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'… and I thought you had more taste, but obviously I was wrong. Have you read this?' Theo waved the magazine again. 'She had a nose job at nineteen! That I can understand, and even the breast enhancement I could tolerate, but this last thing… Well, I have never heard of anything like it in my life! A false bottom! You might as well take a plastic doll to your bed,' he exclaimed.
'What? Let me see that,' Luke snapped, and took the magazine from Theo's hand. A quick glance told him his grandfather was right. A photograph of Davina and himself leaving a restaurant—a month earlier, if he wasn't mistaken—followed by an article all about Davina, her physical enhancements, and the new man in her life.
A vitriolic Greek curse escaped him, and he flung the magazine back on the table in disgust.
'My sentiments exactly,' Theo agreed, with the sli
ghtest of smiles lightening his leathered face.
Luke ran his hand through his dark hair again. 'I never even realised,' he muttered. And, as he considered himself something of a connoisseur of women, that was some admission!
Sinking down onto the sofa beside Theo, he gave the old man a wry smile. 'I met Davina because she's an interior designer, and my PA in New York hired her to redecorate my apartment in the city. Propinquity did the rest.' He didn't add that it had only been when showing the woman around his apartment it had suddenly struck him he had not bedded a woman in over a year and it was time he did something about it. 'But if it gives you any satisfaction, Theo, I have no intention of marrying her.'
When the apartment was finished, in a couple of weeks, so would be his involvement with Davina. Beautiful and intelligent though she was, this last weekend had not been the roaring success he had hoped for. Davina was a very experienced lover, and the sex had been good, but for some reason it had left him feeling oddly unsatisfied.
'Good! In that case you can do me a favour,' Theo stated. 'Since your grandmother's death I've been making a few discreet enquiries about buying back my family home on Zante. I sold it to the local butcher when we moved from the island to Athens, but the house and the cove had been in my family for generations. I want it back,' he declared emphatically. 'I was conceived on that beach, I courted your grandmother there, and your mother was conceived on the same beach. It has a thousand happy memories for me, and when you get to my age that is about all you have left.'
Theo sighed deeply, then went on. 'I did some digging and discovered the butcher died eight years later, and his family sold it for cash to a nameless businessman from Athens. According to gossip, he then gifted it to his mistress—an Englishwoman called Mary James; a botanist from London. I caught up with her on the island one time. She was a lovely lady, and she told me about her work and the company she had founded with her sister called Vanity Flair, producing a line of homeopathic, anti-allergenic make-up. Later, her sister married the company accountant, one David Sutherland, and he was instrumental in expanding the business into retail outlets all over Europe.
'But when I asked her if she would sell me the house on Zante she flatly refused, and closed up like a clam. So when I heard the company was to be floated on AIM—the alternative investment market in London—with the intention of raising money to fund expansion into America, I bought a block of shares on the off-chance that at some point they might give me some leverage in trying to persuade Miss James into selling my family home back to me.'
Luke frowned. Most of the companies floated on AIM were high-risk businesses. 'Take my advice—sell up and get out now. As for your old home—forget it. Anyway, I thought you liked living in the house I had built for us all? You have never complained.'
'No, but, beautiful as it is, since your grandmother died I find it a bit lonely—you're rarely there.'
'A good point,' Luke conceded. The fact that he'd had no idea Theo was interested in buying back the property on Zante shamed him, and revealed just how little real attention he had given his grandfather in the past few years, how much he had taken him for granted. 'I promise I will try to get home more often, Theo. But it doesn't alter the fact that Zante is a very popular tourist destination now. It's nothing like when you lived there—you'd hate it.' Luke knew because he had berthed his yacht for one night on the island last summer, and, beautiful though the scenery still was, he had departed quickly the next morning.
'No, you're wrong. At last I can see a way to recover what was once mine.' Theo's eyes sparkled with more excitement than Luke had seen in a long time. 'I discovered that Mary James died some months ago, and I immediately started to buy up more stock.' Theo held up a veined hand. 'And before you say it, I know the stock has been falling recently—but that was to my advantage because I got it cheap.'
If the company went down the tubes it wouldn't be cheap, but Luke shook his head and kept his mouth shut, not wanting to argue further with Theo.
'I received a call last week to attend a special board meeting of Vanity Flair, as one of the larger stockholders.
I went to the meeting on Friday, and I had a drink with Sutherland afterwards. The only reason I've stayed on here the last few days was because he's invited me to dinner at his house this evening, and also to his daughter's birthday party this coming weekend.'
'That's very interesting, but it doesn't explain how you sprained your ankle, nor that if Milo hadn't contacted me in New York last night I would have known nothing about it.'
'Yes, you would. Because I was going to call you myself as soon as I got back from the hospital but Milo pre-empted me. Incidentally, I sprained my ankle yesterday, tripping down the steps of this damn fool sunken living room of yours.' He looked disdainfully around the plush curving black hide seating arrangement in the obviously bachelor penthouse.
'Well, at least you had the sense to bring Milo with you,' Luke murmured. 'This is a service apartment, and I hate to think what might have happened if you'd been on your own.'
'Naturally he came with me,' Theo said. 'Milo is just as keen as I am to see me get my family home back. Zante is where he and I first met and became friends. He used to stay with your grandmother and I whenever his fishing boat came into the harbour. I always thought he had a soft spot for your mother, but it wasn't to be…'
Luke almost groaned, wishing Theo would get to the point, but he knew from experience that there was no way to hurry him. 'So, how are you going to get it back, then?' he enquired.
'I'm not. You are,' Theo declared with a broad grin. 'I met Sutherland's daughter at the board meeting. She's a delightful woman who knows nothing at all about the family business—though she does run her own. We had an interesting conversation, and I discovered she was attending the meeting only because her father had told her to. She inherited everything from her aunt—shares in the company and, more importantly, the property on Zante.'
'Thank heaven for that.' Luke rose and crossed to the drinks trolley, poured a slug of whisky into a glass and added a generous splash of iced water. 'So the daughter is selling it and you want me to pay for it, right? No problem…' Lifting the glass to his mouth, he took a refreshing drink, watching the old man with tender eyes.
'No, I'd just got around to asking her if she would sell the villa, and she'd just told me she didn't think she could, when the meeting was called to order. I don't need your money, but I do need you to go to the dinner party tonight in my place. Use some of that skill you have at charming the ladies on the daughter. Show her a good time—wine and dine her for the rest of the week and soften her up a bit. Then, when I attend her birthday party on Saturday night, I can appeal to her finer feelings and explain to her that it is an old man's wish to own the home of his ancestors and pass it on to his grandson. When I ask her again to sell me the property, she will be ready to say yes to anything she thinks you want.'
'You want me to seduce her, you mean?' Luke met Theo's intent gaze and lifted one eyebrow in mocking cynicism. 'You do surprise me, considering you have spent years complaining about my womanising ways. Shame on you, Theo!'
'You don't need to go that far—not that it would be any hardship, I'm sure, for she is a very lovely lady.' Theo grinned. 'If I was forty years younger, I'd be there myself.'
Luke laughed. 'You're incorrigible, old man, but okay. You arrange with Sutherland for me to dine in your place tonight, and I will do my level best to charm the woman. In the meantime, I need to shower and dress.' Draining his drink, he added, 'What is the woman's name?'
Theo was already reaching for the telephone to call Sutherland. 'J something…Jem…or Jan, I think.' his grandfather said, dialling a number.
