LITMIR.BIZ

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could I?’ She paused. ‘Does Margot know?’

      ‘Does Margot know?’ he repeated grimly, settling himself lower in his seat and spreading his drawn-up knees, confined by the limitations of the space available. ‘Oh, yes, Margot knows. Why else did she send you here?’

      ‘I thought I was coming to look after Nikos for a few weeks,’ Sylvie retorted, stung by his insolence and his hostility. ‘Margot didn’t tell me anything else.’ She hesitated. ‘But if I’m not needed, why don’t you take me straight back to the airport? I believe there’s a flight—–’

      ‘Wait!’ His tone was less aggressive than weary now, and she looked at him apprehensively, prepared for another outburst. ‘Do you expect me to believe that you knew nothing about Leon’s operation? That Margot told you only that Nikos needed a nursemaid?’

      Sylvie shrugged. ‘It’s the truth, whether you believe it or not.’

      He said a word then in his own language, that even she, with her minuscule knowledge of Greek, knew was not polite. But, after resting his head against the soft leather upholstery for a few moments, he levered himself upright in his seat.

      ‘Poli kala,’ he said, and it was only when he spoke his own language that she realised how little accent he possessed in hers, ‘I believe you. But that does not solve the situation.’

      To evade her own awareness of his disturbingly intent gaze, Sylvie hastened into speech. ‘Leon,’ she said, torturing the strap of her bag, ‘what’s wrong with him? I—I can’t believe that Margot thought it was anything serious.’

      Andreas’s thin mouth turned down at the corners. ‘Do you not? But are not all heart operations serious, ohi?’

      ‘Leon has a heart condition?’ Sylvie gasped. ‘I—I don’t know what to say.’

      Andreas studied her troubled features for some minutes, bringing a wave of hot colour up her neck and over her face, and then, as if taking pity on her, he looked down at his hands hanging loosely between his knees. ‘Leon had rheumatic fever when he was a child,’ he said, without expression. ‘Recently it was discovered that the valves of his heart were not functioning properly, so an operation was advised.’

      Sylvie shook her head. ‘And—and Nikos?’

      Andreas shrugged. ‘Nikos is—Nikos. He has been staying with my mother and father, while Leon was in the hospital.’ He sighed. ‘Now that Leon has left the hospital, Margot was to accompany them home.’

      ‘Oh God!’

      Sylvie could not have felt worse. How could Margot have done this—to her, and to Leon? Didn’t she care how he was? Hadn’t she felt the need to go and see him, while he was in the hospital? It was no wonder that Andreas had been stunned to find her at the airport. And she dreaded to think what his parents would say when she turned up in Margot’s place.

      Turning her head, she stared blindly out of the window. The eight miles between the airport and the city were over, and already they were climbing through the narrow streets that formed the suburbs. Seedy hotels, and uninspiring shops and cafés, gave way to the modern heart of the city, where tree-lined squares were lined with canopied chairs and tables, and marble buildings, breathing an air of antiquity, jostled with tourist stores and travel agencies, and the pseudo-Renaissance palace, used for official functions.

      Sylvie started, when Andreas suddenly leaned forward and rapped on the glass partition. The chauffeur slid the partition aside, and they exchanged a few words in their own language. Then, after giving Sylvie a vaguely speculative look, the chauffeur closed the partition again, and braking abruptly, turned off the main thoroughfare into a sun-dappled square. There were trees in the middle of the square, providing a shadowy oasis, where mothers could walk their children; but towering above it was one of the new skyscraper blocks, whose concrete and glass influence could be felt in all the capital cities of the world.

      The chauffeur brought the Mercedes to a halt at the foot of the shallow steps leading up to the swinging glass doors of the tall building, but when Sylvie would have moved to get out Andreas’s hand, more gently this time, stayed her.

      ‘This is not where my parents live,’ he said, slowly and deliberately, and while she was absorbing this he went on heavily: ‘I think it would be best if I spoke to my parents—to my brother—first, before they meet you, do you understand? It is a—how do you say it?—fragile situation, ohi?’

      Sylvie nodded. ‘I understand that.’ She paused. ‘But don’t you think it would be better if—if I just went away again—–’

      ‘No!’ He spoke vehemently, expelling his breath as he did so, enveloping her in its wine-sweet odour, creating an intimacy she had never experienced before. How old was this man? she wondered. Thirty-five, thirty-six? Married, no doubt, judging by the rings he wore on his long brown fingers, and yet he aroused her awareness of him as a man, more strongly than Brian, or any of the boys she had known, had done.

      ‘You will stay here,’ he advised her now, indicating the building behind her. ‘This is my apartment. Oh, do not worry—–’ this as her eyes widened in surprise, ‘—my housekeeper, Madame Kuriakis, will take care of you until I return.’

      Sylvie looked doubtful. ‘Is there any point? I mean—if Nikos doesn’t need me—–’

      ‘But he does,’ essayed Andreas flatly. ‘My parents are old, too old to have the care of a six-year-old. And if Margot does not intend to fulfil her responsibilities, it may be that you will be required to fill them for her.’

      The chauffeur, who had been waiting patiently outside, responded to Andreas’s curt nod and swung open the door. He helped Sylvie out on to the pavement, then stood aside to allow his master to alight, his dark eyes veiled and enigmatic. Sylvie wondered what he was thinking. If he understood no English, did he know who she was, and what she was doing here? And what interpretation might be put upon this visit to Andreas’s apartment?

      Apparently her luggage was to remain in the car, for Andreas indicated that she should accompany him, and they mounted the shallow steps and passed through the glass doors into the building. A row of lifts confronted them, and they entered the first that answered Andreas’s summons, confined in the small cubicle as it accelerated swiftly upward.

      Sylvie was intensely conscious of his nearness in the lift, of the hard muscularity of his body, encased in the dark grey lounge suit, of the strength he had exhibited so painfully at the airport. He was not like Leon. Her memories of her brother-in-law were of a smaller man, a gentler man, and certainly a much less dangerous man. It was amazing how one’s opinions could change, she thought inconsequently. At eleven years of age, Andreas had been only another dark stranger at her sister’s wedding. Seven years later he was a man, and she was a woman—although she guessed he might dispute the designation.

      It was deliciously cool when they stepped out into the corridor and found themselves confronting white-panelled doors, with the Petronides name spelt out in letters of gold. Andreas brought a handful of keys out of his pocket and inserted one in the lock, then urged Sylvie forward into the apartment.

      Her first impression was of light and space, but almost immediately following on these thoughts was her breathless reaction to the view. She could see the Acropolis, the milky-white columns of the Parthenon towering over the city, and viewed over the rooftops of Athens, it had an almost fairytale beauty. She was drawn to the long windows, as if by a magnet, and for several seconds she was unaware that Andreas had left her to find the housekeeper.

      When she eventually dragged her eyes away and looked about her immediate surroundings, she felt an uneasy sense of disorientation. Her experiences so far had not prepared her for the luxurious appointments of the apartment, and she drew her skirts aside from bronze miniatures on narrow plinths, and furnishings with the unmistakable veneer of age and antiquity.

      It was a spacious room she was in, the floor softly tiled in russet and gold mosaic, and strewn with Bokhara rugs. A copper-shaded lamp was suspended

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