Page 29 of Modern Romance January 2025 1-4

She remembered the look in his eyes as he’d clasped it round her throat, that way he had of looking at her as if she were the only woman in the world, the hundred per cent attention always focused on her. It was a kind of charisma Nic Diamantis had, she reasoned, that ability to make a woman feel special even if she wasn’t, but ultimately ithurt. Every hour he spent with her hurt because no gesture, no act of passion, no tender words ultimately meant anything to him. He was only keeping the stupid truce, keeping her content because a contented woman didn’t make waves.

That awareness in mind, she rang Jace’s wife, Gigi, conscious that they were flying back to London that very afternoon, to ask if she could accompany them.

‘Didn’t Nic ask you to go with him to Athens?’ her sister-in-law asked in surprise.

Lexy’s cheeks burned red as the heart of a fire in mortification. ‘No, and he’s not sure when he’s coming back either so I thought I might as well head to London now in advance. I know you’re leaving today and I was hoping you could give us a lift...all of us, the kids and the nannies.’

‘Of course we can, but I’ll check with Jace first,’ Gigi completed more slowly, clearly thinking through to try and guess what was motivating Lexy.

‘Do you think he’ll say no?’ Lexy asked before she could bite back the nervous question.

‘No, Jace keeps his own counsel, but I assume you have your reasons,’ Gigi responded calmly. ‘And in any case, if you want to head to London today you could make your own arrangements, but you might as well travel with company. We can wrangle kids together.’

While Lexy was planning her departure from the island, Nic was entering his Athens head office, lifting his hand to greet familiar faces without pausing while being assured that Leigh awaited him upstairs in his office. He strode into the sunlit room, apprehension tensing his muscles as he scanned the older woman with her dark hair worn in an elegant chignon and her steady blue eyes.

‘Firstly,’ Leigh began in an anxious undertone, ‘I want to tender my resignation, sir—’

‘What on earth...?’ Nic breathed with a frown, wrong-footed by that startling opening to their meeting.

‘I made a bad decision because I chose to trust someone close to you and when I’ve finished explaining myself and my actions, you will be very angry with me,’ she assured him unhappily. Moving forward, she laid a slender folder down on his desk. ‘I kept records of everything though.’

‘Someone close to me?’ Nic was already prompting, ebony brows pleated, because very few people were close to him outside his family. He had long conserved his independence and ensured that his judgement was unaffected by others. It was probably, he conceded, the only preference he had copied from his father’s chosen operational secretive mode in business.

‘Miss Bouras,’ Leigh declared, disconcerting him even more as she stepped forward.

‘Angeliki has nothing to do with any aspect of my business,’ he said defensively.

‘This is personal, confidential,’ Leigh reminded him sadly. ‘And I was the fool who listened to her and followed her advice. Look at this first...’

Nic froze and grasped the phone she was extending to study the photograph showing on the screen and disbelief assailed him. It was a picture of Lexy chopping vegetables in his kitchen in Yorkshire that long ago night. A photo he had believed that he had taken when she was unawares and had later searched for but failed to find on his phone—he had assumed that he had done it too quickly and it hadn’t taken. ‘Where did you get this photo from?’

‘Miss Bouras gave it to me for identification purposes,’ the older woman explained.

A sinking sensation hit Nic’s stomach. ‘Why would she do that?Identification?’

‘Miss Bouras came to see me. Almost two years ago. She explained that you had a very persistent female stalker causing you an awful lot of grief.’

‘A...a stalker?’ Nic exclaimed in disbelief. ‘I’ve never had a stalker in my life... This woman... Lexy is my wife!’

‘Yes, and I’m afraid I only realised that she was an official part of your life when I saw the pictures of your wedding online,’ Leigh admitted with a grimace. ‘But I believed what Miss Bouras told me and I did as she asked.’

‘What did she ask you to do?’ Nic shot at her in a harsh undertone.

‘To protect you from this woman, this supposedly obnoxious stranger trying to force herself into your life. She said that you were greatly embarrassed by the situation and trying to handle the problem discreetly. I could imagine you reacting that way to a female stalker...’ Leigh muttered ruefully. ‘You wouldn’t want a fuss or any scenes at the office.’

‘Leigh... I’ve neverhada stalker!’ Nic repeated forcefully. ‘I can’t credit that Angeliki approached you with this ridiculous story.’

Leigh looked grave. ‘She did, sir, and she was very specific in her advice and instructions. She told me to destroy any letters that arrived, but I kept them as I assumed there would be a court case eventually and that you would need them as evidence. I noted down the phone calls and any visits that the young lady made.’

‘The young lady being mywife?’ Nic almost whispered, his stomach turning over sickly. Letters,visits, exactly as Lexy had claimed.

‘It wasn’t until I saw the wedding photos that I understood that I had made a very grave error in listening to Miss Bouras and trusting her word, rather than approaching you direct to discuss her instructions with you. You would scarcely marry a stalker.’

‘Thank you for that understanding at least,’ Nic muttered, raking an abstracted hand through his thick black hair while true comprehension began to sink in hard as a hammer blow to the head. Indeed, he felt as though he had been body-slammed against a brick wall and the stuffing had been knocked out of him. He was in shock.

He was already thinking back to the phone number that had disappeared from his phone. He hadn’t thought much about the photo, only that he had taken it in haste while she had been unaware and that perhaps it hadn’t taken, after all. But only one person ever knew the current password he had on his phone, his friend from childhood, Angeliki. Only one person had ever had free access to his phone and she had evidently used it to ensure that he couldn’t contact Lexy.

And lo and behold, that was the same person, theonlyperson, he had innocently told about Lexy. He had returned from Yorkshire the same day that Angeliki had finally decided to take his calls and he had been so high on that time with Lexy that he had mentioned to his half-sister that he had met ‘someone’, an importantsomeone, whom he had named and described and waxed lyrical about.

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