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Her pink tongue darted out to lick her lips, and he had to clench his gut again—a frustratingly frequent occurrence around this woman. ‘Well, you have a beautiful property right on the edge of the lake.’
‘I look forward to revisiting it, then. Seeing if it triggers anything.’
Even though she nodded, that wary look lingered in her eyes.
Back on Efemia, he probably would’ve taken pity on anyone so skittish around him—not that there had been many. But he couldn’t seem to control his impulses around Imogen.
He stretched out on the lounger, aware that she’d grown even tenser. ‘You were going to tell me all about yourself.’
‘No, you were demanding that I do. I hadn’t quite agreed.’
He sighed. ‘Is this to be another bone of contention? I’m beginning to think you like arguing with me for the sake of it.’
A startled look widened her eyes, triggering the sense that he’d just scored a bullseye. After gliding on sun protection in quick motions, she set the bottle aside and cleared her throat. ‘Shall I summarise my life for you?’ she asked, then continued before he could respond. ‘I’m an only child. My father wanted a son but got me instead.’
The words were clipped, but Zeph heard the unspoken turmoil wrapped around them.
‘We never really...clicked. I spent more time with my nannies than with Dad when I was growing up.’
‘And your mother? Where was she in all this?’
After a brief hesitation, she said, ‘She died a few weeks after I was born. Complication of birth, I was told.’
He muttered a response then realised he’d spoken Greek. Before he could translate, she offered a smile and a nod.
Zeph’s gaze fell on the monogrammed towel nearby, the extravagant ‘O’ followed by the letters that spelled out the name of a mother he couldn’t remember. Was he foolish to feel a kinship with Imogen over an occurrence that affected millions? He realised his fingers were tracing the ‘O’ when she looked down and then up at him.
‘Did I share details of my mother with you?’
Her face softened, even as she shook her head. ‘No.’
Another disquieting feeling swelled within him. Just what had they shared?
Ask her.Or was he hesitant to know because of what it might mean? That, for whatever reason, it seemed he’d plucked a near stranger from Texas and married her to suit his own ends?
A little annoyed with the deluge of internal questions and demands tumbling around inside him, he pushed ahead.
‘Where is your father? What is he doing now?’
Again those pinched lips that spelled her unhappiness about the subject. ‘He’s a consultant for my cousin’s oil company in Texas.’
‘I’m surprised he’s not here attempting to help you run a multibillion-euro company. It seems like that’s the kind of thing a man who wishes for a son instead of a daughter would jump at the opportunity to do.’ At her lengthy silence, his eyes narrowed shrewdly on her. ‘He tried, didn’t he?’
She nodded. ‘A few months after you went missing, he came to Athens. Offered to help me run the ship until you were found. I, and the board, disagreed.’
Zeph pursed his lips, his impression of the men he’d spoken with this morning only marginally improving. ‘Glad to know they’re good for something, although I think they were guarding their own interests rather than looking out for yours. And I’m guessing when you refused, your father didn’t stay to offer his support anyway?’
Imogen wondered whether he knew there was bitterness bleeding through his voice; whether his acrimonious feelings for her family were subconsciously slipping through the blank fog of his memories to manifest impressions he didn’t know about.
‘No, he didn’t. He gave his unsought opinion on my competency and left. We haven’t spoken that much since then.’
After several moments, layers of that acidity still lingered. She startled when the back of his hand brushed hers. ‘You stood up to him, protected what was important to you. Very little else matters.’
She wanted to laugh. Because on the one hand it sounded like much-desired praise. But on the other, it was exactly what he’d done to her to ensure her and her father’s capitulation. He’d leveraged her to ruin her family.
She shook her head, ruthlessly pushing back the tumult his questions had brought. ‘That’s me in a nutshell.’ Before he could probe deeper, she rose and approached the pool. This deck was level with the sea, the extended diving platform the perfect place for launching into the glittering waters of the Aegean.
And that was exactly what she did.
