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Phoebe pasted a smile on her face. “Has anyone phoned Tio Theo to find out what the hold-up is?”
“I will call Dimitri,” Spiros said, and got up from the table to make the call.
He returned moments later, looking pale and shaken.
“What is the matter?” she asked, before she could think better of it.
“It is Grandfather. He’s had another heart attack.”
“Another?” Phoebe asked with dismay. She loved that old man like family. “I did not know he had one before.”
Her father looked guiltily away, while Spiros merely shook his head as if trying to clear it. “You were studying…learning of it would only have distressed you. He would not have had another if he had agreed to have the bypass surgery when the doctor recommended it.”
“But he didn’t?” she asked in shock.
Anger flashed in Spiros’s golden-brown eyes. “The stubborn old man refused until Dimitri promised to marry and give him grandchildren.”
Thank goodness she was sitting down. Because if Phoebe had been standing her legs would not have held her up. Dimitri had had to be blackmailed into this marriage too? No wonder he had not contacted her. But how on earth did their families expect them to have any kind of happiness together when both the bride and groom were marrying against their will?
She turned to her father and asked in an angrier voice than she had ever used with him, “Have you and Tio Theo lost your minds? Did nothing but family legacies mean anything to you?”
Her father had the grace to look abashed, but it was far too little and far too late. Her own father was setting her up for the marriage from hell and he did not even care. The only thing that mattered to him was his precious company and his equally important—to him—pride.
She said a word that had her mother gasping her name.
Spiros looked like he’d been thinking the same one. “I have to go to the hospital.”
And, despite everything that had happened, she could not let him down in his time of need. “I’ll come with you.”
“We all will,” her mother said. “After all, Phoebe is practically family.”
“Mom! Sheesh!” Her brother’s exasperated exclamation almost made Phoebe smile.
Almost.
After arranging transportation for everyone, Spiros led Phoebe to his car. No one said anything about her not riding to the hospital with her own family. Why would they? As far as anyone else was concerned Spiros and Phoebe were still the best of friends.
And honestly? She couldn’t fathom leaving him to his own devices at a time like this.
Theopolis Petronides had raised his grandsons after the death of their parents and his own beloved wife. Neither Spiros nor Dimitri were outwardly demonstrative, but there was no doubt how devoted they were to that old man.
Spiros’s tightly clenched jaw and white-knuckled grip on the steering wheel spoke eloquently of how worried he was.
“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.
