you’re rich, do you?’ She stood there trembling, her fists clenched at her sides, tears streaking down her cheeks.
‘I care about all of you,’ Demos retorted. ‘I always have.’ He felt a tide of fury rise up in him, threatening to drown him in memories and regrets, and he forced it back down. ‘More than you could ever know, Brianna.’
‘Some way you have of showing it! You haven’t been to see Mama in weeks. We still live in a house half the size of this apartment—’
‘Brianna—silence! You are talking about things you know nothing about.’ Demos slashed a hand through the air. ‘Nothing,’ he repeated in a steely voice.
Brianna shut her mouth and stared at him with wide frightened eyes. Demos regarded her for a moment, so angry and afraid, so young, and then with a muffled curse sank onto the sofa and raked a hand through his hair.
‘What do you mean, Mama and Stavros want you to marry? They can’t force you, surely?’
‘No…’ Brianna admitted in a small voice. ‘But they’re always hinting at it.’
‘Hints don’t mean anything. Mama’s been hinting to me for years.’ Admittedly her hints had the force of a sledgehammer, Demos thought, managing a wry smile. He was gratified to see Brianna give a tremulous little smile back.
‘Yes, but they won’t let me go out! I’m only twenty-one, Demos. I want to have fun…like you do.’
Demos jerked his head up and met Brianna’s pleading gaze. Like you do. The three words had the force of an accusation. A judgement. Even though Brianna did not intend them to be.
He didn’t want Brianna to have fun. Not like he did. Never like he did.
He was a hypocrite.
He wanted her to be safe, cared for. Protected. He just couldn’t be the one to do it. Not for Brianna’s sake. Not for his.
‘Like I do?’ he repeated slowly. He’d never considered himself to be wild. He was careful in his entertainment, choosy with his partners, but still he revelled in his freedom, revelled with a determination borne of too many years of self-denial.
Freedom, he acknowledged now with tired truthfulness, that was paling the longer he experienced it. He wanted more out of life. More for Brianna, more for himself.
He had just never expected it to be marriage. Marriage… unending, stifling responsibility…someone always needing him, never satisfied, never enough.
Althea didn’t need him at all. The thought made him smile.
‘Demos…?’ Brianna said in a halting voice, and his gaze snapped back to her as he nodded in grim acceptance.
‘You can stay the night. I’ll take you out to dinner.’ He forced a smile. ‘We’ll have fun. But tomorrow I’m taking you back home, where you belong.’
‘It’s not fair—’
Demos held up one hand in warning. ‘Don’t,’ he said in a hard voice, ‘tell me what is and is not fair.’ He softened his tone to add, ‘It’s best for you, Brianna. Trust me. I know this.’
That evening he took Brianna out to a reasonably trendy taverna—enough to impress, but hopefully not to entice. After she was in bed he called his mother.
‘Demos!’ Nerissa Leikos’s voice sounded strained with anxiety over the telephone. ‘I was so worried… Thank God she is safe with you.’
‘Yes…but, Mother, she is unhappy. I am…’ Demos chose his words carefully ‘…concerned.’
The silence on the other end of the line told him enough. There was cause for concern, for fear. ‘Is she in danger?’ he asked quietly. ‘Does she need care?’
‘She needs to be married,’ Nerissa said flatly. ‘She is the kind of girl who gets into trouble on her own, Demos. She sees you—’
‘What about me?’ Demos asked sharply.
Nerissa sighed. ‘Demos, it is different for a man. You may do as you like, go out as you like. But Brianna—she is young and easily influenced. And you know her history, how easily she can become…distraught. If she were protected in a stable relationship… If she saw you in a stable relationship…’ Nerissa trailed off delicately.
Demos knew what his mother was implying. Her hints had never been subtle. She wanted him married…for Brianna’s sake as well as his own. And for the first time he considered it, the image of Althea and her teasing smile flashing through his mind with seductive promise.
Perhaps in one fell swoop he could influence Brianna—show her something more positive than the playboy antics she’d been watching from afar.
Perhaps his marriage would be good for Brianna, good for Althea. Good for him. Perhaps it was time.
He sighed. ‘Thank you for telling me. I’ll bring Brianna back tomorrow.’
‘It will be good to see you here, Demos.’
Demos shrugged off the guilt that threatened to settle on him like a shroud. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been at his mother’s house. There were reasons he didn’t go back home. Home… His mother’s house had never been his home. Nerissa had married Stavros when Demos was twenty-four, just when he’d started making money, trading the provision of a millionaire for that of a working-class butcher.
Demos’s mouth twisted in sardonic acknowledgement of his own snobbery. Stavros provided decently for his wife and family, yet Demos could have given them so much more.
‘Yes,’ he said at last. ‘Itwill.’ But his words sounded hollow to his own ears, and as he severed the connection he was left staring into the darkness, lost in the shadows and memories of his past.
CHAPTER THREE
‘FOUND you.’
Althea looked up from the book she’d been engrossed in and her eyes widened in surprise, awareness prickling along her bare arms. Demos Atrikes sprawled in the chair across from her, grinning with the gloating satisfaction of a little boy. Although there was nothing boyish about the sensual glint in his eyes as his gaze roved over her.
Althea swallowed and looked away. She forced herself to idly turn a page of her book. ‘Am I meant to be impressed?’
‘Of course.’ Demos’s gaze flicked over her once more, lingering on the book in her lap. ‘I didn’t expect to find you in a library.’
‘Oh? Where did you expect to find me?’ Althea slipped the book into her bag and raised one haughty eyebrow, her lips curving with sardonic mockery. ‘In a club? A boutique? A salon?’
Demos just smiled. ‘You’re different,’ he said. ‘I like that.’
‘And I’m so thrilled to oblige you.’ Althea reached for her bag as she began to stand up. Demos checked her with one hand.
‘Don’t be offended,’ he said with a little smile. ‘It was a compliment, you know. “Thank you” is usually the expected response.’
Althea shrugged his hand off and slipped her bag onto her shoulder. ‘You really don’t know anything about me.’
‘I know your name. Althea. It means healing.’
‘You’ve done your homework,’ she acknowledged, her eyes flashing. ‘Good boy.’
Demos grinned lazily. With irritation, Althea realised she was simply amusing him. He wasn’t one of the callow, spoiled young men she was accustomed to, boys who were all too easily put off by her put-downs. Demos Atrikes had too much confidence, too much ease and comfort in who he was for her stinging little remarks to be anything more than a diversion.
‘Have dinner with me,’ he said, and although he spoke it like an invitation,