CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE

L EANDROS K ASTELLANOS NO DDED at familiar faces, exchanging civil pleasantries as he made away across the crowded function room at this top Athens hotel, popular with those wanting to throw a lavish party, as was the case tonight. All around, Athens high society was mingling and enjoying itself, the men all in tuxes, as was he himself, and the women all in evening gowns, glittering with jewels.

He was here only because he’d returned unexpectedly early from a business trip to New York, and out of civility to his hosts, the parents of the newly engaged couple whose betrothal party this was.

His expression tightened. He wished the couple well—but not all engagements led to a happy-ever-after marriage...

He should know...

No! He pulled his thoughts back sharply. No point remembering his own disastrous engagement. It had been six long years ago—in the past. A past he had no interest in revisiting. He was no longer the fool he’d been at twenty-six, swept away on a tide of romance. Blinding himself to the true nature of the woman he had fallen so hard for.

Until he’d seen her true nature for himself—had his face slammed into it.

It wasn’t me she loved—it was the Kastellanos money. And if that wasn’t going to be coming her way—well, she was off. Dumping me faster than you could say—as his father had spelt out to her—disinherited.

The realisation had been brutal.

My faithless fiancée.

Bitterness filled him. So much for love.

Hadn’t his father warned him? And been proved right?

Now, though, the Kastellanos millions were all his anyway. His father’s untimely death three years ago had left him one of the richest men in Greece—and the most eligible. But marriage was not on his agenda; he stuck to the kind of passing liaisons in which he had indulged in his youth—before he had been beguiled by the oh-so-deceptive and deceiving ingénue beauty of the woman who had proved so faithless.

The function room opened on to a spacious roof terrace, set up for dancing later on. On impulse, he stepped out, wanting to clear his unwelcome thoughts, his toxic memories. The ever-present illuminated Parthenon was visible atop the distant Acropolis and the festoons of hanging lamps around the dance floor cast a soft glow.

The scent of flowers from all the lavishly filled planters at the perimeter of the terrace caught at him.

And one more thing caught at him.

On the far side of the terrace, half in shadow, against the dark foliage, was the pale, slender outline of a woman.

For a second—an instant—time ceased. Then it crashed and crushed him.

Eliana saw him. Saw him step through onto the deserted terrace.

Cold dismay seared through her.

Oh, dear God in heaven, no, no, no !

She’d been deeply reluctant to show up here at all—to show up anywhere in Athens!—but Chloe had been adamant.

‘You can’t hide for ever, Elli—please, please come!’

With deep misgivings she had agreed only when Chloe had sworn that even though her future in-laws, long-standing friends of the Kastellanos family, had invited him, he would not—could not—be there tonight! He was in New York, safely across an ocean.

That, and only that, had persuaded Eliana to show up, out of loyalty to her old school friend. Not that she’d kept in touch much with Chloe since her own marriage—even less since the shocking ending of that marriage.

Arriving tonight, seeing all those faces—many still familiar—she’d felt her nerves get the better of her, and she’d bolted out to the sanctuary of the deserted terrace.

No sanctuary at all—the very opposite.

She felt her lungs turn to stone. He was here—less than ten metres away from her. Imposing upon her consciousness as if he’d been ringed in fire.

The last man in the entire world she could bear to see.

On whom she had not set eyes for six long years—

Yet his final words to her, his denunciation of her—scathing, bitter, contemptuous and cruel—were as clear as if they’d been spoken yesterday.

For a second her vision blurred, then cleared, bringing him back into focus. He had frozen, just as she had—but now he was walking towards her. Striding. Purposeful. Powerful.

Almost, she flinched away. But then, with a strength she had not had to summon for so, so long she steeled herself. Inwardly, she gave a kind of silent, manic laugh—after what life had done to her, why should she flinch from this blow now?

He came right up to her and she could see the lamplight slant across his features. Features once so familiar. Features now etched like acid on stone. Light glinted in his eyes, but it was a light that was darkness—darkness visible.

He stopped a mere metre from her. Eyes holding hers. Dark and condemning.

His expression changed minutely, and it was taking all her strength just to stand there, immobile, her shoulders steeled, her whole body steeled.

‘Well, well—Eliana.’

His voice was like a knife...a blade drawn down her cheek.

‘After so long. And as beautiful as ever.’

That dark, killing glint came again into his eyes.

‘Tell me, are you here to catch another husband? Another rich husband—the only kind you go for...?’

From somewhere—she didn’t know where—she found the willpower to hold her ground, outface the contempt unhidden in his taunt.

‘No,’ she answered. Her voice was cool...as cool as a mountain lake.

‘No?’ The taunt was still in his voice. ‘I’m sure there might be rich pickings to be had here tonight.’

She did not flush. She would not. ‘You must excuse me,’ she made herself say, her voice still cool. ‘I have yet to offer my congratulations to Andreas for being so fortunate as to gain Chloe as his bride-to-be.’

She made to move past him, but he was staying at her side as she headed across the terrace. He was speaking again.

‘And likewise I shall congratulate the happy bride-to-be on catching Andreas Manolis, with all his millions.’

Eliana threw a glance up at him. ‘Chloe has her own millions,’ she said.

‘Then it should prove a happy marriage indeed—with no impediment on either side.’

The cynicism—the unspoken accusation over their own thwarted marriage—was open in his voice, but she would not flinch. She simply headed inside. She would find Chloe, then escape.

Escape, escape, escape—dear God, just get out of here!

Her friend saw her, gave a cry of pleasure.

‘Elli, you came! I’m so, so pleased. Andreas—here is Eliana, one of my dearest friends for ever! And with her is—’

She stopped short. Suddenly silenced.

Leandros wanted to laugh, but if he did, he knew it would be a savage sound. A snarl. As it was, he leashed his response into a terse, tight-lipped throwaway.

‘Don’t read anything into it. It’s chance, that’s all.’

Malign chance— mocking him.

Had he known—had he had the slightest idea that Eliana would be here—he’d never have shown his face. But it was too late now.

He let Andreas’s parents introduce him to their son’s fiancée, and said whatever it was that the occasion required. As he uttered his pro forma good wishes, Eliana stepped a little aside, as if to increase the distance between them.

As if it were not infinite already.

She was talking to someone else—an older couple, whom he took to be the bride-to-be’s parents. He turned away, letting more guests approach the engaged couple, heading for the bar. He needed a drink—a stiff one. Then he’d get out of here.

As for Eliana—

He blanked his mind—blanked her name. Blanked her very existence. Just as he had for six long years. As he would go on doing. Because anything else was unthinkable.

She’s out of my life—and she’s staying out.

But as he knocked back his shot of whisky at the bar he could still see her, imprinted on his retinas.

As beautiful as ever...hauntingly beautiful...

He slammed the empty glass down on the bar. He needed another shot.

Eliana stepped inside her room at the small two-star hotel which was all she could afford with a sense of shuddering relief. She stripped off her evening gown—a leftover from the days before her marriage. Her hands were shaking, heart hammering painfully. Weak suddenly, she sank down on the bed.

Oh, dear God, she had seen him again! Seen Leandros!

She had not set eyes on him since that hideous day when she’d slid his ring from her finger, told him she was not going to marry him, and walked away from him.

Gone to the man she was going to marry instead.

Shock broke over her at what had happened this evening, delayed and all the more devastating for it. She felt her tremors increase, the hammering of her heart become more painful yet.

To see Leandros again and to know...to know...

That he hates me with as much hatred as he ever did! That I am as loathsome to him now as then!

He held her in contempt, and she deserved it—that was the hardest thing to bear. To bear as she had had to bear it for six long years. Since she had walked out on him, rejecting him for another man. A man she hadn’t loved—a man she had married only for his money.

Guilt bit at her for what she had done to Leandros—the man she had once loved, whose love for her she had destroyed with her faithlessness.

And she felt guilt of another kind too—survivor guilt. For the man she had married instead of Leandros was now dead—smashed to pieces in a fatal car crash eighteen months ago.

Well, she was getting her just deserts now. She’d married for money, but widowhood had taken that away from her, reduced her to the poverty she had married to avoid. A poverty she deserved, and to which she was now condemned, eking out what little she had. And even that small portion came with a claim on it she could not refuse...

As her thoughts went in that direction they gave her a crumb of comfort. If there was anything to salvage from the wreck she had made of her life, it was that.

As for seeing Leandros again, feeling his scorn, his contempt for her as stinging as it had been six years ago, she must just put it behind her. She did not live in Athens. She would not see him again. Tomorrow she would be heading back to Thessaloniki, the city she’d lived in since her marriage. Back to the life she now led—had to lead—leaving Athens far behind as she had done before, when she had ruined her own life.

And broken her own heart.

Leandros stood out on the terrace of his house in the wealthy Athens suburb of Psychiko, a whisky in his hand, his mood as dark as the night around him. He had left that benighted party as soon as he decently could, wanting only to put it behind him—to wipe the image of the one woman he wished to perdition from his mind.

But she would not go. She was still there, imprinted balefully on his retinas in all the beauty that had once so captivated him. And he saw her here, too—as if she were with him out on the terrace, gazing up at him with those wide-set eyes. And in them was all that he poured down into hers.

He’d kissed her here, on this very terrace, her lips like velvet beneath his, her heart beating like a wild bird as he held her in his arms.

She’d been like no other woman he’d ever found. Till then he’d enjoyed all the privileges of his family wealth and his own good looks, knowing that any female he smiled on would be only too keen to get his interest.

But Eliana was shy—hesitant. Even though her beauty was a loveliness that stopped me in my tracks.

For the first time in his life he’d fallen in love. Determined to win her—overcoming her shyness, the hesitancy born of the sheltered upbringing she’d had—he’d wanted to see in her beautiful blue-grey eyes fringed with smoky lashes all that he himself felt for her. And when he’d asked her to marry him he had seen just that. She had given a little cry and come into his arms, as if she had belonged there all her life—as if she would never leave him.

But leave me she did.

She had walked out on him—gone to another man. Married him instead.

And it was his father who had told him why—who had warned him from the start.

‘Her father’s financial affairs are seriously shaky. Rumours are flying all over town that he has debts he cannot pay. If he goes under, she’ll want a rich husband instead.’

The words stabbed at his head now—and yet he had disbelieved them, right up until the moment when Eliana had slid his ring from his finger. Then, with a bitterness that had been like a knife in his throat, he’d realised his father’s warning had been right.

Just as he was right to tell me he was going to test her, by telling her that if I married her he would disinherit me—that our marriage would come without the contents of the Kastellanos coffers for her to enjoy.

He’d told his father to go right ahead—knowing that Eliana would not care, that her love for him was all that mattered to her, not his wealth.

How wrong I was.

Bitterness seared through him again, as strong now as it had been that fateful evening when he’d watched her walk away from him...walk away for ever. Eviscerating him.

He wrenched himself away, heading back indoors. He wanted another whisky. And another one after that, if need be. Anything to block memories.

But they came all the same And just as toxic.

Eliana and me, on that sofa there. She curled up beside me like a kitten, her head on my shoulder and my arm around her. And I was kissing her, and her mouth was sweet like wine, and her body was soft against mine, and all I wanted in the world was to lift her up, carry her upstairs to my bed...

But that had been impossible.

Impossible not just because this had been his father’s house then, but also because he’d known Eliana would not have yielded to his mounting desires. She’d wanted to wait till their wedding night.

That ugly twist to his mouth came again. Had that been part of her machinations as well? Withholding her body from him to make him all the more eager to marry her?

He set the empty whisky glass aside. What the hell was the point of standing here, remembering what had happened and what had never happened? Remembering a woman who had never been the woman he’d thought her. Who had made a fool of him...

And then walked away from him.

He had never set eyes on her again—until tonight.

He strode from the room, wrenching his black tie undone as he did so, making for the staircase. He would put tonight out of his head. Tomorrow he was flying to Frankfurt on business, and he was glad of it. Putting as much distance as possible between Greece and himself was the smart thing to do. The only thing.