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‘Okay I’ll call it doing things the Greek way if it makes you feel better.’
Theo controlled himself with difficulty. ‘Tell me, how long have you known my brother?’
‘Oh, a couple of years.’
‘A couple of years. You’ve been going out with my brother for a couple of years and your name has only managed to surface now? I find that very hard to believe. Michael calls our mother every week. He would have talked about you a lot sooner.’
‘I said that I’ve known him for a couple of years, and I have. We’ve been friends for a while.’ Abby could feel herself slipping into dangerous territory. She knew where he was going. Thinking about it, she had seen the drift of his suspicious little mind the minute she had clapped eyes on him and she couldn’t afford to antagonise him into digging any deeper. She had to convince him that everything was precisely as it seemed and getting under his skin was not the right way to set about the task.
She turned to face him and smiled. Warmly, she hoped. ‘We clicked straight away. Michael’s got all the qualities I admire in a man. He’s kind and thoughtful and modest. You would think that in his line of work those are exactly the qualities that would let him down, but all his staff adore him and so do I.’
‘And how did you two meet?’ He could hear the sincerity in her voice but he couldn’t abandon the suspicion that it was all a little too good to be true. People were never straightforward towards each other when it came to dealing with vast sums of money.
‘I worked for him,’ Abby said simply. ‘I was the accounts manager for his restaurants when they opened up. At first there was just me and a secretary, but as they’ve become more and more successful the team has grown. Now, there are ten of us and we work flat out. You’ve never been to Brighton to see Michael, have you?’
‘It is easier for my brother to travel to London to see me, usually for lunch, although lately we have not met as often as we might have hoped. We both have busy schedules.’
‘His restaurants are super,’ Abby enthused, eager to elaborate on a safe topic. ‘One is a pub-style restaurant. Lovely cosy place but with superb French food, and the other’s fancier, although the menu is really quite simple. We’ve found that most people don’t actually want to go out and be faced with a choice of weird things. They like their food to be tasty and fairly straightforward, so we do fantastic sausages and garlic mash, and slow-cooked shin of beef and other dishes along those lines. It’s very popular. In fact, at the moment there’s a two month waiting list for tables at both restaurants.’
‘What a charming eulogy to my brother’s culinary ventures,’ Theo drawled. ‘I’m sure he would have found such enthusiasm very inspiring when he was first starting out.’
Abby tried not to show her intense dislike for the man sprawled in the chair next to her. Every inch of him spoke of arrogance. She had the unnerving sensation that he was circling her, taking his time, trying to find the chink in her storylines that would validate his low opinion.
‘I hope so,’ Abby said equably. ‘It’s a tough business starting out on your own. Other people’s support can be invaluable.’
‘And is this when my brother began appreciating your invaluable contribution to his life?’
‘Oh, I wasn’t the only one who had confidence in his success.’
But I bet you were the only one who had the added advantage of some seriously persuasive feminine wiles, Theo thought. Abigail Clinton might not have the immediate, obvious sex appeal of the full-busted hourglass centrefold, but he had to admit that there was something alluring about her.
‘You should get your swimsuit,’ he said, changing the subject. ‘The pool is lovely. Always at its best when no one else is in it.’
‘I haven’t brought one.’
‘You haven’t brought one?’
Abby blushed and looked away. ‘I…I’m not that confident when it comes to swimming,’ she confessed grudgingly. ‘I did think about bringing one so that I could tan on a beach some time, but then I changed my mind.’
For the first time hostility and apprehension gave way to simple embarrassment and she felt her skin begin to tingle uncomfortably under his piercing black stare.
‘It’s not that unusual,’ she snapped, scowling. ‘Lots of people can’t swim.’ She turned a deeper shade of pink as a slow smile of amusement curved his lips. ‘It’s all right for you—’ Abby flung herself into the ensuing silence, redolent with his silent laughter at her expense ‘—you grew up surrounded by swimming pools and sea! Some of us didn’t!’
Theo was intrigued. He had wanted valuable information, information he could use to build up his case against her so that he could prevent a travesty of a marriage taking place, but this useless snippet was curiously engaging.
‘I didn’t think that you needed to be surrounded by swimming pools and sea in order to learn to swim,’ he said, staring at her flushed face. ‘I thought schools in England offered swimming lessons as part of the curriculum.’
‘They probably do!’ It was out before she had time to think. It wouldn’t take a genius to work out the next logical question to her outburst and she waited in gloomy silence for the inevitable.
‘You mean you didn’t go to school in England? Did you grow up in Australia? Is that why your parents returned there?’
Abby looked at him with a hunted expression. ‘No, I didn’t grow up in Australia. I had an unusual upbringing,’ she eventually muttered.
‘How unusual?’ He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and continued to look at her with what she thought was an unhealthy level of interest.
Couldn’t the man see that she was uncomfortable? Yes, she thought waspishly, of course he could, which would be no reason for him to back away from the subject. Well this, at least, was no great secret, was it?
‘My parents were…a bit unorthodox. They travelled a lot.’
‘You mean they were gypsies?’
‘Of course they weren’t gypsies! Not that I have anything against gypsies, as it happens! But do I look like a gypsy to you? Do I? With this hair?’ She yanked off the hat and extended one long handful of her amazing hair towards him. Theo realised that he was thoroughly enjoying this surreal turn in the conversation. He took the proffered hair and made a show of examining it carefully.
‘Could be dyed,’ was his comment as she snatched it out of his fingers.
‘I’ve never dyed my hair in my life.’
‘So explain.’
‘Okay. If you really must know, my parents were…were…sort of…hippyish.’ There. It was out. She waited for the roar of laughter and the immediate attack. Instead he was looking at her with real interest. ‘They didn’t believe in material possessions or settling down. When I was older, Mum told me that life was one long adventure and what was adventurous about settling down with a mortgage and a job at the bank? So they travelled. Course, I did go to school but never anywhere for very long, not long enough to…’
‘Take swimming lessons? Make friends?’
‘Of course I made friends! Lots of them over the years.’ But they had come and gone and her parents had never understood that whilst they saw that ever-changing parade of people entering and leaving her life as exciting, she found it very hard to deal with. She had never really even had the opportunity to have boyfriends in the normal way. What would have been the point? They would have been short-lived anyway. Which, with the benefit of hindsight, had made her a walking target for being hurt, because when her parents left for Australia and she could finally impose stability on her life, she just didn’t have the accumulated experience to spot the cad. Oliver James had been charming and persistent and she had fallen for him hook, line and sinker, never spotting all the inaccuracies in his behaviour that most other girls would have seen a mile off.
That, she thought, was something Theo Toyas would never learn about!
‘That was incredibly selfish of your parents. Why did they decide to go to Australia?’
‘More space to wander.’ Abby grinned sheepishly. ‘Although they tell me that they’ve now opened a shop in Melbourne, selling organic food and ethnic ornaments. They’ve even bought themselves a small house and they’re planning on coming to England next year for a three month holiday.’
‘I’d like to meet them,’ Theo surprised himself by saying. He was picturing her as a girl, trekking in the wake of her parents from one place to another, longing for stability so that she could be like everyone else.
Then he reminded himself that really this was just the sort of background that would encourage her to go after a man with money, a man who could promise her the security she craved.
‘I don’t often meet nomads in my day-to-day life,’ he amended, backtracking on that fleeting impulse that had seen him wrapped up in her life story, hanging on like a kid listening to a riveting bedtime yarn. Touching though her little tale had been, it had nothing to do with the reality he needed to deal with. He gave her a brisk, cool smile and vaulted to his feet. ‘I’m going to have one last swim before I go inside for breakfast. In case you don’t know the routine, breakfast tends to be a buffet affair. Everyone’s going to be busy getting ready for tonight, so I shouldn’t expect to be waited on hand and foot if I were you.’
With that he turned his back and sauntered towards the pool, leaving her to simmer at the pointed dig in his remark. She was sorely tempted to throw her book at the back of that arrogant head of his, especially as it was a hardback, but no, giving in to emotion was a bad idea. Instead she glowered and removed herself from the lounger and headed back towards the villa.
For a minute there she had very nearly forgotten how dislikeable he was and that wasn’t going to do. For Michael’s sake, she had to be on her guard.
The object of her protectiveness was still asleep and Abby nudged him with one finger until he rolled over and looked at her blearily. ‘You can’t spend all day in bed,’ she informed him without preamble and Michael smiled at her drowsily.
‘You sound like a wife.’
‘Michael, be serious.’
‘I am being serious.’ He grinned. ‘Where have you been, anyway?’
‘By the pool.’
‘You can’t swim.’
‘I know that, Michael. I was by the pool with your brother and I’m beginning to think that this engagement business wasn’t a very good idea.’
That had him sitting up abruptly. Michael had a range of silk pyjamas. It was his only sartorial weakness. Today’s number was a deep blue and beige Paisley. Abby fleetingly wondered whether his brother had a similar taste in pyjamas and concluded that the man probably didn’t sleep in any at all. He didn’t strike her as a pyjama-wearing type. She immediately squashed any follow-up to that line of thinking and focused on her partner, who was looking at her with a worried expression.
‘Of course it’s a good idea. You’re not going to back out on me now, are you? Are you?’
‘I just didn’t think it through,’ Abby mumbled. ‘I can see why you wanted it, really I can, but now that I’m actually here, I don’t like deceiving your mother. And your grandfather, for that matter. They’re nice people.’
‘We’re not deceiving them,’ Michael whispered urgently. ‘And the reason we’re doing this is because they’re nice people. Please don’t back out on me now, Abby. Please.’
‘And another thing,’ she said uneasily. ‘Your brother suspects something.’
‘What?’
‘Well, for a start he thinks that I’m after your money.’
Michael grinned at that. ‘Well, that’s okay. He’s way off target, then.’
‘True, but the fact is that he’s going to probe until he finds out the truth.’
‘He’s here for three days, Abs. How much probing can one man do in the space of three days?’
A normal man, she wanted to say, not much, but your brother, more than I feel happy about.
‘I suppose I could just keep out of his way for the whole time,’ Abby said, more to herself than to Michael. ‘I mean, it shouldn’t be too difficult. I can just stick to whoever happens to be around and make conversation.’
‘Which would really make him think that you’ve got something to hide,’ Michael mused with a frown. ‘On the other hand, it might be better if you just try and convince him that he’s wrong. I mean, talk to him, give him the impression that you and I adore one another. Which, incidentally, also wouldn’t be a lie.’ The boyish grin was infectious and Abby found herself reluctantly drawn into his optimism.
‘And don’t worry; we’re only here for a week, then we’ll be back in England and everything will return to normal once more. Look, I’ll get dressed and we’ll have breakfast and then what say we head down to the town and do a bit of touristy stuff?’ He pulled back the covers, stood up and pulled her into his arms so that he could wrap her up in a big reassuring hug.
After the tension of being in Theo’s company Abby gave in to the hug with relief. One of the most wonderful things about Michael was the friendship he so unstintingly gave her. She had agreed to the engagement because she loved him and she succumbed to the wonderful mixture of tenderness and affection that he inspired in her.
‘But you just need to spend some time with him,’ he said into her ear. ‘Honestly, I know Theo can be a bit overwhelming but he has always been the fairest man I have ever known.’
‘If he was that fair…’
‘Fair but frighteningly old-fashioned in his beliefs. You have nothing to fear in his company. You’re not after my money and we do care deeply for one another. So give me a few minutes and we’ll head down for breakfast together. Okay?’
Half an hour later, they emerged to find that the household had finally awakened. From where he was sitting out on the front veranda, Theo watched as they joined in with the other guests, chatting and easy, their body language speaking of a certain closeness which he couldn’t believe was all it was made out to be.
She had tied her hair back into two very loose plaits and it irked him to see how genuinely warm her expression was as she made conversation with the other relatives milling around the buffet, helping themselves to the warm breads and fruit and cheeses. She turned around to say something to Michael and his brother grinned at whatever she had said and bent towards her to murmur something. Some sweet nothing, Theo thought, watching the display through narrowed eyes. The poor fool. Take one sexy woman and one gullible man and you get a divorce within a year and a hefty settlement for a gold-digger.
He frowned. When had he stopped thinking of her as a girl with no figure to speak of and started thinking of her as a sexy woman?
The main thing, he mused to himself, still following them as they helped themselves to some breakfast and took their seats at the far end of the table with his mother and two uncles, was that he was there to look out for his brother. It was what families did. They protected one another at all costs.
As though suddenly aware of him staring at her, Abby lifted her eyes and stared across the room and out towards the veranda, to where he was sitting, watching them and sipping his coffee. Theo met her gaze with cool, speculative eyes and was quietly satisfied when she gritted her teeth together and hurriedly looked away. She might have taken his brother for a fool but he was damned if she was going to think that he was the same.
He drained his cup and sauntered back into the villa, pausing where the group was sitting and chatting and leaned on to the table, palms spread to support his massive body-weight.
‘So,’ he drawled, ‘what are the plans for today?’ He was addressing the group as a whole but his eyes were fixed on Abby, who ignored him by concentrating on her croissant.
His uncles and their wives were staying put, it seemed, so that the wives could help prepare for the party and begin receiving the flood of guests to the villa, while their husbands, in typical Greek fashion, relaxed by the pool and refrained from doing anything too active.
‘We wouldn’t want to get in the way, would we, Nick?’ Dimitri said in a self-sacrificing voice and, amid the laughter, Theo looked at his brother, eyebrows raised in a question.
‘We’re off to explore the town,’ Abby inserted quickly. Five minutes ago, she had been relaxed. Now she felt as though a tiger had entered the flock of sheep and was prowling around with her set firmly in its sights. The minute she had spotted him over there, sitting outside with his coffee, she had known that he had been watching her. She should have smiled but had found that she couldn’t. Those cool black eyes stripped her of all her normal reactions. She had had time to brace herself for him now, though, and she gave him a wide, bright smile.
‘Michael’s been telling me a few things about Santorini and I’m dying to have a look around. What about you? Will you be helping with the preparations or just relaxing?’ Abby tried to imagine Theo Toyas helping with preparations but that was enough to stretch anyone’s imagination. She doubted he knew how to chop an onion, never mind doing anything more elaborate, although, from what she had gathered, caterers were being flown in for the party and would pretty much be doing the lot without any intervention needed from anyone.
‘We all want it to be just right,’ Michael’s mother had confided to her earlier. ‘There will be his favourite foods. Everything will be perfect. I have even arranged for the flowers and napkins to be in his favourite colours. He is eighty and do not be fooled by his joviality. George has a heart problem and none of us knows whether this will be the last birthday he will be celebrating.’
This had not come as news to her. Michael had said very much the same thing himself before they left England. Reading between the lines, she realised that part of his urgency for this engagement was to produce the girlfriend his grandfather had always wished him to have, to at least let him see that his grandson now had the promise of stability within his reach.
‘I have work to do.’ Theo broke into her thoughts.
‘Now that is a real shame,’ Michael said, and they both looked at him. ‘Darling, I know I promised to take you into Santorini, spend the day driving around and showing you the sights, but…’
In a split second Abby knew what was coming and she gave him as much of a warning glance as she could. He smiled blandly and ruefully at her and only flinched a little when she smartly jabbed him on his shin with her foot under the table.
‘No matter, we can do it another time,’ Abby said, knowing exactly what he had in mind and doing her best to avert that course of action.
‘I was going to ask you if you could take my place, Theo. Abby’s been really looking forward to our little excursion and I hate to disappoint her, but I had an email last night from my head chef in one of the restaurants, and there’s some kind of problem with the seafood consignment.’
‘Surely Tom can handle that at home,’ Abby inserted grimly, which warranted another sad shake of the head.
‘Would you believe that Tom’s been struck down by a mystery bug?’
‘Frankly, no. He’s always been as healthy as a horse.’
Michael ignored the interjection. ‘No matter if you have work to do, though, Theo. Perhaps you could take the car into town on your own, Abby, or would that be too boring? Actually, you could be driven in and then simply call when you want collecting. Bit disappointing having to do the tourist bit on your own, but…’ He looked utterly crestfallen at this turn of events. ‘Maybe I could grab an hour and meet you for lunch…no…best not to promise…you know how long these problems can take to sort out…’
‘My work can wait,’ Theo said decisively. It was obvious that the last thing Abby Clinton wanted to do was go anywhere with him, and he reasoned why. Too high a chance of being caught out in her little web of deceit.
Abby tried not to look appalled.
He stood up and for the first time Abby realised that, somewhere along the line, the rest of the guests had left the table. She had not even noticed their departure, so compelling had been Theo’s hold over her and the invisible threat he promised. She had also been quite wrapped up in a natural urge to throttle Michael.
‘It will be…delightful to show you around our little island…’ He smiled and Abby gazed back at him with barely disguised horror. ‘So why don’t you meet me here in an hour’s time?’ Theo found himself enjoying the prospect of spending the day with his unwilling companion. His smile broadened considerably. He actually had work to do, but that could wait. He’d barely had the opportunity to get to know the girl, or rather to get her to know where he was coming from. Several hours on their own should do the trick…
CHAPTER THREE
THEO was waiting for her outside. Her heart plummeted like a stone when she spotted him standing in the drive by one of the cars, casually leaning against the bonnet with his back to her, speaking into a cellphone.
Her intention to strangle Michael had fizzled out at the first hurdle. He had smiled winningly at her and somehow managed to puncture her annoyance by pleading with her to be nice to his brother. It was the fastest way of squashing his suspicions, he had assured her. An open, friendly person, he had argued with that boyishly persuasive smile of his, was a person with nothing to hide, and his brother would quickly lose interest if he saw for himself that that was the case. Abby had reluctantly agreed but had felt constrained to remind him that he owed her big time.
