Maybe he knew. Maybe Sheikh Hassan Al-Qadim wasn’t all self-centred arrogance. Because he simply glanced at him, just glanced, once, read something in his face—heartache, heartbreak, heart-something anyway—and with a click of his fingers he brought a servant running.
‘Have my plane made ready for an immediate departure,’ he instructed smoothly. ‘Mr Hayes, your transport to…somewhere…awaits,’ he then drawled sardonically.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EVE was casting spells in the garden. They wound around a tall, dark, idiot Englishman with no heart worth mentioning.
She wasn’t happy. Everyone in her grandfather’s house knew that she wasn’t happy. She’d rowed with Grandpa. No one had ever heard Eve row with her grandpa.
But, like the Englishman, she had come to realise that Theron Herakleides had no heart either. He’d let her down. When she’d needed his comfort and support more than she’d ever needed it, he had withdrawn both with an abruptness that shocked.
‘No, Eve,’ he said. ‘I will not let you do this.’
‘But you don’t have a say in the matter!’ she cried.
‘On this point I do,’ he insisted. ‘I gave you two weeks to come to your senses about that man. When you did nothing but claim how much you adored him, I gave in to your wishes, soft-hearted fool that I am, and went ahead with planning tonight’s party. You are not, therefore, going to make the Herakleides name look foolish, by cancelling at this late juncture!’
‘But I no longer have a man to become betrothed to!’
‘Then find one,’ he advised. ‘Or you will dance alone tonight, my precious,’ Theron coolly informed her, ‘with your honour lying on the floor by your pretty feet and the Herakleides pride lying beside it.’
‘You don’t mean it,’ she denounced.
But he did mean it. Which was why she was sitting in the garden wondering what she was supposed to do about a party she didn’t want, meant to celebrate a betrothal she didn’t want, to a man who wasn’t here to share either even if she did want him!
Where was he?
Her heart gave a little whimper. Was he with Leona right now, worshipping the unattainable, while her long-suffering husband played the grim chaperone—just to save face?
I hope they’ve had him thrown into a dungeon, she decided savagely. I hope they’ve cast him out into the desert with no food and water and definitely no tent!
But where was he? her stupid heart cried.
Today was Saturday. Yesterday she’d left a message on the answering machine in San Estéban asking him to call her. Couldn’t he have done that at least? He owed her that one small consideration for all the love she’d poured into him.
I want him back. I don’t want him back. She stood up, sat down again, let her hands wring together, looked down to find the thumb from the right hand rubbing anxiously at a finger on the left where Ethan’s ring used to be.
I miss it. I miss him. Come and get me, Ethan! Oh, good grief, she never knew anything could feel this wretched.
‘Eve…’
‘Go away, Grandpa.’ She didn’t want to speak to anyone.
‘There was a telephone call for you—’
‘From Ethan—?’ She shot eagerly back to her feet. Seeing the pity in her grandfather’s eyes made her wish the ground would open up and swallow her whole.
What have I let that man do to me?
‘It was Aidan Galloway,’ her grandpa told her. ‘He is on his way from the airport. I said you would be glad to see him.’
‘Why?’ Her green eyes began to spark with aggression. ‘Are you thinking that Aidan could stand in as substitute?’
It made her even angrier when he dared to laugh. ‘That is not a bad idea, sweetness,’ he mused lazily. ‘He will be here in a few minutes. I will leave you to put the suggestion to him.’ With that he strolled off, still grinning from ear to ear.
He was enjoying this, Eve realised. It amazed her that she hadn’t realised before what a twisted sense of humour her grandfather possessed. Her life was on the line here—her one hope at happiness—and he thought it was funny to watch her tear herself apart?
Theron did pause for a moment to wonder whether he should put her out of her misery and tell her what he already knew. He had been in touch with Victor Frayne about the Greek project. Victor Frayne had, in turn, told him about Ethan’s quick departure from Rahman.
If the man wasn’t coming to claim his granddaughter, then his name wasn’t Theron Herakleides. Keeping Eve unaware of this prediction was good for her character. Good things came too easily for Eve, he’d come to realise. She had sailed through her life without feeling the pangs that hunger breeds. She had wit, she had grace, she had charm and intelligence, and she knew how to use them all to reach her goals with ease. But love stood on its own as something that must be worked at if it was to develop into its fullest potential. Feeling the sharp-edged fear of losing love should make her appreciate and heed the fear of losing it again.
Why did he feel she needed to do that? Because Ethan Hayes was a man of hidden fibre, he’d discovered. To keep up with the sneaky devil she was going to have to learn dexterity and speed.
Ethan landed in Athens and had to utilise some dexterity and speed to get through an airport that the rest of the world had seemed to decide to use at the same time.
He managed to grab a taxi by jumping the queue with the help of a British fifty-pound note. The drive through the city set his teeth on edge. The heat, the crowded streets, the knowledge that he had taken a chance
