The Antonakos Marriage

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If he could, he would have made some excuse and not come here. But the division between him and his father had gone on quite long enough. If Cyril was prepared to offer an olive branch, however half-hearted, then he, Theo, would meet him more than part way.

The house was just as he remembered it. High on a cliff above the sea, the huge white building sprawled over a large plot of land on two levels, each with its own vast veranda giving an amazing view of the ocean. A wide arched gateway to one side led to a stone-flagged patio, the oval swimming pool, and a small pool house that doubled as a guest house.

As Theo approached the door was pulled open and a small, plump, dark-haired figure hurried towards him.

‘Master Theo! Welcome! It’s wonderful to have you back!’

‘Amalthea…’

Theo submitted to the exuberant embrace of the tiny woman who had been his nurse as he grew up, and, because his mother had died when he was small, the closest person to a mother he had ever known.

‘Where am I staying? Have you put me in my old room?’

Amalthea’s dark eyes clouded as she shook her greying head.

‘Your father told me to put you in the pool house.’

So the olive branch was not quite as definite as he had thought, Theo told himself with a twist of sardonic resignation. His father was a hard man to like—a difficult man to love. He took offence easily and held onto grudges for a long, long time. It seemed that being invited here for the old man’s wedding was only the start of things. There wasn’t any sign of the fatted calf being prepared for the return of the prodigal son.

‘Who’s in my room?’

Surely the guests hadn’t started to arrive just yet? The wedding wasn’t taking place until the end of the month.

‘The new Kyria Antonakos.’

‘My father’s fiancée?’

So his father and the bride-to-be didn’t share a room already. That was a surprise.

‘What’s she like?’

Amalthea rolled her eyes in an expression of disapproval that she could only get away with in front of Theo.

‘Not at all his usual sort. But she is very beautiful.’

‘They’re always beautiful,’ Theo commented cynically. ‘That’s why he chooses them. Is my father at home now?’

‘He had to go to the village,’ Amalthea told him. ‘But he’ll be back this evening in time for dinner. His fiancée is at home. Would you want to—’

‘Oh, no,’ Theo put in swiftly, before she could even form the suggestion. ‘Dinner time will be soon enough.’

That way he could get both awkward encounters over and done with in the same time. Perhaps making polite small talk with The Fiancée would be easier than trying to carry on any sort of a conversation with his parent.

‘My bags will have been taken to the pool house. I’ll unpack and settle in—maybe have a swim.’

He stretched slowly, easing muscles cramped tight after the journey from London.

‘It’s good to be home.’

So this was to be home.

Skye turned away from the window with its panoramic view of the sea and sank back down onto the bed with a sigh, digging her teeth into her lower lip in an attempt to force back the tears that were threatening.

She was always on the edge of tears these days. Always only just managing to subdue the panic that gripped her when she contemplated what lay ahead of her. She still couldn’t quite take it all in. Still couldn’t believe that this was to be her future.

But sitting here brooding wasn’t going to change that. She really ought to come out of the bedroom at some point soon, and get to know the rest of the house better. She was going to live here, after all.

That thought only added to her sense of desolate unreality. This house, beautiful as it was, just didn’t seem anything like the home she had left in the damp and green countryside of Suffolk, the small village where she had grown up.

She supposed she would get used to it in time. She had to get used to it; she had no choice.

Skye rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes, brushing away the tears. When she’d phoned home earlier, her father had told her that her mother had been taken into hospital again. Claire Marston needed yet another operation, and soon. And her doctors had said that it was vital she was kept quiet. Any stress at all could be fatal.

It was a terrible, bitter irony, one that brought a taste like the burn of acid into her mouth, to think that she had always dreamed of visiting Greece, of seeing the cluster of the Sporades Islands, perhaps holidaying there. She had dreamed of the sunshine, the sea, the white houses she had seen in photographs. And now she had achieved her dream, but it had turned into a terrible nightmare; one from which even waking wouldn’t mean that she could escape.

Now she had the sun. It had been shining all day. And, there, beyond her window, was the sea, an almost unbelievable bright and sparkling turquoise in colour. She lived in one of the white houses—a huge white house. And she hated it.