‘I’ll take you home,’ he offered.
‘No need,’ Lizzie insisted quickly. ‘Stavros arranges a cab for staff when we stay late.’
Damon nodded his head. ‘Okay. Another time.’
Or maybe not. She wasn’t sure she could live through this tension again. Wanting someone and knowing they were out of reach for ever was a torture she could well do without.
‘You must enjoy heading up the family business,’ she observed, for the sake of maintaining polite chit-chat as she walked him to the door. ‘The press refers to you as a billionaire—’
‘I hope I’m more than that.’
She could have cut off her tongue. The way Damon was staring at her made her wonder if he thought she was a mercenary chip off her father’s swindling old block. There was a lot more to him than money and sexual charisma—she knew that—but everything was in such a muddle in her head she couldn’t get the words out straight.
The newspapers often referred to Damon Gavros as ‘educated muscle’, with the recommendation that no one should even dream of crossing him—which was a great thought to say goodnight on.
His phone rang and he turned away to answer, putting a hand up, indicating two minutes as they stood outside the door.
‘Business call,’ he explained succinctly when he cut the line. ‘So, I guess I’ll see you again sometime...’
After all her prevaricating about seeing him at all, she now felt rocked to her foundations as Damon mounted the Harley and roared away. She had to see him again. She must. She stared after him as he disappeared into the night. That was Damon. A massive presence when he was around, and then gone so quickly it was as if he had never been there at all.
She did well to rely on no one but herself, Lizzie thought as she turned back to the restaurant.
But could there be a more mesmeric sight than Damon Gavros astride a Harley?
Damon Gavros naked...?
CHAPTER FOUR
LIZZIE, LIZZIE, LIZZIE... What are you hiding?
As he opened the door to his Thames-side penthouse flat Damon was still brooding. It had been shock enough to see Lizzie Montgomery again. To discover he could still read her as he had eleven years ago was even more unsettling—because he knew there was something she wasn’t telling him.
He’d called in at the apartment to pick up his overnight bag. It was his father’s seventieth birthday in a couple of weeks and his PA had called to remind him that Damon’s go-ahead was still required for number of arrangements. They included a rather special youth orchestra from London that had been booked to play at his father’s birthday party.
Too many loose ends had been generated by his absence abroad, Damon reflected as the driver took his bag. Lizzie had briefly derailed his plans, but they were back on track now. He’d like to see her again, but she’d have to fly out to the island. He’d fix it with Stavros, and his PA would make the arrangements.
That was how simple things were for him. He saw no reason for them to change.
* * *
As usual, Lizzie could hardly get a word in. She was meeting Thea for their daily snatched chat over brunch in a café just across the road from the music college, and today Thea was particularly excited.
‘The new Gavros building is right next door to the music conservatoire,’ Thea was enthusing. ‘You should see it. Everything’s been changed around and made super deluxe since that boring insurance company owned it.’
And the Gavros building was as dangerously close to the music conservatoire as it could possibly be Lizzie realised as she called for the bill. She hated it that the tension generated by the Gavros name was threatening to distract her from this precious time with Thea, but she had to find out more.
‘You’ve been inside the Gavros building?’ Her heart hammered nineteen to the dozen as she waited for Thea’s answer.
‘Of course!’ Thea enthused, sucking gloopy milk from her fingers. ‘We had to audition for the man—’
Lizzie’s heart dived into her throat. ‘What man? Was he tall and dark?’
‘No. Short, fat and bald,’ Thea said—to Lizzie’s relief. ‘He said he worked for the Gavros family. We’re playing at a birthday party in Greece, on an island owned by the Gavros family.’
The Gavros family?
Thea glanced up as Lizzie inhaled sharply. Lizzie quickly distracted Thea with talk of new clothes. ‘You’ll need a sunhat, a swimming costume, and perhaps a couple of sundresses—What?’ She laughed as Thea mimed thrusting her fingers down her throat whilst gargling theatrically.
‘Sundresses are for old ladies,’ Thea insisted. ‘And you need new clothes more than me,’ she added with engaging honesty. She frowned. ‘You are coming to Greece to hear us play, aren’t you?’
‘Of course I am,’ Lizzie confirmed, her stomach clenching with alarm as she thought about it. ‘I haven’t missed a concert yet, have I?’
‘Good.’ Thea relaxed.
Lizzie’s concerns about the Gavros family would have to be put to one side. She’d take any job to pay her way. Practical considerations—like where the money for her airfare would come from—were secondary to Lizzie’s determination that she would do whatever it took to support Thea.
‘Do you know whose birthday party it is?’ she asked casually as they went up to the counter to pay the bill.
‘Some old gentleman, I think,’ Thea said vaguely, clearly not too interested.
It didn’t have to be Damon’s father. Thea’s grandfather.
Lizzie’s stomach clenched tight. Sucking in a breath, she jumped straight in. ‘You know we never talk about your father—’
‘Because we don’t need to,’ Thea cut across her, frowning. ‘And I don’t want to,’ she added stubbornly. ‘Why do I need a father when I’ve got you?’
‘It might be nice to—’
‘Ha!’ Thea exclaimed dismissively. ‘We don’t even know where he is. He’s probably on the other side of the planet.’
‘What if I did know?’
‘But you don’t,’ Thea insisted. ‘And if you talked to my friends at school about parents at war you wouldn’t be so keen to look for him either.’
‘Not all marriages are like that.’
‘Just most of them,’ Thea said confidently. ‘And we’re happy, aren’t we? Why would you want anything to change?’
‘But what if things did change?’ Lizzie tried gently.
‘I’d change them back again.’
Thea sounded as confident as Lizzie had once been. And now their precious time together was up, Lizzie realised. She had to go to work and Thea had to go to school.
‘We’ll talk again,’ she promised.
‘In Greece,’ Thea reminded her.
‘In Greece,’ Lizzie confirmed as she raised her umbrella to shelter them both.
* * *
Organising his father’s party was a welcome
change from Damon’s usual work. He was enjoying it far more than he’d expected to. The high spirits of the volunteers was heartening. Everyone wanted to do their bit for the man who had done so much for them. Damon’s father was universally loved. He’d brought prosperity to the island, and now he’d retired and passed the baton on, Damon was determined to do the same for those who had remained loyal to his father.
They would do more events like this, he decided. Mixing with good people had reminded him that not everyone was a fraudster or a gold-digger.
As he’d learned during the course of his meteoric rise, massive wealth brought vultures flocking, and they came in all shapes and sizes. Which was the only reminder he needed that what he’d seen in Lizzie eleven years ago had been the possibility for something more. He looked forward to his plans where Lizzie was concerned coming to fruition. And Stavros had proved a staunch ally.
The setting for his father’s concert couldn’t be bettered, he concluded as he walked across the sugar sand beach. An open-air stage had been erected on the playing fields behind the school where the youth orchestra were staying. The orchestra was already here and rehearsing and, like everyone else within earshot, he’d been entranced by their music.
One particular young livewire, with black bubbly curls and mischievous eyes, had just played the most extraordinary solo. She was the young violin prodigy everyone was talking about. She wasn’t self-conscious or inflated by her success, as she might have been. She just loved her music—as Thea had told him.
He smiled as he remembered her explaining, ‘Thea’s a Greek name. I’m a bit Greek.’
He’d laughed. ‘I’m a bit Greek too,’ he’d told her.
‘No. You’re all Greek,’ she’d argued, staring up at him intently. ‘I can tell that from the colour of your eyes.’
‘Is that such a bad thing?’
‘No. It’s a very good thing,’ she’d assured him. ‘My mother’s half-Greek, and my grandmother was all-Greek. I’m a bit Greek because I choose to be. You should meet my mother,’ she’d added, squinting against the sun as she studied his face.