‘That was my brother, Leo,’ he explained grimly. ‘My father’s in hospital in Athens with a suspected heart attack. Leo says there’s no need for me to go, because he’ll keep me posted, but...’
‘Naturally you want to be there,’ Lilah slotted in.
‘But equally naturally Leo and his mother don’t want me there.’
‘How is that natural?’ Lilah pressed, immediately defensive on Bastien’s behalf. ‘Anatole is as much your father as your brother’s.’
‘I may have lived with my father’s family for years, but I was never part of that family,’ Bastien pointed out drily. ‘I’m never a welcome visitor. Leo’s mother Cleta—my father’s wife—hates me.’
Lilah compressed her lips. ‘After the number of years that have passed since your mother’s death, and the years you lived in her home with Anatole, that’s very definitely her problem—not yours,’ she pronounced with conviction. ‘Don’t let anyone make you feel as though you don’t have the right to see your own father. You’re his son too.’
The fiery gleam that illuminated Bastien’s dark eyes only accentuated the worried frown stamped on his lean bronzed face. ‘I do want to see him. We’ll fly out as soon as I can get it organised.’
CHAPTER TEN
BASTIEN AND LILAH drove straight to the hospital from the airport. Lilah hung back a little as they entered the waiting room, because at first glance it seemed to be filled with people. Anatole was still having tests, and only close family would be allowed to visit him. The target of a slew of stares as she entered the room, Lilah flushed and acknowledged that she might be married to Bastien but she did not feel like a member of his family.
A small, curvy older woman, improbably dressed in a purple brocade evening coat and matching dress, and more diamonds than Lilah had ever seen outside a shop window, shot a look of derision at Bastien. ‘How dare you bring one of your whores to the hospital?’ she spat.
The very tall black-haired male standing to one side of this shrew stiffened and said something in Greek, while Bastien curved a strong arm to Lilah’s tense spine.
‘May I introduce my wife, Delilah? This is Cleta Zikos, my father’s wife...and my brother Leo and his wife, Grace.’
‘Your wife?’ the pretty redhead exclaimed in an unmistakable English accent as she surged forward. ‘When did you get married?’
‘Recently,’ Lilah responded, grateful that Leo’s wife seemed warm and friendly in comparison to his brother, who seemed stunned by the news, and Anatole’s sour-faced wife, who had merely grimaced, making it clear that any attachment of Bastien’s—married or otherwise—was not welcome.
Annoyance rippled through Lilah at the disturbing awareness that after his mother’s death Bastien had spent years living in Cleta Zikos’s home. Evidently Cleta had never tried to treat Bastien as a stepchild, but had preferred to despise him for the reality that his late mother had been her husband’s mistress.
Bastien’s brother, Leo, stepped forward to congratulate them. ‘Never thought I’d live to see the day,’ she heard him quip, half under his breath.
Apart from their similar height and build, the two men did not look obviously related. The awkwardness between them was apparent as they engaged in stilted chat, slipping into Greek, presumably to discuss their father’s condition.
Grace settled a hand on Lilah’s sleeve and urged her over to some seats at the far wall. ‘So, tell all, Delilah,’ she urged. ‘Leo was convinced that Bastien would stay single for ever.’
‘Everyone but Bastien calls me Lilah,’ Lilah shared with a rueful look.
‘We are both married to very stubborn individuals,’ Grace said with a grin. ‘Neither one of them gives an inch in a tight corner.’
Lilah glanced up as another woman arrived and Cleta Zikos rushed up to welcome the tall, shapely brunette with a flood of Greek.
‘Who’s that?’ she asked her companion.
‘Marina Kouros—an old friend of the family.’
Bastien’s first love, Lilah registered, her heart performing a heavy thud inside her chest.
Clearly Bastien had had good taste, even at the age of twenty-one, because the lively chattering brunette was a classic beauty. She watched Marina stiffen and pale, her animation taking a dip when she belatedly appreciated that Bastien was present. She didn’t smile at him and he didn’t smile at her. They exchanged a stiff nod of acknowledgement, but Lilah fancied that Bastien looked at his former lover longer than was necessary, and a twist of green jealousy shivered through her.
What was that old cliché about a man never forgetting his first love? Her attention roved down to Marina’s hand, which bore no rings, indicating that the woman was still single.
‘I propose that you, me and Marina take a break for coffee at our home,’ Grace suggested. ‘None of us are going to be allowed in to see Anatole anyway. Cleta, I would invite you, but I know you won’t leave the hospital until you’ve seen your husband.’
‘I’ll pick you up later,’ Bastien told Lilah quietly, clearly content for her to depart.
‘I’d be happy to stay,’ she told him.
His dark golden eyes skimmed her troubled face. ‘I don’t need support, hara mou.’
That was a matter of opinion, Lilah reflected ruefully, avoiding Cleta’s haughtily resentful glance and Leo’s cool, curious regard. In such company Bastien stood very much alone, and she hated that it was like that for him. But then in such a dysfunctional family circle he had always been alone, she thought unhappily. Bastien was still treated like the illegitimate son—the outsider to be resented and kept at a distance.
Not unnaturally, Bastien had eventually learned to live like that—never getting too close to people, steering clear of messy human emotions as best he could because he had seen far too many unpleasant displays of turbulent emotion while he was growing up.
‘How do you get on with your mother-in-law?’ Lilah asked Grace as the three women stepped into a lift.
‘I don’t see much of her. Her life revolves round Anatole. She’s a bit of a cold fish,’ Grace volunteered with a grimace.
Lilah pressed her arm against her breasts. They were sore, aching and tender, but she occasionally suffered from such discomfort before her menstrual cycle kicked in. On the other hand, she was already late... She was planning to do a pregnancy test the following morning, but was convinced it would be a waste of time because she just couldn’t imagine that she would be pregnant.
She rested back against the wall of the lift, feeling incredibly weary, and noticed that Marina was staring at her.
‘I was surprised to hear that Bastien had got married,’ she admitted baldly.
‘He rushed me into it,’ Lilah responded coolly, studying the woman whose one-night stand with Bastien almost ten years earlier had caused such lasting and damaging repercussions.
‘He must’ve been scared of losing you,’ Grace opined.
‘Very little scares Bastien,’ Lilah said wryly, thinking of how she and Bastien had started out at daggers drawn, and of how quickly her feelings had changed.
Obviously she had no resistance when it came to Bastien. Love had been softening her up for a serious fall from the beginning, she reckoned ruefully, feeling nausea stirring in her tense tummy because she felt so ridiculously uncomfortable in Marina’s presence.
Lilah was experiencing a volatile cocktail of jealousy and resentment, and telling herself that she was not entitled to those reactions wasn’t helping. She hated knowing that Marina had once shared a bed with Bastien, hated the fact that Bastien had wanted Marina first, and hated even more the reality that Marina could have had him but had instead chosen to throw him away, while at the same time lying about him to poison his relationship with his only sibling.
‘You’re very quiet,’ Grace commented in the limousine.
‘I napped during the flight but I’m still very tired,’ Lilah confided with an apologetic smile.
‘When did you first meet Bastien?’ Marina asked.
‘Over two years ago.’
‘He’s quite a guy,’ Marina remarked, in a tone that Lilah took exception to because it oozed intimacy to her sensitive hearing. ‘A lot of women will envy you.’
Including you? Lilah wondered, thinking that the brunette might well have come to live to regret rejecting Bastien once he had become rich and successful, and as such much more socially acceptable.
It dismayed Lilah that she should feel so angry with Marina and so very protective of Bastien.
Leo and Grace lived in a palatial town house. A nanny brought their daughter, Rosie, to meet them. The toddler was adorable, and Lilah relaxed in little Rosie’s presence—but only until she began wondering how Bastien would react to her not being pregnant. After that disappointment would he still want to stay married to her? Or would that single disappointment be sufficient to knock the gloss off his belief that he wanted to keep her as his wife? Rich, powerful men didn’t deal generously with disappointments because they met with very few.
A chill ran down Lilah’s spine as she sipped her tea and tried to think cheerfully of returning to the life she had left behind.