling in distaste on the word. ‘Because friends would never turn friends out of their home. Because friends would waive the cost
