‘Trashy magazines, you mean?’ Milos taunted drily. ‘Come on, Rhea, Melissa is—what? Twelve? Thirteen years of age at most? I grant you she acts older, but are you seriously telling me—?’
‘She’s almost fourteen, actually,’ Rhea broke in defensively. ‘Her birthday’s next month, like mine. We’re both Geminis.’
Milos’s sense of shock was staggering. A sick feeling invaded his stomach, filling his mouth with bile, and a nerve in his temple started to throb. It couldn’t be true, he told himself. Rhea must have got it wrong. Melissa couldn’t be almost fourteen. If she were …
‘Are you all right?’
Rhea noticed his sudden pallor and the knowledge that his sister couldn’t be allowed to suspect his thoughts brought a spurious wave of colour back into his cheeks.
‘I—yes, I mean—no.’ He was at a loss to explain his reaction and it was easier to pretend a momentary giddiness than admit how ill he suddenly felt. ‘I’m a little dizzy, that’s all.’
‘You’ve been working too hard,’ Rhea said at once, evidently relieved it wasn’t anything more serious. ‘It’s so hot today. Perhaps you’ll feel better after supper.’
‘Perhaps,’ Milos agreed, wishing she would just go and leave him alone for a few minutes. ‘I’ll be all right.’
‘So may Melissa stay for supper?’ Rhea persisted. ‘I’d like her to and it will give you more time to—’
‘No!’ On that score, Milos knew he had to refuse her. ‘I’m sorry, Rhea, but her mother’s expecting her back.’
‘There are phones,’ Rhea said sulkily, and if he hadn’t felt so numb he might have wondered if Melissa’s influence was already having an effect.
‘Another fifteen minutes, that’s all,’ he said. And, gripping the arms of his chair with a fierceness that bordered on desperation, ‘You’ve already had over an hour.’
‘You’re no fun, do you know that?’ Rhea muttered, apparently already forgetting all about his sudden weakness, and Milos thought that was just as well. ‘I don’t know what Melissa’s going to say.’
But that was the least of his worries. As Rhea flounced out, he was glad she had no idea of the bombshell she’d just delivered. Could what he was thinking possibly be true? he wondered. Surely not. Melissa must have exaggerated her age just as she tended to exaggerate everything else.
Ironically enough, he was desperate to see her then, and as soon as he felt his legs would support him he stumbled across the room to the windows to stare intently at the girl frolicking so happily in his pool.
Melissa had borrowed one of Rhea’s swimsuits and he told himself it was the sophistication of the cream and brown bikini that gave her young body such a look of maturity. It had to be, he insisted, but with a hopeless lack of conviction in the thought.
The trouble was, he was then able to see similarities between the two girls, likenesses that until that moment had been distorted, not just by his ignorance, but by Melissa’s use of make-up and the ugly clothes she wore.
A black wave of fury swept over him, compounded by his blindness and Helen’s total lack of honesty. Why hadn’t she told him? She should have told him. If he was Melissa’s biological father, he had had a right to know.
But then he remembered something she’d said to him just after she’d stepped off the ferry. She’d asked him about his wife. His wife! How had she known he’d had a wife? He hadn’t told her, and he doubted it would have come up in Sam’s letters to her. And why was it that whoever had delivered that piece of information hadn’t also told her he’d got a divorce? He was baffled.
He sighed now and felt Melissa’s eyes slide in his direction. She was sitting beside him in the front of the Mercedes, and now she said curiously, ‘Did I do something wrong?’
Immediately, he felt contrite. He hadn’t spoken to her since they’d left Vassilios and he should have guessed she’d be curious.
‘Of course not,’ he said, glancing her way and experiencing another shock of recognition. Dammit, she had his eyes. And his nose. ‘Did you enjoy yourself?’
‘I overstayed my welcome, right?’ she declared, as if he hadn’t spoken. ‘Hey, blame your sister, not me.’
‘Did I say you’d overstayed your welcome?’ he countered shortly, tamping down the impulse to tell her not to speak to him that way. He drew a deep breath. ‘I just hope your mother hasn’t been worried about you.’
Though she would be, he guessed, suddenly understanding Helen’s reluctance to allow him and Melissa to spend time together. She must be living in fear that he’d ask the girl how old she was.
‘She’s always worrying about me,’ said Melissa indifferently, drawing up one foot to rest her heel on the edge of the seat.
Milos hesitated. ‘And does she have a reason for that?’ he ventured carefully, and Melissa grimaced.
‘She thinks so.’
‘Why?’
‘You don’t want to know.’
‘I do.’ Milos was amazed at how much he wanted to know. ‘Doesn’t she approve of the way you dress?’
‘Did she tell you that?’
‘No.’
‘So what are you saying? That you don’t approve either?’
Milos shook his head. ‘We weren’t talking about me.’
‘No, I know.’ She cast him a speculative look. ‘So why are you so interested?’
‘I’m trying to—to get to know you.’
‘Yeah, right.’ Melissa was sardonic. ‘What you really mean is, you’re trying to impress my mum. You didn’t really want to take me out. You just wanted to score points with her.’
‘You couldn’t be more wrong.’ In actual fact, Milos couldn’t remember why he’d agreed to take her out. It seemed so long ago now. Almost in a parallel universe. He made another effort to get through to her. ‘Wouldn’t you like us to be—friends?’
‘Yeah, yeah.’ Patently, she didn’t believe him. ‘Lucky for you that Rhea was there, wasn’t it?’
Lucky? Milos wouldn’t have used that word himself. Yet he acknowledged that sooner or later he was bound to have guessed the truth. Or, at least, he hoped he would.
And there was still Helen …
‘So what did she say about me?’ Melissa asked suddenly, and once again Milos was nonplussed.
‘Who?’
‘Rhea, of course. She must have said something. She said she was going to ask you when you were taking me home, but she took ages.’
Milos considered his words very carefully before replying. ‘If you must know,’ he said, ‘she was telling me how much she was enjoying your company. You’re very different from the girls she usually mixes with.’
‘Tell me about it.’ He saw her soft lips compress and for a moment she was incredibly like her mother. ‘So I didn’t bore her, huh?’
‘No.’ Milos knew an unexpected surge of compassion, and for the first time he realised he wanted her to like him. ‘Were you?’
‘Me?’ He tried to ignore the way she wedged her foot against the console before continuing. ‘Hell, no. It was wicked!’
Wicked?
It wasn’t Milos’s