Page 7 of Greek Island Fling to Forever

He searched her face, looking carefully for any clue that she was speaking out of kindness. But even though he’d burst into her life with no warning, reminding her of many things that she’d probably rather forget, he could see no hint of regret. It empowered him to ask, ‘Will you tell me what you’ve been doing with the last twenty-five years?’

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS THE obvious question. Arianna had asked it of Ben and he’d answered. Now it was her turn, and it felt much more challenging than sitting listening to him.

‘You’ve read the papers. You know who my father is. You probably know all you need to know.’

Who her father was. The death of her brother. The fact that she’d been saved and Xander hadn’t. If anyone wanted to sum her up in three short sentences, then they covered pretty much everything.

‘Your father is Ioannis Petrakis.’ He said the name with an English inflection which made it sound unfamiliar to Arianna. ‘That’s part of the reason I succeeded in finding you; he’s an important man and the newspapers report on what he does. With pictures.’

Arianna turned the corners of her mouth down. The thought that he was only here because of her father’s wealth and position left a sour taste in her mouth. Ben was the one thing she’d kept entirely for herself over all these years, and suddenly even that seemed to be slipping away.

‘Then you’ll know that I was a spoiled rich kid.’

He shrugged. ‘I know that your father’s a rich man, but... I don’t know you well enough to say whether or not you were spoiled. In my experience, when kids are wet through and terrified they’re just kids.’

‘We were only on the ferry because my father’s launch had engine trouble. I loved it; it was so colourful and loud. After Xander died, I didn’t get much of a chance to do anything that was colourful or loud. My father wouldn’t allow it.’

He nodded slowly. ‘It’s a temptation, for any parent. My son’s beginning to realise that there’s a world out there and he wants to start exploring it. When Emma died I just wanted to lock him away and keep him safe.’

If Arianna could have seen Ben’s anguished look mirrored on her father’s face then maybe she would have understood a little better. But she never had...

‘My father...he did lock us away. It suffocated my mother, and she sued for divorce when I was fourteen.’

‘It’s one of the hardest things that anyone can ever face. The death of a child.’

He understood. He’d struggled with his own loss. Her father hadn’t seemed to struggle, he’d just ruled his family with a rod of iron, but Arianna felt that she could understand that a little better now.

‘There was never really any room for anything else but grief with my parents. I tried to be a good child and not make things worse for them, but I could never really measure up to the son they’d lost.’

Ben shifted in his chair, clearly thinking the matter over. She liked that. He thought about things, tempering his gut reactions with his head and his heart.

‘So you decided to measure yourself by what you wanted, instead?’

‘Yes. I couldn’t make a difference on the day my brother died, but I can make one now. My father threatened to cut me off when I applied to medical school in Athens but he just reduced my allowance to more than I ever needed.’

‘But you’ve spent time in London.’ Arianna shot him a questioning look and he smiled. ‘Your accent. No one’s second language is that good unless they’ve lived in a place.’

‘We came to live in London when I was eleven. My parents’ last-ditch attempt to get away from their grief and save their marriage. I went to school in Regent’s Park.’

His lips curved suddenly into an incredulous smile that made her shiver. ‘You had a straw boater as part of your uniform in the summer? With a blue ribbon?’

‘Yes, the blue matched our blazers and dresses...’ Arianna had hated the old-fashioned uniform of the high-class school for young ladies that seemed as if it was taken straight out of the nineteen-seventies.

‘I was at medical school nearby. Whenever we got a break during the afternoons we’d go and sit in the park.’

They both smiled at the same time, the idea hanging in the air between them. Maybe he’d seen her. Maybe she’d seen him, one of the young men by the lake who’d seemed so free in comparison to her own closeted existence. If fate hadn’t managed to engineer a meeting between them, it hadn’t been through any lack of effort.

They’d been in the same places, seeing the same things. If Arianna had known that, maybe her teens would have felt a little less lonely. Or maybe not. Somehow it felt as if Ben had always been there. He already felt like an old friend, someone she hadn’t been in touch with for a while, but still close enough to pick up a conversation where they’d left it last.

‘I came back to London after I graduated from medical school. I applied for a newly qualified doctors exchange programme and worked at a medical centre near Charing Cross.’

He nodded. ‘My practice is near there.’

Another chance to pass in the street. To go to the same restaurants and bars. It was tempting to reel off a list of places and wonder if he knew them too, but the fact that they’d breathed the same air seemed enough at the moment, because now they had met.

‘You must like London then?’ He took a sip of his drink.

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