LITMIR.BIZ

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as usual, they’d got absolutely nothing beyond the bland statement issued at Theo Theakis’s curt instruction. Which was exactly why, Demetrious knew with a sinking heart, the tabloid from which the cutting had been taken had snapped up this latest little morsel.

      He stood now, watching and waiting for his employer’s reaction. He wouldn’t show much, Demetrious knew, but he was aware that the mask of impassivity would be just that—a mask. Demetrious was grateful for it. Without the mask he would probably have been blasted to stone already by now.

      For a few seconds there was silence. At least, thought Demetrious gratefully, there was no picture to go with the newspaper article. What had happened yesterday in Theakis HQ would have made a photo opportunity for any paparazzi to die for. As it was, it was nothing more than a coyly worded few paragraphs, laced with speculation, about just what had caused the former Mrs Theo Theakis to hurl her handbag at him and call him an unbecoming name. The journalist in question had teamed the article with an old photograph from the press archives of Theo Theakis, looking svelte in a tux, walking into some top hotel in Athens with a blonde, English, couture-dressed woman on his arm. Her expression was as impassive as his employer’s was now.

      But she certainly hadn’t been impassive yesterday. And nothing could hide the glee with which the brief, gossipy article had been written up.

      Theo Theakis’s eyes snapped up.

      ‘Find out who talked to these parasites and then sack them,’ he said.

      Then he went on with his breakfast.

      Demetrious stood back. The man was ruthless, all right. There were times, definitely, when he felt sorry for anyone who ever got on the wrong side of Theo Theakis. Like his ex-wife. Demetrious wondered why she’d done what she had. Surely by now she must know it was just a waste of her time? She’d been plaguing his boss for weeks now, and he’d not given an inch. He wasn’t going to, either. Demetrious could tell. Whatever it was she so badly wanted, she could forget it! As far as Theo Theakis was concerned she clearly no longer existed.

      Demetrious turned to go. He’d been dismissed, he knew, and sent on an errand he would not enjoy, but which had to be done all the same.

      ‘One more thing—’

      The deep voice halted him. Demetrious paused expectantly. Dark eyes looked at him with the same chilling impassivity.

      ‘Instruct Mrs Theakis to be here tonight at eight-thirty,’ said his employer.

      CHAPTER TWO

      VICKY was ploughing through paperwork. There was a never-ending stream of it: forms in triplicate, and worse, letters of application, case notes, invoices, accounts and any number of records, listings and statistical analyses. But it all had to be done, however frustrating. It was the only way, Vicky knew, to achieve what this small voluntary group, Freshstart, was dedicated to achieving—making some attempt to catch those children who were slipping through the education net and who needed the kind of dedicated, intensive, out-of-school catch-up tutoring that the organisation sought to provide them with.

      Money was, of course, their perpetual challenge. For every pound the group had, it could easily have spent five times that amount, and the number of children who needed its services was not diminishing.

      She gave a sharp sigh of frustration, which intensified as she picked up the next folder—the batch of quotes from West Country building firms for doing up Jem’s house. Jem had deliberately kept the work to the barest minimum—a new roof, new electrics, new flooring—to secure the property and make it comply with Health and Safety regulations. Everything else they would have to do themselves—painting, decorating, furnishing—even if they had to beg, borrow or steal. But the main structural and safety work just had to be done professionally—and it was going to cost a fortune.

      Yet the house, Pycott Grange, was a godsend. Jem had inherited it the previous year from his childless maternal great-uncle, and now that probate had been granted he could take occupation. Although it was very run down, after years of neglect, it had two outstanding advantages: it was large, standing in its own generous grounds, and it was close to the Devonshire seaside. Both those conditions made it ideal for what everyone hoped would be Freshstart’s latest venture. So many of the children it helped came from backgrounds that were grim in the extreme—deprived, dysfunctional families, trapped in dreary inner-city environments that simply reinforced all their educational problems. But if some of those children could just get a break, right away from their normal bleak lives, it might provide the catalyst they needed to see school as a vital ladder they could climb to get out of the conditions they’d been born into rather than the enemy. Two weeks at the Grange, with a mix of intensive tuition and space to play sport and surf, might just succeed in turning their heads around, giving them something to aim for in life other than the deadbeat fate that inevitably awaited them.

      But the Grange was going to cost a lot of money to be made suitable for housing staff and pupils, and a lot more to run, as well, before Jem’s dream finally came true. Disappointment bit into Vicky again. If the building work could start, without more delay, then there was a really good prospect that the Grange could open its doors in time for the long school summer holidays coming up in a few months. Already Freshstart had a list as long as your arm of children they would like to recommend for the experience. But without cash the Grange would continue to crumble away, unused and unusable.

      If we just had the money, she thought. Right now. And they should have the money. That was the most galling part of it. They should—it was there, sitting uselessly in a bank account, ready to be used. Except that—

      I want what’s mine!

      Anger injected itself into the frustration. It’s mine—I was promised it. It was part of that damned devil’s agreement I made—the one I knew I shouldn’t have made, but I did, all the same. Because I felt…

      She paused mentally, then finished the sentence. Felt obligated.

      Wretchedness twisted inside her as painful memories came flooding back.

      Vicky could hardly remember her father. She had always known that he had been born to riches, but to Andreas Fournatos his money was no more than a tool. At an early age he had taken his share of his patrimony and gone to work for an international aid agency, where he had met her mother and married her—only to die tragically when Vicky was not yet five. It had been his money, inherited by his widow, which had set up Freshstart, and Vicky’s mother had run the organisation until Vicky had taken over her role.

      She had had very little contact with her father’s side of the family—except for her one uncle. Despite hardly knowing her, Aristides Fournatos had been so good to her, so incredibly kind and welcoming. She had always understood why her mother had withdrawn from her late husband’s family all those years ago—because it had simply hurt too much to be reminded of the man she had married and lost so early. So, although there had been Christmas cards and birthday presents arriving regularly for Vicky throughout her childhood from her Greek uncle, her mother had never wanted to return to Greece, and had never wanted Vicky to accept her uncle’s invitations.

      Aristides had respected her mother’s wishes, knowing how much it pained his sister-in-law to remember her first husband after his premature death. And when Vicky’s mother had remarried, Aristides had been the first to congratulate her, accepting that she wanted to put all her emotional focus on her second husband—a divorced teacher with a son the same age as Vicky—and raise Vicky to be English, with Geoff as the only father she could remember. They had been a happy, close-knit family, living an ordinary, middle class life.

      But when Vicky had been finishing her university course Geoff had been given the opportunity to participate in a teaching exchange in Australia. He and her mother had moved there, finding both the job and the lifestyle so congenial that they had decided to stay. Vicky could not have been more pleased for them, but, adult though she was, she’d still felt miserable and lonely, left behind in England.

      That was when her uncle Aristides had suddenly swept back into her life. He had descended on Vicky and carried her off to Greece for a much needed

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