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‘I’m not always the bastard you like to think I am,’ Aristandros retorted with level cool.
Her heavy limbs sinking into the comfortable mattress, Ella focused wryly on his lean, compellingly handsome face. ‘I’m not stupid,’ she told him. ‘Leopards don’t change their spots.’
CHAPTER NINE
THE island of Lykos had undergone some changes since Ella’s last visit seven years earlier. Aristandros had made the harbour much bigger and deeper to accommodate his yachts. The fishing boats looked like colourful children’s toys beside Hellenic Lady. The island’s little town, composed of lime-washed white houses adorned with traditional blue paintwork, stretched up the hill in neat tiers behind the harbour. The wedding-cake church with its ornamental bell tower sat in the shade of the plane trees edging the main square, and a windmill, long defunct but nonetheless charming, punctuated the winding road that led down to the far end of the island and the Xenakis house. Beyond the town stretched lush green hills studded with cypresses and olive groves and rather more buildings than she recalled.
‘The last time we were here you told me that you wanted to get married in a church exactly like that,’ Aristandros murmured.
‘Did I…really?’ Standing by the rail as the yacht docked, Ella was still suffering from the loss of the previous night’s sleep. That reminder almost made her choke on the coffee she was drinking to wake herself up, and she secretly cringed over the knowledge that she could ever have been that gauche. ‘I don’t remember that.’
‘I liked the fact that you didn’t watch your every word around me. My parents got married here in the church of Ayia Sophia. My mother thought it was cute as well.’
‘Lykos originally belonged to her family, didn’t it?’
‘Yes. She was an only child and a great disappointment to a shipping family, who longed for a son.’
‘I just remember the portrait of her in the house. She was absolutely gorgeous.’
‘She still holds the trophy for being the vainest woman I ever knew,’ Aristandros remarked with a cynical shake of his proud dark head. ‘In many ways she was lucky to die young. She could never have handled growing old.’
Ella thought it was sad that he could be so detached from the memory of his mother, a habit he had probably acquired for self-protection when he was a boy, cursed by not one but two wildly irresponsible parents who had refused to grow up and behave like adults. Too alike to stand each other for long, the warring pair had divorced by the time he was five years old.
Although Doria Xenakis had grown up with great beauty and wealth, both attributes had only been a means to an end for a young woman obsessed by her dream of becoming a famous actress. While his mother had chased endless drama-classes and roles, and thrown constant parties to entertain influential celebrities, Aristandros had been seriously neglected. He had twice been removed from her home by social workers for his own safety. Doria had finally died of a drug overdose at the age of thirty, and was only remembered in the film world for having starred in some of the worst movies ever made. Ari’s father, Achilles Xenakis, an inveterate gambler, womaniser and drunk, had worked his way through multiple partners and repeated visits to rehabilitation centres after an unending succession of financial and sexual scandals. Achilles had died when he crashed his speedboat. Orphaned, Aristandros had moved in with Drakon at the age of fourteen.
Ella, Callie and Aristandros climbed into one of the cars waiting by the harbour while their luggage was stowed in another. Ella gazed out at the turquoise-blue sea washing the inviting white strand that circled more than half the island and, appreciating its emptiness, said, ‘Are you still trying to keep the tourists out?’
‘Why would I want to share paradise?’
‘It would be the easiest way of revitalising the economy and persuading the younger people to stay on. A small, exclusive development near the town wouldn’t interfere with your privacy.’
‘Remind me to keep you well away from the town council. They’d elect you immediately,’ Aristandros asserted. ‘In recent years, I’ve brought in several businesses to provide employment, and the population is currently thriving—without the tourist trade and its attendant problems.’
Ella gave him a sunny smile. ‘I’m sure you know what works best in your own personal little kingdom.’
‘I do not regard the island as my kingdom,’ Aristandros growled.
‘I didn’t mean to be controversial,’ Ella declared unconvincingly.
Aristandros skated a long, reproving forefinger along one slender thigh clad in coffee-coloured linen trousers. ‘Liar. You always liked getting under my skin, moli mou.’
