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She walked through the house, looking for Constantine, but he was nowhere to be found—only Kyrios Karantinos was in his study, sitting hunched over a book. He looked up as she tapped on the door.
‘Looking forward to the party?’ he questioned with a smile.
Laura wondered what he’d say if he had any idea of the confused emotions which were swirling around inside her. ‘I’m not quite sure what to wear,’ she admitted. ‘And I wondered if it would be okay to use the telephone to ring my sister in England?’ She hesitated, but then thought of the Karantinos billions and her own modest income. ‘I’ve…I’ve got a cellphone, but it’s…’
The old man gave a small smile as he gestured towards the telephone on the desk and began to get up. ‘Please—say no more and come in. You must feel free to use the phone whenever you like, my dear.’ His smile became a little wider. ‘It is quite clear to me that Constantine has not ended up with a materialistic woman!’
She wanted to tell him that Constantine had not ‘ended up’ with this woman at all. ‘Thank you—but I can go somewhere else to make the call. I don’t want to push you out of your own study.’
‘I was leaving shortly anyway.’ He looked at her. ‘I’ve been wondering what your future plans are?’ he questioned, his faded eyes narrowing. ‘Or maybe I shouldn’t ask?’
Laura hesitated, knowing that she should not confide in Constantine’s father—for mightn’t Constantine see that as some kind of betrayal? ‘No arrangements have been made yet,’ she said uncertainly.
‘You’re good for him,’ the old man said suddenly.
‘No—’
‘Yes. Better than anyone else has ever been for him.’ A ragged sigh left his lips, as if it had been waiting for a long time to escape, and the old man looked at her with pain in his faded eyes. ‘Better than I or his mother ever were, that’s for sure.’
‘I don’t think—’
‘I was a bad father—a very bad father,’ interrupted Kyrios Karantinos fervently. ‘I know that. I worshipped his mother—I was one of those foolish men who become obsessed by a woman. She dazzled me with her beauty and her youth so that I couldn’t see anything but her.’ There was a pause. ‘And that kind of love is dangerous. It is blind. It meant that I could not tell the difference between fantasy and reality—and somewhere along the way was a very small and confused boy, cut adrift by the very two people who should have been looking out for him.’ He gave a shuddering sigh. ‘We both neglected him.’
How her heart ached for that little boy. ‘Have you…have you tried to explain all this to Constantine?’ she ventured cautiously. ‘Tried to tell him how it was? I mean, how…how sorry you are now?’
‘Oh, maybe a million times,’ he admitted. ‘But my proud and successful son will only hear what he wants to hear, and he finds the past too painful to revisit. Forgive me, Laura—for I do not mean to speak ill of him. You see…I love him.’ His voice trembled. ‘And I am an old man.’
She stared at him, suddenly understanding the subtext which lay behind his words. Soon he might die. And then the painful past might never be resolved—instead spreading its poisonous tentacles far into the future.
Briefly, he squeezed her arm and then left the study, and Laura stared out
of the window at the beautiful Greek day, her heart almost breaking as she thought about the terrible distance between the two men which might never be bridged.
But she was here with a purpose. And—even if her worries about what to wear seemed rather flippant in comparison to what Kyrios Karantinos had just told her—she gathered together her troubled thoughts before dialling England.
It was strange speaking to her sister—it felt as if a lifetime had passed since they had last spoken—and Sarah was sounding very bubbly. ‘The girl Constantine hired to work in the shop is lovely!’ she enthused, and her voice dipped mischievously. ‘And she has this cousin…he’s called Matthius and he’s just gorgeous!’
Aware of the rapidly spiralling cost of the call, Laura butted in. ‘Sarah, I need your advice about clothes…’
Once Sarah had been given a brief run-down on all the dresses in the picture, she was emphatic. Laura must wear her hair up—‘because sometimes when you wash it it goes into a cloud, and you end up looking like Alice in Wonderland.’ And she should opt for the most fitted dress—‘because what’s the point of having a great figure if you can’t show it off?’
That evening, Laura’s hands were trembling as she swept an extra layer of mascara onto her lashes. She couldn’t ever remember feeling this nervous before a party before—but maybe that wasn’t so surprising. She’d overseen Alex getting dressed—Constantine had ensured that his son would be suitably kitted-out, too—and her heart had swelled with pride when she saw her little boy in a pair of long, dark trousers and a white shirt and little bow-tie. He looked so Greek, she thought.
But he is Greek. Or at least half-Greek.
Suddenly filled with fear, she stood in front of the mirror, but her head was so buzzing with disquiet that for a moment she did not see the image which reflected back at her. Alex isn’t going to want to leave this place, she realised with a sinking heart. And could she really blame him?
Her eyes focussed on the mirror at last, and Laura blinked because for a moment it felt as if she was looking at a complete stranger. A sleek and sophisticated stranger with a costly dress and big, dark eyes?
There was a tap at the door and she turned round to see it opening. Constantine was standing there—his dark expression completely unreadable as he looked her up and down.
Nervously, Laura swallowed. ‘Do you…do you like it?’
‘I’m not sure,’ he drawled.
‘But you bought it! You’re the one who wanted me to wear something grand.’
‘Ne. I know I did,’ he said slowly. He just had not been expecting such a complete…transformation. On the model in the showroom—who had flirted with him quite outrageously until his stony indifference had caused her to stop—the dress had looked completely different. But the blue satin moulded Laura’s curves so closely that it looked as though she had been dipped in a summer sky. Above the low-cut bodice her skin glowed softly golden, and the curve of her breasts was a perfect swell. Her fine blonde hair was piled high on her head, with just a couple of recalcitrant locks tumbling down by the side of her face like liquid gold.
