was this in fact the brand-new fiancée? Because she was much younger than he had ever anticipated…
Perhaps The Fiancée had been married before and this girl was a daughter? Whoever she was, she made him think disturbingly of the mysterious Skye.
He’d better make himself known to her. He didn’t want to give the impression of behaving like a peeping Tom, standing here staring at her.
‘Kalimera.’
She hadn’t heard him—the water must still be in her ears. Or perhaps she didn’t even understand Greek. A cynical smile twisted his mouth. It was an indication of just how bad things had become between him and his father that he had no idea whether the new woman in Cyril’s life was Greek or some other nationality entirely. The last time he had known anything about any of Cyril’s mistresses, his father had been deeply involved with a woman from the village.
‘Good afternoon.’ He spoke again, more firmly and clearly this time, just as she reached the far end of the pool and held onto the side, wiping the water from her face. ‘I think I ought to introduce myself to you, Stepmama.’
It was her stillness that told him something was wrong. The sudden total freezing into immobility that caught on a raw edge in his mind and made him frown, studying her more closely.
Just what had he said that had startled her so much?
Even from this distance he could see the way that she clutched at the side of the pool, the pressure that turned the knuckles white on each delicate hand.
That hand…
Suddenly, shockingly, it was as if he had been kicked in the stomach hard.
A cold, damp night in London. A smoky bar. The laughter of two men.
A hand held prisoner on the table top.
‘Theos, no!’
He had to be imagining things. Fooling himself.
But in the warmth of the Greek sun the hair that tumbled down her back—the hair that he had thought was dark, but now he could see was only soaked with water from the pool—was already starting to dry. And as it dried its colour changed, lightening…revealing a red-gold tint.
‘Ochi…’
Feeling as if he had been slapped on the side of the head, Theo reverted to his native Greek, shaking his head in denial of what he was seeing, what he suspected.
‘No!’
It couldn’t be true.
But if it wasn’t, then why was she still standing as if frozen, with her head turned away from him—that long, straight back held tight with tension, the delicate hands clenched over the edge of the pool?
Why didn’t she turn and face him—revealing the features of a total stranger, shattering the foolish, damn stupid, appalling delusion that had taken a grip on his mind and wouldn’t let go?
She wasn’t…she couldn’t be…
‘Skye?’
From the moment that she had first heard that voice, Skye had been fixed to the spot, unable to move, unable to think, unable to breathe.
‘Good afternoon,’ he had said, and it was as if a cruel hand had reached out through time and yanked her backwards, dragging her away from the present, and back into the past, into a whirlwind of memories that paralysed her mind, slashed at her soul.
‘Good afternoon.’
Those were the words she had heard in the clear light of today. But in her mind what she had heard was: Oh, but he does.
The first words that Anton had spoken on the night in London. The night that ever since had simply become that night in her thoughts, with no further title needed.
That night.
That was when she had first heard that rich, slightly husky voice with the touch of the beautiful accent that made her toes curl in response.
But how could she have heard it here and now?
She had to be imagining things! She couldn’t have heard it. He couldn’t be here. Fate couldn’t be so cruel.
But then he had said, ‘I think I ought to introduce myself to you,’ and the world had tilted violently, swinging right off balance, making her head spin crazily.
Her vision had blurred, her stomach had clenched tight in panic. She couldn’t see, couldn’t think. She had to know—and yet she didn’t dare to look round, terrified in case she was right. In case it was him.
And then the worst horror of all.
‘Skye?’
He used her name. In the voice that she had heard him use dozens of times—a hundred times—on that night. She had heard it said calmly, heard it said softly, heard it said huskily, seductively, passionately, demandingly. And finally, she had heard her own name used as a cry of fulfilment, as he had lost himself in her. But always, always, in that voice.
Anton?
She didn’t dare to speak his name aloud, fearing that she might be tempting fate by doing so. That she might turn into reality what she still fervently hoped was just a delusion, a trick of sound combining with her overactive imagination.
‘What the hell?’
The harsh, angry question brought her swinging round, unable to bear the suspense any longer. She had to know.
He was standing on the edge of the pool, hands on hips. The sun was behind him so that she had to squint against it to see his face. But she already knew, and her heart was racing so fast that she was sure it would escape the confines of her chest. Already she couldn’t breathe and her mind was frozen in stunned horror.
Perhaps it was because of that, or perhaps it was the sun dazzling her eyes, but something made her lose her grip, slip and fall. She reached for the rim of the pool, missed, and went under, still gasping for breath.
Water in her ears and eyes, she didn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything. She went down…down…
There was a flurry nearby. A long body slashed into the water at her side. Strong hands seized her; powerful arms hauled her up to the surface. Before she had time to think, she was dragged to the shallow end of the pool, and supported gently as she gasped and wheezed, struggling to get her breath back.
‘Steady,’ that voice advised her. ‘Breathe deeply.’
She would if she could, Skye told herself, but if anything was guaranteed not to calm her down, it was this.
Now she didn’t have to look into his face to know he was Anton. Even after only one night—that night—she knew this male body so intimately that she could never mistake it. There were the hard, strong bones of the ribcage, the black curling hair that marked a path down the centre of his chest,
