Page 36 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

‘Their father and I are so very proud of their achievements!’ the woman enthused. ‘They’ve had to work very hard to get where they are today!’

Nikos veiled his eyes. Memory overwhelmed him again. How, unlike the children of wealthy parents such as these, he’d had to put in long working days during every university vacation, evenings too during term time, earning money to fund his studies.

Working his way through university had not been sufficient, though, to see him right to the end of his long architectural qualifications.

He’d needed extra help.

And he’d got it...

He cleared his thoughts, made some remark about all professions being crowded, and asked what law firm her son worked at. He was conscious that, at his side, Calanthe was conversing with the male guest on her right. Her voice sounded strained, though, her answers stilted.

But it was not her voice he was most conscious of. It was her closeness to him. Her dress was long-sleeved, in a dark blue, with a modest neckline, and she was adorned with a pearl necklace and stud earrings, her hair in its customary upswept style. Just right for a sedate dinner party with her father’s friends. But, sedate though her appearance might be, it still had the power to overwhelm his senses, inflame them...to fill him with longing for her.

As they ate, he could feel from time to time the edge of her wide sleeve brush against the sleeve of his jacket. Could catch her perfume, light and floral. Her closeness was a torment—and a temptation. It was tantalising, testing to the limit his iron self-control, being so close to her and yet behaving as if their incandescent night together had never happened. As if he were nothing more than a polite dinner guest in her father’s house.

Well, he was going to be more—far more!—than that. Now, thanks to Georgios, he had the green light to go ahead. To take Calanthe into his life.

All he had to do was convince her of it...

And in that he would succeed.

He must, for his happiness depended on it.

Someone across the table asked him something about his business, and then Georgios asked how his dealings with the government officials were going. Conversation became general, focussing on business and politics—things that Nikos had learnt how to handle with ease and confidence. He was, after all, despite his origins, one of them now. Worth a fortune, just as they were.

His glance went to Georgios, veiled again as he remembered what had been discussed in his office. And why...

At his side, Calanthe was silent, focussing on her meal. It was a very rich duck casserole, and he was aware she was only picking at it. She wasn’t touching her wine either. Georgios, however, was enjoying himself heartily, beckoning for a refill of his wine glass.

Nikos frowned. Georgios’s colour was high, his breathing heavy as he conversed convivially with his friends. As if in slow motion, Nikos saw it happen. Saw Georgios stall, his hand suddenly going to his chest, his wine glass falling to the table. A gasp broke from him and Nikos saw his hand clench over his chest. His heart. Saw him start to keel over sideways.

Nikos was on his feet in seconds, yelling for someone to phone an ambulance as he took Georgios’s heavy, slumping weight, lowering him unconscious to the floor to try and take the pressure off his labouring heart which was trying to pump blood to his brain. Cries of consternation were all around, but Nikos only ripped open the front of Georgios’s shirt, desperately feeling for a heartbeat.

Then Calanthe was there, crouched down on the other side of her father, whose eyes had now rolled back. Her face was contorted in terror and she clutched at her father’s hand.

‘There’s a pulse,’ Nikos said, his voice strained. ‘But it’s faint.’

‘The ambulance is on its way,’ someone said, and handed him a phone so he could talk to the emergency call handler about what best to do till it arrived.

It seemed to take an eternity, but then the paramedics were there, taking over. Getting Georgios on a stretcher, then whisking him away in a wail of sirens.

Nikos turned to Calanthe, who’d staggered to her feet and was now swaying, white-faced.

‘I’ll come with you to the hospital,’ he said.

He took her hand. It was as cold as ice.

Nikos was in San Francisco, giving a presentation at a seismology and civil planning conference, but his mind was seven thousand miles away in Athens—where Georgios Petranakos was recuperating from the triple bypass that had been performed after his emergency admission to hospital. His coronary arteries were shot to pieces. Recovery was proving slow.

He had not heard that from Calanthe—had not heard anything from her—but from Georgios’s finance director. The fact that he was telling Nikos was significant. As were the implications to be drawn from it.

The conference over, and some useful business meetings attended in the Bay area, he returned to Zurich, put in hand an array of measures that would enable him to be absent from his desk for a good while, then flew down to Athens.

He would wait no longer.

‘Papa, won’t you consider that convalescent home the cardiologist recommended? Being there would help get you back on your feet, with careful exercise and therapy.’

Calanthe tried to make her tone persuasive, but it did not seem to be working. Even though he’d been discharged from hospital, there was a new weariness in her father, and she did not think it was just because he was still recovering—slowly—from major heart surgery. His eyes were sunken, his cheeks hollow.

---