feta marinated in olive oil.
It looked excellent, and with an audible growl of her stomach Rhiannon realised how hungry she was.
The first course was followed by moussaka, and a rack of lamb with herbs and served with rice.
It was delicious, and by the time dessert arrived—a nut cake flavoured with cloves and cinnamon—she was so full she felt the waistband of her skirt pinch uncomfortably.
She was also aware of Theo’s disapproval of his son. He never said anything outright; in fact he spoke slowly, as if he wanted to use as few words as possible, and even chose those with care.
Still, she saw the disapproval in the tightening of his mouth, the flatness in his eyes, the biting edge of his tone.
Lukas, to his credit, remained mild and relaxed throughout the whole meal, although Rhiannon noticed how his eyes darkened, blanked. His fist bunched on the tablecloth before he forced himself to shrug, nod, smile. Dismiss.
She wondered at the tension in the relationship, what secrets the Petrakides family harboured. What secrets Lukas hid behind the neutral expression, the cold eyes.
This was Annabel’s family. Fear and uncertainty churned in Rhiannon’s stomach as she thought of giving up her ward to these people.
She couldn’t. And she didn’t have to, she reminded herself. Not yet. Maybe never.
After cups of strong Greek coffee, Theo jerkily excused himself to bed. He walked stiffly from the room, leaving Rhiannon and Lukas alone amidst the flickering candles and the remnants of a fantastic meal.
‘That was wonderful…thank you.’ She dabbed at her lips with her napkin, suddenly aware of a palpable tension.
Lukas was rotating his coffee cup slowly between strong, brown fingers, his expression shuttered.
He looked up when she spoke, smiled easily, the darkness of his eyes clearing like the sun coming from behind storm clouds. ‘You’re not going to end the evening so soon?’
‘It’s late…I’m tired…’ She should be tired, but right now her senses were humming in a way that made her feel gloriously awake and alive. She knew to stay, to linger in the dim, intimate atmosphere of the room, would be dangerous for both of them.
For some reason this attraction had sprung up between them—a powerful force that they both had to avoid…for Annabel’s sake.
And for her own.
‘Will you walk with me on the beach?’ Lukas asked. ‘There need not be enmity between us, Rhiannon.’
‘Is that so?’ Rhiannon tried to laugh; it came out brittle. ‘It’s easy for you to say that, Lukas. You’re holding all the cards.’
‘I think,’ Lukas said carefully, ‘we both want what’s best for Annabel.’
‘We might disagree about what that is.’
He nodded in acknowledgement, then shrugged. ‘It’s a beautiful moonlit night. The photographers can’t see us in the dark. A few moments…You haven’t had any fresh air since you’ve been here, and the island is beautiful.’
‘I can’t leave Annabel. If she wakes…’
‘Adeia will listen for her,’ Lukas said. ‘She’d love to.’
Rhiannon hesitated. Perhaps getting to know Lukas would help. It might soften him to her case, to her hopes for Annabel. ‘All right,’ she agreed, not nearly as reluctantly as she knew she should. ‘A few moments.’
Outside the sound of the surf was a muted roar in the distance, and the air was cool and soft. Lukas led her down a paved path to the beach, a stretch of smooth sand that curved around tumbled rocks into the unknown.
He kicked off his shoes, and Rhiannon did the same, enjoying the silky softness between her toes.
They walked quietly down the shoreline for a few minutes, the only sound the lapping of waves.
‘Has this island been in your family long?’ she finally asked, unnerved by the silence that had stretched between them.
Lukas gave a short, abrupt laugh before shaking his head. ‘No, indeed not. Only about twenty-five years or so; the Petrakides fortune is very new.’
‘Is it?’ Rhiannon had not read that in the papers, but then she’d only been looking for salient details regarding the man she’d believed to be Annabel’s father. ‘I didn’t realise.’
‘My father started life as a street-sweeper,’ Lukas stated with matter-of-fact flatness. ‘He worked his way up to becoming landlord of a tenement in Athens, before banding together with a few partners and buying a block of derelict apartment buildings. They renovated them, turned them into modest, affordable housing units. And he moved up from there. Eventually he didn’t need partners.’
‘A real success story,’ Rhiannon murmured, and Lukas acknowledged this with a brusque nod.
‘Yes.’
They walked quietly for a moment, Lukas seeming lost in unhappy thoughts.
Success wasn’t everything, Rhiannon supposed. It couldn’t buy happiness. It couldn’t buy love.
‘Your father doesn’t seem like a happy man,’ she ventured, surprised by her own candour as well as by Lukas’s swift, acknowledging glance.
‘No, he isn’t,’ he agreed after a pause. ‘If he seems in a bad temper, it is in part because he is upset over the press. My father has wanted to prove to everyone that he deserves the wealth and success he has earned. He feels any stain on his reputation is a reflection of where he came from—the street. Although…’ Lukas’s face was obscured in shadow, but there was suddenly a different darkness to his tone. ‘Things have not been easy for him lately.’
Rhiannon’s steps slowed as memories clicked into place. ‘He’s dying, isn’t he?’ she said quietly.
He stiffened, turned in surprise. ‘How did you know?’
‘I should have realised sooner,’ she admitted. ‘I’m a palliative nurse—I work in hospices. I’ve been around a lot of people in his situation.’ She shook her head. ‘I assumed he was speaking so slowly because he thought I was stupid, but it’s because he’s losing his words, isn’t he? What does he have? A brain tumour?’
Lukas nodded stiffly. ‘The doctors have given him at most a few more months. It hasn’t, by the grace of God, affected him too much yet, although he occasionally forgets things. Sometimes it is just a word, other times a whole event.’ He shook his head. ‘It is frustrating, because he knows he is forgetting.’
‘I’m sorry,’ Rhiannon whispered. ‘I know how difficult a dying parent can be.’
‘Do you?’ Lukas’s glance was swift, sharp, assessing, yet there was a flicker of compassion in those silver eyes. ‘Tell me about yourself, Rhiannon.’
She shrugged, discomfited by the turn in the conversation he’d so quickly
