LITMIR.BIZ

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it was only natural that her daughter should get to know, even if belatedly, her own father’s family, and now that she had emigrated to Australia she was beyond the painful associations herself.

      Having been brought up in England, in an English family, it had been strange for Vicky to realise that she was, by birth, half-Greek. But far, far more alien than coming to terms with the cultural heritage she had never known had been coming to terms with another aspect of her paternal family. Its wealth.

      Because her father’s money had been spent on charitable causes, she had never really registered just how very different the lifestyle of her uncle would be. But staying with Aristides in Greece had opened her eyes, and she had been unable to help feeling how unreal his wealthy lifestyle was compared to her own. For all his wealth, however, her uncle was warm, and kind, and had embraced her wholeheartedly as his brother’s child. A widower in late middle age, without children, he was, Vicky had seen with fondness, clearly set on lavishing on her all the pampering that he would have bestowed on a daughter of his own. While honouring his brother’s altruism, and accepting her mother’s desire to put the tragic past behind her, Aristides had nevertheless made no bones about wanting to make up for what he considered his niece’s material deprivation.

      At first Vicky had tried to stop him lavishing his money on her, but then, seeing him so obviously hurt by her refusal to let him buy her the beautiful clothes that he’d wanted her to have, she’d given gave in. After all, it was only a holiday. Not real life. So she’d stopped refusing and had let herself be pampered. Her uncle had taken so much pleasure in doing so.

      ‘Andreas would be so proud of you! So proud! His so-beautiful daughter!’ he would say, time and again, with a tear openly in his eye, his emotion unashamedly apparent and, Vicky had found with a smile, so very Greek.

      And so very Greek, too, she’d discovered, in his attitude to young women of her age. They were, she’d had to accept, though loved to pieces, treated like beautiful ornamental dolls who must and should be petted and pampered, but also sheltered from the real world.

      It had been the same when she’d made her second visit to Greece. She had visited her mother and stepfather in Australia for Christmas the previous year, and Aristides had invited her to spend the next festive season with him in Athens. But that time as soon as he’d greeted her she’d been able to tell something was wrong. There had been a strain about him that she’d sensed immediately.

      Not that Aristides had said anything to her when she’d arrived in Athens. He’d simply reverted to his cosseting of her, telling her she was too thin and working too hard, she needed a holiday, some fun, new clothes. Because she’d known that his concern was genuine, and that he took great pleasure in pampering her, she’d once again given herself to his unreal world, where all the women wore couture clothes which they changed several times a day, according to the social function they were attending next. As before, she had gone along with it—because she’d seen the pleasure it gave her uncle to show off his young half-English niece, whose natural beauty was enhanced by clothes and jewellery.

      ‘My late brother’s daughter, Victoria,’ he would introduce her, and she’d heard the pride in his voice as he did so, the affection, too. Family, she’d swiftly learnt, was of paramount importance in Greece.

      For Vicky it had been fascinating, the glittering world she had dipped her toes into, where breathtaking consumption was the order of the day. Sitting around her uncle’s vast dining room table, laden with crystal and silverware, with the female guests glittering like peacocks in their evening gowns and jewels, and the men as smart as magpies in their black-and-white tuxedos, she’d found herself realising with a strange curiosity that, had her father not been so determined to abnegate his wealthy background, this could have been her natural environment. Except, of course, she’d amended, she would not have had her English upbringing but one decidedly Greek. It had been a strange thought.

      But she’d known that, fascinating as it was to observe this rarefied social milieu, it was, all the same, profoundly alien. She’d felt as if she was at a zoo, observing exotic mammals that lived lives of display and ostentation that were nothing to do with reality. Their biggest challenge would be which new yacht to buy, which designer to favour, or which Swiss bank to keep their private accounts in.

      Not that their wealth made them horrible people—her uncle was kindness personified, and everyone she’d met so far had been gracious and charming and easy to talk to.

      All except one.

      Vicky’s expression took on a momentary darkening look.

      She hadn’t caught his name as her uncle had brought him over to be introduced to her before dinner, because as she’d turned to bestow a social smile on him it had suddenly frozen on her mouth. She’d felt her stomach turn slowly over.

      Greek men were not tall. She’d got used to that now. But this man was tall. Six foot easily. Tall, and lean, and so devastatingly good-looking that her breath had congealed in her lungs as she’d stared at him, taking in sable hair, a hard-planed face already in its thirties, a blade of a nose, sculpted mouth and eyes—oh, eyes that were black as sloes. But with something hidden in them…

      She’d forcibly made herself exhale and widen her smile. But it had been hard. She’d still felt frozen all over. Except for her pulse, which had suddenly surged in her veins. Mechanically she’d held out her hand in response to the introduction, and felt it taken by strong fingers and a wide palm. The contact had been brief, completely formal, and yet it had felt suddenly, out of nowhere, quite different. She’d withdrawn her hand as swiftly as politeness permitted.

      ‘How do you do?’ she said, wondering just what his name was. She’d missed her uncle saying it.

      ‘Thespinis Fournatos,’ the man acknowledged.

      She was getting used to being addressed by her birth father’s name. At home she’d taken Geoff’s surname, because when her mother had married him he’d adopted her, and it was easier for them all to have the same surname. But understandably, she knew, her uncle thought of her as his brother’s son, and to him she was Victoria Fournatos, not Vicky Peters.

      But there was something about the way this man pronounced her Greek name that sent a little shiver down her spine. Or maybe it was just because of the low timbre of his voice. The low, sexy timbre…

      Because this man, she realised, with another surge of her pulse, was an incredibly attractive male. Whatever it was about the arrangement of his limbs and features, he had it—in buckets.

      And he knew it, too.

      She felt the tiny shiver turn from one of awareness to one of resistance. It wasn’t that he was looking at her in any kind of suggestive way. It was more, she could tell, that he was perfectly used to women reacting to him the way that she had. So used to that reaction, in fact, that he took it for granted. Instantly she schooled herself against him, making herself ignore the breathless fluttering in her insides. Instead, she glanced at her uncle, who made some remark to the man in Greek, which Vicky did not understand. She knew a few Greek phrases, and a smattering of vocabulary, and was with practice and effort just about able to read Greek script haltingly, but rapid speech was completely beyond her.

      ‘You live in England, I believe, Thespinis Fournatos?’ The man turned his attention to her, with the slightest query in his voice. More than a query, thought Vicky—almost disapproval.

      ‘Yes,’ she said, leaving it at that. ‘My uncle very kindly invited me for Christmas. However, I understand that in Greece Easter is the most important time of the year—a much more significant event than Christmas in the calendar.’

      ‘Indeed,’ he returned, and for a few minutes they engaged, with Aristides, in a brief conversation about seasonal celebrations.

      It was quite an innocuous conversation, and yet Vicky was glad when it finished—glad when a highly polished, dramatically beautiful woman, a good few years older than herself, came gliding up to them and greeted the tall man with a low and clearly enthusiastic husk in her voice. She spoke Greek fluently, and made no attempt to recognise Vicky’s presence.

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