He swerved off the road, bumped the four-wheel drive to a stop on the grassy verge.
‘What are you doing?’ Grace’s head snapped round and she stared at him in some consternation.
‘Two things. First...’ He reached past her to open her door and felt the slight brush of her body against his arm. He impatiently dismissed the sharp physical awareness that accompanied this involuntary touch. ‘First...this is a good lookout point to see something of the island from above.’ He nodded to a bench that was tilted at a precarious angle a little further down the verge. He slung his long, muscular body out of the Jeep but then promptly turned so that he was looking at her, one arm resting casually on the open door as he leant down towards her. ‘I found this spot accidentally when I stopped off to take a call. Come have a look. You’ll be impressed. I guarantee that.’
Grace obligingly stepped out of the car. Despite the refreshing breeze, fragrant with the scent of the colourful flowers by the roadside, the heat was still a solid wall that burnt through the trousers and the too thick blouse. She fanned herself and walked to the bench, which was perfectly solid once she gingerly perched on it, despite outward appearances.
‘It’s so quiet here. It’s like life slowed right down,’ she murmured, dutifully looking down and drawing breath at the spectacular scenery. She had been acutely conscious of Nico perching next to her on the bench, the heat radiating from his body, the muscular brown thighs so close to her, the way dark hair curled around the dull matt of his watch strap.
Not now. As she stared down, all she could see was the splendid turquoise of ocean, glittering in the distance, bright blue against dark green...the sway of upright palm trees and the little roads intersecting the landscape like veins and arteries, bordered with small houses, some brightly painted, some whitewashed.
‘Small island with not that many inhabitants. The tourist trade is booming because there are a lot of people who want this sort of final escape but, even with that, it’s still a very peaceful place. Must have to do with the arduous business of actually getting here. Plane and then another plane or a boat across. A lot of people prefer the one-stop destination.’
Grace glanced across at him and shivered at the aquiline perfection of his profile.
Her eyes drifted to his legs, stretched out in front, so brown with a sprinkling of dark hair that made her imagination take flight as she pictured what the rest of his body might look like. She quickly looked away and fanned herself in a desultory attempt to cool down.
‘What was the second thing you wanted to say to me?’
She felt his eyes on her as he shifted, turning to face her, his hands clasped behind his head.
The tee shirt rode up and she glimpsed a slither of flat, hard belly.
‘You asked me why I’ve never been here. You’re curious and I don’t blame you. I’ve never been here because my uncle was banished here,’ Nico said quietly. ‘Exiled from doing damage to the family company because of his bad habits.’
Grace inhaled sharply and turned to look at him. Their eyes collided but she didn’t look away. This was absolutely the first time Nico had ever volunteered anything remotely revealing about himself. The ground seemed to shift a little under her feet.
‘What do you mean?’ She kept her voice neutral even though curiosity was running riot inside her.
‘Sander was a weak man,’ Nico said flatly. ‘No self-control. He enjoyed drink, drugs and women and he allowed his enjoyment to take over his life, to kill all sense of responsibility. He couldn’t give a damn whose lives got destroyed because he was too busy squandering his share of the company that had been left to him when my grandfather died.’ When Nico looked at her, his dark eyes brooding, unforgiving, it was to find her gazing straight back at him, her interest calm and modulated, encouraging without giving him the impression that she was desperate to hear more.
‘Were it not for my father, God knows he would have ended up dragging the company into the dirt. If it was just a question of Sander on a path to his own self destruction, then the solution might have been less dramatic, but the fact is that my uncle’s self-destruction would have involved more than just himself.’
‘So your father...?’
‘Annexed him, having spent years picking up the pieces. Made it worse that Sander was the older by five years. Of course, he had more than enough money to do whatever he wanted, but the flow of money was controlled. The rift caused was papered over in time but, as brothers, the connection had been broken for ever. I’m not sure whether my parents ever came over here at all. Possibly they communicated by email. I don’t know.’
‘How old were you when all of this happened?’
‘Very young.’
‘How sad.’ Grace meant it. She thought of her own brother and the loyalty that was so deeply rooted inside her that there was no way she could everannexhim. It very much sounded as though Nico was fashioned in the same mould as his father, ruthless when it came to protecting the interests of the family company.
For a split second Grace was tempted to confide, and she pulled herself back from the brink before reckless impulse could take over.
Nico might be sharing this with her now, but it was because they were here and the backstory was tied up to a bigger picture.
Would he welcome a sudden sharing of confidences? Would he expect his cool, calm secretary to start pouring her heart out? No. He’d be appalled.
‘There’s no room for superfluous emotion when other people’s lives are involved.’ He paused and said, with a hitch in his usually composed voice, ‘My father told me that one of the guys who worked for my uncle lost everything because Sander had dissolved that branch of the organisation for no other reason than to fund a gambling debt. The guy committed suicide.’
‘My goodness!’
‘Lessons learnt when it comes to the weakness of allowing emotion to run your life,’ Nico told her darkly. ‘My father made sensible choices. Necessary sacrifices.’ He shrugged and half smiled as though slightly embarrassed by confidences he was unaccustomed to sharing. ‘At any rate, this all happened a long time ago. Sander has been here doing his own thing and this is the first time I’ve had any real idea of how he’s spent the years since he disappeared from Greece.’
Grace didn’t say anything. She thought that tangled in that simple statement, woven into what Nico had just told her, one thing emerged very clearly.
Not only did Nico not know his uncle, but neither did he respect him. His uncle had been ruled by excess and that, for Nico, was abhorrent.