The Greek's Secret Passion

‘Papa?’

She was his daughter.

Molly found herself doing rapid sums inside her head while Dimitri answered the girl in Greek. She looked seventeen—maybe eighteen—but that would mean…that would mean…She shook her head. She didn’t understand. For that would mean that Dimitri had had a daughter when he had known her. And surely that was not possible? Or had she been so wrong about so many things?

Suddenly, she felt faint, wishing that she could just disappear, but how could she? Instead she stood there like some dumb fool with a bottle of wine in her hand, the last of her youthful dreams shattering as the teenager approached them.

Rather reluctantly, Dimitri spoke. He had been rather enjoying the play of emotions across her lovely face, which Molly had desperately been trying to hide. This was indeed a unique situation, and the novelty factor of that for a man like Dimitri was almost as enjoyable as the sight of Molly Garcia looking so helpless.

‘Zoe!’ He smiled. ‘We have a visitor.’ And the black eyes were turned to Molly in mocking question. Over to you, the look seemed to say, unhelpfully.

Speaking was proving even more difficult than it had been before. ‘I live next door,’ said Molly quickly. ‘I, er—I saw you arrive, and I thought I would bring you this…to welcome you. Welcome,’ she finished. She held up the bottle with a grimace, but the girl smiled widely and took it from Molly, casting an admonishing little look at her father.

‘How very kind of you,’ she said, in softly accented English. ‘Please—you will come in?’

Like hell she would! ‘No, no, honestly—’

‘Oh, do. Please,’ said Dimitri, in a silky voice. ‘I insist.’

She met his eyes and saw the mischief and mockery there. How dared he? Didn’t he have a single ounce of perception? Didn’t he realise that she might actually find it difficult to meet his wife? Though why should he, when she stopped to think about it? Maybe this unusual situation was not so unusual for a man like Dimitri. How many other women were there like her, dotted around the place—never quite able to forget his sweet, sensual skills?

And she noticed that he hadn’t introduced her. Did that mean he had forgotten her name? Nor had he told his daughter that they had once known each other—though maybe that wasn’t so surprising, either. For what would he say?

Molly and I were lovers.

Put like that, it sounded nothing, but it had been something—it had. Or had she just been fooling herself all these years that her first love had been special and had just ended badly? And just how old was his daughter? Even if she was younger than she looked that still meant that he must have fathered her just after Molly had left the tiny island….

She couldn’t think straight.

And maybe that was why she felt as if setting foot inside the door would be on a par with entering the lion’s den. Some memories were best left untouched. Parts of the past were cherished, and maybe they only stayed that way if you didn’t let the present intrude on them.

She shook her head, mocking him back with a meaningless smile of her own. ‘It is very kind of you, but I’m afraid that I have work to do.’

He glanced at the expensive gold timepiece on his hair-roughened wrist. ‘At four o’clock?’ he questioned mildly. ‘You work shifts?’

Did he still think she was a waitress, then? ‘I work from home,’ she explained, then wished she hadn’t, for a dark gleam of interest lightened the black eyes and suddenly she felt vulnerable.

‘Please,’ said the girl, and held her hand out. ‘You must think us very rude. I am Zoe Nicharos—and this is my father, Dimitri.’

‘Molly,’ she said back, for what choice did she have? ‘Molly Garcia.’ She shook Zoe’s hand and let it go, but then Dimitri reached out and, with an odd kind of smile, took her fingers and clasped them inside the palm of his hand.

Outwardly, it was nothing more than a casual handshake but she could feel the latent strength in him and her skin stirred with a kind of startled recognition, as if this was what a man’s touch should be like.

‘Hello, Molly,’ he murmured. ‘I’m Dimitri.’

Just the way he said it made her stomach melt, despite him, despite everything and she wondered if he could feel the sudden acceleration of her heart. She tried to prise her fingers away, but he wouldn’t let her, not until she had met his amused black gaze full-on, and she realised that she was the one who was affected by all this—and that Dimitri was simply taking some kind of faintly amused pleasure in it all. As if it were some kind of new spectator sport. As if it didn’t matter—and why should it? She should be flattered that he remembered her at all.

Her smile felt more practised now; she was getting quite good at this. ‘Well, like I said—this was just a brief call to welcome you. I hope you’ll all be very happy here,’ she said.

He heard the assumption in the word ‘all’, but he let it go. This was going to be interesting, he thought. Very interesting. ‘I’m sure we will,’ he answered, with a smooth, practised smile of his own. His eyes lingered briefly on the swell of her breasts, outlined like two soft peaches by a pale blue silk shirt which matched her eyes. ‘It’s a very beautiful place.’

It had been a long time since a man had looked at her that way and she felt the slow, heavy pulsing of awareness—as if her body had been in a deep, deep sleep and just one glittering black stare had managed to stir it into life again. She had to get away before he realised that, unless, of course, he already had.

‘I really must go,’ she said.

‘Thank you for the wine,’ he said softly. ‘Maybe some time…when you’re not so busy working…you might come round and have a drink with us?’

‘Maybe,’ she said brightly, but they both knew that she was lying.

CHAPTER TWO (#ulink_209cb7a6-4e8d-5b9f-98a0-0a508a4c074f)

MOLLY let herself into her house, trying to tell herself not to overreact. It was something that was nothing—just something which occurred time and time again. And that the only reason this had never happened before was because they lived in different worlds.

She had come face to face with a man she’d once been in love with, that was all—though a more cynical person might simply describe it as teenager lust and infatuation. Her Greek-island lover had materi-alised with his family in the house next door to hers, and it was nothing more than an incredible coincidence.

And not so terrible, surely?

But the thought of just going upstairs and carrying on with her research notes was about as attractive as the idea of putting on a bikini to sunbathe in the back garden, wondering if everything she did now would be visible to Dimitri’s eyes. And telling herself that, even if it was, she shouldn’t care. These things happened in a grown-up world and she was going to have to face it.

Just as she was going to have to face his wife—and though the thought of that had no earthly right to hurt her, it did.

She went through the motions of normality. She met a friend for a drink and then went to see a film. And spent a night waking over and over, to find that the bright red numbers on her digital clock had only moved on by a few minutes.

She showered and dressed and made coffee, and when the doorbell rang she bit her lip, telling herself that it was only the postman, but she knew it was not the postman. Call it sixth sense or call it feminine intuition, but she knew exactly who would be standing on her doorstep.

And he was.

She opened the door and stared into the black, enigmatic eyes.

‘Dimitri,’ she offered warily.

‘Molly,’ he mimicked, mocking her wary tone. ‘I am disturbing you?’

He couldn’t do anything but disturb her, but she shook her head. ‘Not really.’

‘You aren’t working?’ He raised his eyebrows.

‘Not at the moment, no.’ She answered the question in his eyes. ‘I write,’ she explained.

‘Novels?’

She shook her head. ‘Travel books, and articles, actually, but that’s really beside the point. Look, Dimitri—I don’t know what it is you want—I’m just a little surprised to see you here.’

His eyes mocked her. ‘But you knew I would come.’

Yes. She had known that. ‘Was there something particular you wanted?’

‘Don’t you think we need to talk?’