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‘Hi. All set?’

‘Yes, I’m ready.’

‘Unless you want to go back to bed for another couple of hours?’ He slid his hand up the inside of her thigh and she felt a tingle of pleasure.

‘Demetrios Theodosis, you are incorrigible.’

‘Yes,’ he swept her into his arms and swung her around, ‘but you love me.’

As his hands came to rest on her waist she looked up into his face. ‘Yes, I do.’

Chapter 11

Demetrios woke from another disturbed night and turned to see the empty space beside him in the bed. Yet another dream that he couldn’t remember, but as always it had left him with a sense that storm clouds were gathering. Then he remembered – he was due to see his mother and father today. They had returned from Athens and there would be no avoiding them.

He stretched out a hand to brush across the empty space, wishing Shauna had woken with him in the sun-filled stateroom instead of slipping silently back to her cabin sometime in the night. A week ago the crew had come back to the boat and Shauna had insisted on returning to work and keeping their relationship to themselves. In truth, that suited him too, much as he wished that they could go back to the week when they’d had the yacht to themselves. Shauna could be very stubborn when she wanted to be, but they had spent as much time as they could together.

Now that he was back in Ithos, his time was taken up with running the business, meeting his father’s financiers and looking at plans for the future. The company was struggling financially; his father’s investments had not been doing well recently, with stock markets in turmoil and a glut of crude oil bringing volatility to the shipping industry. Demetrios knew that today would be a day of reckoning; his father had been vacillating about handing over the reins of the business for some time. His health had been poor of late, but it was hard for him to give up the thing that was his life blood.

These last few weeks, Demetrios had been struggling with the knowledge that the family juggernaut was bearing down on him. The time he and Shauna had spent together exploring the island and the yacht had been a magical interlude, an interlude he wished could go on for ever. A smile curved his lips as he thought of the way they’d explored each other’s bodies and how, much to his surprise and pleasure, Shauna had embraced her sensuality, learning to tease and taunt him with seductive confidence. She had reawakened something in him. Maybe her innocence had played a part in that, but there was something else too: she gave him new purpose.

With a grunt of irritation, he rolled off the bed, and then remembered with even more frustration that she wouldn’t be waiting up on the sun deck for him today. It was her day off and she’d said she had errands to run. He’d wanted to meet her somewhere for lunch, but she was adamant that she had things to do. And now he had to wait until this evening to see her. Another delay, and it didn’t suit him to wait. He crossed the cabin and opened a drawer in his dresser. The envelope nestled there among his T-shirts. Two return tickets from Heathrow to New York. He’d already booked a suite at the Waldorf Astoria. Anticipation danced in the pit of his stomach. He couldn’t wait to get there and show his favourite city to the woman he loved – to show her around and watch those big eyes of hers go wide with surprise and delight.

He pulled on his clothes quickly, leaving the envelope on top of the dresser. The thought of having to wait any longer was unbearable, especially for a man who was used to getting what he wanted. Did that make him spoiled, he wondered, or resolute and focused? He knew his own mind, there was no crime in that. It was time for him to move on to the next stage of his life, to fulfil the promise he had made to himself, and he needed the right woman beside him to do that. He had made up his mind.

Usually, after a few days enduring the flippant chatter and indolent lifestyle of the Ivankas, Tamaras or Normandies – they were, he realized, quite interchangeable – he would be driven to seek refuge in his office, craving the mental relief of work. Now he could see how his life could, or should be.

Demetrios had always known that one day he’d have to fully commit to the family business, but he’d been delaying it as long as possible. A showdown was looming, and Shauna had helped him reconcile himself to the idea. Her sharp observations and clever insight made him realize that the work could actually be interesting. She’d opened his eyes to the world in more ways than one. He looked at his Rolex. He was due to be at the family home at twelve; perhaps he could find a moment first to talk to Shauna. It was time she knew what he wanted to do. What was expected. He hoped that she would be strong and understand.

The Theodosis family home on Ithos was a large white villa that had been in the family for generations. While each firstborn son who had inherited the Theodosis home had put their own stamp on it, some things never changed, like the breathtaking views from the hilltop groves overlooking the sea. Its grandeur dwarfed the smaller villas with their shuttered windows and colourful awnings lining the narrow winding streets down to the small harbour town.

As he approached the villa in his Porsche, Demetrios saw his mother, Elana, sitting out on the balcony overlooking the sea. Her dark hair was flecked with a few strands of grey, but she was still beautiful, and while the soft features of her girlhood had gone, her striking cheekbones, hourglass figure and mane of perfectly coiffed hair gave her the appearance of someone much younger.

After parking between a Ferrari and a Mercedes in the ample driveway, Demetrios bounded up the stairs and greeted his mother at the entrance with an embrace and kiss on each cheek.

‘Where is Papa?’

‘He is in his office, shouting at his lawyers again.’

‘What is going on?’

‘I will let him tell you. It is not good.’

Demetrios ascended the marble staircase that ran though the centre of the main hallway. The ground floor was where the family entertained guests: vast rooms filled with luxurious white leather sofas and discreetly expensive antique furniture from Sotheby’s and Christie’s, along with tastefully modernist art on the walls.

His father, Aristotle, was upstairs in his study, sitting behind a large mahogany desk, a Cuban cigar smouldering in the enormous crystal ashtray in front of him.

‘Where the hell have you been? Have you any idea what has been going on – I expected you back here ages ago!’

‘Calm down, Father, you will give yourself a heart attack.’

‘A heart attack, he says!’ His father threw up his hands. ‘You know what’s going to give me a coronary? You. Fooling around with the hired help when you should be here attending to your responsibilities.’

Demetrios narrowed his eyes. ‘Jeremy has been doing your spying again, I see?’

‘Never mind.’ Aristotle waved a hand dismissively. ‘We have bigger problems. To put it bluntly: we’re in the shit.’

Elana had entered the room behind her son. She went to her husband’s side and placed her hand on his shoulder, then said, soothingly, ‘Demetrios is right, we must be calm. Pour me a drink, Demi. And put that cigar out, Ari, it’s getting in my eyes.’