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She gave him the name of the restaurant she was dining at and tried not to betray her impatience as he inputted it into his satnav, especially as she was perfectly aware that he knew every inch of the island and had no need for it.
A minute later they were off, starting the twenty-minute drive to Agon’s capital, a cosmopolitan town rich in history and full of excellent shops and restaurants.
She didn’t want to think of Helios, still standing at her door demanding entry. She didn’t want to think of him at all.
All she wanted at that moment was to keep her composure as she met the man who shared her blood for the first time.
* * *
When Eustachys collected her from the restaurant later that evening Resina’s streets were full of Saturday night revellers and stars were twinkling down from the black sky above them.
Amy’s head throbbed too hard for her to want to be out amongst them.
Although not a complete disaster, her meeting with Leander had been much more difficult than she’d anticipated. It hadn’t helped that she’d still been shaken from Helios’s unexpected return to Agon and that she’d been half expecting him to turn up at the restaurant. Discovering where she’d gone would have been as easy for him as buttoning a shirt.
Leander hadn’t helped either. She’d already gathered from his social media profile and his posts that he wasn’t the most mature of men, but now, reflecting on their meal together—which she had paid for with no argument from him—she came to the sad conclusion that her newly found half-brother was a spoilt brat.
He’d been honest as far as he’d wanted to be. He’d told his mother—Amy’s birth mother—about their meeting. He’d made it clear to Amy that it would be his judgement alone that would determine whether Neysa would meet the child she’d abandoned, and that power was a wonderful thing for him to crow about.
Scrap being a spoilt brat. Her half-brother was a monster.
Through all the crowing and the sniffing—she was almost certain he was on drugs—Amy had gleaned that his wealthy father had no idea of her existence. The Soukises had a nice, cosy life, and Amy turning up was in none of their interests. As far as Leander was concerned, Amy was a can of worms that was one twist of the can opener away from potentially destroying his comfortable life.
So, their meeting hadn’t been a complete Greek tragedy. But not far off.
After being dropped back in the courtyard she made her way on weary legs to her apartment, removing her heels to walk up the staircase to her apartment.
She couldn’t elicit the tiniest bit of surprise at finding Helios on her sofa, feet bare, in snug-fitting faded jeans and a black T-shirt, his muscular arms folded in a manner she knew meant only one thing—trouble.
‘How did you get in here?’ she asked pointlessly. This was his palace. He could go where he pleased.
‘With a key,’ he answered sardonically, straightening up and rolling his shoulders. ‘Where have you been?’
‘Out.’
Helios threw her a stare with narrowed eyes, taking in the pretty mint-green dress that fell to her knees, the elegantly knotted hair and the hooped earrings. It was an outfit he’d never seen her wear before. ‘Have you been on a date?’
She gazed at him with tired eyes. ‘It doesn’t matter where I’ve been. Shouldn’t you be with your fiancée? I assume she is your fiancée now?’
‘Her father gave his blessing. We will make the official announcement during the Gala.’
‘So why aren’t you in Monte Cleure, celebrating?’
‘Some unwelcome news was brought to my attention, so I came back a day early.’
A flicker of alarm flashed across her pretty features. ‘Has something happened to your grandfather?’
‘My grandfather’s fine.’ As fine as an eighty-seven-year-old man riddled with cancer could be.
He visited his grandfather every day that he was in the country, always praying that a miracle had occurred and he would see signs of improvement. All he ever saw was further deterioration. The strong, vibrant man who’d been not just the head of his family but the very heart of it was diminishing before his eyes.
Helios and his brothers’ business interests had been so successful that their islanders no longer had to pay a cent of tax towards the royal family’s upkeep and security. They had enough money to keep their people afloat if the worst economic storm should hit. But not even their great wealth was enough to cure the man who had given up so much to raise them, and it hadn’t been enough to cure their beloved grandmother of the pneumonia that had killed her five years ago either. Her death was something their grandfather had never recovered from.
