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“He’s a strong man. He will be fine,” Phoebe said into the tense silence of the car.
“I pray that is true.” Spiros downshifted and ran a red light. “Stubborn old man,” he said, as cars honked and Phoebe prayed for more than his grandfather’s health.
She wanted to ask about the deal Theo had made with Dimitri. She wanted to know why Spiros had not told her the truth of it. She wanted to know so many things. But right now was not the time to ask.
For the first time since the meeting with her father, Phoebe spared some real sympathy for Dimitri. Both of them had been pawns in an older generation’s dreams. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. And she still saw no way out for herself.
She was not naive enough to believe that an emergency operation on his grandfather would compel Dimitri to renege on a promise made under duress. If she knew Petronides males, he would be even more set on following through than beforehand.
It was their way.
Personal and family honor above all.
Dimitri was in the waiting room when she and Spiros walked in. He looked up and she gasped. He was gray with stress, his eyes haunted.
Spiros crossed the room and took his brother in a bear-hug.
“It’s my fault,” Dimitri said in tormented tones when Spiros stepped back.
“It is his own fault for not having the surgery when he was told he should.”
“No…I upset him.”
“You two argued? This is nothing new. Again, I say, if he had had the surgery—”
“I told him I would not marry Phoebe,” Dimitri said, interrupting Spiros.
This time Phoebe’s knees wobbled, and she fell back into one of the waiting chairs. Dimitri’s words were so unexpected she desperately sought proof this was not some strange dream. The antiseptic air of the hospital provided it. Dreams didn’t have smells, did they?
Dimitri’s gaze connected with hers for the first time since she had arrived. “I am sorry, Phoebe.”
She nodded, totally clueless about what to say. That it was okay? That she didn’t mind? That she was relieved? She definitely was. But that made her feel guilty. How would her father save Leonides Enterprises now? And her relief was at the cost of Tio Theo’s health.
“What do you mean, you told him you refused to marry Phoebe?” Spiros asked, fury sharply edging every word.
“Some things are more important than promises.” Dimitri looked incredibly tired, but absolutely certain of that statement.
Then the story came out, and Phoebe listened in rapt fascination while Spiros glared like a bad-tempered guardian angel. Dimitri had a mistress, just as she had surmised. What she had not realized—and neither had he, apparently—was that he loved the other woman. Enough to break his vow to his grandfather and marry Xandra if she would have him. It was obvious that Dimitri felt deadly remorse for the way he had treated both Xandra and Phoebe.
Phoebe could not find it in her heart to blame him. She only wished they had talked before. Maybe together they could have come up with a solution.
Now everything was tangled in a Gordian knot she had no idea how to unravel.
Most disturbing, though, was the revelation that the other woman was pregnant and that she had disappeared without a trace. Dimitri had the best detective agencies in the world working on finding the French model, and so far nothing.
“You kept a mistress the entire time the understanding existed between our two families regarding your eventual marriage to Phoebe?” Spiros asked in a chilling voice.
Dimitri stood straighter, putting his shoulders back as if preparing to take whatever came his way. “Yes.”
Spiros’s fist connected with his brother’s jaw in a resounding crack.
Phoebe yelped, and Dimitri crashed backward into the nondescript waiting room wall. He righted himself, but made no move to return his brother’s gesture of anger.
CHAPTER FIVE
SPIROS looked ready to take another swing at him, and that had Phoebe surging to her feet.
She grabbed his arm. “Stop it! That whole understanding was stupid, and apparently only Dimitri and I realized it.”
