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‘He doesn’t have one, which is why he keeps people at a distance.’
As the car turned out of the gate Stavros couldn’t resist looking back to the house. Lysandros stood there at the window, watching the world with a brooding air, as though it was his personal property and he had yet to decide how to manage it.
He remained there until the car had vanished through the gates, then turned back into the room, trying to clear his mind. The conversation had disturbed him and that must be quickly remedied. Luckily an urgent call came through from his manager at the port of Piraeus, to say that they were threatened with union trouble. Lysandros gave him a series of curt orders and promised to be there the next day.
Today he would attend Homer Lukas’s wedding as an honoured guest. He would shake his rival’s hand, show honour to the bride, and the watching crowds would sigh with disappointment not to see them at each other’s throats, personally as well as professionally.
Now, more than ever, his father’s advice rang in his head.
‘Never, never let them know what you’re thinking.’
He’d learned that lesson well and, with its aid, he would spend today with a smile on his face, concealing the hatred that consumed him.
At last it was time for his chauffeur to take him to the Lukas estate. Soon he could see Homer’s ‘Parthenon’, in which the wedding was to take place, and it loomed up high, proclaiming the residence of a wealthy and influential man.
A fake, he thought grimly. No more authentic than the other ‘Greek setting’ in Las Vegas.
His thoughts went back to a time that felt like another world and through his mind danced the girl on the roof, skinny, ordinary, yet with an outspoken innocence that had both exasperated and charmed him. And at the last moment, when she’d opened her arms to him, offering a comfort he’d found nowhere else in the world and he’d almost—
He slammed his mind shut. It was the only way to deal with weakness.
He wondered how she’d come to be one of the wedding party; probably the daughter of one of Estelle Radnor’s numerous secretaries.
She might be here today, but it was probably better not to meet again after so long. Time was never kind. The years would have turned her into a dull wife with several children and a faithless husband. Where once she had sparkled, now she would probably seethe.
Nor had he himself been improved by time, he knew. A heaviness had settled over him, different from the raging grief that had possessed him in those days. That had been a matter of the heart and he’d dealt with it suitably, setting it aside, focusing on his head, where all sensible action took place.
He’d done what was right and wise, yet he had an uneasy feeling that if he met her now she would look right through him—and disapprove.
At last they arrived. As he got out of his car and looked around he had to admit that Homer had spent money to great effect. The great temple to the goddess Athena had been recreated much as the original must have looked when it was new. The building was about seventy metres by thirty, the roof held aloft by elegant columns. Marvellous statues abounded, but the greatest of all was the forty-foot statue of Athena, which had mysteriously developed the face of Estelle Radnor.
He grimaced, wondering how long it would be before he could decently depart.
But, before he could start his social duties, his cellphone shrilled. It was a text message.
I’m sorry about what I said. I was upset. You seemed to be pulling away when we’d been growing so close. Please call me.
It was signed only with an initial. He immediately texted back.
No need to be sorry. You were right to break it off. Forgive me for upsetting you.
Hopefully that would be an end to it, but after a moment another text came through.
I don’t want to break off. I really didn’t mean all those things. Will I see you at the wedding? We could talk there.
This time it was signed with her name. He responded.
We always knew it couldn’t last. We can’t talk. I don’t wish to subject you to gossip.
The answer came in seconds.
I don’t care about gossip. I love you.
Madness seemed to have come over her, for now she’d stepped up the intensity, signing your own forever, followed by her name. His response was brief.
Please accept my good wishes for the future. Make sure you delete texts from your phone. Goodbye.
After that he switched off. In every way. To silence a machine was easy. It was the switching off of the heart and mind that took skill, but it was one he’d acquired with practice, sharpening it to perfection until he would have guaranteed it against every female in the world.
Except perhaps one.
But he would never meet her again.
Unless he was very unlucky.
Or very lucky.
‘You look gorgeous!’
Petra Radnor laughed aside the fervent compliment from Nikator Lukas.
‘Thank you, brother dear,’ she said.
‘Don’t call me that. I’m not your brother.’
‘You will be in a couple of hours, when your father has married my mother.’
‘Stepbrother at most. We won’t be related by blood and I can yearn after you if I want to.’
‘No, I think you’ll be the brother I’ve always wanted. My kid brother.’
‘Kid, nothing! I’m older than you.’
It was true. He was thirty-seven to her thirty-two, but there was something about him that suggested a kid; not just the boyish lines of his face but a lingering immaturity that would probably be there all his life.
Petra liked him well enough, except for his black moods that seemed to come from nowhere, although they also vanished quickly.
He admired her extravagantly, and she justified his admiration. The gaunt figure of her teen years had blossomed, although she would always be naturally slender.
She was attractive but not beautiful, certainly not as the word was understood among her mother’s film-land friends. She had a vivid personality that gleamed from her eyes and a humour that was never long suppressed. But the true effect was often discovered only after she’d departed, when she lingered in the mind.
To divert Nikator’s attention, she turned the conversation to Debra, the starlet who would be his official companion.
‘You two look wonderful together,’ she said. ‘Everyone will say what a lucky man you are.’
‘I’d rather go with you,’ he sighed.
‘Oh, stop it! After all the trouble Estelle took to fix you up with her, you should be grateful.’
‘Debra’s gorgeous,’ he conceded. ‘At least Demetriou won’t have anything to match her.’
‘Demetriou? Do you mean Lysandros Demetriou?’ Petra asked, suddenly concentrating on a button. ‘The Lysandros Demetriou?’
‘There’s no need to say it like that, as though he was important,’ Nikator said at once.
‘He certainly seems to be. Didn’t he—?’
‘Never mind that. He probably won’t have a woman on his arm.’
‘I’ve heard he has quite a reputation with women.’
‘True. But he never takes them out in public. Too much hassle, I guess. To him they’re disposable. I’ll tell you this, half the women who come here today will have been in his bed.’
‘You really hate him, don’t you?’ she asked curiously.
‘Years ago he was involved with a girl from this family, but he ill-treated her.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know the details. Nobody does.’
‘Then maybe she ill-treated him,’ Petra suggested. ‘And he reacted badly because he was disillusioned.’
He glared at her. ‘Why would you think that?’
‘I don’t know,’ she said, suddenly confused. A voice had whispered mysteriously in her mind, but she couldn’t quite make out the words. It came from long ago, and haunted her across the years. If only—
She tried to listen but now there was only silence.
‘She fled, and later we heard that she was dead,’ Nikator continued. ‘It was years ago, but he knew how to put the knife in, even then. Be warned. When he knows you’re connected with this family he’ll try to seduce you, just to show us that he can do it.’
‘Seduce?’ she echoed with hilarity. ‘What do you think I am—some helpless maiden? After all this time around the film industry I’ve learned to be safely cynical, I promise you. I’ve even been known to do a bit of “seducing” myself.’
His eyes gleamed and he reached out hopeful hands. ‘Ah, in that case—’
‘Be off,’ she told him firmly. ‘It’s time you left to collect Debra.’
He dashed away, much to her relief. There were aspects of Nikki that were worrying, but that must wait. This was supposed to be a happy day.
She checked her camera. There would be an army of professional photographers here today, but Estelle, as she always called her mother, had asked her to take some intimate family pictures.
She took one last look in the mirror, then frowned at what she saw. As Nikator had said, she looked gorgeous, but what might be right for other women wasn’t right for Estelle Radnor’s daughter. This was the bride’s big day, and she alone must occupy the spotlight.
‘Something a little more restrained, I think,’Petra murmured.
She found a darker dress, plainer, more puritanical. Then she swept her luxuriant hair back into a bun and studied herself again.
‘That’s better. Nobody will look at me now.’
She’d grown up making these adjustments to her mother’s ego. It was no longer a big deal. She was fond of Estelle, but the centre of her life was elsewhere.
The bride had already moved into the great mansion, and now occupied the suite belonging to the mistress of the house. Petra hurried along to say a last encouraging word before it was time to start.
That was when things went wrong.
Estelle screamed when she saw her daughter.
‘Darling, what are you thinking of to dress like that? You look like a Victorian governess.’
Petra, who was used to her mother’s way of putting things, didn’t take offence. She knew by now that it was pointless.
‘I thought I’d keep it plain,’ she said. ‘You’re the one they’ll be looking at. And you look absolutely wonderful. You’ll be the most beautiful bride ever.’
‘But people know you’re my daughter,’ Estella moaned. ‘If you go out there looking middle-aged, what will they say about me?’
‘Perhaps you could pretend I’m not your daughter,’ Petra said with wry good humour.
‘It’s too late for that. They already know. You’ve got to look young and innocent or they’ll wonder how old I am. Really, darling, you might try to do me credit.’
‘I’m sorry. Shall I go and change?’
‘Yes, do it quickly. And take your hair down.’
‘All right, I’ll change. Have a wonderful day.’
She kissed her mother and felt herself embraced as warmly as though there’d never been an argument. Which, in a sense, was true. Having got her own way, Estelle had forgotten it had ever happened.
As she left the room Petra was smiling, thinking it lucky that she had a sense of humour. Thirty-two years as Estelle Radnor’s daughter had had certain advantages, but they had also demanded reserves of patience.
Back in her room, she reversed the changes, donning the elegantly simple blue silk dress she’d worn before and brushing her hair free so that it fell gloriously about her shoulders. Then she went out into the grounds where the crowds were gathering and plunged into introductions. She smiled and said the right things, but part of her attention was elsewhere, scanning the men to see if Lysandros Demetriou had arrived.
The hour they had spent together, long ago, now felt like a dream, but he’d always held her interest. She’d followed his career as far as she could, gathering the sparse details of his life that seeped out. He was unmarried and, since his father’s death had made him the boss of Demetriou Shipbuilding, he lived alone. That was all the world was allowed to know.
Occasionally she saw a photograph that she could just identify as the man she’d met in Las Vegas. These days his face looked fearsome, but now another face came into her mind, a naïve, disillusioned young lover, tortured out of his mind, crying, ‘She made me trust her,’ as though that was the worst crime in the world.
The recent pictures showed a man on whom harshness had settled early. It was hard to realise that he was the same person who’d clung to her on that high roof, seeking refuge, not from the physical danger he’d freely courted, but from the demons that howled in his head.
What had become of that need and despair? Had he yielded to the desire to destroy everything, including his own heart?
What would he say to her if they met now?
Petra was no green girl. Nor was she a prude. In the years since then she’d been married, divorced, and enjoyed male company to the full. But that encounter, short but searingly intense, lived in her mind, her heart and her senses. The awareness of an overwhelming presence was with her still, and so was the disappointment she’d felt when he’d parted from her with only the lightest touch of the lips.
Now the thought of meeting Lysandros Demetriou again gave her a frisson of pleasurable curiosity and excitement. But strangely there was also a touch of nervousness. He’d loomed so large in her imagination that she feared lest the reality disappoint her.
Then she saw him.
She was standing on the slope, watching the advancing crowd, and even among so many it was easy to discern him. It wasn’t just that he was taller than most men; it was the same intense quality that had struck her so forcefully the first time, and which now seemed to sing over the distance.
