Six Greek Heroes

‘She called me your whore at the party,’ Hope mused with a little shiver of reluctant recall.

Andreas groaned, his vexation unconcealed. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I knew how fond you were of her and telling tales would only have made her dislike me even more. I suppose that even then I wasn’t sure that you would take my word over hers…’ Hope worried at her lower lip and let her pent-up breath escape softly. ‘Of course, by the end of the evening I found that out for a fact.’

Andreas tensed at that reminder. ‘I thought I knew Elyssa inside out but I had idealised her. I wasn’t seeing her as she really was…spoilt, selfish, shallow in her affections,’ Andreas enumerated with a heavy regret that she could feel. ‘OK. I admit it. I didn’t want to see those traits in my closest relative—’

‘You were proud of her…it was natural that you would want to think only good things about her,’ Hope told him gently. ‘I don’t hold that against you. You had no reason to doubt her word if she hadn’t lied to you before.’

Andreas rested his brilliant dark eyes on her heart-shaped face. ‘You’re being very generous about this.’

‘I don’t think so. I just want to be fair.’

‘I’m sorry I didn’t believe you, pedhi mou. I don’t know where to begin apologising for some of the things I’ve said or for the way I’ve treated you,’ Andreas admitted with roughened honesty. ‘But I was so angry that that whole week is virtually a blank. It was a very unfortunate coincidence that you had indicated your dissatisfaction with our relationship shortly before that party.’

That angle had not occurred to Hope before and she was dismayed that she had not guessed that he would inevitably forge a link between those two apparent events.

Andreas spread lean brown hands, his darkly handsome features clenched taut. ‘I thought you weren’t happy with me any longer. It made the idea that you had sought consolation with someone else seem much more likely.’

‘Yes, I imagine it would have done.’ But Hope also felt that, having known her so well, he should at least have cherished some doubt of her guilt. But then she had long since reached her own conclusions as to why he had been so quick to misjudge her and saw no good reason to share those thoughts. ‘Well,’ she added with a typically warm and soothing smile, ‘I’m grateful that you know nothing happened between Ben and I…’

‘That night anyway.’ Andreas could not silence that qualifier. He was fishing, he knew he was, regardless of his awareness that he had no right to ask her what had happened since then between her and the other man. But he was unable to resist his own powerful need to know.

Tensing below that laser-sharp dark golden appraisal, Hope lowered her uneasy gaze to her linked hands where they rested on her lap. Hot pink was blooming over her cheekbones. It was dreadful but she felt as though every kiss she had exchanged with Ben were written above her head in letters of fire and shame. They had really been very innocent kisses but anything she had shared with Ben ought to remain private. In any case Andreas was not entitled to that sort of information, she reminded herself sternly. After all, could she believe that he had behaved in an equally innocent manner with the beautiful, sophisticated women he had been seen out with in recent times? No, she could not credit that. She had lain awake a lot of nights while she’d struggled not to torment herself with agonising images of Andreas making the most of his newfound sexual freedom.

As Andreas watched her fair skin turn pink a cold, heavy sensation settled like concrete in his stomach. He knew how unreasonable he was being but he had very much hoped to hear her say that, challenging though the circumstances had been, she had stayed loyal to him in spite of everything. Intelligence told him that was unlikely. Intelligence told him that blush was as good as a signed confession in triplicate. She had slept with Campbell. Of course she had.

Andreas endeavoured to put the entire controversial subject out of his mind. He was a pragmatic man. What had been done could not be undone. He offered Hope a soft drink, which she declined. He poured a whisky that he drank down in two minimal gulps. Pragmatic though he believed himself to be, he was assailed by another unfortunate reflection: there was no point hoping that at some future stage she would tell him that Campbell had been absolute rubbish in bed. She was not that kind of woman. He would never, ever know whether she compared them.

‘I feel that I should make an effort to clear the air,’ Hope remarked hesitantly, fixing anxious turquoise eyes on Andreas.

‘As regards what…exactly?’

‘As regards Ben,’ Hope proffered gently.

Andreas froze. His imagination went into a loop. In the name of honesty, she was about to talk like a canary, telling everything right down to the tiniest and most insignificant detail. He wanted to know but feared that knowing would torture him. He breathed in deep. ‘Hope…’

‘No, please let me say what I want to say first,’ Hope interrupted apologetically. ‘Ben’s been so very kind to me. I want you to understand that he’s a much nicer person than people seem to appreciate. I think you’d really like Ben if you got to know him…’

That was the moment when Andreas knew that he should have drunk all the whisky in the decanter in the hope of anaesthetising his sensibilities into a stupor. Hope was engaging in a more refined form of torture than he had even envisaged. She was keen for him to get to know Ben. In the eternally sunny world she inhabited they were probably all destined to become the very closest of mutually supportive friends. There was just one small problem. He could not think of Ben Campbell without wishing to wipe him with maximum violence from the face of the earth.

‘I’m fond of Ben and he’s been a terrific friend.’

‘That’s cool,’ Andreas breathed between clenched teeth.

‘I would like him to stay a friend,’ Hope advanced.

Valiantly, Andreas shrugged while conceding that the eating of humble pie was his equivalent of eating rat poison. But he had screwed up badly. She was expecting his baby and he had put her through hell and this was his penance. Presumably, if he agreed with even the most fanciful and unreasonable requests and expectations, all her fears would be soothed and everything would finally go back to normal. Normal. That was his only ambition. ‘Why not…?’

Hope wondered why he was so tense. Was he annoyed because she had said earlier that she believed that she ought to sleep alone? The belief was not set in stone. She was open to clever argument and even downright seduction. Had she hurt his feelings with her embargo? His ego? Was that why he was chucking whisky down his throat as if there were no tomorrow? What was wrong? As a rule, he was a very occasional drinker.

‘You should go to bed,’ Andreas suggested rather abruptly. ‘We have an early start in the morning.’

‘Oh, my goodness, I never even asked you about the house—’

Andreas opened the door into the hall. ‘It’ll keep until tomorrow.’

Hope swallowed back a yawn. In truth she was very tired. ‘I haven’t even told you my own news yet.’ She laughed on the way up the imposing stairs. ‘Guess what? I’ve been discovered by the fashion world. I met Leonie Vargas this afternoon and I’m being offered the chance to design bags for her next collection!’

‘That’s great.’ Andreas thought about what he knew about Leonie Vargas. In his conservative opinion, she was a very eccentric lady who wore even stranger outfits. Even so she had become spectacularly rich designing clothes for the young and hip. Hope had really found her niche, Andreas thought with satisfaction and considerable relief. The Vargas woman would probably be delighted with a bag that resembled a tomato. His biggest fear had always been that Hope would meet with the kind of rejection that crushed a vulnerable creative personality.

‘See you in the morning…’ Hope whispered, hovering within reach.

Andreas resisted temptation. She had taken the trouble to warn him off before she had even agreed to stay. In the light of that prohibition, testing the boundaries would be a bad move. Tomorrow, however, after he had proposed and she had the engagement ring on her finger, he would probably bulldoze down the boundaries. Gently bulldoze, he adjusted, thinking about the baby. In any case he still had one or two arrangements to put in place for the next day.

Hope surveyed the beautifully decorated guest room. She had finally made it into the town house. A barrier had been crossed. But she remained far more aware that she had been carefully kept from the same door for two years.

Since Andreas had dumped her she had learned some hard lessons. Andreas had always viewed her as his mistress, probably still did and was very unlikely to ever see her in any other light. For the moment, her pregnancy had brought down several barriers but she suspected that in time the same barriers would be reinstated. So, although she was horrendously weak where he was concerned and changed like the wind according to the level of his proximity, she needed to be sensible and keep her distance.

When Andreas had told Hope that he wanted her opinion on a house, she had had no real idea what to expect. But she had nonetheless assumed that he would only be interested in a city property within easy reach of his office. Instead she was tucked into a helicopter and informed that their destination lay outside London. Mesmerised by his pronounced air of mystery, she was a really good sport about the fact that the seat belt had to be loosened to fit her.

When the helicopter came in to land at Knightmere Court, Andreas was experiencing the high of a male convinced that he had picked a sure-fire winner. He had picked Knightmere from a selection of six large country properties. It ticked every box on the list of desirable qualities he had drawn up and Hope was already staring out the window with an appropriately transfixed expression pinned to her face.

‘My goodness…’ Hope exclaimed weakly as he lifted her out of the craft.

Andreas took her on a very brief outside tour just to ensure that she got a tantalising flavour of the extensive grounds, which included a knot and topiary garden, the all-important walled garden and a park as much ornamented by a pedigree flock of sheep as by the trees. He drew her attention variously to the dovecote, the clock tower and the lake in the distance. He had picked a building that fairly bristled with historic features.

‘The estate comes with a considerable amount of land, sufficient to ensure that the superb views will remain unaltered,’ Andreas informed her, having read and inwardly digested every packed and detailed page of the glossy sales brochure.

Hope blinked and wondered what was the matter with him. She was not aware that he had ever shown any interest in country life. But his disinterest in his surroundings embraced city living too, she reflected with a slight frown. As long as the luxury comforts, services and privacy he took entirely for granted were available, Andreas was maddeningly indifferent to his home environment. Yet now all of a sudden he sounded rather like an enthusiastic estate agent.

Round the next corner she was treated to her first full view of the south front of the ancient Tudor manor house. ‘My goodness…’ she said again, utterly charmed by the soft mellow colour of the bricks and the latticed windows sparkling in the sunshine. ‘It’s beautiful.’

‘Indoors you’ll have to exercise your imagination,’ Andreas remarked, nodding acknowledgement of the discreet older man who appeared at the entrance and spread the door wide for them. ‘Knightmere has been empty for more than three years, although it has been extensively renovated.’

‘Was it originally owned by one particular family?’

‘Yes. The family line died out with an elderly spinster. A foreign businessman bought it but the repairs took longer than expected and he never lived here. He’s now moved abroad again and the house is back on the market.’

‘Wouldn’t this place be too far from the city for you?’

‘I’d use the helicopter.’

Her turquoise eyes were perplexed. ‘It’s just not the sort of property that I would’ve expected you to be interested in. I thought possibly you were thinking of converting it into a hotel or apartments or something—’

‘No.’

‘Then if you bought it, this would actually be your home?’

‘My country home and where I would spend most of my time…yes,’ Andreas confirmed. ‘I like space around me.’

‘There’s certainly plenty of that,’ Hope conceded. ‘It’s a huge house. How many bedrooms are there?’

‘A dozen or so.’ Andreas shifted a casual shoulder. ‘But I have a large family circle. On special occasions those rooms would be easy to fill.’

Hope scanned the panelled walls, massive overhead oak beams and the huge elaborate fireplace, which bore the carved date of a year in the sixteenth century. She was fascinated. ‘This must have been the Great Hall. It’s so old and yet so wonderfully well preserved,’ she whispered in frank awe of her surroundings.

Andreas surveyed her rapt profile and decided it was a done deal; she was reacting exactly as he had hoped. He allowed her to roam where her fancy took her and watched her enchantment grow. No nook and no cranny remained unexplored. An ancient range had been left intact at one end of the vast kitchen and she went into raptures over it and the beautifully carved free-standing units. Inspecting a procession of stream-lined opulent bathrooms almost emptied her of superlative comments.

Andreas walked her back outside through the courtyard. ‘Do you think I should buy it?’ he asked, confidence riding high.

‘Oh, yes…it’s fantastic,’ Hope murmured dreamily.

Andreas pushed open the cast-iron gate into the walled garden, which was a riot of early summer roses and lush greenery. ‘Close your eyes,’ he urged softly. ‘I have a surprise for you.’

Obediently she let her lashes dip and then lifted them again at his bidding. A traditional canvas canopy screened the sun from the tumbled cushions that were piled invitingly on the elegant striped rug spread across the manicured grass. A wicker hamper sat invitingly open with linen napkins, a chrome wine cooler and crystal glasses already lined up in readiness. It was a picnic Nicolaidis style, she registered in wonderment, so perfect in presentation and backdrop that she felt as if she had wandered into a picture in a magazine. It would no doubt knock her homemade picnics of the past into a cocked hat.

Her generous smile lit up her lovely face. ‘Oh, this is a glorious surprise.’

‘I wanted to do something special that you’d really appreciate, pedhi mou.’

Her mobile phone rang. Wishing that she had thought to switch it off, she dug it out. It was Ben. Ready embarrassment coloured her cheeks and she half turned away to speak. ‘Ben…hi.’

Ben was ringing to congratulate her on the offer she had received from Leonie Vargas.

‘Don’t mind me,’ Andreas breathed very dryly.

‘Could I call you back later?’ Hope asked Ben in a whisper that sounded to her own ears like a shout. ‘I’m so sorry but I can’t really chat right now.’

As she put the phone away again the silence fairly bulged with hostile undertones. Andreas was furious. At the optimum wrong moment, Campbell phoned. Was he expected to accept that? Being haunted by the ex-boyfriend? With difficulty he suppressed his annoyance by reminding himself that Hope was friendly with everybody she met.

‘Let’s eat,’ Andreas suggested.

The hamper was packed to the brim with delicious items. Hope sipped fruit juice and ate until she could eat no more. She told him what Leonie Vargas was like in the flesh and made him laugh. Resting back against the tumbled cushions, she relaxed and feasted her eyes on his lean, powerful face.

Andreas stretched out a lean, long-fingered hand to her. ‘Come here…’ he urged huskily.

A quiver of forbidden excitement tugged at her. After a split second of hesitation, her hand reached out to close into his. He tugged her close, leaning over her to scan her with brilliant golden eyes. ‘Let’s get married and make Knightmere our home,’ he murmured smoothly.

CHAPTER EIGHT

HOPE’S mouth ran dry and shock tore through her tensed body. Andreas had taken her by surprise. She closed her eyes tight against the intrusion of his and let herself savour just for a moment the sheer joy of actually being asked to be his wife. There was nothing she wanted more but she knew that it would not be right for her to say yes unless he said the right words. Unfortunately those same words were words she had long since accepted that she would never hear from him.

‘Why?’ she questioned tightly. ‘Why are you asking me to marry you?’

His ebony brows pleated. ‘Isn’t that obvious?’

The first twist of disappointment tore at her and she opened strained turquoise eyes. ‘You’re thinking about the baby.’

‘Of course. No Nicolaidis that I know of has ever been born outside the bonds of matrimony,’ Andreas informed her with considerable pride.

His reasons for asking her to become his wife were fairly piling up, Hope conceded unhappily. One, she was pregnant. Two, he was keen to respect the conventions.

‘It’s only two days since you told me that you would never marry me,’ Hope reminded him very quietly.

‘That was when I was still under the impression that you had been unfaithful,’ Andreas asserted without discomfiture. ‘I think we should go for a quick, quiet ceremony and throw a big party afterwards. What do you think?’

Slowly, Hope withdrew her fingers from his and sat up. ‘I think you’re not going to like my answer.’

Andreas misunderstood. ‘If you prefer a more traditional wedding, I don’t mind. Have as many frills as you like. How we do it isn’t important as long as we do it before the baby’s born.’

Hope pushed herself upright. ‘I’m afraid the answer has to be…no.’

‘No?’ She saw that it had not once occurred to Andreas that he might meet with rejection.

‘I love the house, love the picnic—’ Love you too, Hope reflected painfully but kept that admission to herself ‘—but unfortunately you don’t want to marry me for the right reasons.’

Utterly taken aback by that criticism, Andreas sprang upright, dark golden eyes incredulous. ‘What are the right reasons?’

‘If you don’t know, there’s no point in me spelling them out for you,’ she said heavily.

‘Are you still determined to keep your options open? Is that what this is all about?’ Andreas ground out.

Her brow indented. ‘I don’t know what you’re getting at.’

‘Or are you punishing me for listening to my sister three months ago and letting you down?’ Andreas demanded in a raw undertone.

Hope studied him with pained intensity. ‘I wouldn’t behave like that. But I am afraid that you were so willing to believe Elyssa’s lies because you wanted your freedom back—’

‘I always had my freedom. I made a free choice to be with you!’ Andreas contradicted.

‘And when I made the mistake of reminding you that we’d been together almost two years, you were in no mood to celebrate.’ Hope sighed. ‘There was no question of your making a commitment to me then—’

His even white teeth gritted. ‘Everything’s changed since then—’

‘Yes. But you don’t need to put a ring on my wedding finger because I fell pregnant,’ Hope told him gently.

‘How are you planning to manage without me?’

Hope lost colour at that crack. ‘Are you saying that if I don’t marry you, you’ll break up with me again?’

An electrifying silence fell.

His beautiful dark deep-set eyes struck sparks from hers. ‘No, I’m not saying that. I’d have to be a real bastard to abandon the mother of my child in any circumstances.’

‘For goodness’ sake, I know you’re not that.’ Hope felt as though she were standing on the edge of a chasm in the middle of an earthquake. If she wasn’t careful she might tumble into the chasm and lose everything. Was she being foolish? Should she be willing to settle for a marriage of convenience with a guy who didn’t love her? Or was it that she was more scared of Andreas marrying her and then regretting it?

While she was frantically questioning whether or not she was making the biggest mistake of her life, Andreas closed his arms round her. ‘I made you happy before…I can do it again,’ he intoned fiercely.

‘I know, but—’

‘Theos…Just you try and find this same fire with someone else!’ He bent his arrogant dark head and crushed her ripe mouth under his, unleashing a passion that took her by storm. His lips were firm and warm and wonderful on hers and she could not get enough of his kisses.

Breathless and trembling, she knotted her fingers into the shoulders of his jacket to hold him close. She did not want to set him free to find someone else. She did not want to be alone.

‘Andreas…?’ she framed through reddened lips, turquoise eyes clinging in urgent appeal to his. ‘Don’t get the wrong idea about what I’m about to say. I’m not suggesting that I be your mistress. But could we live together instead of getting married?’

Andreas was a long way from happy with that proposition. His smoothly laid plans had been derailed when he’d least expected it. He felt hollow, bewildered by his failure, quite unlike himself.

Had he rushed her too much? He always moved fast and made decisions at the speed of the light but she did not. Once, though, she had had touching faith in him and his judgement. Now, however, she was wary, unsure of herself and of him. For the first time he recognised how much he must have hurt her when he’d dumped her. He could hardly blame her for being afraid to trust him again.

He saw that there had been a fatal flaw in his approach. He had put more effort into marketing the house than himself. Having recognised the problem, he saw the solution and came up with a fresh strategy. That disturbing sense of disorientation that had afflicted him mercifully vanished. All he had to do was demonstrate that he would make a perfect husband and a fantastic father.

‘Andreas…’ Hope prompted worriedly, afraid she had offended him.

The brooding light in his dark reflective gaze ebbed and his slow, charismatic smile curved his handsome mouth. ‘I’ll buy the house this afternoon. How soon will you move in?’

She blinked, thrown by his immediacy. ‘Whenever you like.’

‘I like it best when you’re not out of my sight for longer than five minutes, pedhi mou,’ Andreas told her, tugging her up against his lean, powerful frame and anchoring her below one strong arm while he called the agent to negotiate.

‘No, you’re not to look at that,’ Andreas scolded, flipping an offending newspaper out of her reach six weeks later.

‘Why not?’ Hope watched him lounge back against the crisp white pillows. The sheet had dropped to below his waist, exposing the hard, hair-roughened expanse of his bronzed torso and the sleek, muscular strength of his superbly fit body. He looked breathtakingly handsome.

‘There’s an entry about us in the gossip column…I don’t want you lowering yourself to look at trash like that,’ Andreas delivered in a tone of finality.

Unimpressed, Hope put out her hand. ‘Give it to me,’ she told him.

A raw masculine grin slashed his beautiful mouth. ‘No…’

‘Stop being bossy!’ Levering herself up, Hope flung herself across him in an effort to wrest the paper from him. Laughing with rich appreciation, he caught her in his arms and pressed her gently back against the pillows. Teasing golden eyes met hers. ‘Behave yourself!’

‘You can’t censor what I read—’

‘If there is the tiniest risk that something might upset you it’s my duty to protect you from it. I’m Greek. You’re my woman and I look after you. Learn to live with what you can’t fight,’ Andreas warned with unblemished good humour.

‘I’ll just walk down to the village and buy another copy.’