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‘You really don’t like me,’ Leonidas breathed in wonderment.
‘What’s to like?’
‘I’ll make it up to you—’
‘No!’ Her interruption was immediate and pungent, because she was well aware of how he got around the rules with other people. ‘You can’t buy yourself out of this one. I don’t want your money. I just want you to sort this out. I want my bedroom back. I want a peaceful household. There isn’t room here for you to have a bunch of live-in staff.’
That evening, she came home to find all her possessions back in her old room and that there was blissful silence. She baked him some Baklava as a thank-you and left it with a note on the table. Two days later, he asked when she was going to pick up his unwashed shirts from the floor. When she explained that her agreement with Imogen did not include such menial duties for guests and that hell would freeze over before she touched his shirts, Leonidas asked how he was supposed to manage without household support.
‘Are you really that helpless?’ Maribel queried in astonishment.
‘I have never been helpless in my life!’ Leonidas roared at her.
Of course he was—totally helpless in a domestic capacity. But a Pallis male took every challenge to heart and Leonidas felt that he had to prove himself. So he burned out the electric kettle on the hob, ate out for every meal and tried to wash his shirts in the tumble drier. Pity finally stirring, she suggested his staff came back but lived out. An uneasy peace was achieved, for Leonidas could, when he made the effort, charm the birds from the trees. She was surprised to discover that he was actually very clever.
Two days before he moved into his new apartment, he staggered in at dawn hopelessly drunk. Awakened by the noise he made, Maribel got out of bed to lecture him about the evils of alcohol, but was silenced when he told her that it was the anniversary of his sister’s death. Shaken, she listened but learned little, as he continually lapsed into Greek before finally commenting that he didn’t know why he was confiding in her.
‘Because I’m nice and I’m discreet.’ Maribel had no illusions that he was confiding in her for any other reason. She knew herself to be plump and plain. But that was still the night when Maribel fell head over heels in love with Leonidas Pallis: when she registered the human being who dwelt beneath the high-gloss sophistication, who could not cope with the emotional turmoil of his bad memories.
The day he moved out, and without any warning of his intention, he kissed her. In the midst of a perfectly harmless dialogue, he brought his mouth down on hers with a hot and hungry demand that shook her rigid. She jerked back from him in amazement and discomfiture. ‘No!’ she told him with vehemence.
‘Seriously?’ Leonidas prompted, his disbelief patent.
‘Seriously, no.’ Her lips still tingling from the forbidden onslaught of his, she backed away from him and laughed to cover her embarrassment. It was her belief that he had kissed her because he had very little idea of how to have a platonic friendship with a woman.
Knowing how Imogen still felt about him, she felt so guilty about that kiss that she confessed to her cousin. Imogen giggled like a drain. ‘Someone must’ve dared Leonidas to do it! I mean, it’s not like you’ve got the looks or the sex appeal to pull him on your own, is it?’
Her earliest memories of Leonidas were bitter-sweet, Maribel acknowledged as her thoughts drifted back to the present. Leonidas had cast a long dark shadow that had somehow always been present during the years that followed. When Maribel had occasionally met him again through Imogen, she had utilised a tart sense of humour as a defence mechanism. While putting together billion-pound business deals, Leonidas had continued to run through an unending succession of gorgeous women and make headlines wherever he went. Imogen, however, had worked less and had become more and more immersed in her destructive party lifestyle. Over a year before her death, Leonidas had stopped taking Imogen’s phone calls.
Maribel caught Elias as he ran past her and pulled him onto her lap where he lay, totally convulsed by giggles. Her eyes overbright, she resisted the urge to hug him again and let him wriggle free to return to his play. He was so happy. She did not believe that Leonidas had ever known that kind of happiness or security. Elias depended on her to do what was best for him. She did not believe that any father was better than no father at all; she refused to believe that.
Leonidas was conscious of annoyance when he saw Elias Greenaway’s birth certificate: he had not been named as the father. ‘I want DNA-testing organised immediately.’
The three lawyers seated on the other side of the table tensed in concert. ‘Where a couple are unmarried, DNA tests can only be carried out with the mother’s consent,’ the most senior of the trio imparted. ‘As your name isn’t on the birth certificate, you don’t have parental responsibility either. May I ask if you have a cordial relationship with Miss Greenaway?’
