The Passionate Greek (5 page)

Melanie’s heart dropped. Never to see Nicos
again? It was what she wanted, wasn’t it? But why was the thought
so painful? Unbidden, tears formed in her eyes.

Misunderstanding the cause of her distress,
Nicos said, ‘I won’t seek you out again. You have my promise.’

‘You could have lost me my job if you’d
complained’ she blurted out, wanting him to think there was another
reason for her tears.

‘I would never have done that. I would never
hurt you.’

‘You are hurting me,’ said Melanie sadly.
‘Every day without my daughter I am hurting.’

‘You made that choice,’ he said and his
expression hardened.

‘Yes, and I will regret it for the rest of
my life.’

He sighed resignedly. ‘Even if you had not
chosen to give her up to me I would have gone to court for custody
and I would have won.’

‘How can you be so sure,’ she said heatedly.
‘Courts mostly give custody to the mother.’

‘Ah, yes, mother love.’ His lips twisted
sardonically. ‘But in your case you were not in a position to
provide a home for our daughter and I was.’

‘You could have looked after her until I was
….’ She couldn’t continue.

‘Released from prison,’ he finished for her.
‘Yes, I could have done that, but it wouldn’t have been wise.’

‘What’s wise got to do with it? I am talking
about love.’

He gave her a look she couldn’t interpret.
‘Love means different things to different people. To me to love is
to be loyal, to trust and be trusted in return. To be constant and
honest with the person you share your life with, to be faithful. To
keep your promises.’

‘And you think I was none of those things.
How little you must know me. Do you really believe that in all time
together I wasn’t loyal and faithful to you?

‘I thought you were. I believed you were
everything I had looked for in a woman, the one I wanted as the
mother of my children. We would bring them up together, as a loving
happy family. But it was a fantasy. I ought to have known better.
Life has not been like that for me – ever.’

He was tearing her apart with what could
have been. He had set his mind against her and she couldn’t see a
way to change it. What was it in his past that made him so unable
to trust?

She rose to her feet and he made no attempt
to stop her. Blinded by tears she crossed the lobby and pushed her
way out through the revolving doors.

His words rang through her head. Loyal,
constant, honest, faithful. She would have been all those things to
Nicos. But she had made a promise, a promise she had to keep and it
had cost her dear.

* * *

The weeks wore on and Nicos, true to his promise,
made no further attempt to contact her. Gabby was successfully
installed on Skiapolos and to Melanie’s joy sent regular emails
about her new life. She felt a twinge of guilt that Gabby’s emails
all started ‘Hi Stephanie’ and often wondered how to get around to
telling her that her name was Melanie. Happy as she was that Gabby
was clearly besotted with her new charge Melanie could not still
the flash of envy she felt when Gabby related Electra’s latest
development.

‘This morning she’s waving her little fist
at me,’ wrote Gabby, unknowingly piercing Melanie’s heart with her
words.

Gabby had only praise for her boss. ‘I was a
bit nervous about him at first because he can be hard to please,’
she wrote. ‘But I’ve found out he only barks at people when things
aren’t right. He seems very pleased with me and now I think he’s
the best boss I’ve ever worked for. He’s so considerate and so
concerned for everybody that works for him.’

Melanie would like to have disagreed but she
knew Gabby was right. All Nicos’s staff on the island had known him
since he was a little boy and each and every one of them loved him.
But he’s not stealing their child,’ Melanie thought resentfully,
knowing in her heart of hearts that in all fairness he did not
steal his daughter. It was she, Melanie, who had given her to him
and now he would not give her back.

Melanie was calling up Gabby’s latest email
one evening and wondering how she could get her to send a picture
of Electra when her mobile phone rang. Glancing at the display she
saw it was a foreign call. Puzzled she picked up and heard Gabby’s
unmistakeable voice.

‘Stephanie, it’s me, Gabby,’ came the
breathless voice down the wire. ‘I’ve had a bit of an
accident.’

Melanie’s heart dropped, dreading to hear
something had happened to Electra, but Gabby went on. ‘I’ve broken
my arm, falling on some rocks down on the beach. It’s all bound up
now but I can’t look after the baby properly till it’s healed. Mr
Chalambrous is away on business for a month but I’ve told him about
it and he’s said to get the other nanny over ’

Melanie’s heart pounded. A plan was
beginning to form even as Gabby talked. “Mr Chalambrous is away for
a month” resounded in her head. He would never know. Dimly she
heard Gabby explaining that old Anna, the housekeeper was looking
after Electra for the time being, but Mr Chalambrous thought it was
too much for her at her age and to get the other nanny he
interviewed over to the island as quickly as possible and if she
had another position never mind how much it cost to get her to
leave her job. Melanie gave a rueful smile to herself at that.
Nicos could be ruthless when he set his mind on something.

By “the other nanny” Gabby clearly thought
he meant her friend Stephanie, not the starchy girl at the
interviews that Melanie knew very well he must have been referring
to.

Gabby was chatting on excitedly. ‘Mr
Chalambrous has been really kind. He’s paying my fare home till my
arm is better and then he says I can come back. And he’s paying me
full wages while I’m away. There’s not many bosses would do
that.’

Melanie’s mind whirled. No Gabby on the
island. No one to know her as ‘Stephanie’. She could do it.

‘Mr Chalambrous said we have to get in touch
with the agency but I thought I’d talk to you first,’ explained
Gabby.

Hardly daring to think of the consequences
Melanie heard herself telling Gabby not to worry, she would give
her notice in and be there as soon as she could.

Once she had said goodbye to Gabby doubts
began to assail her. If Nicos found out what a terrible mistake
Gabby had made she would lose her job. She had to think of a way of
protecting the girl but still having that precious month with her
daughter.

Gabby thought she was Stephanie. She would
become Stephanie. She would sign one of the agency’s contracts as
Stephanie and fax it through to Tele-Sky communications. The real
Stephanie was safely miles away in a new position working for a
wealthy American family in upstate New York.

Nicos would blame Melanie for the deception,
not Gabby. Was forging Stephanie’s name a crime? Probably. But
Melanie had committed a crime for someone she loved before and for
a month with her daughter it was a small price to pay. Sleepless,
her thoughts circling through the long night, by the morning she
knew she would do it. She was going to Skiapolos to spend a month
with her daughter and hang the consequences.

She deliberately put out of her mind what
would happen when Nicos found out what she had done, which
inevitably he would. The staff on the island all knew her. She
would have to deceive them into thinking she had Nicos’s permission
to be there. Luckily she knew that when Nicos was not on Skiapolos
the islanders rarely had reason to contact him.

Whenever her courage failed her about the
enormity of what she was doing, she thought of Electra. She would
do anything for her baby, anything at all.

The flight to Athens contrasted sharply with
her trip with Nicos. Then she had flown with him in his private jet
and been driven in limousine comfort to the small port where his
sleek motor launch awaited to whisk them over the sea to
Skiapolos.

Bumping along on the bus up the coast road
from Athens to the port she could not help contrasting this journey
with the luxury of the last. But the beauty of the wine dark sea
was just as lovely from the windows of the rickety old bus, the
stark white houses under the blazing sun just as picturesque as she
remembered.

The bus dropped her near the harbor and
grabbing her case she set off to where she hoped she would find the
boat for the island moored. As she was looking uncertainly about
her a boatman, skin tanned dark by days at sea, beckoned from a
bobbing wooden craft.

‘Skiapolos. English missy?’ he called out.
She was glad it was not someone she knew. Jumping out he dumped her
case on the boat and helped her aboard. Starting the ancient
outboard with a noisy roar he headed out for the open sea. Melanie,
seated gingerly on a shifting wooden seat, oily boxes stacked each
side of her, was glad the noise of the engine and the boatman’s
lack of English precluded conversation.

In her headlong flight to be with baby she
had given little thought to what she was going to tell the staff at
the house on Skiapolos. She knew all of them from the summer spent
there with Nicos and had become very close to Anna, the old
housekeeper

Now, as the outline of island became visible
on the horizon, she felt her courage fail her. But as the boat
nudged up to the landing stage and the boatman leapt out to hand
her ashore, she felt a surge of pure happiness. Soon she would be
holding her baby in her arms. ‘I’ll cross all my bridges as I come
to them,’ she told herself determinedly.

There was no welcoming committee, of that
she was glad. When she had arrived with Nicos all the villa’s
servants had been lined up to greet them and be introduced to her.
Now the boatman hoisted her case and led her up the steep path to
the villa’s open gates and on to the terrace where he gestured for
her to sit. Voluble Greek came from inside the house and Anna
bustled out, looking just as Melanie remembered her, her tiny
upright figure dressed head to foot in her customary black.

‘Miss Melanie,’ her old, brown face broke
into an incredulous smile. ‘You come back. Nicos he no say,’ and
opening her arms wide with delight, kissed Melanie on both cheeks
and enveloped her in a warm hug. Melanie began a faltering
explanation, hating the lies she was going to have to tell Nicos’s
beloved old housekeeper. But Anna forestalled her. ‘My English
still no good. Never mind. You say English nanny no come. You come
instead. Is better. You come see Electra.’ And with that she
hustled Melanie into the cool of the villa and up the wide
staircase. At the top she turned to Melanie with a finger on her
lips. ‘Electra sleeping. You come see her.’

Melanie entered the nursery her heart
beating. Tiptoeing over to the beribboned cot she looked down at
her sleeping daughter’s little body with her plump arms thrown up
each side of her turned head, long eyelashes fringing her pink
cheeks and was swept with unbounded joy.

The days on Skiapolos flew by. Melanie spent
every waking moment with her daughter from the moment Electra woke
in the morning till she slept at night. The bond between mother and
daughter grew stronger by the day till Melanie felt they had never
been parted.

It was Anna who broke the news Melanie had
dreaded to hear. ‘Mr Nicos come back soon,’ she announced, peering
worriedly at Melanie with her beady black eyes.

Sudden realisation flashed through Melanie’s
mind. ‘Anna knows. She has known from the start. Nicos doesn’t know
I’m here and she hasn’t told him.’ In the look of understanding
that past between the two women Melanie realised that it was no
accident that Anna, using the excuse of her bad English, had not
questioned her presence, on the island more closely. She could not
go now and leave Anna to face Nicos’s wrath alone.

‘I will stay till he arrives,’ she told Anna
and was rewarded with a quickly suppressed glint of dark eyed
gratitude.

‘Why, Anna?’ she asked the old lady gently
and Anna understood.

‘A mother should be with her child.’ was her
simple reply.

Melanie had one precious week left with
Electra and she resolved to make the most of it. When Nicos
returned she was sure he would bundle her on the boat off the
island as fast as he could. The day before Nicos was due to arrive
Melanie awoke with a heavy heart. Electra’s sunny smile when she
lifted her from her cot pierced her soul. Only one more day with
her beloved daughter. She was determined not to let her sadness
show while she played with her all morning in the garden of the
villa. After Electra’s afternoon nap she dressed her, put a perky
sunbonnet on fluffy haired head and took her down to the beach to
play.

Electra’s joy as Melanie dangled her baby
legs in the gentle waves could not help but raise her spirit.
Laughing, Melanie lifted her high in the air, bouncing her gently
back down on to the water where Electra kicked her little feet in
the waves and squealed with laughter.

Some instinct, she could not tell what, made
her think they were being watched. She looked around her, but could
see no one. ‘Come on, baby. Time for tea,’ she crooned to Electra
and hoisting her on to her hip, beach bag over her other shoulder,
she set off up the steep path. She was almost at the top of the
incline when shock stopped her in her tracks. Nicos. He was
standing there silently, gazing at her, an impenetrable expression
on his dark features

She had rehearsed over and over what she would say to
him when she saw him again but surprise robbed her of her prepared
speech Shifting Electra from her hip into her arms in an
unconscious protective motion as if she thought Nicos was going to
snatch the baby from her arms she could only stutter, ‘I thought
you weren’t coming till tomorrow.’ ‘By which time you would have
been miles away,’ he said sardonically.