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Did people really live like this?
He had his own airfield, for goodness’ sake! His private jet had touched down on the island, a glistening ocean surrounding them as the sun dipped towards the horizon. She’d expected a limousine but there’d been several golf carts parked near the airstrip and he’d led her to one of them, opening the door for her in a way that made her impossibly aware of his breadth, strength and that musky, hyper-masculine fragrance of his.
When he’d sat beside her, their knees had brushed and she’d remembered what he’d said to her in the plane. ‘You have no idea how I have been tormented by memories of that night.’
Her belly stirred with anticipation and heat slicked between her legs.
At first, she hadn’t seen the house. Mansion. She’d been too distracted by the beauty of this island. Rocky, primal in some way, just like Leonidas, with fruit groves to one side, grapevines running down towards the ocean and then, finally, a more formal, landscaped garden with huge olive and hibiscus trees providing large, dark patches of shade in the lead up to the house.
Leonidas had given her a brief tour, introducing Hannah to the housekeeper, Mrs Chrisohoidis, before excusing himself. ‘I want to get some things organised.’ He’d frowned, and she’d felt, for the first time, a hint of awkwardness at being here, in the house of a man she barely knew, whom she was destined to marry and raise a child with.
‘Okay.’ She’d smiled, to cover it, thinking that she had her own ‘things’ to organise. Like the room she was renting in Earl’s Court and the job she was expected back at in a few days, and an aunt and uncle who deserved to know not only that she was pregnant but also that she was getting married.
None of these were obligations Hannah relished meeting and so she decided, instead, to explore. There was plenty of house to lose herself in, and with the approach of dusk, and only the occasional staff member to interrupt, she went from room to room, trying to get her bearings.
The property itself was spectacular. The initial impression that it was a virtual palace only grew as she saw more and more of it. But what she did realise, after almost an hour of wandering, was that there was a distinct lack of anything personal. Beyond the art, which must surely reflect something of Leonidas’s taste, there was a complete lack of personal paraphernalia.
No pictures, no stuff. Nothing to show who lived here, nor the family he’d had and lost.
The sun finally kissed the sea and orange exploded across the sky, highlighted by dashes of pink. Hannah abandoned her tour, moving instead to the enormous terrace she’d seen when she’d first arrived. No sooner had she stepped onto it than the housekeeper appeared.
‘Miss May, would you like anything to eat or drink?’
Hannah thought longingly of an ice-cold glass of wine and grimaced. ‘A fruit juice?’ she suggested.
‘Very good. And a little snack?’ The housekeeper was lined, her tanned skin marked with the lines of a life well-lived and filled with laughter. Her hair, once dark, had turned almost completely silver, except at her temples, where some inky colour stubbornly clung.
‘I’m not very hungry.’ Hannah wasn’t sure why she said the words apologetically, only it felt a little as if the housekeeper was excited at the prospect of having someone else to feed.
‘Ah, but you are eating for two, no?’ And her eyes twinkled, crinkling at the corners with the force of her smile, and Hannah’s chest squeezed because, for the first time since discovering her pregnancy, someone seemed completely overjoyed with the news.
Her flatmates had been shocked, her boss had been devastated at the possibility of losing someone he’d come to rely on so completely, and Leonidas had been...what? How had he felt? Hannah couldn’t say with certainty, only it wasn’t happiness. Shock. Fear. Worry. Guilt.
‘My appetite hasn’t really been affected,’ she said.
‘Ah, that will come,’ the housekeeper murmured knowingly. ‘May I?’ She gestured to Hannah’s stomach.
Mrs Chrisohoidis lifted her aged hands, with long, slender fingers and short nails, and pressed them to Hannah’s belly and for a moment, out of nowhere, Hannah was hit with a sharp pang of regret—sadness that her own mother wouldn’t get to enjoy this pregnancy with her.
‘It’s a girl?’
Hannah’s expression showed surprise. ‘Yes. How did you know?’
At this, Mrs Chrisohoidis laughed. ‘A guess. I have a fifty per cent chance, no?’
Hannah laughed, too. ‘Yes. Well, you guessed right.’
‘A girl is good. Good for him.’ She looked as though she wanted to say something more, but then shrugged. ‘I bring you some bread.’
Hannah suppressed a smile and turned her attention back to the view, thinking once more of the beautiful coastline of Chrysá Vráchia, of how beautiful that island had been, how perfect everything about that night had seemed.
She’d longed to visit the island from the first time she’d seen footage of it in a movie and had been captivated by the cliffs that were cast of a stone that shimmered gold at sunrise and sunset. The fact she’d been able to book her flights so easily, the fact Leonidas had been there in the bar and she’d looked at him and felt an instant pull of attraction...the fact he’d reciprocated. It had all seemed preordained, right down to the conception of a child despite the fact they’d used protection.
When she heard the glass doors behind her slide open once more, she turned around with an easy smile on her face, expecting to see the housekeeper returning. Only it wasn’t Mrs Chrisohoidis who emerged, carrying a champagne flute filled
with orange juice.
‘Leonidas.’ Her smile faltered. Not because she wasn’t happy to see him but because a simmering heat overtook any other thoughts and considerations.
