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His mouth twisted, because hedidfeel something. There was a residual anger, which mostly he kept buried away deep inside him, but there was bitterness, too. As bitter as the hyacinth bulbs which many of his native countrymen still ate, surprisingly for pleasure. Because this was the woman who had crushed his dreams. Whose words had reinforced what he’d always really known about himself and made him realise the only thing he could rely on was his innate streak of cynicism. It was that hard-wired cynicism he reached for now as he studied her, curious to see how much she had changed.
Physically, she didn’t look so very different. Her shape was as voluptuous as ever, the curve of her hips and breasts still sending out a siren call to his senses. Small of stature, she was nothing like her lofty English supermodel mother—the thick chestnut hair was the only thing she seemed to have inherited from her. But her mother’s hair had been sleek and coppery, and Mia’s was a chaotic head of curls, currently scrunched up on top of her head with damp tendrils dangling down beside her flushed cheeks. Her proud features hinted at her Greek heritage—as did the jet-dark lashes which framed her slanting blue eyes and golden-olive skin. He didn’t approve of her old jeans and crumpled T-shirt, but surely her lack of effort with her appearance implied she wasn’t expecting someone else. Some faceless man he would have been forced to eject, by whatever means he considered appropriate. Theo’s mouth hardened. He didn’t know why that should give him a brief sense of pleasure, only that it did.
His gaze flickered around the cramped dimensions of the room. Whatwasremarkably different were her circumstances. He glanced at the narrow bed, the utilitarian wardrobe and the small plywood locker which reminded him of a hospital. Who would ever have imagined that Mia would end up living in a cramped room which overlooked a fire escape?
‘I gave you no prior warning because I have always enjoyed the element of surprise,’ he said, with a hard smile—and that was the truth. Hadn’t he wondered what her instinctive reaction on seeing him again would be? Had he imagined her features might soften with signs of longing, or regret? But there had been nothing like that. Just wariness and a thinly veiled hostility which—bizarrely—pleased him. It reinforced his certainty of how ill-judged their liaison had been and the sooner he was properly free of her, the better.
‘Well, you’ve achieved what you came for. I amverysurprised,’ she said, before adding curiously, ‘Tell me, how did you find me?’
The cheap T-shirt clung to her breasts, and Theo felt his throat grow dry as his attention was unwillingly caught by their generous thrust. Breasts which were taunting him, reminding him that he’d placed her on that damned pedestal, insisting on telling her they wouldn’t have full sex until she was his wife. He felt a stab of irritation as he recalled his foolish idealism. Why hadn’t he just taken her to bed when he’d had the chance? All those times she had pressed against him and whimpered with raw desire—why had he insisted on doing thedecent thing? ‘The acquisition of information is never difficult for a man like me,’ he informed her coolly. ‘I paid for someone to discover your whereabouts.’
‘Gosh! A private investigator, no less!’ Her eyebrows shot up and disappeared into the mass of coppery curls. ‘Am I supposed to be impressed?’
He shrugged. ‘Why not? You’re only human,’ he mocked, but then reminded himself of the reason behind his visit and his voice softened. ‘You need to come back to Greece, Mia. Your grandfather is sick.’
He saw her lips crumple. Saw the darkness which invaded those wide blue eyes, which were the colour of the Aegean on a bright spring day.
‘How sick?’ she whispered.
‘What do you want me to say? That a man of almost eighty is bouncing around like a boxer? You might know something of his state of health if only you had bothered to keep in touch with him!’
‘It isn’t as simple as that,’ she protested. ‘You must know that, Theo. He cut me out of his life and said he never wanted to see me again! And every time I’ve tried to contact him, I have been rebuffed.’
‘He was a proud man. Running away on your wedding night caused a scandal in the local neighbourhood. And you know how he felt about scandals.’
She bit her lip. ‘I don’t want to talk about that night.’
‘Well, that’s good because neither do I.’ Theo felt his jaw tighten and his muscles grow tense as he reminded himself he wasn’t here because of the past, because that was over and done with. He was just doing a favour for an old man who didn’t realise he needed one. A man to whom he owed everything. And if that meant having to see a woman whose memory he would rather have erased from his mind, then so be it. He could cope with that. With her. She was just somebody he used to know. ‘You need to see him,’ he reiterated. ‘And soon.’
‘Is he...dying?’ The gaze she turned on him was so wretched that Theo could do nothing about the answering clench of his heart, and silently he cursed her for that, too.
‘Yes, he is dying,’ he said, his voice brittle. ‘He is no longer the man he once was—with the heart of a lion and the body of an ox. Age has caught up on him, as it catches up on us all.’ He saw the tell-tale glimmer of tears in her sea-blue eyes. ‘You will be shocked when you see him again, Mia.’
She nodded. ‘And did he...did he ask for me?’
There was a heartbeat of a pause before he answered, and Theo wondered how she would react if he told her the truth. But ultimately, she would thank him for his intervention because wasn’t he giving her the chance to so something which had never been afforded to him? His mouth clenched. ‘He needs to see you.’ He glanced around the room. ‘How quickly can you pack?’
His peremptory question reminded Mia how different their worlds were. They always had been—she just hadn’t been able to see it at the time. Or maybe she hadn’t wanted to. She had believed herself in love with him and, inevitably, that had distorted the way she’d viewed the world.
Since their split, she had stopped herself from stalking him on the Internet because that way lay madness, but she’d found a financial newspaper lying in one of the hotel bedrooms when she’d been cleaning it, and her attention had been captured by the brooding good looks of her estranged husband. Her eyes had quickly skimmed the text and she’d discovered how successful he was. A hedge-fund manager apparently—whateverthatmeant—though judging from his many assets she’d concluded that such a job was highly rewarded financially.
But even if she hadn’t known how rich he was, she could tell just by looking at him. A sense of power radiated from him, in a way which was almost tangible. And hadn’t he done it all offherback? She wondered if he felt a glimmer of shame for his actions, but she wasn’t going to bring that up now. It would make it look as if she cared, and she didn’t.
‘I can’t just get up and go to Greece,’ she objected. ‘I have a job. I work at the Granchester hotel.’ She gestured around the small room. ‘I live in their staff accommodation.’
‘Neh, I know. My investigator didn’t have to do very much to discoverthat.’
Mia wondered what else his investigator had uncovered. That she lived a simple, almost nun-like existence? That her horizons and ambitions were modest when compared to the high-octane world he undoubtedly inhabited? Had he been surprised when he’d discovered how humble her life had become—or just relieved that he hadn’t been forced to endure their farce of a marriage?
She heard another growl of thunder and ran her finger along the neckline of her sticky T-shirt. ‘Then you will also know that people rely on me—’
‘I’m sure they do,’ he interrupted silkily. ‘But nobody is indispensable, Mia. Not even you. Tell the hotel you need compassionate leave.’ He shrugged. ‘If you think it’s worth it.’
His words were a challenge and she thought how, in the past, she would have surrendered to his stronger will and been happy to do so—because Theo was a man who seemed to have all the answers, while she had doubted herself all the time. But she wasn’t that person any more. She was no longer prepared to accept things on face value, or to always trust somebody else’s judgement above her own.
She thought of her grandfather, whose home had always provided a bright oasis during the few weeks of the school holidays when she’d been permitted to visit him. The man she had adored, despite the vitriol poured into her ear about him by her mother. But he had cut her out of his life as ruthlessly as if she had been a tumour he wanted to excise. She had been disbelieving and hurt—yet part of her had wondered if maybe it was all for the best. At least she didn’t have to go back to Greece and see him, and run the risk of bumping into the man she had married.
It had taken a long time for her to realise how much she had missed her grandfather and how much she regretted the rift which had formed between them. No matter what had happened she still loved him—didn’t she? Because love, she had discovered, was a remarkably difficult thing to kill off. It clung to the human heart like a baby chimp to its mama. And hadn’t one of the lasting regrets of her laughably brief marriage been the rupture in her relationship with him? If he was sick and asking for her, then she needed to go to him.
