Arielle could only stare. ‘What…what did he say?’
‘He didn’t. Not then. Someone came into the room. A teenage girl, looking just as scared as he did. He said she was his sister.He told her I’d torn up his IOU and given him back the money he’d lost.’ He paused again. Arielle could hear the change in his voice. ‘She burst into tears.’
He took a breath. He was looking right at Arielle.
‘It all came out. She said their mother had been scammed out of a huge amount of money and if their father found out he’d be furious. He was a bully and made their mother’s life hell. So, the boy was desperate to cover his mother’s losses. Desperate enough to scrape together all the money he could, without their father finding out, and try his luck at the tables. But they’d only made things worse. He lost everything they’d scraped together to bet with that evening.’
He reached for his martini and took another slug before looking across at Arielle again.
‘I’ve ended up giving him a loan. That, along with the sum he’d gambled away, should cover their mother’s losses.’
Arielle stared. ‘You did that for someone you don’t even know?’
He put down his martini glass. Gave a half shrug. ‘I’d thought him a cocky, arrogant, aristocratic idiot who was showing off by taking me on at cards.’ He paused. ‘I was wrong.’
He reached inside his jacket pocket, took out an envelope and opened it. He removed a piece of paper from it and something else.
‘He gave me his IOU for the loan I made him. He’ll make me regular payments out of his allowance, he’s still a student, and for anything still outstanding his trust fund matures when he’s twenty-five. But he also gave me this as surety. It’s his pledge of honour.’
He held out to Arielle the gold, crested signet ring she’d seen the boy wearing. She touched it briefly, wonderingly, and Lycos put it away again in the envelope with the IOU. Thoughts tumbled through her head. More than thoughts. Words cameto her. Words she’d said to him as she’d leant her head on his shoulder that night at themasafter they’d pitched in with the grape harvest and Lycos had said he’d promised Dan a spin in his flash car.
‘You’re a good man, Lycos Dimistrios,’ she’d said.
She said it again now, her voice low. Her eyes holding his.
He gave a faint smile. ‘I’m trying to be,’ he said. ‘Your words stung. That’s why I went to see him.’ His voice changed again as he continued. ‘And it’s why I want to restore your home to you.’
He drew a breath.
‘This time, Arielle, I’m not trying to buy you.’
Her face constricted.
‘I let you think I could be bought,’ she said, her voice low. ‘I let you lavish your money on me. Buy me beautiful clothes and jewellery. I told myself I was doing it just to please you. That it didn’t matter and didn’t mean anything. But when you offered me themasso I would stay with you. Oh, Lycos…’ her voice broke. ‘You were offering me the one thing I longed for. The one thing in the world I wanted most except for…’
She broke off. Suddenly realising what she’d been about to blurt out.
The arrival of her coffee saved her. She dropped her eyes and busied herself stirring in the sachet of sugar, giving herself precious moments to recover and to feel she could look at Lycos again.
His gaze was still on her, but there was something different about him. Something that made her think of his nickname, as if he were a wolf indeed that had just picked up an unexpected scent. A scent he had not known existed…
But which he would not now relinquish.
‘Except for what?’
His words fell into the silence. His eyes held hers. Held her helpless. Defeated. Her expression changed. She set down her coffee spoon.
‘Except for you, Lycos,’ she said.
He heard her speak. Heard the words. But they made no sense.
‘Why do you say that?’ he said. A frown creased his brow. His breath was frozen in his lungs, but he spoke again. ‘It was you who left me,’ he said. ‘Even before I offered you your home back.’
She broke eye contact, her gaze slipping away across the room.
‘Lycos, right from the start I told myself our affair would be just that. An affair, nothing more. That it would end and then, just as you’d told me I must, I would have to go to England and make a new life for myself. Even if you did spend some more time with me in Normandy, or wherever, the end would still be the same. So—’
He saw her pick up her coffee spoon and put it down again. She looked across at him again.
