‘I never had a heritage. It was all about Giorgos.’
‘The King’s dead, Athena. He died without an heir. You know that.’
‘And that makes a difference how?’
‘It means the Diamond Isles become three Principalities again. The original royal families can resume rule. But you know this. By the way-did you also know that you’re beautiful?’ And he took her arm and forced her to stop.
She’d been striding. Angry. Fearful. Confused. Rain was turning to sleet. Her heels, her tight skirt and sheer pashmina wrap were designed for cocktail hour, not for street wear.
She should keep going but she wasn’t all that sure where to go. She couldn’t outwalk Nikos and she surely wasn’t leading him back to her apartment. She surely wasn’t leading him to her son.
She might as well stop. Get it over with now.
She turned to face him. A blast of icy wind hit full on, and she felt herself shudder.
Nikos’s ancient leather jacket was suddenly around her, warm from his body, smelling of old leather and Nikos and…home. Argyros. Fishing boats in an ancient harbour. White stone villas hugging island cliffs. Sapphire seas and brilliant sun. The Diamond Isles.
Suddenly, stupidly, she wanted to cry.
‘We need to get out of this,’ Nikos said. His hand was under her elbow and he was steering her into the brightly lit portico of a restaurant, as if this was his town and he wasn’t half a world away from where he lived and worked.
Nikos…
‘You call those clothes?’ he growled, and she remembered how bossy he’d been when they were kids, and how he was always right.
Bossy and arrogant and…fun. Pushing her past her comfort zone. Daring her to join him.
The number of times she’d ended up with skinned knees, battered and bruised because: ‘Of course we can get up that cliff; you’re not going to sit and watch like some girl, are you?’
She never did sit and watch. Even when they’d been older and the boys from the other islands became part of their pack, she’d always been included. Until…
Let’s not go there, she told herself. She’d moved on. She was fashion editor for one of the world’s best-selling magazines. She lived in New York and she was fine.
So what was Nikos doing, here, ushering her into a restaurant she recognised? This place usually involved queuing, or a month or more’s notice. But Nikos was a man who turned heads, who waiters automatically found a place for, because even if they couldn’t place him they felt they should. He was obviously someone. He always had been, and his power hadn’t waned one bit.
Stunned to speechlessness, she found herself being steered to an isolated table for two, one of the best in the house. The waiter tried to take her jacket-his jacket-but she clung. It was dumb, but she needed its warmth. She needed its comfort.
‘What’s good?’ Nikos asked the waiter, waving away the menu.
‘Savoury? Sweet?’
‘Definitely something sweet,’ he said, and smiled across the table at her. ‘The way the lady’s feeling right now, we need all the sugar we can get.’
She refused to smile back. She couldn’t allow herself to sink into that smile.
‘Crêpes?’ the waiter proffered. ‘Or if you have time…our raspberry soufflé’s a house speciality.’
‘Crêpes followed by soufflé for both of us then,’ he said easily, and the waiter beamed and nodded and backed away, almost as if he sensed he shouldn’t turn his back on royalty.
Nikos. Once upon a time…
No. Get a grip.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she muttered into the silence. ‘You can’t make me go back.’
Nikos smiled again-his smile wide and white, his eyes deep and shaded, an automatic defence against the sun. His smile was a heart stopper in anyone’s language. Especially hers.
‘You’re right. I can’t make you. You need to decide yourself. But that’s why I’m here-to help you to decide that you need to come home.’
‘My home’s here.’
‘Your career until now has been here,’ he agreed. ‘You’ve done very well.’
‘There’s no need to sound patronising.’
‘I’m not patronising.’
‘Like you’d know about my career.’
He raised his brows, half mocking. ‘There were seven candidates for the position you’re now in,’ he said softly. ‘Each of them was older, more experienced. You won the job over all of them and your boss believes he made a brilliant decision.’
‘How do you know…’
‘I’ve made it my business to find out.’
‘Well, butt out. There’s no need…’
‘There is a need. There was always a chance that you’d inherit, and now you have.’
‘I have no intention of inheriting. Demos wants it. Demos can have it. It should be you, but if that’s not possible…Demos.’
‘It was never going to be me.’
‘You’re nephew to the King.’ ‘You know the score,’ he said evenly. ‘Yes, my mother was the King’s sister, but the King’s lineage has to be direct and male. That’s me out. But the individual island crowns have male/female equality. First in line for the throne of Argyros is you. Princess Athena, Crown Princess of Argyros. Sounds good, hey?’ He smiled and tried to take her hand across the table. She snatched it away as if he burned.
‘This is crazy. I’ve told you, Nikos, I’m not coming home.’
‘Can I ask why not?’
‘I don’t belong there.’
‘Of course you do. My family has always welcomed…’
‘Your family,’ she interrupted flatly. ‘Of course. How’s your wife?’
Why had she asked that? What possible difference did it make? But suddenly-she had to know.
Nikos didn’t answer directly. He’d given up trying to take her hand. Instead he’d clasped his hands loosely on the table top. He flexed them now, still linked. Big hands and powerful.
He wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.
She shouldn’t even care. She shouldn’t have asked.
But she had asked, and there was something in his face that said the answer was never going to be easy. For a couple of moments she thought he wouldn’t answer at all. But finally he beckoned a waiter, ordered a beer and answered.
‘Marika and I are divorced. She’s remarried and left the island.’ His gaze was expressionless, not giving a clue if this still had the power to hurt.
Ten years ago-two months after she’d left the island-her aunt had written.
By the way, Nikos has married Marika. Rumour is there’s a baby on the way, but I guess no one worries about such things any more. You know, I always thought you and Nikos would marry, but I know King Giorgos would hate that. So you’re best out of it.
Until then she’d hoped, desperately, that Nikos would follow her. But when she’d read that…
Marika was a distant relation of Nikos, giggly, flirtatious and ambitious. She’d always thought Marika was in love with her cousin, Demos-but obviously it had been Nikos all the time.
She’d been so shocked she’d been physically ill.
Then, four months later her aunt had written a much shorter note. ‘A baby. A little girl for Nikos and Marika…’ Her note had trailed off, unfinished, and the writing on the envelope had been scrawly.
It was no wonder. The letter had been delivered two days after her aunt’s death.
She’d wept then, for not going home in time, for not guessing her aunt was ill until she’d received the letter, for knowing her last link to the island was ended. And if she’d wept for the fact that Nikos had a baby with Marika, then so be it, the whole thing was grey.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said now, feeling useless. ‘How…how long?’
‘How long ago since she left? Nine years. It wasn’t what you might call a long-term marriage.’
His tone was bitter. Oh, Nikos, she thought. You, too? Wounds might heal, but scars remained.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, but then made a belated attempt to pull herself together. ‘But…it’s nothing to do with me. Nothing from the island’s anything to do with me. My aunt was the last family I had, and she’s dead.’