battered straw hat. The telephoto lens made him look strangely diminished. Not so the female he was touching.
He was touching the naked shoulder of arguably the most luscious blonde bimbo ever to wear a bikini. Caught in the act of turning to smile at the older man, her long silvery hair falling back from her gorgeous face, her voluptuous breasts seeming about to burst from the confines of the two scraps of dark blue fabric, she was sexual enticement on legs.
And what legs! Long, beautifully proportioned, smooth, tanned.
Abruptly he pushed the photographic images back in the envelope. He didn’t need to see the others. He’d already seen enough to knowthat the old lionwas on the hunt for a new wife to stir his ageing libido.
His father favoured blondes.
His mouth tightened to a hard, straight line as his mind swirled with the memory of that other time, that other blonde. His father’s second wife. With diamonds glittering at her ears, and her floaty designer dress a whole universe away from the cheap, second-hand stuff his mother had had to wear. And his father throwing him off his property, refusing to help, refusing the modest sum that would have assuredly gone a long way to making the life of the mother of his bastard son so much easier, in all probability extending it by several precious years.
So, no, while such coldly bitter memories still existed, it wasn’t over.
Andreas Papadiamantis was still unforgiven.
‘A girl could get used to this, sis!’
Bonnie Wade smiled warily at her sister. Lisa was sprawled out on a lounger, her honed, bikiniclad body still glistening from the pool, her cropped strawberry blonde hair slicked to her head.
‘My two blonde babies,’ her dad called them. ‘One strawberry, one champagne!’
‘Here—’Bonnie reached for the tube of sunblock from the marble-topped table at the side of the lounger and tossed it over. ‘You don’t want a dose of sunburn.’
At twenty-seven, two years Bonnie’s senior, Lisa had always been her best friend. Physically and temperamentally, they couldn’t be more different. Lisa was tough as old boot leather, and slim to the point of thinness, whereas Bonnie was soft as marshmallow and—to her private dismay—billowy. But they complemented each other, understood each other.
Their mum, the harrassed wife of a busy GP, had been heard to confide in her closest friend, the mother of three boisterous boys who seemed perpetually to be intent on causing grievous bodily harm to each other. ‘I don’t have that problem, thank heavens! Ever since little Bonnie learned to walk my two have been joined at the hip. Never a cross word!’
So, delighted as she had been to receive the seven a.m. call from the airport this morning, she still didn’t understand why Lisa was here.
‘I’ll talk to you about it later,’ the older girl had stated on the drive back to the villa. ‘And before you get your knickers in a twist, the Olds are fine. It’s nothing to worry about.’
Now, three hours later, she was none the wiser. As a fitness instructor to the rich and famous, Lisa usually took time off over the Christmas season, taking a three-week break and flying to where was hottest. But it seemed this year she had decided to take a week off during the summer, with a lastminute diversion to drop in on her sister on her way to Crete.
‘You’re sure the old guy doesn’t mind me being here?’ Lisa finished slapping sunblock on her legs.
‘Quite sure,’ Bonnie confirmed. ‘When I told him I needed time off to collect you at the airport he insisted Nico drive me, and wouldn’t hear of you finding a hotel.’ She tweaked the starched skirts of her white uniform dress. ‘So—give. Why the unexpected visit? What is there to talk about?’
Lisa hoisted herself up on one elbow. ‘OK. Look, why don’t you sit down—relax? I think I know how you’re going to take this, but I’m not sure, so, I thought I’d stop in as I was passing and talk to you face to face.’
Bonnie shifted on the flat soles of her white canvas shoes, as near to feeling exasperation with her sister as she’d ever been. ‘I’m on duty,’ she pointed out. A glance at her watch confirmed it. ‘Andreas is due for his exercise session in ten minutes.’
‘Fair enough. Here goes…But first, how much longer are you in this job?’
‘I’m supposed to sign off at the end of the week. Why?’
As a nurse, working through a highly respected agency, she specialised in remedial care. Sometimes, as now, she worked abroad, but mostly in the UK. She might be staying on longer to help this patient. Andreas Papadiamantis was a troubled man, and she’d promised to help him. But there was no time to go into that now—although the unexpected opportunity to confide in her sister later, during her off-duty hour after lunch, would be more than welcome.
‘Why?’ Lisa gave a wry, tight-lipped smile. ‘Because Troy went to see the Olds, that’s why. He says he wants you back.’
Bonnie felt her face crawl with colour. Anger, disbelief—she didn’t know which. Abruptly she sat on a vacant lounger. On the eve of their wedding he’d sent his best man to tell her that he couldn’t go through with it. Sorry. Would she arrange for the return of the wedding gifts? And she could keep the engagement ring.
She’d felt sorry for Brett, the bearer of the news. He’d been painfully embarrassed. Only with hindsight had she realised that she should have been feeling sorry for herself, broken-hearted. But she hadn’t been broken-hearted, and Troy’s supposedly magnanimous message that she could keep his ring was an insult she was still smarting over six months later.
The next morning, on what should have been her wedding day, she’d taken the ring and the unworn bridal gown to the nearest charity shop. Her parents, bless them, though alternately fussing over her and ranting at Troy’s perfidy, had made all the necessary cancellations and returned the gifts, and she had just gone ahead and got on with her life as if nothing had happened.
Which, also with the clarity of hindsight, she recognised meant that Troy had done her a favour. She couldn’t have been in love with him at all. He’d hurt her pride, her sense of self-worth, but, being of a cheerful, optimistic disposition she’d soon got over that.
‘Apparently,’ Lisa was saying, ‘he gave them a real sob story. He didn’t know what came over him. Burn-out, he guessed. He’d been working so hard. He’d never forgive himself for hurting you so badly, for messing up his own life, come to that. He loves you more than he thought possible, and just wants the chance to put things right. But he didn’t know where you were working, how to contact you—blah-blah-blah. And you know Mum. A soppy romantic if there ever was one. She went and got all dewy-eyed and sentimental and told him where you were, working with a cancer patient. And—this is more than a guess—I know he’ll be turning up any time now. As soon as he can fix time off from that supposedly mega-impressive job of his in the City. I wanted to warn you. I don’t think you’re the type to go all gooey when a guy gets down on his knees and begs forgiveness with crocodile tears in his eyes, but some women just might—’
‘Not this one!’ Bonnie got to her feet, a smile twitching at the corners of her expressive mouth. The nerve of the man! Though if Lisawas right, and Troy Frobisher didwant them to get back together, and she had been head over heels in love with him, then she might be deluded enough to believe whatever he said and spend the rest of her life regretting her gullibility.
She turned to her sister. ‘Thanks for the warning. We’ll talk more later—after lunch. Don’t worry, I won’t be taken in by him—or any man, come to that. And I’ve got something to tell you that’ll knock spots off the prospect of any sick-making visit from an exfiancé!’
Andreas Papadiamantis could be a charming companion when he wanted to be, and if ensuring that his surprise house-guest felt welcome and relaxed while she enjoyed the lavish hospitality of his home was his objective then he’d succeeded magnificently.
Over