The Giannakis Bride(25)

Recognizing her husband's raised voice, Hermione turned ashen and froze  with her fork halfway to her mouth. As for Dimitrios … Brianna cringed at  the murderous expression on his face. Iron-jawed, he rose from the  table, his eyes blazing, his fists clenched.

A moment later Mihalis Poulos erupted onto the scene, with Alexio  trailing behind in a fruitless attempt to stop him. Ignoring him,  Mihalis adjusted his heavy gold cuff links and tugged the lapels of his  cream linen jacket in place. "What happened, son?" he drawled. "Did my  invitation get lost in the mail?"

Dimitrios impaled him in a feral, unblinking stare. "Brianna," he said  softly, "please take my mother inside and wait there for me."

She hesitated, torn about how she should respond. Instinct told her to  throw herself between him and his father; to stop the inevitable and  violent confrontation she knew was coming. Years of bitterness and  resentment had finally come to a head. Tonight it would end, and only  one man would emerge the winner.

She had little doubt who that would be. Mihalis was big, but Dimitrios was bigger. Stronger. Younger by almost thirty years.

"Brianna," he said again.

"No." She edged around the table to grasp his arm. "Dimitrios, don't  play into his hands. Don't let him goad you into doing something you'll  regret."

He shook her off as easily, as casually as if she were a fly. "Now, Brianna.

This is between Mihalis and me. We don't need an audience."

"You might need a lawyer, though. Hurt him badly enough, and you could  wind up spending the next twenty-five years behind bars. How much use  will you be as a father, then?"

Just briefly she thought she'd reached him. She felt, rather than heard  his indrawn breath. Sensed rather than saw the sudden doubt assailing  him.

But Mihalis hadn't missed a thing. "Now, there's the difference between  you and me, yios," he sneered. "I've never felt the need to hide behind a  woman's skirts. No wonder your first wife ran around on you. She  probably grew tired of having to fight your battles."                       
       
           



       

At that, Dimitrios let out a roar and lunged. The table flew over,  smashing dishes and spreading a mess of orzo and olive-stuffed breast of  pheasant everywhere. Shards of crystal glittered on the terra-cotta  tiles.

Alexio yelped and ran back inside the house. And because she was too  late to stop the carnage, Brianna did as she'd been asked in the first  place and hurried Hermione away from the scene.

Erika met them in the hall. "Take her to the sitting room, Brianna," she  ordered calmly. "This is not something either of you need to see."

"Is Alexio calling the police?"

Erika laughed grimly. "If you think Dimitrios can't deal with that man  by himself, pethi mou, you still have much to learn about him."

Outside, something else fell with a crash. Wincing, Brianna said, "How  about an ambulance, then? At this rate, they're both going to need one."

"Go." Erika ushered them firmly toward the big, formal sitting room, as  serenely elegant with its ivory walls and silk-upholstered sofas as the  terrace currently was in a shambles. "You don't care for brandy, I know,  but I will bring you coffee, which you will sit and enjoy until  Dimitrios joins you."

"This is my fault," Hermione whispered, shaking so badly Brianna was afraid she might collapse.

"No, Kyria, this is not about you," Erika declared. "This is between  your husband and your son. It's been a long time coming and there's  nothing you or the police or anyone else can do but let them settle  their differences, once and for all."

She paused and tilted her head, listening. "And it would seem," she  finished, "that they have done just that. I'll bring coffee for three,  and a decanter of Morello cherry liqueur. Dimitrios enjoys it once in a  while, as a change from Metaxa."

Brianna realized then that silence reigned outside, and the only sound was the inner thudding of her heart.





Chapter 10





He brushed one hand against the other. It was done.

He should have felt vindicated. Purged. He didn't.

Grimacing, he turned back to the house. To the villa he'd built as a  monument to his success. Twilight dusted its walls. Lights streamed from  the windows, warm and yellow. But he felt only the coldness of another  in a long list of empty victories. At the end of the day, what did any  of them matter compared to a home, a wife, a healthy child. A family  living in harmony and bound together by love. Ordinary, everyday  pleasures which most people took for granted, but which he had never  known.

The front door opened and the woman who'd been both mother, mentor and  servant to him for the last nine years stepped out. "Coffee's waiting,"  she said, as if nothing untoward had occurred.

When he didn't reply, she came down the steps to stand next to him. "No  point in brooding, Dimitrios. You did what had to be done. He left you  with no choice. Now it's over."

"Yes," he said, but he'd seen the horror in Brianna's eyes before she  took his mother away, and knew it wasn't quite over, not yet. "Where are  they?"

"Waiting for you in the sitting room."

He nodded and touched her shoulder. "I'm glad you're on my side, Erika."

She slapped at his hand with rough affection. "Which other side is there, dolt? Get inside and speak with your women."

He found Brianna standing at the window, her fingers drumming lightly on  the sill, her face unreadable. His mother huddled in the corner of one  of the two settees facing each other in front of the fireplace, and she …

She was only fifty-eight, but underneath the expensive clothes, the  stylish hairdo, and all that estheticians and cosmetics could do to  preserve the illusion of youth, she looked old, beaten down, afraid, and  he felt a pang of guilt that he'd stood by and done nothing to help her  until now.

"He's gone and he won't be back, Mother," he told her, advancing into the room.

She regarded him anxiously. "Is he all right?"

"He didn't leave with a smile on his face, if that's what you're asking."

"I must go to him."

"No, you must not. You must stay here."                       
       
           



       

"Overnight, you mean?"

"For as many nights as it takes him to come to his senses." He helped  himself to one of the demitasses on the library table and drained it in  one gulp. Erika had made metrios, medium-sweet coffee, and for once he  was glad of the sugar. He needed something to chase away the sour taste  in his mouth.

"Dimitrios is right," Brianna said, coming forward. "At least here you'll be safe."

"Safe?" Hermione stared at them as though they were both certifiably  insane. "Mihalis would never hit me. He's never lifted a hand against me  in his life."

"Abuse doesn't have to be a physical thing, Mother," Dimitrios said  wearily. "There are other, more subtle ways to wear a person down."

She raised a few more feeble objections-she'd be putting them out, his  father would be worried, she had no change of clothes, no makeup, not  even a toothbrush. But in the end he overcame her objections and she  allowed Erika to take her upstairs.

"Well," he said, as the door closed behind them and left him alone with Brianna, "no broken bones or blood, as you can see."

"Your shirt's torn," she said frostily.

He shrugged. "Shirts can be replaced."

"And husbands, fathers?" Her light-blue eyes bored into him, laser beams of disgust. "Are they disposable items, too?"

"I didn't kill or maim him, if that's what's worrying you, Brianna. I  kicked him out. Sent him packing with his tail between his legs. His  pride's badly dented, he's a little dusty, and his suit won't be fit to  wear again, but he's in one piece otherwise."

"I see. And do you settle all your differences with your fists?"

"What the hell would you have had me do?" he inquired irascibly. "Stand  idly by and let him terrorize my mother? Insult you-again?"

"Of course not. But couldn't you have reasoned with him? Did you have to be so violent?"

"Yes," he said. "I did. Because reason is only effective if the other  party's willing to listen. And my father hears only his own voice. And  because there comes a time when a man has to take a stand. For me, that  time came tonight. He invaded my home. He threatened my household staff.  He intimidated you and my mother. He behaved like a thug. Don't ask me  to reason with a man like that."

"You could have called the police."