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‘She’d left us with him many years earlier. She disappeared; we didn’t know how to contact her.’
‘I’m sorry.’
He slowed down so she looked up at him, and their eyes clashed with a fierce strength of emotion that almost toppled Bea. She sucked in a gulp of air and turned her face forward once more, her skin prickling with goosebumps.
‘We came here, thinking it would be easier to find work. It wasn’t. Hostels were often full, so more nights than not we were on the streets.’
Her heart was heavy, imagining the teenager he’d been then. ‘You must have been terrified.’
‘I was many things,’ he said cryptically.
She tilted her face to his once more.
‘The hardest part was the hunger. I’d never known anything like it. My grandfather didn’t have much money but fish were plentiful, and he grew vegetables in pots. We ate well enough. When we came to Athens it was so hard. I will never forget trying to sleep through that dull, throbbing ache in my gut, knowing my little brother was feeling it ten times worse.’
Emotions throbbed in Bea’s chest, sympathy chief amongst them.
‘Having enough money to buy food became my primary concern. I used to watch people walk past in their expensive clothes and shoes, looking so happy and carefree. I promised myself, and Matthaios, that one day that would be us.’
His lips twisted in a dark grimace. ‘Being carefree isn’t something any amount of money can buy though.’
She jerked her head in agreement. ‘There’s no correlation between wealth and happiness,’ she said softly.
‘You have experience of this?’ he prompted, leading them down a smaller alleyway. Buildings were tightly packed here, with bright flowerpots bursting with lavender and geraniums, some with small citrus trees, making the already narrow lane a tight squeeze, so he had to hold her even closer to his side.
‘My adoptive parents had money,’ she said quietly. ‘But I don’t know if I’d ever describe them as happy. My mother is...hard to please. In my experience, that’s kind of the enemy to happiness.’
He nodded slowly, bringing them to a stop outside a brightly painted turquoise door. It had a glass panel and a moment later it was pulled inwards, so that any response Ares might have been poised to make was swallowed by the greeting of the waiter. He spoke in Greek, addressing Ares as an old friend, pulling the door open wider.
‘You come here often?’ Bea prompted, feeling self-conscious now in Xanthia’s husband’s clothes and wishing she’d taken the time to change into some of the items she’d chosen at the department store.
‘From time to time,’ he replied, gesturing to a table by a window. A candle was set in a round wine bottle, with long tendrils of wax showing that various others had melted in the same bottle top well before this one.
He held the chair out for her, and as she took her seat his hands brushed across her shoulders, sending little flames scurrying through her veins.
‘Was she hard on you, when you were growing up?’
It took Bea a moment to realise he was talking about her mother again. She never liked talking about her childhood, but she especially resented its intrusion now. She pushed a bland smile to her lips, reaching for a menu instead of answering.
‘What do you usually order here?’
His long, confident fingers reached over and removed the menu, replacing it on the tabletop. ‘I always let the chef choose. Answer my question.’
She blinked at him. She shouldn’t have been surprised by his demand. After all, this was the man who’d point-blank insisted she remain at his home even when she’d told him she wouldn’t. Ares got what he wanted, and right now he wanted to know something about her.
She swallowed past the bundle of nerves in her throat, relieved when another waiter approached their table, asking if they’d like a drink.
She remembered enough Greek from that long-ago summer spent in the islands to respond in his native tongue, asking for a soft drink. Ares opted for a glass of red wine.
‘You speak some Greek?’
‘Just a little,’ she said. ‘I travelled around the islands for a few months, back when I was in school. I picked up a bit.’
‘I didn’t realise you’d been here before. Where did you go?’
She listed the islands, smiling as memories of that time swept through her. ‘I could be completely myself here; I loved it. The people were so welcoming—no one knew anything about my parents or me. There were no god-awful British paparazzi following me, looking for an unflattering photo, trying to turn me into some kind of B-grade tabloid fodder.’ She winced, too distracted to care that she’d revealed so much of herself.
He immediately pounced. ‘Why would paparazzi chase you?’
