CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

L EANDROS WAS BUSY . Punishingly busy. He had a lot to get done. He had lawyers on speed dial, estate agents on speed dial, and a firm of specialist financial investigators on speed dial. He needed to get things done—and fast.

Impatience drove him. And urgency.

And a determination that seared through him like rods of steel.

He was moving forward on all fronts and he would get where he wanted to be. Needed to be.

His phone rang and he snatched it up off his desk in the office—once his father’s office, now his. He was now heading the company that had brought him the wealth that his father had been so keen for him to not jeopardise...not to share with a wife whose main interest in his son was his money, his coming inheritance.

‘Any news?’ he demanded of the caller—an estate agent this time.

Two minutes later he replaced the receiver, a look of satisfaction on his face. That box was ticked. Good. Time to move on the next one.

He picked up his phone again, spoke to his PA in the outer office. ‘I need an employment agency,’ he said briskly. Then spelt out his requirements, hung up the phone again.

OK, so what next? Time to chase that damn lawyer again—the one that specialised in family law. He needed answers—reliable ones—and then to set bureaucracy in motion.

So much to do.

He needed to move faster.

I’ve wasted six years—I won’t waste a day longer than I have to.

That was the promise he’d made to himself as he’d watched Eliana walk away from him—for the third and final time.

Psychiko—Paris—and now Thessaloniki.

It wasn’t going to happen again.

He speed-dialled the lawyer, ready to make sure it wouldn’t.

I said I’d fight for her—and that’s what I’m doing. Because now I know that however venal the reason she left me six years ago, this time it could not be more different.

And because of that knowledge searing through him, he would fight for her—and this time he would win.

Because now I know with absolute certainty that my whole life depends on it—my whole future.

And Eliana’s.

The woman he now knew, with that same absolute certainty, he could not live without.

Eliana was in the kitchen, washing up Miki’s tea things. Miki himself was snuggled up with his ya-ya , watching a cartoon with her. Eliana could hear their chuckles, and it warmed her. This was what she had shaped her life around—that orphaned little boy and his bereft grandmother, victims of a fate that had stripped Miki of his parents, his ya-ya of her only child.

I took this on—I must see it through.

The problem was brutal: lack of money. If she had more money then she could move Miki and his grandmother out of the city—install them in a little house somewhere, with a garden, space for a growing boy. But there was no money for any of that—only just enough for keeping their heads above water as it was.

Would Leandros think her impoverished, penny-pinching life now her just desserts for what she’d done six years ago? He’d been shocked by Miki’s existence, but would he think it was simply up to her to deal with it?

After all, he’d let her walk away—had made no attempt to come after her. Had simply accepted what she’d told him and left her to it.

She gave an inner sigh. She must not think about Leandros. He was gone from her life, and that was all there was to it. She had a life here to get on with—such as it was.

She put Miki’s dried dishes away and fetched some vegetables from the fridge to make a start on supper. Her days were very much the same—a routine she was getting used to. She got on well enough with Miki’s grandmother, though they had little in common other than Miki.

A sliver of apprehension went through her. Living here with Miki and Agnetha did increase the risk that word might somehow get back to Damian’s father...

The sound of the doorbell made her jump, as if she had conjured up the very thing she feared. Frowning, she went back into the living room, glancing at Agnetha and Miki, still absorbed in watching their cartoon.

She unlocked the apartment door, pulling it open.

And stopped dead.

It was Leandros.

‘Hello, Eliana.’

Leandros made his voice even, as if turning up on her doorstep was an unexceptional circumstance.

She was staring at him, her hand flying to her throat, shock on her face.

‘May I come in?’ he asked.

Numbly, she stood aside, and he walked in.

In the living room, he nodded politely to Miki’s grandmother.

‘Good evening—I am sorry to disturb you unexpectedly, but I would like to take Eliana out to dinner. I hope that will not inconvenience you?’

His entry had made both Miki and his grandmother look up. An expression of interest formed on Miki’s face. And then recognition.

‘That man,’ he announced, pointing at Leandros.

Leandros smiled at him. ‘Yes, that man who came to the park with you. You went on the slide.’

‘Whee!’ corroborated Miki happily.

Then he went back to watching his cartoon.

His grandmother, Leandros could see, was looking across at Eliana, an uncertain look on her face.

Then: ‘You should go,’ she said. ‘I’ll be fine with Miki.’

Leandros looked at Eliana. She was looking fraught.

‘Please,’ he said to her. ‘I thought we might go back to that place we tried last time—the fish was good.’

She opened her mouth. ‘I... I...’

‘Good,’ he said. ‘That’s settled.’ He smiled. ‘Do you want to get Miki to bed first? I can help if so.’

His smile encompassed Miki and his grandmother as well.

‘I was about to cook dinner,’ Eliana said.

Miki’s grandmother shook her head. ‘I’ll have soup later on. You go. Go on—it will do you good.’

She sounded more encouraging now, though Leandros could see she was uneasy, and wondered why.

‘It will indeed,’ Leandros agreed smilingly.

He looked questioningly at Eliana.

She seemed to hesitate, as if she were trying to come up with another reason not to go with him. Then she simply turned round.

‘I’ll need a jacket,’ she said.

She disappeared—presumably into her bedroom—and emerged a moment later with a short jacket. A cheap one, from a chain store, like the trousers and jumper she was wearing. Her hair was tied in a knot on the back of her head, and she wore no make-up.

Yet she is as beautiful as the moon and the stars...

His expression softened. ‘Right, then, off we go.’

He bade Miki’s grandmother a courteous goodbye, saying he would not keep Eliana out late, and let Eliana lead the way out of the apartment. She said not a word, and nor did he, as they went downstairs.

Out on the pavement the air was cool—autumn was reaching here too. The taxi he’d come in was waiting at the kerb, and he gave the driver their destination as he ushered Eliana into her seat, coming in after her. She sat looking out of the window, not speaking. He let her be.

The taxi gained the seafront and cruised down it till they reached the restaurant, then pulled up. Leandros hadn’t made a reservation, but like last time they were early, and there were plenty of tables to choose from.

But that was the only resemblance to the last time they’d been there—that and Eliana’s cheap clothes.

Because everything has changed since then—changed totally and for ever.

And now there was just one more change he must to achieve...

Eliana felt dazed and weak. What was Leandros doing here? And what was she doing here with him? Here in the very same place where he had asked her to come to Paris with him, after walking back into her life after six long years.

As she had that time, she went numbly along with the business of ordering. The fare was just as last time, and she ordered, without even thinking about it, what she’d had before. Leandros ordered a beer for himself, and table wine for them both, and mineral water. Bread was deposited in a wicker basket, and the waiter whisked off again.

Eliana started to pick at her bread.

What was happening? Why?

She lifted her head to Leandros, who was thanking the waiter as he returned with his beer and set down a carafe of red wine at the same time with her mineral water.

‘Why are you here, Leandros? What is this about?’

Her tone was calm, which was odd, because inside she wasn’t calm at all. Inside, emotions were ricocheting around inside her like random gunfire from every direction.

Leandros set down his beer, looked across at her. ‘I’ve been busy,’ he said.

She frowned. What did that mean?

‘There was a lot to get done, but I think I’ve covered everything.’ He paused, then spoke again. ‘Starting, I think, with this.’

He reached inside his jacket pocket, drew out a long envelope and set it down in front of her.

‘Open it,’ he instructed.

The frown still on her face, she did so. Her hands seemed clumsy, her fingers making a hash of opening it neatly. She yanked out the thick paper inside, unfolded it. Stared.

Not understanding.

Not understanding at all.

‘It’s the deeds to your father’s house,’ Leandros said.

Her eyes flew to him, distended.

‘I bought it from Jonas Makris,’ he told her. ‘Oh, he didn’t know it was me—I used a proxy. A very eager proxy,’ he said with a wry expression on his face. ‘He offered him an absurdly high price—saying how he adored houses of that period and was determined to acquire it, whatever the cost. Jonas couldn’t resist—though I did tussle him down from the price he thought he could get,’ he said with a note of satisfaction audible in his voice. ‘I made speed of the essence, and the transaction went through yesterday. So...’ his voice changed ‘...there it is. Your father’s house, back in the family.’

He paused, clearly seeing the shock, the incomprehension, in her face.

‘It’s yours, Eliana,’ he said.

Her eyes distended again. Not with incomprehension now, but in disbelief—swiftly followed by the shaking of her head.

‘No, of course it isn’t! Of course it isn’t mine! It’s yours— yours , Leandros! You bought it, with your money—of course it’s yours!’

It was his turn to shake his head. ‘What would I want with a house like that? I’ve got a perfectly good one of my own in Psychiko. Left to me by my father.’ His voice changed again. ‘Just as your father, Eliana, should have left you his house.’ A hardness entered his voice. ‘And not expected you to marry a man like Damian Makris to stop him losing it!’

Eliana bit her lip. ‘He didn’t, Leandros. He didn’t expect me to do it. Never. I married Damian of my own free will—it was my choice. I told you that.’ Her voice dropped. ‘Just as it was my choice to break my engagement to you to do so. My choice—mine alone.’ There was a tightness in her voice as she looked at him. ‘I married money, Leandros—and it was my choice to do so.’

‘To save your father’s house for him.’ That edge was still in his voice. ‘To save him from financial ruin.’

Her expression changed. ‘But my marriage to Damian also kept me from poverty—just like you’ve always thrown at me. The poverty you’ve always said I could not have faced had your father disinherited you as he threatened.’

She lifted her chin as she spoke. She could make no defence against Leandros’s accusation—his accusation six years ago and his accusation ever since.

A flash came in his eyes. Anger. Well, she deserved that. She always had.

But his anger was not for that reason.

‘That,’ he bit out, ‘is not true.’

He reached for his beer, took a hefty swallow of it, set it back on the table with a thud. That flash in his eyes came again.

‘I’ve thrown it at you time and time again! And it’s never been true! Because if it were—if all you cared about was a luxury lifestyle—you wouldn’t be living the life you’re leading now. The life I found you living the first time I tracked you down to that dump you lived in. And you’re facing poverty now, taking on Damian’s child as you have—’

‘I don’t have much choice,’ she replied.

She didn’t want this conversation. There was no point to it—no point at all.

The flash was there again. Fiercer still.

‘Yes, you do have a choice! You could leave Miki and his grandmother to fend for themselves. And if Jonas gets hold of his grandson, what is that to you?’

‘I’ll never do that—never!’ There was vehemence in her voice.

‘Exactly! And that proves my point. You could take the allowance Jonas makes you and keep it all for yourself.’ His voice twisted. ‘Keep all those damn clothes I bought you in Paris! Head back to Athens, get out and about again—find another husband or a lover. It doesn’t matter which. Your incredible beauty would guarantee you hit paydirt!’

Her face was paling, the blood draining from it. Dear God, did he still think that of her?

His voice changed. ‘But you won’t. It’s unthinkable to you.’ He took a razored breath. ‘As unthinkable as you marrying Damian just to keep that luxe lifestyle for yourself.’ A laugh broke from him, harsh and humourless. ‘Because you didn’t marry him for that reason at all, even though it was what I told myself, and went on telling myself these past six years. I wanted a reason to hate you, because you no longer valued my love! And that hurt, Eliana—dear God, it hurt! I saw you as pampered and cosseted by your father—overprotected. But it was the other way round—that’s what I’ve finally realised! It was you protecting your father. That’s why you married Damian—to protect your father, to let him see out his days in the house he loved, to escape the financial ruin he was facing at least for his lifetime. You were landed with it after his death instead. Just like your husband landed you with the son he was too scared to claim for himself!’

‘Don’t blame them!’ Her cry came from the heart. ‘Don’t blame Damian—please don’t! He was so cowed by his father—so scared of him. And my father just wasn’t good with money. Those with inherited money often aren’t good—they weren’t the ones who made it, and they don’t know how to manage it. He...he did his best. But he just...well, got into a mess. And after my mother died he was so devastated...’

Leandros was looking at her. ‘I thought you cossetted...overprotected by a doting father. But I’ll say it again: it was the other way round—wasn’t it, Eliana?’

She looked away. The truth was hard to face—she had loved her father so dearly...

‘He was a good man—a kind man—but...but unworldly. He didn’t even see how Damian’s father was netting him, getting control over what happened to the house. And the stress of losing all his money had already given him one stroke...’

Her gaze dropped to where the deeds to the villa lay on the table in front of her.

‘I’m glad,’ she said slowly, sadly, ‘that he never realised he was going to lose the house when he died...that it wouldn’t come to me.’

She heard Leandros speak. ‘But now it has.’

Her eyes flashed up. ‘You know I can’t possibly accept it! How could I? And what possible reason could you have for giving it to me?’

There was a veiling of his eyes. Yet they still rested on her like weights.

‘Do you not know, Eliana? Do you really not know?’

His words fell into silence. Around her she could hear noise from the kitchen, hear the waiter greeting the other diners starting to arrive, conversations beginning.

Could hear, inside her, the thudding of her heart. Which was like a hammer. Drumming in her pulse.

‘I want it,’ he spoke slowly and clearly, for all the veiling in his eyes, ‘to be my wedding present to you, Eliana.’

The drumming was deafening...drowning out everything. Making her feel faint. Making the room come and go around her.

She felt her hand taken, lifted. Heard Leandros speak again, his voice low. And what was in it was an intensity that broke her apart.

‘Six years ago you walked away from me, turned me down. This time—’ his fingers around hers spasmed ‘—don’t. Just...don’t. Don’t turn me down again.’ He paused, then spoke again, his voice husky, as if each word were painful. ‘I couldn’t bear it.’

Her face worked. Emotion was storming up in her, storming through the drumming of her blood. Leandros was speaking again, his words breaking through the deafening drumming of her blood, reaching for her. Finding her. Emotion was filling his words...so much emotion...

‘We found each other again in Paris. Don’t—Eliana don’t let us lose each other again! When you walked out on me that second time, it was like...it was like a knife in my throat. And I knew... knew ...that what we’d first had, all those years ago, was there again.’ His voice dropped. ‘Maybe it had never gone away. Just been suffocated by my bitterness...’

She turned her fingers in his. Then she spoke, her voice low and halting—and painful.

‘I hurt you. I hurt you and I know I did. And I have never, for a single day, forgiven myself. I told you in Paris that, given a second chance, I’d make the same choice again—marry Damian. Because nothing would have been different if that second chance had come. If I hadn’t married Damian my father would still have been facing a financial ruin I could not have borne to impose on him, and—’

She stopped.

His expression had changed. Arrested.

‘And what?’ There was an edge in his voice, but the blade was not aimed at her.

She shut her eyes. That drumming was still in her ears, her heart, her pulse.

‘And your father would still have been threatening to disinherit you if you married me,’ she said.

Her eyes flew open. Suddenly it was her hand clenching his, crushing it with her intensity.

‘Leandros, did you never think how I felt when he told me that? Told me you’d be penniless if you married me? Dear God, Leandros, I loved you! How could I possibly have gone on with marrying you knowing it would estrange you from your father? Strip you of your inheritance? How could I have done that to you?’

He was staring at her. She wanted to cry out—cry out the dismay she’d felt when his father had made it so crystal-clear to her what marrying his son would do to Leandros.

‘So I didn’t, Leandros. I didn’t do it to you. I told you I didn’t want to marry you any longer and I let you say...let you say...’

‘Let me call you what I did. Venal and luxury-loving—another Manon.’ His voice was hollow. Shaken.

‘It was better that you did that. Better that you hated and despised me than felt I was only marrying Damian to protect my father. If you hated and despised me you could move on—set me aside.’

He let go her hand and it felt cold suddenly. But not as cold as the chill that filled her as he spoke again. Slowly, heavily. As if a weight were on his chest.

He drew a breath—a razored one. ‘My father only said that to test you. He’d warned me ever since I was a teenager that there would be women out there whose interest would not be in me, but my family’s wealth. He’d told me he would test any woman I wanted to marry. Test her to see what her reaction was. And I—I agreed with it.’

His voice grew heavier yet.

‘I told myself that your rejection of me justified that test, justified his suspicions—proved that they were not groundless. He told me that your father was in financial difficulties, that your marrying me would be a good way out of them. And when you walked out on me I thought he was right. And then, when your engagement to Damian Makris was announced, I knew it for certain. Money, and only money, was your reason for marrying—marrying anyone at all.’

He reached for his beer, his fingers indenting around the glass such that the tips whitened. He knocked back the rest of it. Placed the empty glass back on the table. Eyes spearing hers.

‘I have never,’ he said, ‘been more wrong in my life.’

He passed a hand over his brow, as if in a weariness very profound.

‘I screwed it up. I screwed it up so totally, so completely. And if I hadn’t—if I’d trusted you...trusted the love I knew you felt for me—I would have refused to believe your reasons for leaving me. Challenged them—demolished them somehow. I would have— should have—realised why you were saying those things to me.’

She shook her head. ‘But I still wouldn’t have married you if it had meant your disinheritance, your estrangement from your father.’

He thudded his hand down on the table. ‘But it wouldn’t have! I told you—he was just testing you, that’s all! If you’d stuck by me, told me you didn’t care if I were rich or poor, then he—and I—would have known that it was me you loved, not the Kastellanos money! Oh, God, Eliana, we’d have bailed out your father—rescued him—and then you and I...’ his voice was raw ‘...we would have spent these last six years together—as man and wife. The way we should have done if I hadn’t screwed it up. The way...’

His voice changed, and he reached for her hand again, seizing it as if it were a treasure that was about to slip away, out of his grasp.

‘The way we still can.’

That razored breath came again.

‘Marry me, Eliana—marry me this time around. With all the past cleared out of the way! Paris proved it to us both!’

His voice dropped, filled now with an intensity that reached into her very being.

‘It proved to me that I have never, never stopped loving you. I tried to—tried to kill it, poison it, defile it. But in Paris it broke free of all that. Even if I still hadn’t realised it, every night with you proved it—every day! And if—oh, dear God— if , my most beloved Eliana, in that heart of yours which has made you make such sacrifices, you can find a grain, a seed, a crumb of what you once felt for me, then... Oh, then I will spend all my life— all my life!— growing it in you.’

Her vision was clouding. There was an upwelling within her that was unstoppable.

‘You don’t have to do that, Leandros,’ she said. Her voice was almost a whisper, broken in its intensity. ‘Because it’s there—it’s always been there. Always! I thought it had gone—told myself that the only reason I’d agreed to go to Paris with you was because I owed it to you after all I’d done to you. But it was a lie! Oh, it was a lie. And when...when we came together, in each other’s arms, then I knew what the truth was. I was with you, in your arms, for one reason only—because I still loved you. I love you and I always will, Leandros... Always and always and always...’

Her vision had gone completely. Tears were running down her cheeks. Her heart was turning over and over within her.

She clutched at his hand and he lifted it—lifted it to his lips, crushing it with his kiss. She gazed at him with her obliterated vision, tears still streaming. Her heart overflowing even more than her eyes.

A discreet cough sounded beside her. She looked dimly in its direction. Their waiter was silently offering her a stack of paper serviettes. She gave a laugh—a broken, emotional sound—and grabbed them, using one, then two and three, because her tears would not stop. They would not stop for there were six long years of tears to shed...

She heard Leandros speak—but not to her. He was addressing the waiter.

‘I think,’ he was saying, ‘that she’s giving me a positive answer to my marriage proposal...’

The waiter was nodding. ‘Oh, quite definitely. My wife cried all day when I asked her to marry me! It’s their way of showing happiness, you know,’ he said kindly.

He disappeared, and Eliana went on crying. She could not stop. Leandros was crushing her hand, and she was clinging to it. Clinging to it as if were life itself. Which to her it was.

Then the waiter was there again, a bottle in his hand.

‘Compliments of the house, the chef says. He’s the owner, so what he says goes.’

He put the bottle on the table. It was sparkling wine, a popular Greek domestic variety, and he was removing the cage, then easing the cork. He poured them two glasses—wine glasses, meant for the wine in the carafe. But that was fine by her, because everything was fine by her—everything...

‘Congratulations!’ said the waiter, and disappeared again.

Leandros was picking up his glass, tapping it against hers. So she picked hers up as well.

‘To us,’ he said. ‘And to you, Eliana, the heart of my heart, whom I let go and have grieved for ever since. And now I claim you again—with all my heart.’

He clinked his glass against hers again and shakily, tearfully, she raised hers to her lips.

‘To us,’ she echoed.

For finally, after six anguished years, there was an ‘us’.

It was finally true.

And now it always would be.

Always.

Hand in hand, they strolled along the wide Thessaloniki seafront. They were not the only ones to do so, but to each other only they existed. A great peace filled Leandros. A peace of the heart, and of the mind, and of the soul itself.

Regret filled him, yes, and he knew it always would—for what he’d done six years ago, to himself and Eliana. Condemning them to the wasted years between. And yet for all that, far more overwhelming was the thankfulness that poured through him.

He paused, turning Eliana towards him now.

‘There’s a line somewhere in Shakespeare’s Othello , about how Othello “threw a pearl away”—and that is what I did. I threw you away...let you leave me without a fight...because I did not trust you—did not trust the love I knew you felt for me.’

He drew a breath, his eyes holding hers. They would never let her go again. ‘But I will trust it for ever now—and you, my heart, my love, can trust for ever, and for all eternity, my love for you.’

In the lamplight, he could see tears welling in her eyes, and he bent to kiss them away. Then he kissed her mouth as well. She slipped her hand from his, but only to wind it around his waist, strong, possessive.

His hands went to her shoulders. He lifted his mouth away, his eyes still pouring into hers. ‘Forgive me.’

His voice was low and husky. His eyes were saying all that that brief plea could not.

A cry broke from her, and her arms tightened around his waist.

‘Oh, my dearest, dearest one—we’ve been given each other again, and that is a gift past any price.’ A crooked smile curved her lips. ‘Even that of any pearl...’

He gave a laugh, releasing her shoulders. ‘You shall have pearls and rubies and diamonds and emeralds and sapphires and—’

She kissed him, and it silenced him. Then she spoke again.

‘Leandros...money—the want of it, the fear of it—drove us apart. With all my heart—with all my heart—I wish it had not been so. Had you been a poor man six years ago, and had my father always been poor, such that there would have been no call for me to protect him as I felt I had to do, then nothing would have stopped me marrying you. Believe me, I beg of you, that is the truth.’

It was his turn to kiss her, so he did. Gently and tenderly.

‘Always,’ he said.

He smiled down at her lovingly. Then his smile turned rueful.

‘How I wish,’ he said, ‘that I hadn’t promised Miki’s grandmother I wouldn’t keep you out late. All I want to do now...’ his voice was husky, and she knew why ‘...is whisk you off to my hotel room and make passionate love to you until dawn breaks.’

She gave a laugh, her hands tightening around him. ‘Me too,’ she said. ‘But first I must get back, sit down with Agnetha and talk with her.’ Her expression changed. ‘Are you sure, Leandros, that you’re happy with what you told me at the restaurant? About your plans for how we should settle matters?’

He kissed the tip of her nose—it was safer than kissing her lips, given that he could not, alas, whisk her back to his hotel room.

‘Absolutely. It will work out perfectly for all of us.’ A thought struck him. ‘Shall we take her and Miki out to lunch tomorrow and tell her together? We both know a good local fish restaurant here—and after our free bottle of fizz, I think we owe them some more custom.’

She laughed again. ‘But you insisted they put it on the bill— and left a huge tip too!’

‘Well, happiness makes you do things like that,’ he answered.

He would have bought a hundred bottles of domestic sparkling wine if it would have given him even a fraction of a fraction of the happiness that was possessing his whole being now.

He lifted her hands away from his waist—that was safer too...not to have her crushed against him. He slipped his hand into hers instead. Started walking forward again, along the seafront.

How long it had taken for him to arrive here—thanks to his own blindness and lack of trust, his fear and bitterness. But now he was here, holding the hand of the woman he loved—the woman he had always loved, would always love, till the last breath in his body and beyond—and no power in heaven or earth was going to separate them again.

‘My Eliana,’ he said, pausing to kiss her one more time.

And his name was breathed by her in turn, with all the love in it that was in him for her...sighed in the gentle breath of the soft breeze lifting off the night-dark sea as they walked forward again, hand in hand, into the future that awaited them—waited them to possess it together.