‘No. I’m all good.’
* * *
The flight to Corfu was direct from London and it seemed no time at all before they arrived at Loukas’s villa set on a hilltop overlooking the stunning view of the ocean. The villa was Venetian-style with formal gardens out the back leading to woodland filled with pines, Holm oaks and wild olives. At the front of the villa was a sun-drenched flagstone terrace with a swimming pool that beckoned to Emily in the shimmering heat of the late afternoon.
The housekeeper came out of the villa and greeted Emily with a wide smile, her hands clasped together, as if giving thanks to the divine being who had orchestrated her boss bringing home a bride-to-be. ‘So happy to meet you, Dhespinis Emily,’ she said after Loukas introduced them. ‘I have waited a long time for this day. I was wondering if it would ever come. And a baby too! It is a dream come true.’
Emily painted on a smile. ‘Thank you. It is very nice to be here.’
The housekeeper beamed at Loukas. ‘I have a lovely surprise for you.’
Loukas’s tightly compressed expression gave the impression he didn’t much care for surprises. ‘Oh, really?’
Chrystanthe’s expression, on the other hand, was not unlike that of a doting fairy godmother who had just waved her magic wand and pulled off the grand wish of the century. She kept looking from Loukas to Emily with a wide smile on her face and her black button eyes twinkling. ‘Your mother and sister are here. They arrived half an hour ago. They’re waiting in the drawing room.’
His sister? Since when had Loukas had a sister? Why hadn’t he mentioned her? She’d thought he was an only child of divorced parents. He had only been six years old when his parents had broken up. He had never said anything about a sibling, either older or younger. Allegra hadn’t mentioned anything about him having a sister, either, which made Emily wonder if even Draco knew about her existence.
If not, why not?
Emily glanced at Loukas to find him frowning darkly. ‘That’s...nice,’ he said, but the way he hesitated over the word ‘nice’ suggested he considered it far from so.
‘They came off the luxury cruise you sent them on because they heard the news of your engagement,’ the housekeeper said. ‘They said they wanted to congratulate you in person.’
‘Right,’ Loukas said, taking Emily’s hand. ‘We’d better go see them.’
Emily waited until the housekeeper had gone ahead before asking, ‘Is there anything else I should know about you that you haven’t yet told me? Why didn’t you tell me you had a sister?’
‘Half-sister.’
‘That’s beside the point. You gave me the impression you were an only child,’ she said. ‘What sort of fool will I look if I don’t know everything there is to know about you? I don’t even know when your birthday is.’
‘December twenty-eighth.’
‘Capricorn.’ Emily rolled her eyes. ‘I should have guessed. You climb to the top and let nothing get in your way of a goal. You have trouble expressing feelings and do rather than say—or so my mother will tell you. She’s done a course.’
/>
‘When’s yours?’
‘March second—Pisces. Apparently I’m selfless to a fault, unassuming and naïve and deeply emotional. Go me.’
Loukas led Emily inside the villa’s foyer. If she had thought the hotel last night was spectacular, then this more than topped it. It wasn’t a showy, over-done expression of wealth, but rather an understated simplicity of design and décor that spoke of a man with good taste and an excellent eye for detail. The walls of the foyer were adorned with priceless works of art, the polished marble floors covered strategically here and there with ankle-deep Persian rugs, and a staircase with glossy black balustrading led to the upper levels.
He took her to the main sitting room where a collection of plush sofas in brocade the colour of milky coffee sat around a rug beneath a central crystal chandelier. Lamps sat on side tables, their muted light giving the vast room a cosy atmosphere. The walls were bone-white with soft green-grey wainscoting and feature trims that continued the Venetian theme.
A steel-grey-haired woman in her fifties rose from a wing chair near the marble fireplace and, to her left, a younger, frail-looking woman in her early twenties, presumably Loukas’s sister, was sitting in a wheelchair with a light throw rug over her knees.
‘Loukas,’ his mother said without approaching him, her tentative expression giving every indication she wasn’t sure of the reception she would receive. ‘I hope you don’t mind us dropping in without notice, but we were so delighted by your news, we couldn’t stay away. We won’t stay long. We don’t want to be in the way, but we just wanted to meet Emily.’
‘It’s nice to see you both,’ he said. ‘This is Emily.’ He brought her forward with a hand on the small of her back. ‘Emily, this is my mother, Phyllida Ryan, and my half-sister, Ariana.’
‘I’m delighted to meet you both,’ Emily said, taking his mother’s hand and then his sister’s.
Ariana smiled shyly up at Emily. ‘Loukas is such a dark horse. He never tells us anything about his private life. We didn’t know he was seeing anyone regularly. When did you meet?’
Emily wished she’d talked this through in a little more detail with Loukas. What if she said something that contradicted something he’d already said? Had he told them about their engagement or had they found out via the media? He didn’t appear all that close to them. His manner towards them was polite but distant, almost to the point of being cold. ‘Erm...we met through mutual friends.’
‘I’m so thrilled for you both,’ Phyllida said. ‘I never thought he was ever going to get married. You must be a very special person.’