‘That’s Leandros,’ she replied, then sighed and sat down on the end of the bed.
‘You don’t have to go with him.’
No? I wish, she thought. ‘He’s already sweet-talked my mother with promises of air-conditioning and I can’t even begin to list the rest of the luxury she is now looking forward to.’
‘She doesn’t even like the man.’
‘Don’t you believe that front she puts up,’ she said heavily. ‘My mother used to think he was the best thing that ever happened to me.’ Until it all went wrong; then she’d wished him in hell.
Clive slouched further into the room. He was built like a cannon. All iron with a sunbed-bronzed sheen. The women adored him and flocked after him in droves. He worked at a fitness club. He spent hours patiently helping broken people to mend. He was nice!
‘You came to Athens hoping I would need putting back together again after meeting Leandros, didn’t you?’ she suddenly realized.
The painful part of it was that he didn’t deny it. ‘A man can hope.’
And a woman could dream. Her dream was downstairs right now, taking over her life. ‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured huskily.
He came to sit beside her on the bed. ‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
Cry my eyes out? ‘Give it a chance.’ She shrugged.
On a sigh, Clive put a big arm around her and gave her a sympathetic hug. It was a nice arm, strong and secure and safe. But it was the wrong arm and the wrong man, though she wished it wasn’t.
‘Well, this is nice,’ a very sardonic voice drawled.
Isobel felt her heart sink to her toes. Clive gave her shoulder a final squeeze then stood up. As he walked towards Leandros she could feel the hostility bouncing between the two of them. It conjured up images of dangerous cats again, only these were two big male predators considering testing each other’s weight. They didn’t speak. It was all part of the test to keep silent. Clive didn’t stop walking and Leandros didn’t move so their shoulders brushed in one of those see-you-later confrontations you expected from a pair of strutting thugs.
The moment Clive had gone, the bedroom door closed with a violent thud. Isobel got up and went over to the small chest of drawers and pulled open the top drawer for some reason she couldn’t recall.
‘My car has arrived,’ Leandros informed her levelly. ‘Lester Miles and my driver are taking your mother on ahead.’
‘You should have gone with them.’ It was not meant nicely.
‘And leave you alone with the body-builder? You must think I am mad.’
‘Clive is a friend, not my lover.’ There, she’d told him. Now he could relax and return to the issue of divorce.
‘Too late for that, agape mou,’ he said deridingly. ‘Though ex-lover, he most definitely is.’
‘He is not my lover!’ she swung on him furiously.
His black eyes flared. He moved like lightning, making her heart pound as he pushed his angry face up to her. ‘Don’t lie to me!’ he barked at her. ‘I am not a fool! I can count as well as you can!’
‘Count?’ She frowned. ‘What are you talking about?’
His breath left his lips through clenched white teeth. If he touched her she had a feeling he would end up strangling her, he was in such a rage. But he didn’t touch. He brought up his hand and placed four long fingers in front of her face. ‘Four people. Three rooms,’ he breathed severely. ‘You tell me how that adds up! You tell me where the extra person sleeps!’
‘Why, you…’ The words got lost in a strangled gasp as it sank in what he was getting at. ‘Clive did not share this room with me!’ she denied shrilly. ‘He didn’t come as one of my party. He came under his own steam. Booked in under his own name—and his room is not even on this floor!’
He didn’t believe her, she could see it as the savagery locked into his face. Without another word she slapped his hand
away then stalked across to the wardrobe, threw open the doors then stood back. ‘My room. My clothes!’ she said furiously. ‘My single bed!’
Her hand flicked out, sending his angry gaze lashing across the utilitarian plainness of a three-foot divan set in the shoebox this hotel called a single room.
‘You know what you are, Leandros? You’re the original chauvinist pig! You dare to come up here showing me your contempt for what you believe I’ve been doing with my sordid little life—while you shack up with Diantha Christophoros on your super-expensive bloody yacht!’
He spun to stare at her. ‘What I said before about Di—’