LITMIR.BIZ

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just like his feckless French father—a so-called aristocrat who spent his life sailing around in his yacht seducing young girls. In the ensuing argument Luke had discovered his grandfather had known his father’s name all along.

      Luke had stormed out and gone to find his father. He had discovered the man living on a large estate in France—with his wife and two sons both older than Luke. When Luke had confronted him he had sneered and disowned him with the words, ‘I have had dozens of women in my life, and even if I had been single at the time I would never have married your Greek peasant of a mother.’ Then, with the help of his two equally obnoxious sons, he’d had Luke thrown off his land.

      Luke had gone ahead and joined the cruise liner. There he had struck up a friendship with an elderly New York banker, who had enlisted Luke’s aid in reading the stock market. When the ship had docked in New York, impressed by Luke’s natural ability to spot a winner, the same man had offered Luke a job with his firm. Luke had become the proverbial whiz kid, and four years later had started his own investment banking company—Devetzi International.

      The circumstances of his birth no longer bothered Luke, and hadn’t done for years. He viewed his grandfather’s set features now with a mixture of frustration and love. ‘Nothing you do or want can ever be too much trouble for me, Theo. You only have to ask and it will be given. You must know that.’

      Theo was getting old. His heavily lined face showed the signs of his seventy-seven years, and yet his deep brown eyes still held the determination that had seen him build up a business with his best friend Milo. Luke owed his life to this man.. as far as he was concerned Theo was the only family he had.

      ‘Humph. Fine words, Lycurgus, but they cut no ice with me.’

      Luke stiffened. He knew the old man was always either angry or after something when he used Luke’s full name—chosen for him by his grandmother because it meant wolf-hunter, and his silver-grey eyes had reminded her of a wolf.

      ‘What I wanted was to see you married with children, to see the continuation of our bloodline. But given your apparent aversion to marriage and your choice in women I have almost given up hope.’ Lifting a magazine from the coffee table, he waved it at Luke. ‘Just look at your latest woman—probably the one you have spent the last few days with.’ He flicked to the centre page. ‘Davina Lovejoy is about as likely to make a good wife and mother as fly,’ he snorted.

      Theo was right—Luke had been dating Davina for the last few weeks and had spent a long weekend with the lady in question. He could tell his grandfather that he had no intention of marrying the lady anyway.. but, dammit, why should he? He didn’t exactly appreciate Theo interfering in his sex life. And, as for marriage, Luke had little trust in women for the long term. In his experience he had found the married ones just as eager to get into his bed as the single women he met, if not more so—not that he was at all interested in getting involved with married women. The only exception to that particular rule still nagged his conscience to this day…

      Belatedly he tuned back in to Theo’s rapid-fire Greek.

      ‘…and I thought you had more taste, but obviously I was wrong. Have you read this?’ Theo waved the magazine again. ‘She had a nose job at nineteen! That I can understand, and even the breast enhancement I could tolerate, but this last thing… Well, I have never heard of anything like it in my life! A false bottom! You might as well take a plastic doll to your bed,’ he exclaimed.

      ‘What? Let me see that,’ Luke snapped, and took the magazine from Theo’s hand. A quick glance told him his grandfather was right. A photograph of Davina and himself leaving a restaurant—a month earlier, if he wasn’t mistaken—followed by an article all about Davina, her physical enhancements, and the new man in her life.

      A vitriolic Greek curse escaped him, and he flung the magazine back on the table in disgust.

      ‘My sentiments exactly,’ Theo agreed, with the slightest of smiles lightening his leathered face.

      Luke ran his hand through his dark hair again. ‘I never even realised,’ he muttered. And, as he considered himself something of a connoisseur of women, that was some admission!

      Sinking down onto the sofa beside Theo, he gave the old man a wry smile. ‘I met Davina because she’s an interior designer, and my PA in New York hired her to redecorate my apartment in the city. Propinquity did the rest.’ He didn’t add that it had only been when showing the woman around his apartment it had suddenly struck him he had not bedded a woman in over a year and it was time he did something about it. ‘But if it gives you any satisfaction, Theo, I have no intention of marrying her.’

      When the apartment was finished, in a couple of weeks, so would be his involvement with Davina. Beautiful and intelligent though she was, this last weekend had not been the roaring success he had hoped for. Davina was a very experienced lover, and the sex had been good, but for some reason it had left him feeling oddly unsatisfied.

      ‘Good! In that case you can do me a favour,’ Theo stated. ‘Since your grandmother’s death I’ve been making a few discreet enquiries about buying back my family home on Zante. I sold it to the local butcher when we moved from the island to Athens, but the house and the cove had been in my family for generations. I want it back,’ he declared emphatically. ‘I was conceived on that beach, I courted your grandmother there, and your mother was conceived on the same beach. It has a thousand happy memories for me, and when you get to my age that is about all you have left.’

      Theo sighed deeply, then went on, ‘I did some digging and discovered the butcher died eight years later, and his family sold it for cash to a nameless businessman from Athens. According to gossip, he then gifted it to his mistress—an Englishwoman called Mary James; a botanist from London. I caught up with her on the island one time. She was a lovely lady, and she told me about her work and the company she had founded with her sister called Vanity Flair, producing a line of homeopathic, antiallergenic make-up. Later, her sister married the company accountant, one David Sutherland, and he was instrumental in expanding the business into retail outlets all over Europe.

      ‘But when I asked her if she would sell me the house on Zante she flatly refused, and closed up like a clam. So when I heard the company was to be floated on AIM—the alternative investment market in London—with the intention of raising money to fund expansion into America, I bought a block of shares on the off-chance that at some point they might give me some leverage in trying to persuade Miss James into selling my family home back to me.’

      Luke frowned. Most of the companies floated on AIM were high-risk businesses. ‘Take my advice—sell up and get out now. As for your old home—forget it. Anyway, I thought you liked living in the house I had built for us all? You have never complained.’

      ‘No, but, beautiful as it is, since your grandmother died I find it a bit lonely—you’re rarely there.’

      ‘A good point,’ Luke conceded. The fact that he’d had no idea Theo was interested in buying back the property on Zante shamed him, and revealed just how little real attention he had given his grandfather in the past few years, how much he had taken him for granted. ‘I promise I will try to get home more often, Theo. But it doesn’t alter the fact that Zante is a very popular tourist destination now. It’s nothing like when you lived there—you’d hate it.’ Luke knew because he had berthed his yacht for one night on the island last summer, and, beautiful though the scenery still was, he had departed quickly the next morning.

      ‘No, you’re wrong. At last I can see a way to recover what was once mine.’ Theo’s eyes sparkled with more excitement than Luke had seen in a long time. ‘I discovered that Mary James died some months ago, and I immediately started to buy up more stock.’ Theo held up a veined hand. ‘And before you say it, I know the stock has been falling recently—but that was to my advantage because I got it cheap.’

      If the company went down the tubes it wouldn’t be cheap, but Luke shook his head and kept his mouth shut, not wanting to argue further with Theo.

      ‘I received a call last week to attend a special board meeting of Vanity Flair, as one of the larger stockholders. I

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