LITMIR.BIZ

       CHAPTER SIX

      ‘SO, ALEXI. MY son tells me that you are something of a silversmith these days.’

      Lexi put her wine glass down and produced another friendly smile, even though her face was beginning to ache. She felt like someone who had undergone a police interrogation, since Xenon’s mother had been firing questions at her for most of the overlong meal. And her arrogant son hadn’t done a thing to help her out.

      Dressed impeccably in navy, with pearls gleaming at her throat, Marina Kanellis was an elegant woman whose once-beautiful face bore a vaguely startled look, as if life had disappointed her. Lexi knew she’d been made a widow when Xenon was barely eighteen and not for the first time she wondered why the bilingual socialite had never considered marrying again. Unless she was one of those women who loved only one man...

      This line of thought was a little too uncomfortable to pursue. Instead Lexi concentrated on watching the candlelight flickering over the heavy crystal and silver, telling herself that the meal would soon be over and then she would be able to make her escape. She had tried to answer her mother-in-law’s queries as cheerfully as possible—even though she had been chewed up with nerves when she’d first sat down.

      Yet she couldn’t deny that tonight Marina had seemed almost kind and much less terrifying than before. Maybe that was because these days she felt more mature and much less intimidated. And, of course, less worried that she was going to make some terrible social gaffe and make Xenon ashamed of her. She no longer had anything to lose, did she?

      So she turned to Marina Kanellis and smiled.

      ‘“Silversmith” sounds a bit grand for what I do,’ she said.

      ‘But you are making jewellery?’

      Lexi nodded, her fingertips brushing against the two elongated silver triangles dangling from her ears as if she were showcasing her handiwork. ‘Yes, I am.’

      ‘And you enjoy it?’ asked Marina.

      ‘I love it,’ Lexi answered. ‘I’ve got my own little workshop in the village and I enjoy being my own boss. It gives me the kind of freedom I’ve never had before.’

      ‘I can imagine.’ Marina Kanellis sipped from her glass of water. ‘I never worked, of course. Not before my marriage nor after it. It was not considered appropriate for a woman to work, particularly if she was a Kanellis woman, with all the responsibilities which went with that role.’

      Lexi looked into Xenon’s piercing blue eyes. Help me out here, she beseeched him silently and to her astonishment she saw an answering glint of comprehension.

      ‘Modern women like to work, Mitera,’ he said, with the tone of somebody who had made the recent discovery that the world was round. ‘Some obviously need to work for economic reasons—but others do it because it gives them a purpose in life. It fulfils them in a way that nothing else can—something which men have known for centuries. And who are we to knock that?’

      Lexi wondered if her own expression reflected the dazed bemusement of her mother-in-law’s. She looked across the table at her husband in disbelief. Xenon coming out with an opinion about women which didn’t sound as if it had been formed two centuries ago? This from the man who had been adamant that she should be a stay-at-home wife?

      At the time, he had explained that they had far too much money for his conscience to allow her to work. Which in theory Lexi had tried to understand. She had told herself that she had married a Greek and that she had to accept there would be cultural differences.

      But what did a woman do all day when she wasn’t working and there were servants to run her life for her? Especially if she was a woman who didn’t like to ‘do’ lunch, or spend hours shopping?

      She waited to become a mother, that was what she did. And while she waited—in vain, in her case—she discovered that Xenon was governed less by his conscience than by his need to control her and his possessive desire to know where she was at any hour of the day.

      So had he changed his views, or was he simply expressing something different because it was expedient for him to do so?

      She met his eyes and saw the unexpected flash of humour glittering in their blue depths as if he knew perfectly well the thoughts which were running through her head. That lazy smile of comprehension flustered her and she turned to her mother-in-law, deliberately changing the subject. ‘I’m sorry to hear that your mother is so ill,’ she said quietly.

      Marina Kanellis nodded and then sighed. ‘I know. She is old, of course, and she has lived a good life,’ she said. ‘But that makes it no less painful for those of us who love her. We must just make sure that she is kept comfortable, and happy. You will go and see her tomorrow?’

      ‘Yes, I will. I’d like that very much,’ said Lexi.

      ‘You know, she always enjoyed your songs,’ said Marina unexpectedly. ‘Especially the one about the man who got away.’

      ‘“Come Right Back”,’ said Lexi instantly, but this time she didn’t dare look across the table at Xenon. Didn’t they say that there was nothing as potent as cheap music—and hadn’t the words of that particular song seemed unbearably poignant for a long time after they’d split?

      But her mood by the end of dinner was much more mellow than the one with which she’d begun it and the excellent food and rich Kanellis wine left her feeling warm and replete.

      After the meal they sat outside and drank coffee on the terrace, overlooking the bay. The sky was as dark as a railway tunnel but it was punctured by the diamond dazzle of a thousand stars. She looked down at the lights of Lindos and the glitter of the Aegean and wished she could freeze that moment and never have it melt.

      But after she’d said goodnight to Marina and walked with Xenon back to their villa, Lexi began to get butterfly feelings of nerves fluttering around inside her.

      She avoided any kind of confrontation until after she’d brushed her teeth and tackled the time-consuming task of brushing her long hair. By the time she’d emerged from the bathroom, it was to find Xenon standing by the bedroom window, staring out at the glittering sea.

      He turned round when she entered even though her bare feet must have made hardly any sound on the marble floor. He gave the glimmer of a smile when he saw she was covered from neck to ankle in a pair of pale silk pyjamas, but he made no comment about her buttoned-up nightwear.

      ‘You were sweet with my mother tonight,’ he said.

      Lexi blinked. It wasn’t what she had been expecting to hear. What had she been expecting? ‘She’s much softer than she used to be.’

      ‘Yes, she is. So many things have happened and she’s a grandmother now. I think the fact that her own mother is dying has made her look at the world differently.’ He shrugged. ‘The cycle of life keeps turning. It’s made her aware of how precious time is.’

      His undeniably emotional words hung on the air and Lexi felt the painful punch of her heart. ‘No. None of us should ever forget that,’ she said.

      Xenon let his gaze drift over her. She had taken off her glasses and her face was scrubbed clean. He thought how unbelievably young she looked. And how innocent. Sometimes it was hard to believe the reality of her rough upbringing when right now she looked as if she’d spent her life growing up in a convent, nurtured on nothing stronger than milk and orange juice. Her fair hair tumbled down over her pyjamas and he wondered what she would say if he told her that the look she’d been aiming for had

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