hair brushed her shoulders sensuously with each step that she took in her high-heeled sandals, causing many a male head to turn.
Dione was oblivious. She headed for the taxi rank, not expecting anyone to meet her, but surprised and pleased to see her stepmother.
‘Phrosini, how nice of you! I didn’t anticipate this.’ She hugged the woman warmly, easily falling into her second language. ‘Shouldn’t you be with Father? How is he? Is he any better?’
Phrosini was short and plump but extremely beautiful, and it was easy to see why her father had fallen in love with her. She was as different from Dione’s mother as it was possible for two people to be. His first marriage had been a definite mistake. They had probably loved each other to begin with, surmised Dione, but her mother had been too weak to stand up to his bossy nature. Phrosini could handle him beautifully without him even realising it.
‘There’s no change,’ answered Phrosini. ‘Except that he’s excited you’re coming. He really is ill, Dione. I’m worried to death.’
‘Why didn’t you let me know sooner?’
Phrosini grimaced apologetically. ‘I didn’t want to spoil your holiday. I know how much you enjoy being in England with your mother. At first I thought he’d recover quickly, but he didn’t and he started asking for you. I couldn’t reason with him.’
They drove straight to the hospital. ‘I’m sorry, I know you’ll want to freshen up, but your father’s anxious to see you,’ explained Phrosini.
And when Dione walked into Yannis’ room she was shocked by his appearance. He wasn’t a tall man, had always been slim and dapper, but he’d lost so much weight that he looked gaunt to the point of danger, his skin grey and drawn, and he was hooked up to a host of machines that monitored his every function.
‘Dione!’ he croaked. ‘You’re here!’
She crossed the room and hugged him. ‘Yes, Father. How are you feeling? It’s so naughty of you not to let me know you were ill.’
He stroked her hand. ‘Didn’t want to worry you, child.’
‘So what brought on your heart attack?’ she wanted to know. ‘I thought you had the constitution of an ox.’
‘Not any more.’ Yannis glanced at Phrosini. ‘You tell her,’ he said in a hoarse whisper.
‘Tell me what?’
Phrosini closed her eyes, and when she opened them again Dione saw a wealth of worry. ‘Your father’s business is failing—badly.’
‘What?’ Dione frowned. How could that be? Yannis had inherited a restaurant from his father and turned it into a successful chain. There had been no talk of it losing money.
‘Trade’s been dropping off considerably,’ Phrosini informed her, her voice quiet and desperate. ‘It needs a big injection of money for a facelift and your father hasn’t got it. He’s paying out more than he gets in. We’re almost bankrupt, Dione.’
Dione was shocked but not truly surprised. She had trained in England as an interior designer, hoping to move there permanently and get a job, but Yannis had insisted she work for him. She spent her time travelling between the different restaurants, renovating where necessary—but always under Yannis’ eagle eye.
He was a pure traditionalist, so old-fashioned that he would never let her impose any of her modern ideas. He said traditional values gave the restaurants atmosphere and would not be shifted. Dione had privately had her doubts. People wanted modern and lively these days. They didn’t want to live in the past.
‘This is awful,’ she said. ‘I had no idea.’
‘Nor did I,’ confessed Phrosini. ‘Your father kept it from me—and as a result he’s in here.’ She put her hand over her husband’s and squeezed gently. ‘You’re a very stubborn man, you know that.’
Yannis grimaced. ‘It’s all up to you now, daughter,’ he said quietly, looking at Dione. ‘You’re my only hope.’
‘Me?’ Dione touched her fingers to her chest. ‘How can I help? I don’t have that sort of money.’ She really didn’t have a lot of savings. Her father paid her the minimum wage he would have paid anyone else and it all went on her flights to England.
‘I want you to go and ask Theo Tsardikos for a loan,’ he explained in a hoarse, breathless whisper. It clearly cost him to even talk. ‘He’ll drive a hard bargain, I know that, but if anyone can do it you can.’
‘I know it’s a lot to ask of you,’ said Phrosini now as they sat and drank coffee back at home in their beautiful villa and talked about Yannis. ‘But you’re our only hope, your father’s only hope. If he doesn’t get this money his life will be over. He won’t have the will to live. He’s dying now. The doctors are doing all they can but…’ She let her voice fade away and even she looked pale and ill.
‘Surely there must be some other way?’ pondered Dione. She wasn’t afraid of Theo Tsardikos, even though he was a powerful man; it would be more embarrassing than anything else. ‘What about the banks?’
‘They’re closing in on him.’
And Dione knew that he didn’t have any friends who would help. There were not many people who liked her father; he was a tyrant of the highest order, and she had more reason than most to hate him after the way he had treated her mother. But he was her blood after all and though she found it hard to forgive him she loved him. She kept the peace mainly for her emotionally vulnerable mother’s sake, not knowing what he might say or do to her if she got on the wrong side of him.
Jeannie and Yannis had divorced sixteen years ago. When their marriage broke up he had moved back to his native Greece, taking Dione with him. Reluctantly he had let her visit her mother during school holidays. Now she spent as much time in England as she possibly could, and had been on the second week of a month’s visit when she had got the call.
‘It’s a lot to ask of me.’
‘I know,’ said Phrosini.
Dione had grown close to her stepmother and loved her dearly but at this moment in time she wished that she wasn’t asking the impossible of her. Phrosini had never had any children of her own, much to Yannis’ disappointment because he’d always wanted sons, and so she looked upon Dione as her own daughter.
Now Dione faced the little Greek woman with compassion in her eyes. ‘It looks as though I have no choice.’
And when they went back to the hospital to tell her father Dione was glad that she’d made the decision. He looked if possible even more sallow and ill than earlier. He lay in his bed, his breathing laboured, but as soon as he heard her news he smiled and a light appeared in his eyes.
‘Thank you, Dione. Thank you from the bottom of my rotten heart.’ And he took her hands and squeezed them.
Dione took a deep breath as she stood outside the door and prepared to face the legendary Theo Tsardikos.
Her father’s life depended on her succeeding.
But how easy would it be, when they were total enemies?
CHAPTER TWO
THEO looked with interest at the woman standing in front of him. He was aware that Yannis Keristari had a daughter but he had never met her and was pleasantly surprised.
She was tall and slender and very fine looking, somewhere in her twenties, he imagined. She wore a grey jacket with a matching pencil-slim skirt and high-heeled shoes. The jacket was fastened to just above her breasts and a gold pendant dangled enticingly close to her cleavage. He couldn’t help wondering why she had chosen to fasten it so demurely on such a warm day, and it amused him to assume that she wore nothing beneath.
Her eyes were dark and sloe-shaped with a fan of thick lashes, her nose