After the Greek Affair. Chantelle Shaw

      ‘Every day. But I was young and better able to cope with the change.’ His voice deepened. ‘It broke my father’s heart to leave Greece.’

      ‘He must have been pleased when you bought Aura—his birthplace.’

      Loukas hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. The basic facts about his background could be found by anyone who chose to research him on the internet. ‘He never knew. My father died eighteen months after we moved to the States, and my mother followed him to the grave two years later.’

      His voice was so devoid of emotion that Belle shot him a startled glance. Despite the heat from the sun she shivered, sadness sweeping over her at the thought that Loukas’s father had never come home, never seen again this beautiful place.

      ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know—’ She broke off abruptly. There was no reason why she should have known about the tragedy that had torn Loukas’s family apart. She had met him less than an hour ago, they were strangers, so why did her heart ache for him? And why was she so sure that he concealed his pain behind his unfathomable grey gaze? Perhaps because she had learned to hide her own heartbreak at her mother’s death and pretend that she wasn’t hurting inside, she thought bleakly.

      Another thought struck her. ‘Larissa can’t have been very old when your parents died. Who looked after her?’

      Loukas had started walking again, and Belle fell in step beside him. ‘I did. There was no one else. She barely remembers our father, and I have tried to be a father figure to her. But she missed having a mother. She still does—especially now, as she prepares for her wedding.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘You know how it is—there’s a special bond between mothers and daughters.’

      His words touched a raw nerve. A lump formed in Belle’s throat and for a moment she could not speak. ‘Yes,’ she said at last in a low tone. ‘I know how it is.’ She stared at the horizon, the sharp line between the sea and the sky blurring as tears filled her eyes. She had shared a special bond with her mother—or at least she had believed she had. But in all those years that she was growing up, during all those mother-and-daughter shopping trips and girly chats, Gudrun had never revealed the truth about her father. The feeling of betrayal burned in her heart as fiercely as the pain of grief.

      ‘Belle… Is something wrong?’ Loukas suddenly realised that she had fallen behind and turned to find her standing looking out over the sea. Her face was half hidden beneath the brim of her hat, but he sensed her tangible vulnerability.

      What the hell had got into him today? he wondered irritably. He was not one of the sensitive ‘new-man’ types so beloved by women’s magazines; he was a hard-headed businessman who dealt in facts and figures, profit margins and takeover bids. Flights of imagination about the emotional well-being of any woman, let alone his sister’s dress designer, whom he’d met for the first time an hour ago, were not in his nature.

      He glanced at his watch and realised he was late to make an important call. He couldn’t blame Belle if he’d missed out on the Tokyo deal, he conceded. But from now on he was determined to concentrate on business and not allow himself to be distracted by her.

      ‘I was just admiring the view.’ Belle blinked fiercely before she turned to Loukas. She could sense his impatience as he waited for her, and she pushed her dark thoughts to the back of her mind and walked towards him, determined to focus on the job she had come to Aura to do.

      They continued along the path for a few more metres before it forked—one branch sloping down to a set of steps cut into the cliff, which led to a white sandy beach below, and the other stopping in front of a set of wrought-iron gates set in a high stone wall. Loukas pressed a button so that the gates swung smoothly open, and ushered Belle through.

      ‘Welcome to the Villa Elena.’

      ‘Oh…wow!’ The stunning sight before her eyes jolted Belle from her painful memories. ‘It’s…spectacular,’ she breathed, as she stared at the ultra-modern architecture of the white-walled villa with its many windows that must offer amazing views over the sea.

      Loukas nodded. ‘It’s home,’ he said simply.

      Belle could have no idea how much those two words meant to him, he thought. Through all the years he had spent living in a grim tenement block in a rough neighbourhood in New York he had clung to his memories of his homeland, and had dreamed of one day owning a house overlooking the sapphire-blue waters of the Aegean.

      Thanks to his quick brain, ruthlessness determination and years of relentless hard work, he had built his hugely successful company and achieved his dream. Aura was his bolthole, where he had created a home for him and Larissa.

      It would have been his child’s home too. It should have been. The familiar black bitterness filled his heart. He had bought the island when Sadie had told him she was pregnant, and commissioned an architect to design a luxurious villa for the woman he had loved and their baby.

      But Sadie had never come here, and there had been no baby—she had made sure of that. His jaw hardened, his gut twisting at the memory of her betrayal. She had known how much he wanted his child, but she had refused to allow anything to stand in the way of her pursuit of stardom.

      Larissa was the only person he had confided in, and it had been she who had begged him to stop anaesthetising his emotions with whisky. He would never forget how his little sister, whom he had cared for since their parents had died, had become the carer. Lissa had been there for him in his darkest days, when pain and anger had clawed at his insides. But soon she would leave the island and move to the house he had bought for her and Georgios in Athens. Loukas exhaled heavily. His little sister had grown up, and it was time to let her go, but he had not anticipated how hard he would find it.

      He glanced briefly at Belle. ‘Come on through,’ he invited. ‘My butler will know we’re here and will serve drinks on the terrace.’

      Butler! Of course he had a butler, Belle told herself as she followed him across the white marble patio. Loukas was a billionaire and he probably had dozens of staff to run around him.

      She realised that they had entered the villa grounds by a side gate. The house was to the right of her, while on her left they skirted a large circular Jacuzzi and continued on towards an infinity pool that gave the illusion of spilling over the edge of the cliff into the sea below. In the bright sunshine everything seemed to throb with an intensity of colour: the gleaming white walls of the villa, the aquamarine of the pool and the sea, and the vibrant oranges, reds and yellows of the flowers set amidst the lush greenery of the landscaped garden. It was paradise, Belle thought, feeling almost dizzy from the beauty of her surroundings.

      As they walked towards the terrace and stepped into the shade of the white awning fluttering gently in the breeze, a man walked out of the house to meet them.