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She’d thought Mark handsome before, but this was taking it to a new level.
‘You’ll be fine,’ Mark replied, looking rather sheepish at his outburst of jollity. And then he held out his hand towards her, as though he was daring her to come with him.
‘I’m going to need five minutes,’ she said, trying to sound bright and enthusiastic as she slid past him and tried to ignore his hand. ‘Just enough time for you to bring the car around.’
‘You don’t need five minutes,’ he replied with a grin, grabbing her hand and half dragging her off the patio and onto the gravel drive. ‘And who said anything about a car?’
‘Your carriage awaits, madam.’
Lexi stared at the motorcycle, then at the boyish black crash helmet Mark was holding, then back to the motorcycle. She stepped out onto the gravel and walked slowly around the vehicle, examining it from a number of angles.
Mark waited patiently for a few seconds as Lexi stopped and nodded her head several times, before declaring, ‘This is a scooter.’
‘Your powers of observation are quite superlative,’ he replied, fighting the urge to smile and thereby shatter even more of her expectations.
‘It’s a very nice scooter,’ she continued, ‘and very clean for a boy, but … it’s still a scooter.’
She seemed to suck in a breath, then shook her head twice and looked up at him with total bewilderment on her face.
‘But you can’t ride a scooter! It must be against the rules for English aristocrats to ride scooters. At the very least I expected some swanky sports car worth more than my house. This is incredibly shocking.’
‘I take delight in thwarting your expectations. For where we’re going, two-wheeled transport is definitely the best option.’
And with that he calmly unfastened a second crash helmet from the back seat and presented her with it. The helmet was red, with a white lightning arrow down each side and the words Paxos Pizza in large black letters across the front. Not something you could easily miss.
‘Ah. Yes. Cassie’s helmet came at a bargain price. That was the only one my pal Spiro had left in a medium.’
She looked dubiously at the helmet that he was holding out to her.
‘The only one? I see. And you’re quite positive that we shouldn’t take my hire car?’
‘Quite,’ he replied. ‘I would hate to disturb the cats.’
‘Ah,’ she said, ‘of course. The cats. A man clearly has to have priorities.’
Without saying another word she slid her shoulder bag over her head and across her chest, took the helmet out of his hands, swept back her hair and slipped the helmet on. All in one single sleek movement. She fastened the chinstrap as though she had been doing it all her life.
His silent admiration just clicked up two points.
‘Don’t say a word,’ she murmured, glaring at him through slitted eyes.
‘I wouldn’t dare.’ Mark patted the seat behind him. ‘You might want to hold on to me when we set off.’
‘Oh, I think I can manage. Thank you all the same.’
She was standing next to him now, one hand planted firmly on each hip, weighing up her options. Although she was only two feet away, he could hear her mind ticking. The air crackled with tension.
‘You should be warm enough,’ he said quite calmly. ‘We’re not going far.’
And with that he started the engine and clicked down into first gear.
Then he checked the chinstrap on his helmet, wriggled his bottom into the driver’s position and faced directly ahead. Without looking back even once to check what she was doing.
Ten seconds later the bike lurched slightly to one side as she settled herself on the small pillion passenger seat.
That was his cue to enjoy a totally secret wide-mouthed smile, which he knew she wouldn’t see.
‘Hang on!’ he called, and without waiting for a reply opened up the throttle and set off slowly down the drive. He checked the road was clear and they were on their way.
Warm summer air, thick with pollen from the olive trees and scented with pine resin, caressed Lexi’s arms and bare legs as the scooter tootled down the main road heading for the coast.
She leaned back on her arms and gripped on to the grab-rail behind her seat, her muscles clenching and rattling with every bump in the road. Strange how she hadn’t noticed the potholes in the comfort of her hire car. She was certainly feeling every one of them now.
She hated being a passenger. But she had to admit that the view in front of her was impressive enough. Mark’s broad shoulders filled his shirt, and as he stretched forward on the scooter she could see the muscles in his arms move effortlessly through the controls. His top wasn’t quite long enough, which meant she had occasional tantalising glimpses of the band of skin above his snug-fitting trousers.
Far too tantalising.
Dratted tingles.
Lexi turned her head slowly from side to side, looking for distraction in the stunning Greek countryside as they sped along at about twenty miles an hour. Lemon trees, bright purple and pink bougainvillaea, and pale oleander bushes filled the gardens of the houses they passed on the small country road. Dark green cypresses and pine trees created a perfect skyline of light and shade under the deep azure blue of the sky.
And all the time she could glimpse a narrow line of darker blue in between the trees, where the Ionian Sea met the horizon.
The sun shone warmly on her exposed skin and she felt free and wild and ready to explore. She felt so completely liberated that, without thinking about it, she closed her eyes and relaxed back to let the wind cool her throat and neck. Just as she did so the bike slowed, making a sharp turn to the left off the main road onto what felt like a farm track.
Lexi snapped her eyes open and instinctively grabbed Mark around the waist, her heart thumping. She could feel his muscles tighten under her hands, warm and solid and mightily reassuring.
He glanced back just once, to give her a reassuring smile, before reducing his speed and leaning the scooter through bend after bend of steadily narrowing and even more bumpy road until they came to a passing point outside a stunning tiny white church and he came to a slow, graceful stop.
They had arrived. At the end of the road.
‘Did I mention that the rest of the way is on foot?’ he asked in an innocent voice.
Lexi replied with a scathing look and glanced down at her gold wedge sandals. ‘How far do I have to walk?’
‘Five minutes. Tops. It’s just at the end of the donkey trail and then through the olives.’
‘Five minutes? I’ll hold you to that. Of course you do realise that your terrible secret is now out in the open?’ Lexi grinned, heading down the rocky path between the high drystone walls that separated the olive groves. Pine needles from the conifers softened her tread.
Mark swallowed hard. ‘Any one in particular? I have so many.’
‘This is undoubtedly true. I was, of course, referring to the secret life of The Honourable Mark Belmont, Company Director. The outside world knows him as the suave financial wizard of the London stock market. But when Mr Belmont comes to Paxos? Ah, then the other Mark emerges from his chrysalis. This version enjoys riding his scooter—in public—drinking the local wine and entertaining cats. So that only leaves one question. What other hidden talents are yet to emerge?’
His reply was a quick snort.
‘Landscape painting, perhaps? No. Too sedate. How about speedboat-racing?’ Lexi stretched up and ran her fingers through the low-hanging branch of an olive tree. ‘Or perhaps you’re the olive king of the island and have vats of the stuff back at Belmont Manor, ready to challenge the Greek olive-oil market? That’d suit your aristocratic swashbuckling style.’
He chuckled out loud now. A real laugh, displaying his perfect teeth. ‘Swashbuckling? Not exactly my style. And, in answer to your question, I’m no water baby. But I can heartily recommend the local olive oil.’
‘You don’t swashbuckle or swim?’
‘Never.’
‘Seriously? When you have that lovely pool at the villa?
He froze, half turned and then looked at her for a split second, still smiling. ‘Swimming was for pupils who preferred sport to studying. Apart from my stellar football experience, which was definitely a one-off, sport was not on my timetable. And it strikes me that I’ve been answering a lot of questions. Your turn. What hidden talents does Lexi Sloane have up her sleeve? What’s her guilty pleasure?’
Now it was Lexi’s turn to smile, but she shot him a quick glance as they walked along before speaking again.
‘Apart from good food and wine, you mean? Ah. Well, as a matter of fact I do have a guilty pleasure. I write children’s stories.’
Mark made a strange strangled sound but carried on walking.
‘Children’s stories? You mean teen vampire love and schools for wizards?’
She sniggered. ‘Mine are meant for a much younger audience. Think talking animals and fairies.’ She stopped walking, dived into her shoulder bag, brought out her favourite notebook and flicked to a particular page. ‘I worked on this one during the night when I couldn’t sleep.’
Mark turned around on the narrow path and took a step towards her, peering at the notebook she held out.
To Lexi’s delight his eyes widened and a broad grin warmed his face, as though she’d lit a fire inside him which drove away the darkness of the morning with its brightness.
‘That’s Snowy One and Snowy Two.’ He laughed, flicking over the page. ‘These are wonderful! You didn’t mention that you did the illustrations, as well. When did you find the time to draw the kittens?’
‘I cheated and took some photos before dinner yesterday. They were perfect models and quite happy to stay in position for at least a couple of seconds while I found a pose I liked. Then I worked the photos into the stories.’
She took the notebook back and just for a fraction of a second her fingertips made contact with Mark’s hand. And, judging by his sharp intake of breath, he felt the connection just as powerfully as she did. He immediately started gabbling to cover it up.
‘Well, I am impressed. Are you planning to have your stories published or keep them for your own children to enjoy?’
And there it was. A direct hit. Bullseye. Right between the eyes!
My own children? Oh, Mark, if only you knew how much I long to have children of my own.
Tears pricked at the corners of her eyes. Stupid. She should be able to handle the question better than this. But he’d hit her with it out of the blue. That was all. She could cope.
‘Published, I hope,’ she replied through a burning throat. ‘One day.’
‘Excellent,’ he replied, his warm voice brimming with feeling. ‘In that case I look forward to reading your stories to my nephews at the earliest opportunity.’
Lexi picked up his lighter mood and went with it gladly. ‘Ah. Do I have to add bedtime story-reader to your long list of accomplishments?’
He smiled. ‘I try. Actually …’ He paused long enough for Lexi to look at him, then shrugged. ‘Sometimes reading those stories is the best part of my day. We have a great time.’
With startling suddenness he turned away from her and started down the track, but the sadness and need in his voice were so powerful that Lexi stayed frozen to the spot.
Two things were clear. He loved those boys. And Mark Belmont was going to be a wonderful father to the lucky children he so clearly wanted in his life.
And her poor heart cried at the thought that she would probably never experience that joy.
Just as the thought popped into her head Mark glanced back towards her, and Lexi slid the book back into her bag and pretended to rummage around as she casually replied, ‘I don’t have any food with me except breath mints.’ Then she looked around her and raised her eyebrows. ‘And, while I appreciate that this is a lovely spot, and I’m enjoying the countryside, something tells me that there won’t be a restaurant at the end of this very winding footpath. Am I right?’
‘Perhaps.’
‘Sorry?’
‘It’s a long story.’
He gestured with his hand down the path and set off slowly. ‘You were talking earlier about collecting impressions about a person by where they liked to live and what they read. And it struck me that you might find it easier to understand who Crystal Leighton was when she wasn’t being a famous actress if I showed you her favourite place on the island. I haven’t been here in a long time, but this is very special. If we’re lucky it won’t have changed that much.’
‘What kind of place are you talking about?’ Lexi asked, astonished that Crystal had chosen somewhere other than her lovely villa. ‘And what makes it so special?’
‘Come and see for yourself,’ Mark replied in a hushed voice that she had never heard him use before.
Lexi followed him through a cluster of pine trees, pushed through some fragrant flowering bushes next to a stone wall, and stepped into a private garden.
And what she saw there was so astonishing that she had to clutch on to Mark for support. His reaction was to instantly wrap one long muscular arm around her waist to hold her safe against his body.
They were standing about six feet from the edge of a cliff. A real cliff. As in the type of cliff where, if you stepped forward one inch, you’d find yourself flying through space for a long time before hitting the sea below.
Their only protection from the dizzyingly close edge was a waist-high stone wall, which had been built in a wide curve in front of a low stone bench.
But it was the view that grabbed her and held her even tighter than Mark. All she could see in each direction was an unbroken band of sea and the azure sky above it. She felt like an explorer standing on the edge of a new world, looking out over an ocean no one had ever seen before, with nothing but air between her and the sea and the sky. And all she had to do was reach out and it would be hers.
To her right and left were high white cliffs of solid rock, studded with occasional stunted pine trees like the ones she was standing next to now. Far below, the sea crashed onto a collection of huge boulders at the foot of the cliffs.
‘There are huge caves under the cliff here,’ Mark said as though he was reading her thoughts. ‘Big enough for the tourist boats to go into. But we’re quite safe. There are hundreds of feet of solid rock below us.’ As if to prove the point he grabbed her hand and practically dragged her to the stone wall, so that they could look out together over the tops of the hardy bushes and bright flowering plants clinging to the cliff face at the open sea.
‘This is the nearest I’ve ever come to being on the prow of a ship,’ Lexi breathed. ‘Oh, Mark. This is … wonderful. I can see now why she chose this spot.’
‘You should come back at dusk and watch the sun setting. It turns the whole sky a burning red. It’s a wonderful sight. And, best of all, it’s totally private. No cameras, no people, just you and the sea and the sky. That was why she loved it so much here. That’s why she spent hour after hour on her own up here with just a picnic and a book. Alone with her thoughts. Away from the press and the movie business and everything that came with it.’
Lexi glanced up at Mark’s face but his attention was totally fixed on the horizon, where the sky met the sea. His eyes were the colour of the ocean. His fingers were still locked on to hers and she could feel his heart pound with each breath.
And her heart melted like cheese under a grill.
She had not intended it to. Far from it.
She couldn’t help it. The fire in his voice and in his heart burned too hot to resist.
Which was why she did something very foolish. She squeezed his hand.
Instantly he glanced down at his fingers, and she caught a glimpse of awareness and recognition that he had revealed a little too much of himself before he recovered and released her with a brief twist of his mouth.
‘Last Christmas she tried to persuade me to take some time off to celebrate Easter with her on the island. Just the two of us. But I said no. Too much work.’ He sniffed, looking out towards the islands in the distance. ‘Ironic, isn’t it? I have the time now.’
‘She knew you wanted to come back. I’m sure of it. How could you not? When you write about the last few months of her life you should put that in. It would be a lovely touch to end her story.’
She instantly sensed his solid-steel defences moving back into place.
‘I’m not ready to write about how her life ended. I’m not sure I ever will be.’
‘But you have to, Mark,’ Lexi urged him softly, ignoring just how close the cliff edge was so she could step in front of him, forcing him to look down at her face. ‘You’re the only one who can tell the truth about what happened that day. Because if you don’t someone else will make it up. I know that for a fact. Your mother is relying on you. Don’t you want the truth to come out?’
‘The truth? Oh, Lexi.’
She lifted her hands and pressed her fingertips to the front of his shirt.
He flinched at her touch, but she didn’t move an inch and locked her eyes on to his.
‘I was only there for a few seconds that day, but you saw what happened in its entirety, and you know why it happened. That makes you unique.’
‘What happened?’ he repeated, his eyes scanning her face as though he was looking for permission to say what needed to be said and finding it. ‘What happened was that I was half a world away from London when my mother collapsed with a brain aneurysm. Dad had sent me over to Mumbai to negotiate with the owners of a start-up technology firm, so I was in India when Mum’s friend called me out of the blue. It was the middle of the night, but there’s nothing like hearing that your mother’s been rushed to hospital to wake you up pretty fast.’
‘How awful. No one should have to take a call like that when they’re so far away.’
‘The next twenty-four hours were probably the longest and most exhausting of my life. But if anything it got worse when I finally arrived. Cassie had met me at the airport. I’ll never forget walking into that hospital room. I hardly recognised her. She had tubes coming out from everywhere, she was surrounded by medical staff, and I couldn’t understand why she was still comatose. She looked so lifeless, so white and still.’
He shook his head and closed his eyes as Lexi moved closer towards him.
‘I think I must have been too exhausted at that point to take things in, because I remember asking Cassie if she was sure there hadn’t been some terrible mistake—this wasn’t our mother after all. But then the doctors whisked us all out to one of those beige and green so-called relatives’ rooms and the truth finally started to hit home.’
He half opened his eyes as Lexi looked into his face. ‘Our lovely, beautiful mother hadn’t come to London to stay with her old friend and talk charity fundraising. She’d come to have plastic surgery. She didn’t tell us in advance because she knew we’d try and talk her out of it. According to her friend, she’d planned the surgery months earlier, as a Christmas present to herself. Because she needed the boost to her confidence.’
‘Oh, Mark.’
‘She had the operation Monday morning, collapsed on the Monday evening, and slipped away from us on Thursday morning. While I was standing in a police station in central London, being cautioned for attacking a member of the press. Your father.’
Mark snapped his fingers, and the sound ricocheted out into the serene calm air and seemed to penetrate Lexi’s body. She jerked back in shock.
‘That’s how fast your life can switch.’
Lexi felt tears roll down her cheeks, but she couldn’t speak. Not yet. Not until he was ready.
‘The surgeon kept telling us that if she’d survived the aneurysm she could well have been brain-damaged or disabled, as if that would help in some way. It didn’t.’
‘How did your dad get through it?’ Lexi asked.
‘He didn’t,’ Mark whispered. ‘He fought off cancer a few years ago, and was in remission until her death destroyed him. He’s never been the same since. It’s as though all the light went out of his world. He’s fighting it, but he’s determined to do it alone and there’s not one thing Cassie or I can do except make his days as bright and positive as possible.’
‘And do you think this book will help? Is that why you agreed to do it?’
‘Cassie thinks it’s the one thing keeping his spirits up. He wants it to be a celebration of her life instead of some nonsense tabloid journalists will put together from media press kits to make a profit from some scandalous headline.’
‘But what about you, Mark? What would help you to grieve for her?’
‘Me? I don’t know where to start. Sometimes I can’t believe that I won’t ever see her again or hear her voice. I don’t want to think about all the future events and special occasions in my life where there will be an empty chair with her name on it. And then there’s the guilt. That’s the toughest thing of all.’
‘Guilt? Why do you feel guilty?’
He closed his eyes. ‘Let me see. Never having time to spend with my own mother one-to-one because of the obligations I took on when Edmund died. Always cancelling lunch dates with my biggest fan at the very last minute or having to cut short telephone calls because of some business meeting. Oh, yes, and let’s not forget the big one. The reason she had plastic surgery in the first place.’
Mark lifted his head and looked directly at Lexi. She could see moisture glistening at the corners of his eyes, but was powerless to speak in the intensity of his gaze.
‘She told her friend that she was having the surgery because she didn’t want to let me down at my engagement party. She didn’t feel beautiful enough to stand next to me and my future bride’s aristocratic family. So she went to London on her own and went through surgery on her own. For me. Have you ever heard anything so ridiculous in your life?’
CHAPTER SEVEN
‘OH MARK,’ Lexi whispered in amazement. ‘Why do you think your mother felt that way? She was stunningly beautiful.’
Mark looked up as a flock of seabirds circled above their heads before flying over to the cliffs to nest. ‘Pressure. Competition from other actresses for work in TV and movies. Every time we met she talked about the disappointment of being turned down for the roles she really wanted to play.’ Mark sighed. ‘She couldn’t get work, and it was obvious she was finding it tougher and tougher to bounce back from each new rejection. Her agent gave up even trying to interest the movie studios. There was always another beautiful starlet just waiting to be discovered, and in the end it wore her down.’
‘But Crystal Leighton was still a big star. People loved her.’
‘Try telling that to the casting directors. The truth is she’d been desperately unhappy for a very long time and it showed. She’d lost her spark. Her vitality. Her joy. And it was there on her face for the world to see.’
‘So it wasn’t just about your engagement party, was it? That was just an excuse for having the work done. Please don’t feel guilty about something you have no control over. From what you tell me, it doesn’t sound like you would’ve been able to change her mind.’
Mark exhaled slowly and Lexi felt his breath on her face. She lifted her right hand and stroked his cheek with her fingertips as his eyes fluttered half-closed. ‘I didn’t realise you were engaged,’ she whispered, desperate to prolong the sensation of standing so close to him for as long as possible. Even if there was a fabulous fiancée waiting for him back in London.
‘There’s no reason why you should. It never happened. It’s over now,’ Mark replied, his brow furrowed and hard. ‘We’d known each other for years, we mixed in the same circles, and I think it just became something other people expected us to do. I never proposed and she didn’t expect me to. It was simply a convenient arrangement for both of us. We were friends, but I wasn’t in love with her. Two months ago she found someone she truly cares about, which is how it should be.’