Read Online The Passionate Greek by Catherine Dane - Free Book Online

like to go first I will wait down here
until you are back in the villa.’ Melanie felt they were like two
strangers trying desperately to be polite to each other. She
dressed hurriedly in deep embarrassment. As she turned to go he
caught her hand. His expression was unfathomable to her...
    ‘I never meant this to happen, you must
believe me.’ Melanie, at a loss for words, gazed at him miserably.
Suddenly, he pulled her towards him and held her close. Melanie,
near tears, let him. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he was muttering
into her hair, burying her head into his shoulder. ‘But there are
things I need from the woman I am going to spend the rest of my
life with. If you knew you would understand.’ He stroked her hair.
‘Don’t you know I would have given anything for things to have
stayed the same as they were between us?’
    Melanie looked up at him. ‘But you didn’t
give anything, did you?’ she said sadly. ‘You gave me lawyers,
blocked phone calls and sent my letters back unopened.’ His mouth
tightened and the hand stroking her hair stilled. His look
soured.
    ‘The letters marked Her Majesty Prison?’ he
said bitterly. Melanie felt her face flame. Freeing herself from
his hold, she said ‘If you had bothered to read those letters you
might have understood.’
    ‘Understand!’ His voice rose. ‘I understand
that you lied in court for another man. You committed a criminal
offence, you were sent to prison for perjury and you want me to
understand?’’ His tone was incredulous. Melanie, stung beyond
endurance, felt her anger rising. ‘I am not even going to attempt
to answer that,’ she hissed. ‘You are determined to believe the
worst. So believe the worst.’ She spun away from him and made for
the steps. He grabbed her arm roughly and pulled her back.
    ‘I would have stood by you through thick and
thin. But not for another man. I will not stand for deception in a
woman. I won’t have excuses. And I demand absolute loyalty. To me
loyalty is the most important thing.’
    ‘Oh, it is, is it?’ Melanie seethed. ‘Well,
let me tell you something. You don’t know the meaning of the word.
Loyalty is keeping a promise and standing by it no matter your
personal loss. Loyalty is not going back on your word even when it
costs you months of your life and everything you hold dear.’ As she
spoke her anger faded and tears came in to her eyes. ‘Perhaps you
and I never really knew each other,’ she said sadly.
    She stepped away from him and he let her go.
At the foot of the steps to the villa she turned to look at him. He
was staring after her, a look of profound regret on his face. The
next morning he had gone.

Chapter Six
    Anna delivered the news grim faced as if she knew it
was Melanie’s fault. ‘Mr Nicos no stay,’ she said accusingly. ‘You
no have nice dinner last night? You no wear something pretty?’
Melanie, who was feeding Electra her breakfast yoghurt, stopped the
spoon half way to her daughter’s baby mouth. She was not expecting
this. A sense of loss assailed her, startling her with its
intensity. ‘But he say you stay here,’ Anna went on, sounding
mollified. ‘Maybe he come back soon.’
    Melanie doubted it. Nicos, she thought,
would stay away until Gabby was back to look after Electra and she,
Melanie, was safely off the island.
    Anna’s next announcement bewildered Melanie.
‘Mr Nicos got baby sitter for Electra.’
    ‘What for?’ she blurted.
    ‘He say he show you island again when he
comes back and he take you out on boat. That one he like to sail.
Need good girl to sit with baby. We get Maria, granddaughter
Andreas. Very good girl’
    Melanie was bewildered. When Nicos had told
her the evening before at dinner that he would show her over the
island again she had presumed it was for Electra’s sake, so that
she would know where to safely take the baby.
    But take her on his boat? She knew it was
his pride and joy. Not the glossy super yacht so often moored in
the