He paused. “Your mother was a great lady. She was always kind. To everyone.”
“Yes,” she said over the lump in her throat.
“My yiayiá raised me. Our house didn’t have electricity or plumbing, but I always knew she loved me. When I finally made my fortune, I had the old shack razed and built a villa in its place. The biggest villa this island has ever seen.” Looking up at the ruin, he gave a grim smile. “When I was young, the Halkias family was the most powerful here. Now I am.”
She noticed he’d never said if he forgave them. She bit her lip. “But, Darius...”
“It’s in the past. I want to live in the present. And shape the future.” Taking both her hands in his own, Darius looked down at her seriously on the dusty road beneath the hot Greek sun. “Promise me, Letty. You’ll always do what’s best for our family.”
“I promise,” she said, meaning it with all her heart.
Lowering his head, he whispered, “And I promise the same.”
He softly kissed her, as if sealing the vow. Drawing back, he searched her gaze. Then he pulled her back into his arms and kissed her in another way entirely.
Feeling the heat of his lips against hers, the rough scrape of the bristles on his chin, she clung to him, lost in her own desire. He was her husband now. Her husband.
He finally pulled away. “Come with me.”
He led her to the end of the dusty road, through the winding cobblestones of the small village of whitewashed houses. On the other side, they went through a scrub brush thicket of olive trees. She held his hand tightly as the branches scraped her arms, and they went down a sharp rocky hill. Then suddenly, they were in a hidden cove on a deserted white sand beach.
Letty’s eyes went wide in amazement. The popular beaches of the Hamptons and even around Fairholme would have been packed on a gloriously warm September day. But this beach was empty. “Where is everyone?”
“I told you. They’re at the villa, getting ready for the party.”
“But—” she gestured helplessly “—there must be tourists, at least?”
He shook his head. “We don’t have a hotel. The tourists are at the resorts up in Corfu. So we all know each other here. Everyone is a friend or relative, or at least a friend of a relative. It’s a community. One big family.”
No wonder this island felt like a world out of time. She felt her heart twist. Turning away, she looked around at the hidden cove with the white sand beach against the blue Ionian Sea and tried to smile. “It’s wonderful.”
“You’re missing Fairholme,” he said quietly.
She looked down at the white sand. “It’s been ten years. It’s stupid. Any psychiatrist would tell me it’s time to let it go.”
“I miss it, too.” He grinned. “Do you remember the beach at Fairholme? Nothing but rocks.”
“Yes, and the flower meadow where you taught me to dance.”
“What about the pond where I tried to catch frogs and you always wanted to give them names and take them home—?”
Suddenly their words were tumbling over each other.
“The brilliant color of the trees in autumn—”
“Roller-skating down the hallways—”
“The secret passageway behind the library where you’d always hide when you were upset—”
“Your mother’s rose garden,” Darius said with a sudden laugh, “where she caught me that time I tried a cigarette. My first and last time—”
“And how Mrs. Pollifax scolded us whenever we tracked mud into her freshly cleaned kitchen.” Letty grinned. “But she always gave us milk and cookies after we’d made it right. Though it took a while. You weren’t very good at mopping.”
“We always turned it into a game.”
The two of them smiled at each other on the deserted beach.
Letty’s smile slipped away. “But we’ll never see Fairholme again.”