was caught up in a shocking vortex of vivid sensation as her eyes collided with the stranger’s. She felt as if she’d been pierced by a hot velvet arrow that had gone straight to the very centre of her and, with devastating eroticism, had started to make her melt. He had tousled honey-blond hair cut in a deceptively casual style, a strong, arrogant jaw enviably chiseled—the kind you almost never saw in the street—and the most startlingly vivid blue eyes she’d ever encountered, the colour of a rain-washed summer sky. What were they? Indigo? Violet? Whatever the name of the hue, they were pretty amazing. And they had made her legs go weak as a marionette’s.
Acutely aware that she was doing something she almost never did, and that was to gawk, Ianthe started to turn guiltily away.
‘Ya sas,’ he said smoothly, his voice a deeply resonant velvet question mark that made everything inside Ianthe tighten almost beyond bearing.
‘Hi,’ she responded, frowning faintly. She hadn’t been expecting him to acknowledge her, let alone speak to her, and she was shocked that he had. Deliberately diverting her gaze back to the photograph, she told herself to wait for just a couple more seconds before politely walking away to look at something else.
‘You are not Greek?’ he commented in perfect English, a brief and speculative smile touching his smooth, sculpted lips. Her glance helplessly gravitated to the taut sinewy bulge of his bronzed biceps. They looked so tight the sight of them made her mouth water, and Ianthe fought hard to get control of her frankly dazzled reaction.
‘Um…no. English. I’m English.’ Shrugging apologetically, she started to back away from the photograph that had so enthralled her.
‘You could be Greek.’ He shrugged too, and totally floored Ianthe with the look of frank examination he casually bestowed on her face and figure. ‘I expect you get told that all the time—at least in Greece?’
It was true. In almost every shop she’d looked into yesterday evening after her arrival, and before she’d had her dinner at a local taverna, she had been greeted in a flood of Greek by people expecting her to understand and respond. It had added shocking credence to the conclusion the police had made at the time of her discovery as a baby in the hospital laundry basket twenty-nine years ago. On the note that her real mother had left tucked inside her clothing the word ‘Ianthe’ had been written both in English and Greek. Therefore, it was highly likely that her natural mother had been a Greek national—possibly working in London in a nearby hotel as a chambermaid or some similar occupation at the time of her daughter’s birth.
‘People look at my hair colour and eyes and I suppose they assume…’ Not another word would come out. Unease and unexpected melancholy suddenly gripped her, and Ianthe made another move to leave her riveting companion to enjoy his examination of the mesmerising photograph alone. She was completely unprepared when he seemed to want to pursue their conversation.
‘You like this picture?’ he asked, meeting her gaze.
Diving into an intoxicating sea of blazing blue, she found that her purchase on readily available words was in worryingly short supply. Was she really expected to look into eyes like that and come up with a coherent sentence?
‘I like it very much.’
She hated the way she sounded so nervous, as if she’d never even spoken to an attractive man before. Licking her moisture-deprived lips, she endeavoured to explain her feelings about the photograph. ‘But I almost feel like I’m intruding on some great sorrow when I look at it, to be honest. It makes me want to give her some comfort. I would love to know more about her—the woman in the picture. The photographer must be a genius to have captured so much, don’t you think?’
‘He is a long way from being a genius, I can assure you.’
‘You know him?’
‘This is my picture.’
‘You mean…you own it?’
‘I mean I took the photograph.’
His expression unsmiling, he turned and examined the canvas with what appeared to Ianthe to be a more critical than admiring eye. Stunned that on her first visit to the gallery she should meet the creator of the most compelling piece of work displayed in it, Ianthe knew that her pleasure and her astonishment must show equally on her face.
‘Well, you must be very proud of your work. I think it’s wonderful,’ she told him unreservedly.
His interest undeniably provoked, Lysander studied the woman in front of him with more curiosity than he cared to admit. She was not stunningly beautiful, as Marianna had been, but she was very, very pretty, with big dark eyes and a lush pink mouth. As he’d approached the woman in front of his photographic portrait—coincidentally his personal favourite of all the studies he had taken—after admiring the long dark hair that reached halfway down her back and gleamed with the sheen of a black pearl, Lysander had of course noticed that she had a very arresting figure too.
Her white linen trousers emphasised a perfectly edible peach-shaped bottom, gently flaring hips, and a waist that might easily be spanned by a man’s hands. When he’d finally seen her from the front he’d observed with frankly male pleasure that she was nicely endowed where it mattered. In her pink sleeveless silk top, she had a sultry, womanly shape that any red-blooded male would more than appreciate. He liked her voice too. There was something quite engaging about her flat English vowels that intrigued him.
All of a sudden, Lysander knew that he did not want her to go and leave him alone. For once he was tired of his own morose company, and needed a pretty diversion like this enchanting young woman in front of him.
‘I thank you for your compliment.’ He smiled.
The young Greek woman supervising the entrance to the gallery just then inserted a new CD into the player on the desk in front of her. As hypnotically beautiful harp strings and a Celtic voice started to fill the air, Ianthe’s attention was momentarily stolen from her surprised companion.
‘Oh, what is this? It’s lovely!’ she enthused, her dark eyes shining. And Lysander’s resolve to not let her run away from him became virtually a mission. The pretty English tourist was clearly someone who appreciated the beautiful things in life, and it would be pleasant to while away a couple of hours in her company.
‘We will ask my friend Leonie to tell us what it is on the way out,’ he replied confidently. ‘I would like to take you to lunch. Would you do me the honour of joining me?’
‘I don’t think I—’
‘You are here with your husband or boyfriend, perhaps?’
‘Neither.’ Ianthe felt hot colour flood into her cheeks. ‘I’m unattached…at present.’
Why, oh, why had she told him such a thing? Now maybe he’d think she was expecting something more than just a lunch date!
But he seemed pleased with her answer all the same.
‘Well, my name is Lysander, and if you check with Leonie in a moment or two she will confirm to you that I am indeed the photographer who took this portrait, and well known to both her and her husband Ari. There. I have told you my name, and now you must tell me yours.’
‘Lysander?’ Ianthe frowned, thinking. ‘Wasn’t he something to do with the Spartans?’
Her
