quiet of the villa, breathed in the scents of bougainvillea and heliotrope from outside. Maria hurried towards him.
‘Kyrie Mena! I was not expecting you. You didn’t send word you were coming.’
‘It was a last-minute decision,’ Angelos said as he shed his suit jacket. ‘I’m sorry if I’ve inconvenienced you.’
‘Not at all,’ Maria clucked, bustling around him as she always did. ‘I will make up your bedroom. And as for dinner...?’
Angelos hesitated. He normally didn’t stay on Kallos for many meals, and those he took were by his desk, working. ‘Have you eaten?’ he asked. Maria shook her head.
‘No, not yet. We were just going to have something simple in the kitchen...’
‘Then I will join you for dinner.’ Maria looked flummoxed; Angelos never joined them in the kitchen.
‘Very good, sir,’ she murmured, and he turned away, towards the solitude of his study.
He worked until he heard Sofia and Talia come downstairs; he listened to their chatter, a pidgin mixture of English and Greek, punctuated by much laughter. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard his daughter sound so excited, so happy.
The realisation felt like a fist clenching his heart.
Finally when he could hear Maria putting the meal on the table he rose from his desk and went into the kitchen. The moment he stepped into the doorway the room fell silent, and three heads swivelled expectantly towards him.
‘Kalispera,’ Angelos greeted them, his voice terser than he would have liked. ‘You are all well?’
‘Very well,’ Maria answered when no one else seemed inclined to say anything. Angelos sat down at the table and after a brief pause Talia and Sofia joined him there.
‘Hello, Papa,’ Sofia whispered, and Angelos smiled at her. She ducked her head, letting her hair fall forward to hide her scarred cheek. Everything inside him tightened in regret and dismay, and he looked away to compose himself. His interactions with Sofia were always like this.
As he put his napkin in his lap he could feel Talia watching him, and when he looked up he saw how she was gazing at him in what almost seemed like disapproval, her lips pursed, her eyes narrowed.
He raised his eyebrows in silent enquiry, and flushing, she looked away.
She looked good, he noticed. The last week had left her tanned, the freckles across her nose coming out in bold relief. Her hair had golden streaks, and she seemed more relaxed than she had a week ago, even if she seemed determined to give him a death stare all dinner long.
The meal was awful. The food was as delicious as always, but the conversation was stilted and awkward, punctuated by long, taut silences. Whenever Angelos asked Sofia a question she stammered or mumbled an answer, and then hung her head.
Talia didn’t speak at all, but Angelos could feel the censure and even the animosity rolling off her in waves and when the plates were cleared Angelos decided he had had enough of it. He excused himself before dessert was served, claiming he needed to work.
Back in his study he paced the room before he reached for the bottle of ouzo he kept in a drinks cabinet and poured himself a small measure. Then he cursed and slammed the glass back onto the desk. Alcohol was not the answer.
He went to his laptop, but he’d finished writing his notes on the last consultancy and he’d done nearly all the prep work on his next client. He had an unprecedented five days to spend at his leisure, and the truth was he didn’t know what to do with it. At least when he worked he didn’t have time to think. To remember.
He was staring blindly into the empty hearth when a quiet knock sounded at the door.
Angelos stiffened. No one disturbed him in his study. Maria knew it was off-limits, and Sofia would never dare. Which left one person who could be knocking at his door, one person who dared to disturb his privacy.
‘Enter,’ he barked, and the door swung open to reveal Talia standing there, her hands on her hips, her eyes blazing.
* * *
Talia was furious. She’d been furious ever since Angelos’s helicopter had landed three hours ago, and he hadn’t even come upstairs to say hello to his daughter.
When he’d appeared for dinner, she’d managed to calm down a little. Maybe he really was busy with work. He’d come back earlier than he’d intended, and he was making the effort to have a meal with them. She was willing to be appeased, even impressed. But then his behaviour during that meal—the bitten-off questions, the stony looks—had made her fury return in full force. And no matter what happened, even if the man fired her, she knew she couldn’t stay silent any longer. For Sofia’s sake she had to speak.
‘Did you need something?’ Angelos asked, his tone as curt as ever. He looked devastatingly sexy standing there, with the top two buttons of his crisp white shirt unbuttoned, revealing the tanned column of his throat, and the sleeves rolled up to show his powerful forearms. His hair was slightly mussed, and a five-o’clock shadow glinted on his strong jaw. Just the sight of him was enough to make every thought empty out of Talia’s head, and she had a hard time remembering why she was so angry.
‘I thought,’ Angelos continued as he turned to his desk, effectively dismissing her, ‘that Maria would have told you my study is off-limits.’
‘You mean you’re off-limits,’ Talia returned. She was fast recalling her fury, especially when Angelos didn’t even look up as he answered her. No matter how sexy the man was, he could still act like an ass.
‘When I am working, yes.’
She gestured to his closed laptop. ‘Have you been working, Kyrie Mena?’
Angelos glanced up then, clearly annoyed by her challenge. ‘What is it you want, Miss Di Sione?’
‘I thought you were going to call me Talia,’ she reminded him with acid sweetness. ‘Not that you’ve ever asked me to call you by your first name.’
‘I am your employer.’
Talia rolled her eyes. ‘You are also the most stiff and formal man I’ve ever met. In this day and age, I think it would be perfectly appropriate for us to call each other by our first names.’
He looked utterly nonplussed by this apparently outrageous suggestion. ‘Is this why you came into my study? To discuss how we address each other?’
‘No.’ Talia let out her breath in a huff. She was picking the wrong fight, but there was so much about Angelos and his distant, disdainful attitude that got up her nose. Made her want to come out swinging for Sofia’s sake. ‘But I thought I’d mention it, as an aside.’
‘Fine. You’ve mentioned it.’ He turned away again and Talia clenched her hands into fists.
‘You know, I think you love your daughter,’ she said, her voice shaking with the force of her feeling, ‘but I wouldn’t be able to tell from your behaviour. At all.’
Angelos turned around slowly. His face was blank, his eyes like two dark pools, his huge body radiating menace.
