‘Put on the watch, and then we had better leave,' was all Ilios said in response.
She was lying, of course; she had to be. He wasn't deceived or taken in by her, nor would he ever be-by her or by any other woman.
The watch was discreetly expensive: a plain black leather band and a white-gold face was studded with small diamonds.
Since Ilios was already shrugging on his suit jacket, Lizzie fastened the watch quickly and went to pick up her coat-just as Ilios too was reaching for it. Their fingertips met and touched, his over her own, warm and strong, filling Lizzie with a need to simply curl her fingers into his in a silent plea for acceptance and comfort.
Frantically she pulled back, grabbing hold of her coat with her other hand and telling Ilios quickly, ‘It's all right. I don't need to put it on. I'll just carry it until we get out of the car.'
She really didn't think she was up to any more physical contact right now, with a man whose mere presence seemed to have the ability to send her body's awareness of him to stratospheric levels.
The gallery, when they reached it, was ablaze with lights, and with the shine reflected from the stunning amount of diamond jewellery being worn. Ilios's hand was on Lizzie's arm as he guided her through the mass of paparazzi, waiting to snap photographs of the rich and famous as they made their way from the kerb to the door.
‘I can see now why you aren't keen on my outfit. Obviously to be considered anything like worthy of you I'd have to have dressed very differently,' Lizzie was forced to admit reluctantly once they had stepped inside. She had seen how many of the other women were wearing tiny little dresses, bandaged-or so it seemed-to their equally tiny bodies. The dresses revealed lengths of lean bronzed leg and the swell of quite often implausibly taut and rounded breasts.
No wonder he had derided her choice of clothes if this was what he considered normal clothing for the female body.
‘The women you are looking at are high-price tarts up for sale-on the hunt for the richest husband they can snare,' Ilios told Lizzie grimly. ‘The clothes they are wearing denote their profession, as does their desire to be photographed. It's their version of newspaper advertising. Come with me.'
As though by magic the mass of bronzed flesh parted to let them through-although not without some very predatory and inviting looks being thrown in Ilios's direction, Lizzie noticed.
Beyond the call girls and the men hanging round them, in the interior of the gallery were several groups of people: men in business suits, and elegant, confident-looking women in beautiful designer clothes.
One of the men came forward, extending his hand.
‘Ilios, my friend. It is good to see you.'
‘You only say that, Stefanos, because you hope to persuade me to buy something,' Ilios responded, turning to Lizzie to say easily, ‘Agapi mou, allow me to introduce Stefanos to you. I should warn you, though, that he will insist on presenting us with some hideous piece of supposed art as a wedding gift.'
Agapi mou-didn't that mean my love? But of course she wasn't, Lizzie reminded herself, as she admired the clever way in which Ilios had announced both their relationship and their impending marriage.
Within seconds people were crowding round them, smiling and exclaiming, and Lizzie had no need to fake the sudden shyness that had her moving instinctively closer to Ilios, so that he took hold of her hand and tucked it though his arm.
‘Ilios, how can this be? You have always sworn never to get married.'
The speaker was a woman of around Ilios's own age; she was smiling, but there was a certain hard edge to her voice that warned Lizzie she was someone who might have a shared history with Ilios. She might not entirely welcome the news of his supposed intended marriage, even though she was wearing a wedding ring and was accompanied by a solid, square-faced man who appeared to be her husband.
‘Lizzie changed my mind, Eleni,' Ilios answered her, and the smile he gave Lizzie as he turned to look down at her made her suspect that if he had gifted her with that kind of smile and meant it she'd have been transfixed to the spot with delight.
‘Well, you cannot cling together all evening like a pair of turtledoves.' Eleni replied. ‘I want you to convince Michael that he should build me a new villa on the island-and you, of course, must construct it. There is no other builder to whom we would entrust such a commission. I have it in mind to copy your own Villa Manos for us, since you insist on refusing to let us buy the original from you.'
Immediately Lizzie felt Ilios stiffen, his arm rigid against hers.
So, if they had once been lovers the parting had not been an amicable one, Lizzie guessed. Because there was plainly ill feeling between them now. Eleni must surely know that Ilios would never sell his family home.
‘Has Ilios shown you Villa Manos yet, Lizzie? Told you that he will expect you to make your home there once you are married? Personally, I could never live anywhere so remote. Certainly not all year round. And then, of course, one must wonder what one's husband is getting up to whilst he is here in Thessaloniki and you are stuck on a peninsula in the middle of nowhere.'
‘I would never marry a man I couldn't trust implicitly,' Lizzie responded calmly, and with quiet dignity.
‘My dear, how very brave of you.' Eleni was positively purring. ‘I hate to tell you this, but whilst a man will promise anything whilst he is in the first throes of … love, marriage often brings about a sea change. When a woman is occupied with her home and her children her husband can start to look elsewhere for entertainment. Especially a Greek man. After all, they have the example of our Greek gods before them. Zeus himself could not be faithful to his wife. He had many adventures outside their marriage, if mythology is to be believed.'
‘A man who is truly happy in his marriage does not seek satisfaction outside it, Eleni, and I know that with Lizzie I shall find all the happiness I need.' Ilios defended their relationship, turning to her to lift her hand to his lips and tenderly kiss her fingers whilst gazing into her eyes.
Ilios really should have been an actor, Lizzie decided, struggling against the tide of longing surging through her. She had to be strong, she reminded herself. She had to fight the effect he had on her. She had to prove to herself that she could endure and overcome the effect his closeness had on her.
‘An ex, I take it?' she couldn't resist murmuring to Ilios once they had escaped.
‘Of a sort,' he agreed, a little to her surprise. ‘Although the prey she was hunting was my cousin, not me. When she discovered that he wasn't going to inherit Villa Manos she dropped him.'
‘And turned her attentions to you?'
‘She tried,' Ilios agreed. ‘But without success. You handled Eleni extremely well,' he said, then paused. Unable to stop himself, he told her brusquely, ‘You play your part well. I suspect that every man here is envying me.'
What on earth had made him say that, even if it was true? Why should he care if other men wanted her? The admiration he could see in their eyes was a benefit to him, because it meant that she was being accepted and acceptable as his wife-to-be.
Lizzie couldn't help smiling at him. There was a soft, warm feeling inside her body-a sweet, tender unfolding of something, happiness, that lifted her. Just because Ilios had-what?-complimented her? She must not feel like that. She must not.
What he had said to her was the truth, Ilios knew. But more than that she had a warmth that drew people to her. He had seen it in the eyes of his friends and in their manner towards her. Could he have been unfair to her, wrong about her and the way he had initially judged her? What if he had? He didn't owe her anything, after all. She was the one who was indebted to him, not the other way around.
Lizzie wasn't sorry when it was time to leave the restaurant where they had had dinner with Ilios's friends, next door to the gallery. Whilst the other people she had met had more than made up for Eleni's bitchiness with their warmth and readiness to befriend her, and the food at the smart restaurant had been delicious, she had felt on edge-knowing that she was only playing a part, afraid of making a slip that would reveal the truth, and at the same time uncomfortable with the deceit she was having to practise.