The Greek Millionaire's Mistress

“I’m so sorry,” Gina hiccuped when she finally gained control again. “I don’t know what’s gotten into me since I arrived here, that I’m so emotional all the time.”

“Neh, neh,” the maid crooned. “Neh, katalaveno. I understand.”

Gina smiled wistfully. No, you don’t, she thought, but your saying so makes me feel better anyway.

The maid smiled, too, and poked herself in the chest. “Me lene Apostolia. You?”

Understanding, she replied, “Gina.”

The maid nodded. “You okay now, Gina?”

“Yes. Much better, thanks.” She made a shooing motion toward the door. “You should go. I don’t want you to be in trouble because of me. But thank you again, Apostolia. You’ve been very kind. Efkharisto!”

“Parakalo.” Apostolia gave a final nod and left, closing the door softly behind her.

Gina sat for a few minutes, staring out the window at the looming hulk of the Acropolis. In the blazing light of morning, with her toe throbbing and her eyes gritty from lack of sleep, she saw everything to do with the previous ten hours for what they really were: a glamorous, romantic interlude as ephemeral as stardust. She’d met a man who’d made her feel like a woman again. He’d flirted with her, and shown her a time she’d never forget. But he was no more part of her real world than she’d ever be part of his.

Not only that, she’d sensed an ambivalence about him at times, caused, not as he claimed because he didn’t trust himself, but as if he wasn’t sure he could trust her. It showed in the way he suddenly drew back when everything else about him indicated he wanted more, far more, than he felt able to take.

Why? What was it about her that had made him withhold himself? Had she been too eager? Too transparently hungry? Because heaven knew, nothing frightened a man off faster than a woman so desperate that she might as well have gone after him wielding a net.

I should have been the one applying the brakes, she thought dismally. Pity I didn’t ram my head against the door. It could use having some sense knocked into it.

A glance at the bedside radio clock showed it was eight on Saturday morning, Athens time, which made it nine on Friday evening on Canada’s West Coast. A good time to call home. Her mother would be in bed, leaving Lynn O’Keefe, the temporary care giver, free to talk. Hobbling to the desk, Gina picked up the phone.

Lynn answered on the first ring. “I expected it would be you,” she said. “How’s Athens?”

“Hot, noisy, exotic and exhausting,” Gina replied. “How’s my mom?”

“She had a good day. We walked on the beach this morning and collected shells, then went into town after lunch and ate ice cream in the park.”

“Does she realize I’m gone, do you think? Does she miss me?”

“I don’t think so,” Lynn said kindly. “She’s off in her own world most of the time. You know how it is for her, Gina.”

“Yes,” she said, flooded with sudden guilt at the realization that she hadn’t spared her mother more than a passing thought in the last twelve hours. “But she doesn’t handle change well, and I’m afraid—”