Gaia was a picturesque paradise. Stefanos’s wife and daughters were friendly and welcoming, but Ava felt a fraud for having to pretend to be excited about her supposed forthcoming wedding. The little grandchildren were a delight, but when she held the youngest baby of just six weeks old she found herself imagining what it would be like to cradle her own baby in her arms. She tried to quell her sense of panic, and inexplicably she felt an ache in her heart as she pictured a baby with Giannis’s dark hair and eyes.
Eventually she made the excuse of a headache and slipped away to walk on the beach. When she turned back towards the villa, she saw Giannis striding along the sand to meet her.
‘Well?’ she asked him anxiously.
A wide grin spread across his face and he looked heartbreakingly handsome. He put his hands on either side of her waist and swung her round in the air. ‘It’s done,’ he told her in a triumphant voice. ‘I persuaded Stefanos to sell his company to me. I had to increase my financial offer, but the main reason he agreed was because he is convinced that when you and I marry I will settle down to family life and embrace the values that Stefanos believes are important. Work can start immediately to refit and upgrade the Markou fleet of ships to turn them into luxury cruisers.’
‘And I can go home,’ Ava said quietly.
Giannis set her back on her feet, but he kept his arms around her and a faint frown creased between his brows. ‘It will take a few days for the paperwork to be finalised and signed. Stefanos is giving a party tonight for all the Markou Shipping employees and he will announce that I am buying the company. It will be an opportunity for me to reassure the workforce that they will continue to be employed by TGE. Stefanos has invited us to spend the night on Gaia and the helicopter will pick us up and take us to Athens in the morning.’
The breeze blew Ava’s long hair across her face and Giannis caught the golden strands in his hand and tucked them behind her ear. His dark eyes gleamed with something indefinable that nevertheless made her heart beat too fast. ‘I cannot see a reason why you should rush back to England, can you, glykiá mou?’ he murmured.
She should remind him that they had made a deal, and now that she had kept her side of it there was no reason for her to stay in Greece with him. Was he saying that he did not want her to leave? What would he say if she was pregnant? Would he still want her and their child? Her thoughts swirled around inside her head. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, and the feral growl he made evoked a wild heat inside her so that when he claimed her mouth and kissed her as if he could never have enough of her she gave up fighting herself and simply melted in his fire.
* * *
That evening, the guests were ferried from the mainland to Gaia by boat. As the sun set, the usually peaceful island was packed with several hundred partygoers enjoying Stefanos’s generous hospitality. A bar and barbecue had been set up on the beach and a famous DJ had flown in from New York to take charge of the music.
Ava had convinced herself that her niggling stomach ache was a sign that her period was about to start, and with Giannis in an upbeat mood she decided to have fun at the party and live for the moment. He was flatteringly attentive and hardly left her side all evening. She told herself that he was continuing to act the role of adoring fiancé until his business deal with Stefanos had been signed. But the way he held her close while they danced and threaded his fingers through her hair was utterly beguiling.
‘Don’t go away,’ he murmured midway through the evening. He claimed her mouth in a lingering kiss, as if he was reluctant to leave her, before he went to join Stefanos on the stage at one end of the ballroom. There was loud applause from Markou Shipping’s employees when Giannis explained that everyone would keep their jobs and be offered training opportunities at TGE.
‘Gullible idiots.’ A voice close to Ava sounded cynical. She looked over at the man who had spoken and he caught her curious glance. ‘You don’t believe that Gekas will keep his word, do you? He has promised to retain Markou’s workforce simply to persuade the old fool to sell the company to him. But Gekas isn’t interested in saving Greek jobs. All he wants is the ships and in a few months he will sack the workers.’
The man laughed at Ava’s startled expression. ‘Giannis Gekas fools everyone with his charming manner, including you, it seems. You obviously haven’t heard the rumours that Mr Nice Guy has a nasty side.’
It must have been the cool breeze drifting in through the window that made the hairs on the back of Ava’s neck stand on end. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Rumours have circulated for some time that Gekas has links with an organised crime syndicate and that he uses TGE to hide his money-laundering activities.’
‘If there was any substance to those rumours, surely the authorities would have investigated Giannis?’ Ava said sharply. ‘And Stefanos would not have sold Markou Shipping to someone he suspected of being a criminal.’
‘It’s like I said. Old Markou is a fool who has been taken in by Gekas’s apparent saintliness. Setting up a charity to help young Greeks establish new businesses was a clever move.’ The man shrugged. ‘As for the police, it’s likely that some of them are being bribed, or they are too scared of what will happen to them and their families if they start to investigate Gekas’s business methods. The Greek mafia are not a bunch of Boy Scouts; they are ruthless mobsters.’
Ava’s mouth was dry and she could feel her heart hammering beneath her ribs. ‘Do you have any proof to back up your allegations, Mr...?’ She paused, hoping the man would introduce himself.
‘Of course nothing can be proved. Gekas is too clever for that. And I’m not telling you my name because I don’t want to end up at the bottom of the sea with a bullet through my brain.’
Nothing the man had said could be true, Ava tried to reassure herself. But what did she actually know about Giannis? whispered a voice in her head. She stared at the man. ‘You have no right to make such awful, unsubstantiated accusations against Giannis. Why should I believe you?’
‘How do you think that Gekas became a billionaire by his mid-thirties? The luxury cruise market was badly hit by the economic meltdown in Greece and other parts of Europe, yet TGE makes huge profits.’
The man laughed unpleasantly. ‘Racketeering is a more likely source of Gekas’s fortune. Some years ago a journalist tried to investigate him but your fiancé has powerful friends in high places and I assume the journalist was bribed to keep his nose out of Gekas’s private life.’
With another sneering laugh the man walked away and disappeared from Ava’s view in the crowded ballroom. The dancing had started again and she saw Giannis walk down the steps at the side of the stage. None of what she had heard about him could be true. Could it? He had captivated her with his legendary charm but was she, along with all the other people at the party, including Stefanos Markou, a gullible fool who had been taken in by Giannis’s charisma?
She had seen it happen before. Everyone who had met her father had fallen for his cockney good humour, but at his trial Terry McKay had been exposed as a ruthless gangland boss who had used bribery and intimidation to evade the law. She had no proof that the accusations made by a stranger against Giannis were true, Ava reminded herself.
A memory pushed into her mind, of the morning in the hotel in London after they had spent the night together. He had opened his briefcase and she’d been shocked to see that it contained piles of bank notes. At the time she had thought it odd that he carried so much cash around but she’d been focused on trying to persuade Giannis to drop the charges against her brother. However, the incident had reminded her of how her father had kept large quantities of bank notes hidden in odd places in the house in Cyprus.
Then there was what she had overheard Giannis’s mother say. ‘Have you told Ava everything about you?’ What had Filia meant? What secret about himself had Giannis kept from her? And why did his mother disapprove of her only son?
The throbbing music was pounding in Ava’s ears and she felt hot and then cold, and horribly sick. The flashing disco ball hanging