A Greek Escape(63)

There was nothing for him here. He had everything he wanted in the memory of Philomena’s presence, her warmth and her voice, often scolding but always wise, and he wished fervently that she was there now, with her affectionate scolding and her wisdom.

He could hear her still, when he had run down here on countless occasions to escape his father’s bellowing and his character-moulding brutality.

Be true to yourself, Leon.

But he hadn’t been, had he? Not in his hopes and aspirations. In everything he hadn’t been able to feel. Not since he’d been a child, or maybe a young adolescent, but certainly not as a man.

Since his mother had died and his father had blamed him for it he had built a hard, impervious shell around himself. A shell that no one, not even he himself, could crack. Only once had he ever—

He slammed the brakes on his errant thinking.

No, he hadn’t been true to himself, he realised grimly. But that, like everything about this house, was now part of the past.

Grabbing one final look around filled him with such an ache of grief in his chest that he had to take a minute to steel himself before stepping outside into the bright sunlight and closing the door for the last time.

‘I was just going to ring you,’ Kayla said brightly as Lorna came through on her cell phone. ‘The men have done a great job! The builder’s been paid—in fact he’s only just left—and the villa looks as good as new!’

She was standing looking up at the rafters above the galleried landing, and at the freshly rendered walls, which now bore no sign of the damage they had sustained earlier in the year. She tried not to think about how Leonidas—or Leon, she amended painfully—had rescued her that night, risking his own life in coming down here and carrying her out to the truck. She wasn’t going to think about that. Or anything else about him, she decided achingly, just as she had promised herself she wouldn’t when she had stepped off the ferry the previous day.

Josh hadn’t been able to leave the business, and as his in-laws were away on an anniversary cruise Lorna had been fully intending to come here and do the inspection herself. But that had been before her doctor had strongly advised that she was in no condition to travel, so Kayla had immediately allayed her friend’s anxieties by offering to come instead.

What she hadn’t anticipated was how unbearably being here would affect her. She had known it would be painful, but just how excruciating she hadn’t been prepared for. All she wanted to do now was lock up the villa, drive down and see Philomena, and then get the hell off this island before the last ferry left that day.

Now, to try and take her mind off the memories that were killing her, in a voice thickened by emotion she asked, ‘Is there any news yet on that contract?’

The business that Havens Exclusive were giving them had all been agreed in principle, but the company seemed to be dragging its heels, and the paperwork that would secure it still hadn’t come through. Josh and Lorna were on a knife-edge, waiting for the contract to arrive, and Kayla was secretly worried that it never would.

‘That’s why I’m ringing.’

The anxious note in Lorna’s voice told Kayla that it still hadn’t arrived.

‘I rang Havens yesterday, and they seemed to think it was sent to us two weeks ago. Then today someone else said they didn’t think it had been. I tried to ring Leonidas, to see if he knew anything about it, but his office said he was in Greece this week. I know you’re not seeing him any more, but as you’re already in the country, and as you said things between you only sort of…fizzled out…’

It had been the only way Kayla could describe her break-up with Leonidas to her friend without falling apart emotionally. ‘I was wondering…is there anything you can do to get hold of him from your end? To see if you can find out what’s happening?’

Lorna sounded in such a state that, although her nerves were already stretched to breaking point at the thought of calling him, Kayla agreed to help.

She knew he made regular trips between the UK and Greece, and with her heart thumping a few minutes later she got through to his Athens office.

‘I’m afraid Mr Vassalio isn’t here this week,’ a thickly accented female voice informed her in nonetheless perfect English. ‘You should be able to contact him on his mobile.’

‘Thanks,’ Kayla said, feeling deflated after it had taken so much courage to call in the first place.

It seemed too personal, ringing his cell phone number. Far, far too intimate… After a few moments, though, for Lorna’s sake, she forced herself to do it.