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“I have called you many times. You only respond infrequently.”
“You knew the truth about Dimitri being blackmailed into marriage to me.” Her heart stung with humiliation. As if this situation was not detrimental enough to her pride—and her heart. “Yet you didn’t tell me. That is not the action of a friend.”
“I thought telling you would only cause you more pain.”
“Do you think he and I could have built a marriage on that kind of foundation?” she asked in disbelief.
Spiros shook his head tiredly. “What does it matter what I think? You’ve refused to discuss anything of a personal nature with me since you ran from my office.”
“You’re the one who pulled away from me.”
“I made a mistake.”
“No. If I had ended up married to your brother that distance would have been necessary,” she was compelled to admit.
“But intolerable.”
She wanted to believe that. She really did. But right now trusting anything, even in his lifelong affection for her, was pretty hard. There had been too many disappointments, too many betrayals…too much pain lately.
She stood up. She was suffocating in emotion and she just wanted it to stop.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going home,” she said, making a snap decision. “My father can bring news.”
“Don’t leave, Phoebe.”
She clenched her hands. “Why?”
“I need you now.” His shoulders hunched. “You are my best friend.”
She could not deny that need—was not sure she would ever be able to. “I need some caffeine. Do you want anything?”
He stood. “I’ll go with you. We can bring drinks back for your father and Dimitri.”
Okay, so that scuttled her plans of some time alone. But, true to her see-sawing emotions tonight, she didn’t mind.
She slipped her hand in his again and squeezed. “All right.”
The sound of her mother’s voice laced with hysteria drew Phoebe away from her original course. She had intended to get something to eat now that she’d woken. She’d slept quite late after getting home in the wee hours of the morning. They had all waited until Theo’s surgery had been pronounced a success and the doctors had assured the Petronides brothers that the old man was on the mend.
She walked into the drawing room and found her mother pacing back and forth, practically yelling into the phone. Tabloid and more reputable newspapers were strewn over the sofa as well as the coffee table. The thing they all had in common was that each one was graced with pictures of Dimitri with a woman Phoebe assumed must be Xandra.
Some pictures showed them sitting together at a café table. Some showed them in an obvious argument. Next to these images—and it appeared to be in every single paper—was a photo of Phoebe from her university yearbook.
She picked up one of the tabloids and started to read. The lurid headline had nothing on the baseness of the article itself. It implied everything from her being a duped innocent to being a participant in a sleazy ménage à trois. She picked up another paper and read its article. This one focused on Xandra’s “supposed” pregnancy and her recent disappearance. Foul play was alluded to, and the reporter couldn’t decide if Phoebe or Dimitri was the most likely culprit.
Several of the articles speculated about the monetary aspect of her merger with Dimitri, and some went so far as to suggest her father’s company might not be as solvent as it appeared. Since it was not a publicly held company no one had been able to get any firm numbers to back up the theory, but that didn’t stop them from guessing.
She had no doubt her father’s pride was taking a severe beating today. Her mother was almost incoherent in her upset, but Phoebe couldn’t tell if it was on her daughter’s behalf or simply her own. Obviously the articles were embarrassing for everyone involved. Including poor Dimitri—and he was carrying a big enough burden of Petronides’ guilt as it was.
She really pitied him. But judging from her mother’s continued haranguing of her father things weren’t going to be cherries and ice cream around here either.
“I can’t believe you didn’t warn me,” her mother said in an aggrieved voice, several decibels down from when Phoebe had first entered the room. “You told me there wasn’t going to be a wedding, but not about this. It is a disgrace.”
Phoebe didn’t stick around to hear more of the same. If the knowledge that his grandson was backing out of the marriage had sent Theopolis Petronides into heart failure, she couldn’t imagine what these news stories were going to do. She needed to call Spiros.
Spiros stared at the ringing phone, but could not make himself pick up. The caller I.D. said it was Phoebe’s cell phone. He’d wanted to talk to her for the last two weeks, but not right now.
