Home>>read The Wealthy Greek's Contract Wife free online

The Wealthy Greek's Contract Wife(7)

By:Penny Jordan


‘Villa Emo,' Lizzie announced breathlessly in a slightly dazed voice as   she stared at the building. She turned to Ilios to say in disbelief,  ‘It  looks exactly like Villa Emo-the house Palladio designed for the  Emo  family outside Venice.'

To either side of the main house long, low, arcaded wings-which on the   original Villa Emo had been farm buildings-extended in perfect symmetry,   capped at both ends with classically styled dovecotes, whilst the main   building itself was a perfect copy of the Italian original.

‘It's so beautiful,' Lizzie whispered, awestruck by the wonderful   symmetry of the building and wondering how on earth Palladio's beautiful   villa for the Emo family had somehow transported itself here, to this   remote Greek Macedonian promontory.

‘A deadly beauty, some might say, since it was someone else's desire to   possess it conflicting with my grandfather's determination to keep it   that cost my father and Tino's father their lives.' His voice was openly   harsh with bitterness.

Without waiting to see if Lizzie was following him he started off down   the steep path towards the house. Automatically Lizzie followed him,   unable to stop herself from asking, once she had caught up with him,   ‘What happened-to your father?' She had lost her own parents, after all,   and she knew the dreadful pain of that kind of loss.

‘What happened?' Ilios stopped so abruptly that Lizzie almost cannoned   into him, only stopping herself from doing so by placing her hand on his   forearm to steady herself. She snatched it back again for her own   safety and peace of mind as she felt the now familiar surge of sensual   longing that physical contact with him brought her. How was it possible   for this one man to do what no other man had ever done, without  actually  doing anything to arouse the desire she felt for him? Lizzie  didn't  know, and she didn't really want to know either. She simply  wanted it  not to happen.                       
       
           



       

Ilios was speaking again, and she forced herself to concentrate on what he was saying and not what she was feeling.

‘The ruling Junta at the time believed that since my grandfather would   not agree to sell the villa to one of their number he should be forced   to make a choice between the villa and the lives of his sons. They   misjudged my grandfather, I'm afraid. He chose the villa.'

‘Over his own flesh and blood?' Lizzie couldn't conceal her horrified disbelief. ‘How could he do something like that?'

They had reached the gardens now, and were taking a path that skirted   past them, but instead of being disappointed at not being able to see   them in more detail Lizzie was too appalled by what Ilios was telling   her to think about them.

‘He had no other choice,' Ilios told her as they emerged from the shadow   of a tree-lined walkway into the gravelled courtyard where he had left   his car.

‘So what happened-to … to your father?' Lizzie had to ask the question.

‘He was shot. They both were. But not at the same time. Tino's father,   the younger of the two, was set free initially. It seemed he had   convinced the Junta that if they set him free he would persuade his   father to change his mind. When he couldn't, the only difference it made   to their ultimate fate was that my father was blindfolded and shot by   the firing squad he was facing whilst my uncle was shot in the back   trying to escape them.'

Lizzie couldn't stop herself from shuddering.

‘How awful-your poor mother.'

‘I doubt she cared very much one way or the other. She and my father had   only been married a matter of months-a dynastic marriage of sorts-and   by the time she had given birth to me the Junta had been overthrown.'

Lizzie was appalled.

‘So you never knew your father?'

‘No.'

‘And your mother?'

‘She remarried-a cousin with whom she was already in love. I was handed over to my grandfather.'

‘She gave you away?'

The pity that had been growing inside her with every terse answer Ilios   had given her had grown into an aching ball of shocked compassion. She   and her sisters had known such love from their parents, had had such   happy childhoods, and Lizzie couldn't help but feel the contrast between   her own childhood and the one Ilios must have had.

‘As she saw it she had done her duty in marrying my father and producing   a son, and so she deserved to follow her own heart, which did not lie   with me.'

‘Where is she now? Do you see her?'

‘She and her second husband were killed in a freak storm when they were out sailing.'

Lizzie could understand why a person would want to keep such a beautiful   home in the family-but surely not at the price of one's own children?   How could a man have sacrificed his own sons the way Ilios's  grandfather  had?

‘Villa Manos isn't just an inheritance, it is a sacred trust,' Ilios   told her coldly, obviously guessing what she was thinking. ‘It was said   by our ancestor when he had it built that as long as it remained in the   hands of the Manos family our family would survive and thrive, but  that  if it should be lost to the family our line would shrivel and turn  to  dust. It is the responsibility of the Manos who holds the key to  Villa  Manos to ensure that there is someone for him to pass it on to.  Since he  is the elder or the two of us my cousin grew up believing-as I  did  myself-that our grandfather would pass on the key to him.'

‘So why didn't he?' Lizzie couldn't resist asking.

‘I went out into the world and made something of myself, whilst Tino   preferred to live off what little our grandfather still had. In the end   our grandfather decided that our history and out future would be safer   in my hands. The land he divided between us, but the house he left to   me.'

It was a tale of true Greek tragedy in many ways, Lizzie reflected as   Ilios headed for an expensive-looking car, which Lizzie could now see   was a Bentley. He unlocked the passenger door and then opened it for   her.

She had no option other than to go with him. Lizzie knew that, but she still hesitated.

In the end it was her compassion for the child he must once have been as   much as her awareness of his power over her that had her sliding into   the richly luxurious leather seat. Ilios stowed her trolley case in the   boot before getting into the driver's seat and starting the car.

What a terrible, tainted inheritance he had received, Lizzie thought sadly as they bumped down the rutted lane.


The March day had darkened into early evening by the time they reached   the main road that would take them back to Thessalonica. It had been a   long day for Lizzie, who had been up at five in the morning to catch her   flight, and the anxiety she had endured added to her tiredness now.   Combined with the comforting hum of the expensive car, they had her   drifting off to sleep and then waking herself up again as she fought the   longing to close her eyes. She might feel appalled by the story he had   told her, and filled with compassion for the lonely child he must have   been, but that did not mean she felt comfortable about falling asleep  in  his presence. Far from it. There was something too intimate, too   vulnerable about sleeping in his wakeful presence to allow her to do   that.                       
       
           



       

And yet inevitably in the end she was unable to prevent her eyes from   closing and her head dropping against the leather headrest, with her   face turned towards the man who now had command of her life.

Ilios studied her. The bone structure beneath the pale skin was   elegantly formed, her beauty quietly classical and enduring. Her loyalty   to her family matched one of the most important tenets of traditional   Greek society. She was, he recognised as he looked at her, the kind of   woman a man would marry rather than simply want to bed for momentary   sexual satisfaction.

Ilios exhaled on the sudden realisation of where his own thought processes were taking him.

The car hit a pothole in the road, waking Lizzie up.

What had she told herself about not betraying any more vulnerability   than she had to? she cautioned herself as she sat up, and then frowned   as she glanced at her watch and realised what time it was.

‘Please excuse me, but I must send a text,' she told Ilios, reaching for her phone.