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‘I’m sorry, what was that?’
Loukis pushed aside the newspaper and leaned forward. Not before she’d got a look at the large black and white photo of them kissing on the rooftop of the balcony the night before. A headline, she was sure, screamed the news of their engagement and apparent happiness. An article, she was equally sure, dredged up the many references to Loukis’s past conquests and more questions about who this strange woman who had claimed him was.
‘Would you?’
‘Would I what?’ she asked, irrationally irritated.
‘Would you like to go into Athens this morning?’ he repeated pleasantly and frustratingly without...well, frustration.
‘Oh. Yes, I suppose?’
‘You don’t seem sure.’
‘Loukis, right now, to be honest, I’m not quite sure of anything. Why would we go into Athens?’
His answer surprised her. Silencing her. Making her suddenly a little fearful. Because his answer, his apparent purpose, was their engagement ring. A ring that would make all this so much more tangible. It would draw a line beneath the way she had been trying to pass this whole endeavour off as something not quite real.
Loukis’s cheerful mood seemed to carry on through the morning. The journey into Athens in a chauffeur-driven town car had been full of twists and turns that only served to exacerbate the nausea building in her stomach. The Acropolis loomed high in the distance as they drew closer and closer to the city centre. Sleek buildings bordered the road as they wound through the streets, until they came to the sprawling sandstone building housing the Greek Parliament. It rose on one side of the car, large, proud but strangely removed of some of the pomp and finery of other countries’ central government. It struck her as both beautiful and uncompromising. A little like the man beside her.
It was soon left in the rear-view mirror as the car took them further into the centre, smaller streets full of motorbike riders risking their lives swerving in and out of traffic, tourists doing much the same as they navigated the busy pavements and side streets. The limousine, drawing curious glances from pedestrians, drew to a halt at the corner of a street, and with lithe grace Loukis exited the car and came round to open her door for her.
It seemed to Célia that these small gestures, manners, were automatic for him and in some ways she preferred that. They weren’t intended to ingratiate, there was no purpose to them other than it was simply what he did. It seemed doubtful that this was something his mother had imparted, but more likely that it had been his father. It was on the tip of her tongue to ask, but as she stepped out into the sunlight her mind halted beneath the incredible sight of a riotous waterfall of fuchsia bougainvillea. It was pouring from one side of street, clinging impossibly to a yellow-painted wall, as if challenging the white wisteria blooming forth from the opposite building. It was such a beautiful sight, she couldn’t help but smile.
Even at ten in the morning, the street was bustling with people and tourists, and they soon had to step out of the way of the oncoming wave of pedestrians. The trees created a canopy above tables set out on stone-paved streets full of people with coffee and cigarettes and the hum of conversations drifted towards them.
Loukis seemed content to allow her to take her fill of the surroundings.
‘You’ve not been to Athens before now?’
She looked up, smiling, and shook her head. ‘I only flew in before for the gala and...well, was gone first thing in the morning, as you know.’
Momentarily his espresso rich coloured eyes darkened, before he schooled his features back to that practised smile and slipped on a pair of sunglasses.
‘Come,’ he commanded, his hand outstretched to hers. ‘We have an appointment.’
She hesitated, momentarily cast back to the feel of his touch, of his kiss from the night before. The aching realisation that their intimacy was for public display returned and she sadly took his hand, chiding herself for the errant thought that she’d wished, for a moment, for him to take her hand because...because he just wanted to.
He led her up the gently sloping street, past restaurants and shops selling everything from ceramic masks of Greek mythology with impressive swirling beards, to leather sandals, and Grecian-style dresses of turquoise, white and fuchsia. The bright vibrancy was infectious and soon smoothed away most of the exhaustion from the night before.
She was thankful, as the heat of the sun began to warm the streets, that she had determinedly chosen her clothing from her new wardrobe. The wide-cut tan linen palazzo trousers and white T-shirt, more fitted that she would usually have worn, were a godsend. Loukis, too, was in linen, dark trousers and a white shirt, rolled back at the sleeves, with his jacket hooked on his finger and trailing over his shoulder. He looked every inch the charming playboy and for the first time she felt as if she might just fit in beside him.
They drew to a halt at a small building squashed between two others, one a restaurant and another selling antique books. The darkened windows looked closed to further inspection, but Loukis confidently ushered her through the door before him.
A small man who could not be any younger than eighty greeted Loukis like a long-lost friend, taking him by the arms in a deceptively strong grip and kissing both cheeks of her soon-to-be official fiancé.
A smattering of Greek filled the small room, which, as her eyes adjusted, she could see was absolutely full of the most incredible jewellery. Shafts of sunlight from the street picked out princess-cut diamonds, baguette cuts of what looked like blue tourmaline, pear-shaped rubies far outshining the cluster of tiny pearls in which they were set...it was as if she’d wandered into Aladdin’s cave.
As the two men continued to chat away, Célia’s eyes snagged on a marquise-cut diamond solitaire. A whisper of hurt wound out from her heart. It was exactly like the ring Marc had once pointed out to her.
‘When I ask your father for your hand in marriage, that is the ring I will buy you.’
At the time, she’d been so overwhelmed, thought she’d been so happy, she hadn’t realised that his ‘proposal’ had been more of a statement, and that he’d put her father first. The signs had all been there, she just hadn’t wanted to see them.
‘Really?’
Loukis’s question interrupted her thoughts.
‘Thatis what’s caught your eye?’
