He glanced up and smiled, but it was a brief smile. ‘He is on his way,’ he told her. ‘In flight as we speak.’
Mia shivered. ‘W-when will he get here?’
‘Tomorrow at the earliest.’ he replied, then grimaced. ‘The airport here does not accept inc
oming traffic after dark so he has no choice but to stop over in Thessalonika …’
‘W-what if he brings the police with him?’
‘He is not going to do that.’ He sounded so absolutely certain about it that she was almost reassured.
Except that she knew her father. ‘Alex …’
‘No,’ he cut in, and began to walk towards her, his lean face grimly set. ‘You are not to worry about this,’ he commanded. ‘I know what I am doing.’
In other words, he was asking her to trust him.
But it was no longer Alex she didn’t trust—it was her father. ‘I’m going to find Suzanna,’ she murmured, turning away.
He let her go—which only increased her anxiety. It took real effort to lift her mood to meet Suzanna’s bubbling effervescence as they explored together this wonderful paradise Suzanna was now calling home.
‘You’ve got to believe in him,’ Carol said quietly when she caught Mia in a moment’s white-faced introspection while Suzanna was enjoying her bath, before going to bed in the room she had picked out for herself. ‘Alex is amazingly efficient when he sets his mind on something.’
‘He lost his island.’ Mia smiled bleakly at that.
‘Ah, but that was because it came down to a straight choice between his old dream and his new one,’ Carol explained. ‘The new dream won, hand over fist. If it hadn’t he wouldn’t have given the island up, I can assure you,’ she said. ‘He has astonishing patience, you see. He would simply have kept you barefoot and pregnant until you produced the son he needed to stake his claim on the island.’
Suzanna interrupted them at that moment, dancing out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel and looking so blissfully happy that Mia firmly thrust her worries away so she could pretend that everything was as wonderful as the child seemed to think it was.
The call that Jack Frazier was on his way from Skiathos airport came very early the next morning while they were all sitting around the breakfast table, trying to look perfectly relaxed.
But, really, the waiting had got to everyone by then. No one ate, except Suzanna. No one spoke much, except Suzanna. In fact, it was all so very fraught that when Alex took the call on his mobile it was almost a relief to know the waiting would soon be over.
‘Right,’ he said briskly. ‘This is it.’ He sounded so invigorated that Mia suddenly wanted to hit him! ‘Carol, you were going to show Mia and Suzanna your upstairs studio, I believe,’ he prompted very smoothly.
‘Oh! Yes!’ Like a puppet pulled by its master’s string, Carol jumped to her feet and turned towards Suzanna. ‘Come on, poppet,’ she said over-brightly. ‘This is going to be fun! Wait until you see the size of the piece of paper we are going to paint a picture on!’
Eager to fall in with any plans, Suzanna scrambled down from her chair and was at Carol’s side in a second.
‘Mia?’ the other woman prompted.
‘I’ll be there in a minute,’ she said, turning anxiously towards Alex as the other two walked away. ‘Tell me what you are going to do!’ she pleaded.
‘Later,’ he promised. ‘For now I want you out of sight until your father has been and gone.’
‘But—!’
It was as far as she got. ‘No!’ he exploded, turning angrily on her. ‘I will not have you exposed in any way to that man!’ he swore. ‘So do as you are told, Mia, or, so help me, I will make you do it!’
Her chin came up, her green eyes coming alight with a defiance that showed the old Mia, whom he had spent the whole previous night loving into oblivion, had come rising up out of the ashes of all that time and effort. ‘Back to purdah again, I take it!’ she said cuttingly.
‘He’s at the gates.’ Leon’s voice came shiveringly flat-toned from just behind her.
‘Damn and blast it, woman!’ Alex rasped out frustratedly, and in the next moment Mia found herself cradled high in his arms and he was striding up the stairs with a face apparently carved from granite.
He dumped her on a chair in her bedroom. ‘Stay!’ he commanded. Then he strode angrily back out of the room, slamming the door shut behind him.
She stayed. She stayed exactly where she was as she listened to the sound of a car coming down the driveway, listened to it stop outside the house, heard a door slam—shuddered and closed her eyes on a wave of nausea when she heard her father’s voice bark something very angry. She heard Leon’s dark-toned level reply, heard footsteps sounding on the veranda floor …