Overhead, the leaves rustled.

‘I tried my best. Do you remember how desperately I talked to you as you prepared to cross the eternal river with our child in your arms? But you never looked back, and I knew I’d failed you yet again. That failure will be with me always.

‘Petra was right to say that I honour you still, and that will last for ever. This place will always be yours and no other woman’s. Nothing can change that.

‘But there has been a change in me-can you forgive that, if nothing else? It seems almost wrong to find happiness with her after so much that we could have had, and lost, but I can’t help myself. She is everything to me, yet I still-honour you.’

He couldn’t have said what he was hoping for, but nothing came-no sign, no message, no absolution. Only the wind became stronger until it was gusting fiercely in the trees, shaking the branches. Autumn was still some way off, yet the leaves were falling, seeming to bring the darkness closer.

Suddenly he couldn’t bear to stay here. Turning, he hurried back to the light.


At the Villa Lukas the air was buzzing with the news that the bride and groom would soon be home from their honeymoon.

‘Such a party there’s going to be!’ Aminta carolled. ‘Everyone is coming-the press, the television cameras-’

‘Any guests?’ teased Petra.

‘All the most important people,’ Aminta said blissfully.

‘No, I mean real guests-friends, people the host would want anyway, even if the press have never heard of them.’

Aminta stared at her, baffled. It was clear that after years of working for a billionaire shipping magnate she barely understood the concept of friendship for its own sake, so Petra laughed and went on her way. After all this time as part of a film star’s retinue, why was she surprised? Perhaps because her time alone with Lysandros had caused a seismic shift in her perceptions.

As soon as she reached her bedroom there was a call from Estelle, full of excitement at the rumours.

‘You and Lysandros were seen together on Corfu, going out in a boat and driving through the streets. Come on, tell!’

‘There’s nothing to tell,’ Petra said primly.

‘Hmm! As good as that, eh? We’ll invite him to our party and take a good look at you two together.’

‘I shall warn him not to come.’

‘You won’t, you know.’ Chuckling, she hung up.

The next call was from Lysandros to say he had to return to Piraeus. ‘So it’ll be several days before we see each other,’ he said with a sigh.

‘Just be back for the big party next week. Then it’s all going to descend on us.’

He laughed. ‘I promise to be there. I don’t know how I’m going to manage being away from you.’

‘Just come back to me,’ she said tenderly.

When the call was over she sat smiling. Looking up, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and laughed.

‘I look like an idiot. I feel like an idiot. So I guess that makes me an idiot. I don’t care. I didn’t know there was this much happiness on earth.’

From the corridor outside came the sound of footsteps. Then the door was flung open and Nikator stood on the threshold. His eyes were bright, his face flushed, his chest heaving, and Petra knew there was going to be trouble.

‘Hello, brother, dear,’ she said brightly, slightly emphasising ‘brother’. But it was useless and she knew it.

‘Don’t say that,’ Nikator hurled at her. ‘Oh, Petra, don’t say that!’

He dropped to his knees beside her, reaching out to clasp her around the waist, and she had to fight not to recoil. Their last meeting had been two weeks ago, just before she’d gone to Corfu. Nikator had implored her to stay, upset when she refused, desperate when she wouldn’t tell him where she was going.

The same exaggerated look was on his face now, making her say soothingly, ‘You don’t want me to call you “dear”? All right, I won’t, especially as I’m angry with you. How dare you let Lysandros think we’d gone to England together?’

He reached up to seize her in a fumbling grip. She tried to free herself but found there was unexpected steel behind the childish movements.

‘I couldn’t help it. I love you so much I’m not responsible for my actions. I wanted to save you from Demetriou-’

‘But I didn’t want to be saved,’ she said, trying to introduce a note of common sense. ‘I love him. Try to understand that. I love him, not you.’

‘That’s because you don’t know what he’s like. You think you do. You believe what he told you about Brigitta, but there was no need for her to die. If he hadn’t bullied her mercilessly she wouldn’t have been alone when-’

He pulled himself up far enough to sit on the bed beside her, his hands gripping her shoulders.

‘He’s fooled you,’ he gasped. ‘He only wants you because you’re mine. He has to take everything that’s mine. It’s been that way all my life.’

‘Nikki-’

‘You don’t know what it’s been like, always being told that the Demetriou family were lucky because they had a worthy son to take over, but my father only had me. Everyone admires him because he brutalises people into submission. But not me. I can’t be brutal.’

‘But you can be sneaky, can’t you? Grow up, little boy!’

‘Don’t call me that,’ he screamed. ‘I’m not a child; I’ll show you.’

She tried to push him off but his grip tightened. He rose to his feet, thrusting her back against the bed and hurling himself on top of her. Next thing, his mouth was over hers and he was trying to thrust his tongue between her lips.

Frantically she twisted her head away, trying to put up a hand to protect her mouth and writhing this way and that to avoid him.

‘Get off me,’ she gasped. ‘Nikki, do you hear? Get off me!’

‘Don’t fight me. Let me love you-let me save you-’

With a last heave she managed to get out from under him, shoving him so hard that he fell to the floor. In a flash she was on her feet, dashing to the door, yanking it open.

‘Clear out and don’t come back!’ she snapped.

But he made another lunge, forcing her to take drastic action with her knee. A yowl broke from him and he clutched himself between the legs, stumbling out into the corridor under the interested eyes of several maids.

He got to his feet, his eyes burning.

‘You’ll regret that,’ he said softly.

‘Not half as much as you’ll regret it if you bother me again,’ she snapped.

He threw a look of pure hatred at the servants and hurried away.

‘Thanks, miss,’ one of the maids said.

From which Petra deduced that several of them had been longing to do the very same thing.

Returning to her room, she tried to calm down. She’d known Nikator could be unpleasant but he was worse than she’d imagined.

In her agitation she forgot to wonder how he knew that Lysandros had told her about Brigitta.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

TWO days later Homer and Estelle made a grand and glorious return, under the gaze of carefully arranged cameras. Plans for the party started at once, although first Aminta had a servant problem to deal with. Nikator had made certain accusations against the maids, who pleaded with Petra for help, which she gave.

‘I’m sorry, Homer, I don’t want to quarrel with you or your son,’ she said, ‘but Nikator was limping when he left and I’m afraid the maids saw. So now he has a grudge against them.’

Homer was a wise man and he knew his son’s bad side. He believed her, thanked her, told Nikator to stop talking nonsense and made him apologise to Petra. Instead of the explosion of temper she’d feared, Nikator seemed to be in a chastened mood.

‘Which means he’s more dangerous than ever,’ Lysandros said as they dined together. ‘The sooner you’re out of there the better. In the meantime I’ll have a quiet word with him.’

‘No, don’t,’ she begged. ‘I’m quite capable of having my own quiet word, as he’s already discovered. I’m only afraid he’ll spin you some silly story about him and me-’

‘Which you think I’ll be stupid enough to believe?’ Lysandros queried wryly. ‘Credit me with more intelligence than that.’

Nikator seemed to be making an effort. She went downstairs once to find him with a large painting that he’d bought as a gift for his father. It depicted the Furies, terrifying creatures with snakes for hair and blood dripping from their eyes. Petra studied the picture with interest. She’d been conscious of the Furies recently, but now she felt free from them.

‘The point was, they never let up,’ Nikator said. ‘Once they started on you, they’d hound you for ever.’

She wondered if he was sending a message that he would never forgive her for offending him. He would harm her or Lysandros if he could, she was sure of it. But they were both on the watch for him, and surely there was nothing in his power.

The party was going to be the society event of the season. Fellow film stars from Hollywood were flying in to dance, sing and raise their glasses in the fake Parthenon. Every businessman in Athens would be there, hoping to meet a film star, plus some film makers hoping to secure backing from rich men.

When the night came there was no sign of Nikator. Homer grumbled about the disrespect to his bride, but Petra also thought she detected a note of relief.

‘Maybe when you and Lysandros are formally engaged it might be easier,’ her mother said quietly. ‘He’ll have to accept it then. Just don’t take too long about it. It might be the best thing for everyone.’

‘But surely Lysandros is the foe?’

‘A rival, not a foe. If the two families could come together Homer thinks it might be wonderful.’

‘What about Nikator? Surely Homer wouldn’t cut his son out?’

‘Not out of his life or his heart, but out of the shipping business, yes. He could buy him a gaming house, or something else that would give him a good life without threatening people’s jobs in the shipyard.’

It seemed the perfect solution, but Petra wondered if it would offend Nikator’s pride and increase his hatred of Lysandros. Mentally she put it aside to be worried about later. For now all she cared about was the coming evening, when she would see her lover again and dance in his arms.

She’d chosen a dress of blue satin, so dark that it was almost black. It was a tight fit, emphasising her perfect shape, but with a modest neckline, to please Lysandros.

How handsome he was, she thought, watching him approach. Homer greeted him enthusiastically; he replied with smiles and expressions of civility. Petra remembered how Lysandros had cleared Homer of any involvement in Brigitta’s tragedy, saying, ‘To do him justice, he’s a fairly decent man, a lot better than many in this business.’

So it was true what Estelle had suggested. Her marriage to Lysandros might signal a new dawn in the Greek shipping business, and everyone knew it. Including Nikator.

Lysandros did the usual networking with Petra on his arm, and everyone had the chance to study them as a couple.

‘Has anyone told you what they’re all thinking?’ he murmured as they danced.

‘They were lining up to tell me,’ she said with a laugh. ‘We were watched in Corfu. Estelle says we were seen together, driving through the streets and on the boat.’

He shrugged. ‘They’re public places. People were bound to see us. When we marry, I suppose that will be in public as well-’ He smiled and added softly, ‘At least, the first part of it will.’

‘Oh, really?’ she murmured. ‘I don’t remember getting a proposal.’

‘You’ve had a proposal every minute of the last few days and you know it,’ he said firmly. He rather spoilt the autocratic sound of this by murmuring, ‘Siren,’ so softly that his breath on her cheek was almost all she knew.

‘Don’t I get an answer?’ he asked.

‘You had your answer the first time we made love,’ she said. ‘And you hadn’t even asked me.’

‘But now I’ve asked and you’ve answered, we might tell them,’ he suggested.

‘Tell this crowd? I thought you’d hate to be stared at.’

‘As long as they see what I want them to see, that’s all right. If they watch me walking off with the most beautiful woman in the room, I can live with that.’

He tightened his arm around her waist, swirling her around and around while everyone laughed and applauded. Petra remembered that later because it was almost her last moment of unclouded joy.

As they came out of the swirl and her head began to clear she saw something that made her sigh. Even so, she didn’t realise that disaster had walked in. Disaster was called Nikator, and he had a smile on his face. It was a cold, tense smile, but even so it gave no sign of what was about to crash down on her.