her own grey flannel suit with an expression of fastidious distaste written on his lean face.
‘What way?’ Beth, who had three identical ones in her wardrobe and a selection of plain blouses to wear with them, asked.
Gran had always advised her to go for quality when selecting clothes and Beth followed her advice, though she stopped short at the matching gloves and handbag that Prudence Farley considered essential for a well turned out lady.
In the long-term, Gran had counseled, it was cheaper to choose quality rather than buy trendy junk and she was right, but the junk did look fun, Beth sometimes thought wistfully.
She lifted her chin defiantly as her hand went to her throat, where her cream blouse was buttoned up to the neck. After three years of not noticing she existed, he was suddenly interested in her clothes?
‘Is there something I can help you with, Mr Kyriakis?’ Had he been drinking?
The scandal-hungry media had never suggested a weakness for drink, just for tall leggy blondes, but who knew, she thought, curiosity drawing her eyes to his face. The arrogant cast of his strong features did not suggest weakness or lack of control, if you discounted the sensual fullness of his upper lip.
Conscious of a sinking shivery sensation low in her stomach, Beth tore her strangely reluctant gaze from his mouth and found it wandering straight into the path of his dark eyes and she immediately dumped the drinking idea.
There was nothing blurry or unfocused about his manner. Drinking implied a human weakness and the elder Kyriakis brother didn’t appear to tolerate those in himself or other people.
Theo doesn’t tolerate fools gladly, Andreas was fond of observing. In her own mind, Beth translated this as code for the fact that he was impatient and intolerant.
‘Quite possibly.’
Beth’s polite smile grew wary as she watched his wide, sensually sculpted lips curve into a smile that did not reach his dark eyes; the speculative light in their obsidian depths was making her feel deeply uneasy.
‘But of course you didn’t mean that, did you? Do I make you feel uncomfortable?’
‘No, of course not,’ Beth lied. ‘I didn’t intend to be rude, but I have a lot of work to do.’ She would be lucky, Beth reflected, to make it home before seven—actually, eight—she corrected, recalling the meeting she had scheduled with the manager at the nursing home.
The request to see her had worried Beth, especially as the manager had been reluctant to elaborate further on the phone, but he had reassured her that there was no problem with her grandmother.
She had a horrid feeling that the news might involve a fresh hike in the fees.
The move to the nursing home had been Gran’s idea; she had not even informed Beth that she had booked herself in until the arrangements were made. Beth had been horrified by the idea but her doubts had been soothed when Prudence Farley had said she only intended staying a few weeks.
That had been six months ago and Gran showed no inclination to move back home. The place, she confided to Beth, was like a five-star hotel. At home, she could go a week without seeing anyone but Beth and the vicar’s wife; here, there was never a dull moment and she had made so many new friends.
Beth loved her new zest for life but she was worried; the place was not only run like a five-star hotel but they charged similar rates. Her gran remained cheerfully oblivious to the fact that her savings had run out in the first three months and, when the subject came up, Beth, concerned about worrying her grandmother, was deliberately vague.
It was a constant battle to meet the costs and keep the house going. Beth was only living in three rooms of the big sprawling Victorian mansion that her grandmother had come to as a new bride, but the upkeep was a financial drain that gave her nightmares.
She called it a nightmare; the bank manager called it her get out of jail card.
When she had pointed out that she wasn’t in jail, he had said darkly, ‘Not yet.’
Beth wasn’t sure if he was joking or not but none of his dire predictions had made her change her mind. She was not selling up to a developer; the house would be there when Gran decided to come home.
The bank manager had been visibly frustrated by her intransigent attitude.
‘Miss Farley, your attitude does you credit but it is hardly practical. Let me be blunt. Your grandmother is a very old lady; it seems unlikely she will ever come home. And these figures—’ he sighed as he flicked through the papers laid out in front of him ‘—I’m afraid they suggest you cannot pay for your grandmother’s care and eat.’
Beth, in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere, had joked, ‘I need to lose weight.’
He had not seen the joke. ‘I would suggest there is no choice. When your grandmother gave you Power of Attorney it was a situation like this that she had in mind.’
Beth had thanked him for his advice because she knew he meant well but she had remained adamant she would not sell up or contemplate the possibility of her gran not coming home.
She knew that Gran loved the place as much as she did. The sprawling Victorian house had, in estate agent speak, a wealth of original features but very little in the way of modern conveniences. Beth had lived there since her parents’ death in a train crash when she was seven.
‘You want me to leave so that you can weep in privacy?’
The casual question made her stiffen and brought her eyes back to his lean face. How did a man who had not given her the same degree of attention he afforded the office furniture on his visits come to know about the knot of misery lodged like a lead weight in her aching throat?
‘I don’t know what you mean…’
He cut her off with an impatient gesture. ‘You’re in love with my brother.’
Chapter Three
BETH felt the blood drain from her face as she stared at him in horror. ‘That’s totally ridiculous!’
He raised his brows in mock surprise. ‘I did not realise it was meant to be a secret. My apologies.’
It took a massive amount of willpower not to drop her gaze. Tired of pushing her glasses back up her nose, she took them off and placed them on the desk before fixing him with a glare of thinly disguised loathing.
‘You know what you can do with your apologies and your sick sense of humour!’
The transformation was nothing short of incredible. She still wasn’t a raving beauty but if his brother saw her with her cheeks flushed, her small bosom heaving and her eyes glittering with anger he would have noticed her.
‘Andreas has just got engaged to a beautiful woman. You wish to wallow in self-pity and perhaps look at the photo you keep in your wallet.’ The cynicism in his smile deepened as he watched her eyes fly to her handbag. ‘No, it was a lucky guess—I have not been going through your bag.’
‘Is that some sort of joke?’ The joke, she realized, feeling sick, was herself. Did everyone know…?
