Free The Enigmatic Greek by Catherine George

the drawback doesn’t bother me too much.’ She pulled a face. ‘Compared with your life mine sounds numbingly dull.’
    ‘Not recently,’ he reminded her, and picked up her hand to examine her bruised knuckles. ‘It was anything but when that reprobate kicked you into the sea last night.’
    Eleanor agreed with a shiver which had more to do with his touch than the incident. ‘I haven’t thanked you properly for rescuing me—though when you first grabbed me I thought it was the man, trying to drown me for real.’
    ‘It was like trying to rescue an eel!’ he agreed and eyed her quizzically. ‘But did you really need rescuing?’
    ‘No. I’m a fairly strong swimmer. Once I made it to the surface, I could have swum back to the jetty easily enough. Well, maybe not easily. The wretch hurt me quite a bit.’
    ‘Which is why I dived in after you. When you’d just laid into my mother’s kidnapper it was the least I could do.’
    ‘And much appreciated,’ said Eleanor and sat back. ‘Your turn now.’
    He leaned over to refill her glass. ‘What do you want to know?’
    ‘Anything you care to tell me. Perhaps I could just ask some questions? It’s entirely up to you whether you answer them.’
    ‘If you wish,’ said Alex, resigned.
    ‘Can we go back to the time when you started in prep school? Why was it such hell?’
    He was silent for some time, wondering why it felt so easy to confide in her, when normally he refused to talk about himself to anyone at all other than his mother, and even then only rarely. ‘To admit this is very bad for my image, but at first I missed my mother so much I buried my face in the pillow every night so no one heard me cry. I was a pretty average size at that age, and cursed with thishair. I could speak English fluently enough, due to tutors my father employed to prepare me for the new school, but I spoke it with an accent—as I still do. When the rugby season started, things looked up. In the front row of the pack in a scrum I learned a few tricks—not all of them in the rule book—which were a great help. I put on a burst of growth, grew taller very quickly, did well at other sports and life became bearable.’
    ‘How old were you when you went away to school?’
    ‘Too young,’ Alex said without inflection.
    Eleanor eyed him with compassion, picturing a little boy with golden curls crying at night for his mother. ‘I didn’t go away to school, at least not until I went to university, so by the time I flew the nest I was raring to go.’
    ‘A much better arrangement.’ He shrugged. ‘But, hard though school was in the beginning, I made good friends there in time, including the master who opened up the world of technology to me.’
    ‘I read that you made a fortune from it while you were still in school.’
    Alex shrugged. ‘I have two people to thank for that: my grandfather, who put up the money to back me on my venture, and my father.’
    Eleanor stared at him in surprise.
    ‘Milo Drakos bought me the latest and most expensive computer to play with every time I went to stay with him.’ He smiled grimly. ‘This only stopped when I refused to go there any more.’
    ‘He gave up buying expensive bribes?’
    ‘No. He became involved with a woman who hated me.’ He shot her a look. ‘Surely your research turned up that bit of information?’
    ‘No, it didn’t. Is your father still involved with her?’
    Alex shook his head. ‘The relationship was short-lived,because the lady not only objected to my visits but demanded that he marry her and adopt her son from a former marriage; a huge mistake on her part.’ The dark eyes hardened. ‘She had no hope of it anyway. It annoys the hell out of me to admit it, but I’m sure Milo’s still in love with my mother.’
    Eleanor could well believe it. The electricity in the air had fairly crackled when Milo Drakos had walked into his ex-wife’s bedroom the night before. ‘May I ask how she feels about him?’ she