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Chelsea hoped he was right. Being here under false pretences was bad enough, without finding herself at odds with any member of his family. Abandoning the whole idea would probably be the wisest course, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it. Not while there was any chance at all of achieving her aim. Nikos would be a hard nut to crack, but she might just manage it if she put her mind to it. First and foremost, she had to get beneath that guard of his.
“If she speaks English as fluently as the two of you do there’ll certainly be no problem in communicating,” she said. “My Greek is pretty basic as yet”
“Travel broadens the vocabulary,” said Nikos. “As does tourism also.”
Chelsea’s brows drew together. “You’re involved in the tourist industry?”
“The whole of Greece is involved in the tourist industry,” came the dry return. “Our economy, to a great extent, depends upon it”
“I shouldn’t have thought you met all that many tourists yourself, though,” she ventured, unable to visualise this man mingling with the average package dealers. “The island being private, I mean.”
“Our lives are hardly confined to Skalos,” he said, making her feel a bit of an idiot
“Does Dimitris know yet that he’s to have a birthday party?” asked Dion, before she could make any further comment. “Or is it still to be a surprise?”
“Better he should be surprised rather than disappointed should anything go amiss,” his cousin replied. “Do you like children?” he added to Chelsea.
“I couldn’t eat a whole one,” she quipped before she could stop herself, drawing a splutter of laughter from the rear. “Sorry, that was crass,” she apologised, neither daring nor caring to glance in Nikos’s direction. She added cautiously, “I like some children.”
“You’ll love Dimitris,” Dion assured her. “He’s a real little character!”
“You’re welcome to attend the party if you wish,” invited his cousin, leaving Chelsea feeling that the younger man hadn’t left him much choice.
An opportunity to see the Pandrossos homestead was hardly to be turned down, however, though it seemed necessary to at least make the gesture.
“That’s very kind of you, she said formally, “but I wouldn’t want to intrude on a family occasion.”
Nikos drove the car between double iron gates, expression unrevealing. “Dimitris is the only child in the family, so we must go outside of it for companions for him. We have guests coming from the mainland too, so there’s no question of intrusion.”
“In that case, I’d very much like to come. “Thank you, ki… I mean, Nikos.”
His nod was a mite perfunctory. “Think nothing of it.”
Sparkling white in the sunlight, the house that came into view was more modem in design than Chelsea would have anticipated-a single storey spreading out in several directions, as if bits had been added almost as afterthoughts. A disappointment in many ways, she had to admit.
Nikos drew up before the arched doorway, but declined to accompany the two of them into the house.
“I’m invited for dinner tonight,” he said, “so I’ll see you then. Kali andamosi.”
The equivalent of “bye for now’, Chelsea surmised, not having come across the phrase before. She felt deflated as he headed the car back along the driveway, aware of having made a great deal less than a good start on her campaign-buoying herself up with the thought that she was at least no further away from achieving her aim.
“Come and meet my mother,” said Dion. “My father is away on business at present, although he may be back in time for tomorrow’s festivities.”
If the outside of the house had been a disappointment, the inside was scarcely less so. Lavishly furnished, and heavy on marble and gilt, it left Chelsea with an impression of magazine room settings rather than a home. But then why should these people be expected to conform to her preconceptions simply because they were Greek? she asked herself, following Dion out through the rear of the house to a wide terrace which overlooked an equally spacious swimming pool, with the sea forming a suitable backdrop.
The woman reclining on one of the long, luxuriously padded loungers set beneath a spreading umbrella looked up at her son’s approach, her smile taking on a certain resignation as her eyes fell on Chelsea. When she spoke it was in Greek, and too fast for Chelsea to follow, although as Dion didn’t look in any way perturbed she could only surmise that the welcome mat hadn’t been fully withdrawn.
“This is Chelsea Lovatt from England,” he said. “I invited her to stay for a few days before she continues her travels.”
“Khero poli, Kiria Pandrossos,” Chelsea proffered. “I hope I’m not intruding.”
“My son’s friends are always welcome,” returned the other in excellent, if slightly more stilted English than Dion’s own, reinforcing what he’d said himself. “Come, take a seat. You are here on holiday?”
“That’s right.” Chelsea sat down on the nearby chair indicated. “I’m trying to see as many Greek islands as I can before I go home.” She gave a smile. “This one wasn’t on my itinerary, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to add it to the list.”
“Very few foreigners visit Skalos,” confirmed her hostess, not unkindly. “Dion, you will order drinks for all of us.”
“Of course,” he said. “What would you like, Chelsea?”
“A long, cold lemonade would be wonderful,” she said.
Chic in a gold-coloured kaftan, her dark hair swept up and back from her face, Kiria Pandrossos relaxed back onto the lounger as her son went back into the house. Dion was her own age, Chelsea already knew, which meant his mother must surely be in her forties, yet she could easily pass for mid-thirties.
“It’s easy to see where Dion gets his looks from,” she murmured, hardly realising she had spoken out loud until she saw the gratified smile touch the other woman’s lips.
“My son and I share many qualities.” She paused, viewing the lightly tanned and well-balanced features before her, the cascade of sun-streaked hair. “You are very attractive yourself. But of course you would have to be for Dion to have taken an interest. He is much drawn to blonde hair.”
A warning that she wasn’t the first and wouldn’t be the last, Chelsea sensed. Unnecessary, as it happened, because she had no designs on the man in question. But his mother wasn’t to know that.
“I did consider shaving it all off just to see if I still made the same impact,” she said, tongue in cheek.
Kiria Pandrossos looked startled for a moment, then relaxed again as she saw the twinkle in the blue eyes opposite. “That would be a drastic experiment indeed. Few men are drawn to bald-headed women, whatever their other looks. Dion would certainly not be one of them.”
“I already guessed that,” Chelsea assured her, and added impulsively, “He and I are just good friends, and happy to be that way. When I leave, there’ll be no heartache on either part.”
“Speak for yourself,” quoth the subject under discussion, coming out in time to catch the last. “My heart is already broken!”
Chelsea laughed. “It will soon mend.”
“English women have no romance in their souls!” he complained, slinging himself down on a lounger. “I’ll lie here and pine for what might have been between us!”
Kiria Pandrossos looked as if she found the repartee a little confusing. Obviously unaccustomed to the kind of relationship she and Dion had forged, Chelsea reflected. Kisses were the only form of intimacy they had exchanged-and those themselves light-hearted. They were neither of them looking for any kind of commitment.
The drinks arrived, borne by a youth wearing the seemingly mandatory dark trousers and white shirt of the serving classes in this country. Dion could well have carried them out himself, Chelsea thought, but doubted if the idea would have even occurred to him. Born into money the way he had been, he took service for granted.
“I was not informed that you had called for a car to bring you from the beach, or I would have been expecting you,” said Kiria Pandrossos when they each had their glass.
“I didn’t call,” her son confirmed. “Nikos brought us. He said he would be joining us for dinner tonight.”
“Ah, good! He was uncertain of his movements today. Hestia must be told that there will be two more at table.”
“Already done.” Dion paused to take a drink from his glass. “Florina will be happy to see our cousin.”
“As shall we all.” His mother sounded faintly reproving. “You must not tease your sister, Dion. Her emotions are too fragile.”
“It’s Nikos who does the teasing,” he retorted. “He knows how she feels for him, but he still holds back!”
“He will speak soon, I am certain. Dimitris needs a mother to care for him when his father is away from home. He must know this.”
So Nikos Pandrossos was to marry his cousin, Chelsea reflected, concentrating on her drink. At least, that appeared to be the hope. It would be a good move for the family; there was no doubt. It was Florina she felt sorry for-as she would feel sorry for any woman married to a man like Nikos Pandrossos. An autocrat if ever she saw one!
CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_35d3fef9-36e8-539e-9f9a-6158a31f2634)
LOOKING inland, the bedroom to which she was eventually shown was as sumptuously furnished and decorated as the rest of the house; the wide bed draped in pale lemon silk to match the beautifully hung drapes, the floor carpeted in thickly piled Prussian blue. There was an en suite bathroom, complete with a sunken bath convertible to a Jacuzzi at the flick of a switch.
“I could hardly be anything else,” Chelsea confirmed when Dion expressed a hope that she would be comfortable. “This is sheer luxury!”
“My mother admires the Italian style of living,” he acknowledged. “You’ll find Nikos’s house very different.”
“A traditionalist, is he?” she hazarded.
“If you mean that he prefers the old ways to the new, then, yes.”
Chelsea kept her tone light. “With women very much secondary citizens, I take it?”
“Of course. Women are born to serve the male!” Grinning, Dion dodged the pillow she snatched up and slung at him. “Some women, at least.”
“Does Florina see her role in life that way?” Chelsea felt moved to ask.
“My sister,” he said, “will do whatever is necessary to achieve what she desires the most in life.”
“To marry Nikos?”
“Yes.”
Chelsea sat down on the bed-edge to unzip her bag and start taking things out, voice casual. “What happened to his wife?”
“The boat in which she and my aunt were returning from a visit to the mainland developed engine trouble and was driven onto rocks in a squall and sank. The crew escaped, but they were trapped below.”
“It must have been dreadful for him, losing them both together,” said Chelsea, in swift, surging empathy. “How on earth did he cope?”
“The way he copes with everything. No one ever knows Nikos’s true feelings.” Dion came away from the windowsill, where he had been leaning. “I’ll leave you to finish unpacking.”
“There’s little enough of it to do,” she said. “I hope you don’t go in for dressing up in the evening, because I’m going to be seriously letting the side down. I set out to travel light.”
Dion laughed and shook his head. “We are very informal. Not,” he added, “that you could look anything but beautiful whatever you wear. With eyes such as yours, you have no need of jewels!”
“Corn!” Chelsea was laughing too. “Pure, unadulterated corn!”
“It works with others,” he returned, unabashed.
She didn’t doubt it. Given the opportunity, most would be only too ready to respond to any line he cared to use, however corny. It was a source of some wonder to her still that he left her so relatively unstirred in the physical sense.
His cousin was a different matter, she had to admit. He radiated a sexual attraction impossible to ignore. Not that it made any difference to her prime objective.
So far she had no formulated plan of campaign. The ideal would be to find some way of putting him in her debt, although she couldn’t begin to think how that might be done. All she could do was play it by ear and hope for a break of some kind. Being nonconfrontational would be a good start.
Dion was watching her curiously. “You looked just then as if you had some problem,” he remarked. “Is it one I can help you with?”
“I was just wondering whether to go for a swim before I finish unpacking,” she improvised, holding up the bikini she had just taken out. “If it’s all right to use the pool, that is?”
“Why else would it be there?” he returned. “I’ll go and put on bathing trunks and we’ll swim together. You can find your way back out to the pool?”
“I’m sure of it.” Even if it had been a spur-of-themoment suggestion, the thought of a dip was tempting. It was still only just gone six-thirty, and dinner was hardly likely to be served before nine. Plenty of time to tidy herself up in. “I’ll see you out there,” she said.
The blue bikini looked just a little too brief for present circumstances. She put on a black one-piece suit instead, missing the fact that the smoothly clinging Lycra outlined her shape far more provocatively. An over-sized white shirt did double duty as a covering wrap; it would hardly do to parade through the house semi-naked. Her hair she tied back into her nape with a rubber band. There would still be plenty of time to wash it before dinner.
Kiria Pandrossos was gone from the terrace when she reached it, her place taken by a younger version who eyed the newcomer with a total lack of welcome.
“You must be Florina,” said Chelsea, extending a smile herself. “I’m Chelsea Lovatt, a friend of Dion’s.”
“Why are you here?” The question was abrupt.
Chelsea kept the smile going. “Your brother invited me. He’ll be out in a moment. We’re going to have a swim.”
The striking face failed to relax. “Dion treats our home as a hotel! He has no right to bring people here without first asking permission.”
“Your mother didn’t seem to mind,” Chelsea felt bound to respond, and saw the other’s expression sour even further.
“My brother can do no wrong in her eyes, but that does not make what he does right.”
Sibling jealousy, Chelsea concluded, feeling some sympathy. Sons were all-important in this country. Florina was a year or so older than her brother—of an age when she might be counted as being well and truly on the shelf marriage-wise. Waiting for her cousin to make a move wouldn’t have helped. In all fairness, the man should surely clarify his intentions.
Dion’s arrival was a relief. If he registered his sister’s lack of enthusiasm for their new guest he refused to acknowledge it.
“I’ll race you six lengths of the pool,” he challenged Chelsea, having already sampled her prowess in the water. “And this time I will win!”
Laughing, she slid out of the white shirt and kicked off her sandals, then followed him to the pool-end to pose with him in the classic position. They entered the water in perfect unison, surfacing within seconds of each other and striking out powerfully.
Chelsea had given up competitive swimming on leaving school, but she had kept up the practice because it was one of the best ways of keeping fit. She had little difficulty keeping pace with Dion over the first lengths, and would have beaten him by a short head over the last had her more charitable instincts not caused her to lose just enough ground for him to touch a couple of feet in front. Pandering to male pride, maybe, but it meant far more to him than it did to her.
“You win,” she said in mock resignation, treading water.
Curly black hair sparkling with water droplets, perifania restored, Dion could afford to be generous. “Only just. You swim faster than any other female I ever encountered! It took me by surprise the first time.”
“I know.” Tongue tucked firmly in cheek, Chelsea made a wry grimace. “I suppose I’ll just have to settle for second best when it comes right down to it.”
She turned to swim across the width of the pool to where a metal stepladder extended down into the water, this time using a more restful breast stroke. The sight of the man now seated with Florina on the terrace brought her to an abrupt halt only halfway up the steps. It was too late to drop back into the water because he was looking right at her, mouth taking on the fast-becomingfamiliar slant as she vacillated.
He got to his feet to take a towel from the nearby rack and bring it across. Except that instead of placing the towel where she could reach it and retiring again, he opened it up and held it out invitingly, dark eyes cynical.
“Are you coming out?” he asked. “Or did you change your mind after all?”
“Coming out.” She suited her actions to her words, hauling herself the rest of the way up the ladder and accepting the towel without looking at him directly. Dressed now in beautifully tailored cream trousers and dark brown silk shirt, he was no less disturbing. “Don’t let me splash you,” she tagged on, hoping he would back off and give her room to breathe.
“Water will do me no harm,” he said. “Why did you allow Dion to win just now?”
Feeling considerably more confident with the towel wrapped securely about her, Chelsea raised a pair of innocently widened blue eyes. “Why would I do that?”
