‘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.’
‘The whole island’s your family. You rule.’ It was said explosively, with passion, and Athena flinched and couldn’t think how to reply.
The crêpes arrived, light and hot, oozing a wonderful lemon liqueur and doused with clotted cream. This was everything she most denied herself in food. Nikos picked up a fork and started in—then paused.
‘What’s wrong?’
‘I didn’t really want these.’
‘You’re ill?’
‘No.’
‘Then eat,’ he said. ‘You’re stupidly thin.’
‘I am not!’
‘Are, too,’ he said, and grinned and suddenly there it was again—the bossiness, the arguments, the fun. Childhood with Nikos had been wonderful. Magic.
‘Can’t make me,’ she responded before she could help herself, a response she’d made over and over as a kid.
His dark eyes gleamed with challenge. ‘Want to bet?’
‘No!’
‘Eat your crêpes, Thene.’
She smiled, despite herself, picked up a fork and ate.
How long since she’d indulged in something this full of calories? They tasted fantastic.
‘You’re not a model,’ Nikos said, halfway through his crêpes and finally pausing for breath. ‘Why starve?’
‘It’s expected,’ she said. ‘You can never be too rich or too thin.’
‘Yeah, I’ve heard that, too,’ he growled. ‘So, they’ll fire you if you gain a pound or six?’
‘That party we were at tonight…If I’d turned up as a size fourteen, you think I’d get a foot in the door?’
‘You’re invited to write about it. Not be it.’
‘I’m part of the scene. They like their scene perfect.’
‘And this is a career you like?’
‘It beats pulling craypots.’
More silence. But he wasn’t angry, she thought. He kept on eating, as if she’d just commented on the weather. She’d never been able to needle him.
Oh, she’d missed him. For ten long years it had felt like an ache, a limb missing, phantom pains shooting when she least expected. Watching him now, it felt as if she was suddenly whole again. He was intent on his pancake, maybe giving her space—who knew with Nikos?
He’d fitted right in with the people at the party, she thought. But then she thought, no. She’d got that wrong.
Nikos was an embodiment of what the people she worked with wanted