Technically he was correct. She was Mrs Denakis.
The realisation shuddered through her.
‘I’ve been curious to meet you,’ he continued as if he hadn’t dropped a loaded bomb at her feet. He paused. She had the impression he was sizing her up every bit as ruthlessly as Stavros had.
‘Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Vassilis Denakis. Your father-in-law.’
Stavros strode from the helipad up to the house, glad to be on his own territory again. The Press were like midges, buzzing about incessantly, stalking his every move, snapping their cameras in a feeding frenzy. As if they’d get any more fuel for their stories from him!
He was used to Press attention, had grown up with it. But this was testing his patience to the limit. Even his minders, the best in their profession, had their hands full fending off the boldest of the paparazzi.
If there was one thing he didn’t enjoy, it was feeling that he wasn’t in complete control of a situation. It didn’t help to know that the current mess was the result of his own actions four years ago.
Add to that the long-distance discussion he’d just had with Angela’s uncle about financial compensation for the broken engagement…No wonder he was seeing red.
The score he had to settle with Tessa Marlowe grew larger by the hour.
At least the meetings with his lawyers and PR staff had been straightforward. They might be agog with curiosity but they were professionals and they kept their tongues between their teeth while they did what he decided had to be done. There were no impertinent questions about how he’d got into this situation, just a focus on how to get out of it.
He shoved open the exterior door. What he wanted now was a hot shower and a decent brandy. Or a workout in the gym to slough off some of his tension.
He felt strung too tight. Annoyed at being the victim rather than the victor.
It wasn’t what he was used to.
He’d almost reached the stairs when a murmur of voices reached him. The hoarse grunt of his father’s laughter.
What was the old man doing here? He’d been obstinate about remaining across the bay in the old-fashioned villa his great-great-grandfather had built. Had he finally agreed to do as Stavros wished and move in permanently?
Stavros doubted it. His father was as stubborn as a mule.
He swung round and headed to one of the sitting rooms, following the sound of counters clicking rhythmically round the tavli board. It seemed his father was entertaining one of his friends. But why here?
Stavros quickened his step in response to a premonition of trouble. He felt it in his bones.
He rounded the corner of the room and pulled up short, the breath seizing in his lungs.
Hell and damnation! He didn’t believe it.
But it was true.
The old man was playing tavli with his daughter-in-law. With Stavros’ wife. With the treacherous little con-artist who’d caused such disruption. Who’d made him a laughing stock and planned to fleece him if she could.
They made a cosy pair, their heads close together over the board. So very domestic!
Stavros clenched his hands in fury, repressing the sudden desire to stride across the room and smash the board to the floor. To pull that designing female to her feet and shake an admission of guilt from her lips.
For a moment he indulged himself, imagining the horror on her face. There’d be no more coy glances and pretended outrage. Even though she hadn’t fed the story of their marriage to the Press, he knew one thing: the cause of this whole disaster was sitting there, large as life, pretending interest in his father’s obsession for tavli.
He speared his hand through his hair, striving for some shred of his usual iron control. But it eluded him.
The old man was lapping it up. Look at him! He even smiled at her, nodding approvingly as she moved her pieces around the board.
There was no fool like an old fool, was there? He should have known his father would take one look at Tessa Marlowe and succumb to her air of fragile independence. To her perfect face and luscious, treacherous mouth. He’d listen to her honeyed lies and believe what she wanted him to believe.
Vassilis Denakis had a soft spot for gorgeous young women. Three times he’d been taken in by them, going so far as to marry them, not seeing beyond their flattery or their willingness in bed to their selfish avarice.
It had been left to Stavros to see what sort of women his father had chosen to foist on the family. To suffer the appalling wait until the scales dropped from the old man’s eyes as infatuation waned.
Stavros had learned his lessons about women early. It would take more than Tessa Marlowe’s delicate beauty or bright eyes to make him forget them!
Grimly he stalked across the room, wondering just how far she’d inveigled her way into his father’s favour.