Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife(37)

She quickly made her way towards it, but just as she was about to turn into the passageway she heard hushed voices and stopped dead in her tracks.

‘Come on—I hardly think pocket money is going to cut it. I’ll have to close their precious museum and turf at least fifty of them out of their homes.’

It took her a few moments to place it, but as she concealed herself alongside the tree she realised that the sly, unpleasant voice belonged to Spyros.

Ever so slowly, clutching on to the trunk so that she could lean forward without making a sound, Libby peered down the passageway. She could just make out a lanky man she didn’t recognise removing a roll of notes from the inside of his jacket pocket and adding it to the bulge already in his hand.

‘That’s more like it,’ Spyros declared lustily.

The man continued to cling onto the cash, despite Spyros’s outstretched palm. ‘And the planning permission?’ he said expectantly.

‘Will be on your desk by the end of the week.’

The man looked annoyed. ‘And what if you are no longer in charge of Metameikos by the end of this week?’

Libby saw Spyros flinch and run his chubby forefinger around the back of his collar.

‘You think I’m worried about Delikaris?’ He forced a laid-back laugh. ‘A boy from the slums who thinks a new hospital will bring back his brother?’

Libby’s eyes widened in disbelief. Brother? What brother?

‘But even Stamos said he was beginning to think that—’

‘Do you want to build your luxury apartments or not?

Libby strained to hear, strained not to cough.

And then suddenly a hand grasped her waist from behind.





CHAPTER TEN




LIBBY gave a yelp as she was lifted off the ground, limbs thrashing helplessly. But as her assailant dragged her past the laurel tree and through a gate in the wall an unmistakable scent filled her nostrils. Rion’s.

‘Put me down!’ She struggled out of his grip, her relief swiftly turning to anger. ‘I just saw something!’

She tried to dart back through the gate of the smaller walled garden they now found themselves in, but Rion placed his hands on her upper arms, easily restraining her. ‘I guessed.’

‘Spyros,’ she said breathlessly, ‘taking a bribe…to pass planning permission for some luxury apartments…in the old town.’

His face remained unmoved. ‘Like I said, he’s corruption personified.’

‘If we go back now I can tell everyone what I’ve seen!’

Rion said nothing, simply continued to hold her there. She found it so maddening that she tried to push past him a second time. But when he held her firm again she forced herself to question why, and suddenly it was obvious.

Running back into the main garden screaming treason at the eleventh hour would do more harm to Rion’s reputation than to Spyros’s. The fastest, most effective way of putting an end to his corruption wasn’t to slander him, it was to beat him in the polls.

Libby’s eyes remained on Rion’s face, dimly illuminated in the pale moonlight. Ten minutes ago she hadn’t been able to bear the thought of staying here a second longer, had believed it would make no difference who won. But now she had unequivocal proof that Spyros was everything Rion said he was. And Rion?

She took a deep breath, hating that she had to ask such a basic question of the man she’d been married to for five years. ‘Spyros said something else too…something about you having a brother.’

‘What about my brother?’ he shot out, his voice loaded with venom.

So it was true. Part of her heart soared at the possibility that he was driven by something other than just power and success. The other part wished it had been a lie, because it proved that even now there was still so much they didn’t know about one another. But most of all she wished it wasn’t true because she could see the pain in his eyes and it tore at her heart.

She chose her words carefully. ‘He said you wanted to build the new hospital because of him.’

Rion said nothing, simply continued to stare out into the darkness.

‘It’s true, then?’ she ventured after several moments.

He gritted his teeth. Thanks to that creep Spyros it looked as if he had no choice but to tell her, did he? Not that it mattered. It wasn’t as if he could fall any lower in her estimation. Besides, she’d already made up her mind that she was leaving.

He nodded sharply. ‘His name was Jason. We were twins.’

Twins? They’d been even more than brothers, then. Libby looked up into his face. It felt as if she was seeing him for the first time. ‘What happened?’

‘He caught pneumonia the winter we both turned twelve.’ He mistook her frown of sorrow for one of incomprehension. ‘Mum, Jason and I—my father left before we were even born—shared a place with another family. Eurycleia’s,’ he explained abruptly. ‘It was damp, freezing cold, and a wonder any of us survived.’