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In Mykonos, they had gone to clubs and danced into the early hours, and Winnie had been surprised by how much she had enjoyed her first experience of being part of a couple that went out in public. At the country house, they had had quiet dinners, nights in rather than nights out. But this time around, she thought happily, everything was different and Eros treated her differently, as well. He was consistently affectionate, both in and out of bed, tender in private moments and always, always interested in her and very focused on her comfort and enjoyment. There had been swimming picnics in wild, secluded coves where Teddy could run about naked, long lazy lunches in little tavernas off the beaten track and more than once she had fallen into bed tipsy and giggling, having enjoyed herself so much that she’d felt positively guilty about it. They had dodged paparazzi cameras on the beach at Paros and had then been skilfully intercepted by them when they were shopping on Corfu.
When she looked at that tabloid photograph she barely recognised herself because, with her feet pushed into casual leather flip-flops and clothed in a bright red sundress from the wardrobe Eros had bought her, she seemed to have somehow metamorphosed into a more extrovert and less inhibited version of herself. She had a deep tan now and her hair was a tumbling mass of natural waves streaked lighter in places by the sun. She had stopped watching what she ate and was waiting ruefully on the pounds piling back on although the constant activity in and out of the bedroom had to be holding the weight at bay.
Eros was very active, very physical. He had taken her windsurfing and paddleboarding. She swam like a fish and she swam every day. Eros was teaching Teddy to swim and he had hauled them both up every hill on the island to appreciate the views, Teddy sitting on his shoulders or waving his arms in excitement from the confines of a baby backpack. Eros was a great father and he had a hands-on approach to his son that had very much impressed Winnie. Watching Eros with Teddy had convinced her that their son would lose a great deal if he was deprived of his father’s daily attention. Teddy was already throwing fewer tantrums. It could be that he was growing out of that phase, but Winnie was also able to see that her son thrived on winning his father’s approval and quickly shied away from the kind of behaviour that made Eros frown.
With her, Eros was still the same entertaining and sexy man he had always been, but he was much more considerate and caring with her and ready to talk about anything she wanted to talk about, which was the biggest change she had noticed in him. Indeed, being with Eros and Teddy made her happy. And one night a week the staff went home early and Winnie cooked up a storm and they ate on the terrace beneath the stars, which brought back memories of how they had first got to know each other.
But her own contentment and Teddy’s didn’t mean that Winnie could close her eyes to the necessity of seeing her grandfather and having a straight talk with him. She couldn’t just leave matters as they had been when she had decided to return to Eros on her wedding day. Unfortunately, she was very much aware that Eros would not be keen on her going anywhere near the older man.
‘I need a shower.’ Winnie sighed. She slid off the lounger and pulled on a cover-up before stooping to cram her discarded bikini and other possessions into a beach bag. ‘And then it’ll be time for lunch and Teddy will be awake.’
‘What do you want to do this afternoon?’ Eros enquired lazily before adding, ‘I could do with getting on with some work—’
‘That’s fine. I’ll have Teddy.’ Winnie breathed in deep. ‘But I’d like to go and see Grandad tomorrow.’
Eros stopped dead in the middle of the long steep path that led back up to the house. ‘No,’ he said with emphasis.
‘I wasn’t asking for permission,’ Winnie warned him. ‘Nor am I planning to take our son with me. It would be nice if you could invite Grandad here to see Teddy.’
Eros studied her with incredulous green eyes. ‘In your dreams!’ he grated.
‘No, it’ll happen. I can’t say when because I haven’t got a crystal ball but it will happen,’ Winnie assured him evenly, sliding past him to continue on up the path. ‘I’m not going to allow my grandfather or indeed anyone else in my family to be at odds with my husband. I’m going to sort it all out.’
‘I won’t allow it,’ Eros growled.
‘Not listening...not listening, Eros!’ Winnie carolled as she walked steadily on even though she was out of breath from the climb and her cover-up was sticking uncomfortably to her perspiring skin. ‘Families shouldn’t be divided.’
‘And what bush did your mother find you under after the stork delivered you?’ Eros asked cuttingly. ‘Families are often divided. My own, for a start.’
‘That was a divorce, rather a different situation,’ Winnie reasoned. ‘But I know it hit you hard as a child when your parents parted.’
‘No, what hit me hard was my mother’s heartbreak,’ Eros sliced in grimly. ‘She never got over my father and she couldn’t move on. A marriage should mean more than a legal obligation.’
‘I think it does to most people,’ Winnie contended evenly. ‘From what you’ve told me I suspect your father succumbed to a midlife crisis and that sent his life off the rails.’
‘I used to see marriage as a sort of sacred trust,’ Eros ground out rawly. ‘That’s why I didn’t want to marry Tasha and why I stayed married longer than I should’ve. I kept hoping the differences between us would magically melt away but I’m not that naive now and I’d be a fool to let you spend time with a man who hates me and wants to destroy our marriage.’
‘Well, you see, the point is I’m not asking you to “let me” do anything,’ Winnie responded with spirit. ‘I’m going to Athens even if it means climbing on the ferry and spending hours getting there.’
‘And how the hell do I know that you’re planning to come back to me?’ Eros demanded with suppressed savagery.
‘Aside from the fact that Teddy is staying here?’ Refusing to react to the brooding darkness in his lean, strong face, Winnie rolled her eyes. ‘Maybe it’s time you tried trusting me.’
‘Not going to happen,’ Eros intoned grimly. ‘Last time I trusted you, you said your vows in church and then scuttled off onto that yacht to leave me!’
Winnie went pink with mortification and then suddenly she lifted her head high and tilted her chin in defiance. ‘Last time I trusted you, you turned out to be a married man,’ she reminded him thinly. ‘People in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. We’ve both made mistakes—’
‘This marriage is not a mistake,’ Eros sliced in, his intonation raw-edged.
‘Only time will tell us that,’ Winnie parried quietly.
A lean hand enclosed her arm to hold her back as she started up the stairs. ‘Then give us that time,’ he urged. ‘Running off to see Stam Fotakis this soon is like inviting the fox into the chicken coop. He’ll cause trouble for us if he can.’
‘Grandad only wants what he thinks is best for me, what he thinks is best for all of us. I’m going to tell him about your first marriage,’ Winnie told him as she tugged her arm free of his hold and went upstairs.
‘You’re going to do...what?’ Eros demanded in shaken disbelief.
‘You heard me. I want Grandad to understand that you were in a very unusual situation.’
‘What I told you was private,’ Eros grated.
‘Please,’ Winnie pressed. ‘At the very least he needs to know that your marriage wasn’t a regular marriage.’
In an impatient gesture, Eros flung back his dark head, seduced against his will by the softness of those caramel eyes. ‘Oh...as you wish!’
‘Thanks. Grandad may be stubborn and difficult but I won’t cut him out of my life.’
‘He cut your father out of his,’ Eros reminded her unkindly.
It was a low blow and, from the landing, she flung him an unimpressed look. ‘He admitted that that was a mistake but once he’d taken a stance he was too prou
d to climb down. People change, Eros.’
‘You haven’t changed in the essentials. You still want to believe the best of everyone,’ Eros condemned as he drew level with her. ‘It doesn’t work. Believe it or not, there are bad people in the world who get a kick out of doing you down and hurting you.’
Winnie thrust wide their bedroom door with angry force. ‘You think I don’t know that after my experiences in foster care?’ she flung back at him in disbelief.
‘I don’t know. You won’t talk about those experiences,’ he pointed out.
Winnie went very still and then crossed her arms defensively in front of herself. ‘In the very first home I went to, my trainers were stolen and I was accused of selling them and lying about it. Vivi was badly bullied by the other girls. In the second I was repeatedly punched by an older boy because I wouldn’t give him money. That I didn’t have any money didn’t seem to occur to him because he said I talked too nicely to be poor. The third place, I no longer had my sisters because we’d been separated. The foster father was a wife beater and one night I got in the way of his fists,’ she recited emotionlessly, her hands clenching in on themselves. ‘After that I was in a state home for a while and by the time I moved back into foster care, I was developing breasts, which was really bad news.’
