‘All right, I’ll go … this once,’ he felt moved to add, afraid that he might be creating a precedent and setting himself up for other boring social occasions.
‘Thank you. Your mother will be relieved. You’re almost certain to meet friends at Westgrave Manor and no doubt useful business connections as well,’ Petros continued, conscious that his son’s primary need to forge his own power base and fortune were more likely to influence him than anything else.
In the wake of that uncomfortable meeting neither man was best pleased with the other. Driven now by a desire to do his duty, Sander proceeded to an upper floor in the Athens town house to visit his grieving mother, Eirene. On his way his mobile buzzed and he checked the number: Lina, his current lover; this was already her third call since he’d left London. He switched his phone to silent, resolving to ignore her and ditch her at the first chance he got. A sense of injustice dogged him, though. What was it that turned women from exciting lovers into all-too-predictable demanding stalker types in search of a commitment he had already made clear he wasn’t offering?
As usual, his mother lamented Titos’ death as if it had only just happened. Sander submitted to being wept over and reproached for his deficiencies in comparison to his perfect brother before finally beating the fastest possible retreat back to the airport and the freedom that he revelled in. He knew it would be quite a few months before he could make himself visit again; going home was always a downer in his view.
‘OF COURSE you should go and take the opportunity to get to know your sister better,’ Binkie pronounced, beaming at the prospect of Tally being treated to a luxury weekend in a stately home. ‘You could do with a break after all the studying you’ve been doing.’
Unsurprised that the older woman had taken only the most positive view of the invitation, Tally swallowed back the admission that her father’s phone call and request had come as an unwelcome surprise. She pushed her honey-blonde curls off her brow with a rueful hand, her green eyes wary. ‘It’s not quite that simple. I got the impression that my father only wants me to go so that I can police Cosima’s every move—’
‘My goodness,’ Binkie cut in with a frown of dismay. ‘Did he say so?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Well, then, aren’t you being a bit too imaginative?’ Binkie asked in gentle reproof, her kindly brown gaze resting on the younger woman’s troubled face. ‘Granted your father rarely gets in touch but why immediately assume the worst of his motives? Maybe he simply wants his two daughters to get to know each other.’
‘I’m twenty years old and Cosima’s seventeen—if that’s what he wants why would he have waited so long?’
Tally responded wryly because, after a lifetime of disappointments and hurtful rejections, she was a dyed in the wool cynic when it came to either of her parents.
Binkie sighed. ‘Perhaps he has seen the error of his ways. People can mellow as they get older.’
Reluctant to parade her bitterness in front of the woman who was the closest thing she had ever had to a loving mother, Tally stared a hole in the table because Binkie was always an optimist and Tally was reluctant to make yet another negative comment. Binkie or, to be more formal, Mrs Binkiewicz, a Polish widow, had looked after Tally since she’d been a baby and had soon graduated from childcare to taking care of her employer’s household as well. Anatole Karydas was a very wealthy and powerful Greek businessman who had done his best to ignore his eldest daughter’s existence from birth. He hated Tally’s mother, Crystal, with a passion and Tally had paid the price for that hostility. Crystal had been a well-known fashion model, engaged to Anatole at the time that she’d fallen pregnant …
‘Of course I planned it!’ Crystal had admitted in a rare moment of honesty. ‘Your father and I had been engaged for over a year, but his precious family didn’t like me and I could see that he was going cold on the idea of marrying me.’
As, in the midst of that delicate situation, Crystal had been caught cheating with another man, Tally could only feel that her father had had some excuse for his waning matrimonial enthusiasm. Indeed, her parents had such different outlooks on life that she did not see how they could ever have made each other happy. Anatole, unfortunately, had never been able to forgive or forget the stinging humiliation of her mother’s betrayal or the embarrassing interviews she had sold to magazines maligning him in the aftermath of their break-up. He had also questioned the paternity of the child that Crystal was carrying. Ultimately, Crystal had had to take her ex-fiancé to court to get an allowance with which to raise her daughter and although her father had eventually paid his dues Tally had reached eleven years of age before he finally agreed to meet her. By that stage, Anatole had long since married a Greek woman called Ariadne with whom he’d also had a daughter, Cosima. Tally had always been made to feel that she was on the outside looking in and surplus to paternal requirements.
In fact she could count on two hands the number of times she had met her reluctant father. Currently a student in her last year of a degree course in interior design, however, Tally was conscious that Anatole had paid for her education and she was grateful for that because her spendthrift mother never had a penny to spare at the end of the month.
‘You like Cosima,’ Binkie pointed out cheerfully. ‘You were really pleased when you were invited to her seventeenth birthday party last year.’
‘That was different. I was a guest,’ Tally pointed out ruefully. ‘But my father made it clear on the phone that he was asking me to accompany Cosima this weekend to keep her out of trouble. Apparently she’s been drinking and partying too much and seeing some man he disapproves of.’
‘She’s very young. Naturally your father’s con cerned.’
‘But I don’t see how I could make a difference. I doubt very much if she would listen to me. She’s much more sophisticated than I am and very headstrong.’
‘But it’s heartening that your father trusts you enough to ask you to help, and Cosima does like you …’
‘She won’t like me much if I try to interfere with her fun,’ Tally retorted wryly, but she was far from impervious to the sound good sense of Binkie’s reasoning.
In truth, after a couple of brief encounters, organised mainly to satisfy the younger woman’s lively curiosity, Tally was the one still intrigued by her beautiful ornamental half-sister, who regularly appeared in the gossip columns rubbing shoulders with the rich and famous. The two young women had nothing in common in looks or personality and lived in different worlds. Cosima was the much loved and indulged daughter of a very rich man. She wore designer clothes and jewellery and was only seen out at the most fashionable social venues. The tougher realities that had shaped Tally and formed her attitudes had never touched Cosima, who had been cocooned in privilege from the day she was born. Cosima had never had to deal with unpaid bills or bailiffs or a mother who, when the cupboards were bare, would buy a new dress instead of food. Only the roof over their heads remained safe because the terraced town house in London where Tally lived with her mother and Binkie was an investment property belonging to her father.
It was there that the limousine called just over a week later to collect Tally. Having handed the driver a small weekend bag to stow away, she scrambled into the rear seat where her half-sister subjected her to a pained appraisal. ‘You’re dressed all wrong,’ Cosima complained, viewing Tally’s colourful raincoat and jeans with a grimace.
‘I have a typical student wardrobe and two business suits bought for my work experience last year and that’s pretty much it,’ Tally told her frankly, studying Cosima who was an extremely pretty girl with long black hair and big brown eyes, her slim figure beautifully set off by a fashionable mini dress and perilously high heels. ‘You look