had been indifferent towards him and his father had been too busy trying to claw back his land and his heritage, to have any time for his only son. Either way, Xan had never let anyone close enough to worry about whether or not he trusted them. Yet to some extent he was going to have to trust Tamsyn Wilson if she agreed to his plan. And wouldn’t that give her power over him? He swallowed, recognising that if he didn’t want her abusing that power, he was going to have to reward her very handsomely.
‘How much do you know about me?’ he demanded.
She dabbed at her lips but the large linen napkin failed to hide her smile. ‘You think I was so obsessed after our night in Zahristan that I hunted around to find out everything I could?’
‘I don’t know.’ He sent her a look of challenge. ‘Did you?’
‘Funnily enough, no. I’ve had enough experience of lost causes to know when to quit. I certainly didn’t waste any time mooning over someone who couldn’t wait to get away from me. What do I know about you? Let me see.’ She began to tap each finger, as if counting off the facts. ‘Basically, you’re loaded—my friend Ellie told me you were born mega-rich, though I think I could have worked that out for myself judging by your fancy suits and your swagger. My sister mentioned you were a hugely successful businessman—oh, and you’re arrogant. I didn’t need anyone to tell me that since that’s a quality you seem to have in abundance.’
An unexpected smile touched the edges of Xan’s lips. Clearly he wasn’t going to have to worry about Tamsyn Wilson putting him on a pedestal!
‘Anything else?’ he questioned sardonically.
She shrugged. ‘You don’t seem as if you like me very much and yet now you’re asking me to marry you?’ She shook her red curls and scooped up another forkful of lobster. ‘Forgive me if I sound confused—it’s because I am.’
Discreetly, Xan gestured to the Sommelier, who returned moments later bearing a dusty bottle. A dark red liquid was dispensed into his glass and when Tamsyn shook her head in reply to the silent question in his eyes, he took a sip of the wine before continuing.
‘There are only two things you need to know about me, Tamsyn,’ he said. ‘The first is that I believe there is no problem on this earth you can’t buy your way out of, and the second is that there is a woman in Greece to whom I have been unofficially betrothed for many years.’ He paused. ‘Except I’ve realised that I cannot go through with it. I cannot marry her.’
He saw her eyes darken in distress. Saw the brief stabbing of her teeth into her lower lip before she displayed her more habitual air of nonchalance. ‘Then don’t. Just tell her. Dump her as comprehensively as you dumped me. She might be a bit upset but I should think one day she’ll be grateful she isn’t stuck with a misogynist like you for a lifetime. What’s the problem, Xan? Has she found out you were sleeping with me—and maybe others—behind her back? Has she gone on the warpath in the way that only a jealous woman can?’
Angrily, Xan slammed his glass down on the table. ‘Just for the record, I haven’t had sex with anyone since the night I spent with you and I certainly haven’t had sex with Sofia,’ he growled. ‘It’s not that kind of relationship.’
At this, she put her fork down and the look she gave him was cynical. ‘Let me guess,’ she said tiredly. ‘You play around and have your fun with women like me, is that right? And in the meantime there’s a pure young virgin back home in Greece, just waiting for you? The age-old double standard of which so many men are guilty?’
Once again her perception startled him and she must have read the confirmation in his face because he could see her pushing her chair back as if preparing to walk out.
‘You’re disgusting!’ she flared.
‘Don’t go,’ he said urgently as he leant across the table towards her. ‘Hear me out first. Please, Tamsyn.’
His words seemed to startle her but not nearly as much as they startled him because making pleas wasn’t something he did very often. Had he thought she would be instantly malleable? So impressed by this introduction to a very different and glamorous kind of world, that she would leap at whatever he asked of her? Yes, he probably had thought exactly that. His lips flattened. How wrong he had been.
‘What’s there to hear?’ she demanded.
‘You said I was born wealthy but that certainly wasn’t the case.’
‘You mean you were born poor?’ she questioned disbelievingly.
‘Not poor but something in between. What is it they say? Asset rich, cash poor.’ He met the question in her eyes and shrugged. ‘My father inherited an island, a very beautiful island, called Prassakri. He was born there. Grew up there. Generations of his family lived and died there.’ His voice tailed off as he recalled the story of how fortunes could wax, then wane without warning. ‘Once many people inhabited that place, with enough work for all but gradually the work dried up and the young men began to leave, my father among them. Fortunately he had enough money to buy agricultural land on the mainland in Thessaly and for a while he was successful. But then came the drought, the worst drought the region had ever seen...’
His paused for a moment and she sat forward, genuine interest lighting up her freckled face. ‘Go on,’ she urged.
He grimaced. ‘My father lost everything. And more. What the drought and resultant fires didn’t take, bad investments soon took care of the rest. From being affluent, suddenly there wasn’t enough food on the table. My mother took it badly.’
‘How badly?’ she questioned, her eyes narrowing.
‘Badly enough.’ He shut down her question sharply. Because he’d never talked about this with anyone. There hadn’t really been the need to resurrect the pain and the discontent. Until now. ‘The atmosphere of blame and recrimination in the house was unbearable,’ he remembered suddenly, as he recalled walking into the house and seeing his mother’s cold face and icy demeanour. ‘My father was forced to sell the island to a neighbour and although it broke his heart to do so, he vowed that one day he would buy it back, because the bones of his ancestors are buried on that island and that means a great deal to a Greek.’
He took another mouthful of wine. ‘Soon after that, land prices began rocketing and the purchase of Greek islands became beyond of the reach of most people. I could see my father’s increasing powerlessness as he sensed the opportunity to buy back Prassakri slipping away from him. But his neighbour had a daughter—an only daughter—who just happened to be very beautiful. And I had just won a scholarship to an American college. It was a pretty big deal at the time and I was seen as someone who would one day make good. And that was when the neighbour made my father the offer.’
‘What offer?’ she breathed, her green eyes huge, her expression rapt.
‘That if I were to marry Sofia, then he would allow my father to buy back the island at the original price.’
‘And you agreed?’ she breathed.
The facts when recounted now sounded like an extreme reaction but Xan recalled vividly that the offer had made perfect sense at the time. Hadn’t he agreed in an attempt to bring about some sort of peace to his damaged family? To stop his mother haranguing his father with her bitter lament? ‘I didn’t marry you in order to end up a pauper.’
‘I was nineteen,’ he said harshly. ‘And it didn’t seem real at the time. Sofia was a sweet young girl who would make any man a good wife, and if it meant the end to my father’s heartache, then why wouldn’t I agree? With one stroke I could restore the pride which was so important to him and maybe stop my mother from withdrawing more and more.’
‘Yes, I know—but even so.’ Sitting back in her chair with her hair looking like living flame in the candlelight, she threw him a perplexed look. ‘It seems very extreme.’
‘To be honest, I thought that Sofia would back out of the offer before I did,’ he said, he said with a shrug. ‘That