The Markonos Bride (2 of 2 free samples)

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COPYRIGHT
The Markonos Bride by Michelle Reid. Copyright 2008 by Michelle Reid.
All Rights Reserved. Sharing not permitted.

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CHAPTER ONE (CONT'D)

The final part of that recklessly tactless statement grabbed hold of Andreas’s gut like a violent twist of a fist. ‘Do you want one of these?’ he managed to ask evenly enough.

‘No!’ Orestes barked out. ‘I want you to listen to me! It is not healthy to lead the life you do these days! You upset your mother with it and lead me to despair!’

‘Then you have my sincere apologies for upsetting you both.’

‘I don’t want your apology!’ His father shot to his feet, five feet ten inches of sturdy Greek male in his seventh decade ready to take on his lean, muscled, beautifully constructed six-foot three-inch thirty-year-old son. ‘I am still your father no matter how big you feel you are for the size of your shoes these days, so you will listen to the sense that I speak!’

‘When you say something I want to hear!’

The angry rasp of his voice ripped around the elegant dining room. In the silence that thundered after it Andreas pulled in a tense, seething breath, angrily aware that any minute now his mother was going to come in demanding to know what was going on!

He decided to remove himself from the battlefield. Turning on his heels, he walked out through the doors which led onto the terrace. Behind him he heard his father throw back his chair and winced. As he stood glaring out across the villa’s sweeping gardens towards the silk-dark ocean beyond, his grim glinting gaze settled on the string of ferry lights just gliding into view.

With no room for an airstrip on the island the weekly ferry provided an essential lifeline to the small island of Aristos. Within the hour, Andreas judged from a lifetime’s experience, the small harbour town would be bursting with activity when the efficient transfer of cars, trucks, products and people began to take place. Two hours after that and the ferry would sail away again, leaving the island to settle back to its usual easygoing pace.

He liked it this way. He liked to know that without air access to tempt mass tourism here this small part of Greece would remain simply Greek. In the height of the summer season a few holidaymakers found their way here but they were rarely intrusive. Beautiful though the island was, it did not offer enough to hold most visitors here a full week until the ferry came back again. And if it were not for the advantages of being members of the rich and powerful Markonos family, with private helicopters to fly them in and out, even they would rarely get back here.

A sound of movement told him that his father was coming to join him.

‘Louisa was—’

‘My wife and the mother of my son,’ Andreas put in. ‘And you are mistaken if you believe that my youth or Louisa’s youth made it easier for either of us to deal with what happened five years ago, because it didn’t.’

‘I know that, son,’ Orestes acknowledged huskily, ‘which is why I have left the subject alone for as long as I have.’

Fixing his attention on that string of ferry lights, Andreas had to fight to stop from spitting out something cutting because his father had not left the subject alone. He had not left it alone when Louisa had first come to live here as his young and pregnant daughter-in-law. He had not left it alone when, shrouded in grief, she had caught that ferry and left the island for good.

For the best had been the phrase Orestes had used on that occasion. For the best had returned each time the older man had attempted to bring up the subject of divorce.

Divorce, Andreas repeated to himself as he stared at those damn ferry lights. Now, there was a word that mocked itself. For how did you divorce yourself from the woman who’d lain in your arms night after night and loved you with every look and touch and soft sigh she uttered? How did you divorce yourself from the sight of her giving birth to your child?

And how did you divorce yourself from the inconsolable sight of her the day you placed that child in the ground?

You didn’t. You lived with it. Night and day you lived with it. Night and day you scanned through a kaleidoscope of memories; some light, some dark, some so unbearable you wished you could switch off your head. And for the best became a soul-stripping insult, just as time to move on did. For how did you divorce yourself from all of that grief and agony and move on in your life as if it had never happened at all?

You didn’t. You just lived with it.

‘Andreas—’

‘No.’ Cold as ice now, he turned to put his glass down. ‘This conversation is over.’

‘This is madness!’ the older man exploded, losing all patience. ‘Your marriage is finished! Accept it! Divorce her. Move on!’

Grim features cut from rock, Andreas turned and walked down the terrace, his long stride driving him down the steps and into the gardens with the darkness swallowing him up. Two minutes later he was behind the wheel of his open-top sports car and roaring away.

He should not have come here, he told himself as he sent the car sweeping down the driveway. He should have ignored his father’s summons and done what he usually did at this time of year, which was to put himself as far away from this damn island as he could!

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