Page 5 of Forbidden Greek Mistress
He had kept her hidden away from any and all prying eyes, his Saskia. He had protected her when she was his. He had kept her a secret from everyone who knew him, the paparazzi, the world. She had come to think that he was ashamed of her, but nothing could be further from the truth.
What he had never wanted was this. His corrosive father anywhere near her—
But he shook himself.
Saskia was dead. This woman was an imitation, not the real thing.
And still, he didn’t like his father touching her. It crawled all over him like something sick.
“I have invited everyone here to celebrate with me,” Pavlos boomed out, smiling fatuously in all directions. “I have asked this beautiful woman, my lovely and innocent Selwen, to marry me. Better yet, she has accepted.”
He beamed at Saskia. Thanasis thought he might actually have died himself.
But Pavlos wasn’t done. “And she has graciously accepted,” he continued. “And who can say, perhaps she will be the making of me. Isn’t that wonderful?”
The crowd burst into the expected applause. The band began to play something saccharine.
And Thanasis stared at the ghost of his lost mistress and vowed, then and there, that she would marry his degenerate of a father—apparition or no—over his dead body.
CHAPTER TWO
Selwen should haveknown that this night was going to be overwhelming. Over-the-top, outrageous, and excessive in all ways.
All of the things that Pavlos was that she had decided to accept, because surely he exemplified all of the things she had decided she wanted for this odd little life of hers. He wasexorbitantand she was trying her best to aim for extravagance in every possible aspect of her life. She was sayingyes.
To everything.
Ffion had demanded this of her before she died. And Selwen, who would have promised the older woman anything at all, anything she’d asked, had solemnly vowed that she would do her best to find it. No matter what it looked like.
Until the extravagance is me,Selwen had promised. It had become the little mantra she whispered to herself in moments of need. It was the engine that had gotten her out of Wales and into the shocking bright blue of Greece.
Still, nothing could have prepared her for the reality of this party tonight.
It had been one thing to spend time in the villa with Pavlos alone. He was an odd man, she’d decided, given to long-winded speeches only partially in English and many broad gestures as if she was to look for hints to his personality in the furnishings.She wasn’t certain that she understood what he was on about at any given time, but then, she didn’t need to.
All of this was about Ffion. And the promise she had made the older woman, her best and only friend in the world. Ffion had lain there on her deathbed, clutching Selwen’s hands in hers, and she had asked only one thing.
Extravagance.
And because she knew Selwen too well, and rightly expected that Selwen’s idea of extravagance might default to an extra bit of beans on her toast one night, she had thoughtfully prepared a list. Then had raspily declared that Selwen was to do her very best to go down that list and do each and every thing on it.
At first, Selwen hadn’t done anything of the sort. There had been the usual grim, tedious, grief-laden details of the death to handle first. Ffion had left Selwen everything, which still made her misty-eyed each time she thought about it. Ffion had told everyone that Selwen was her niece, up from London, and by the time she died, everyone had believed it.
Even Selwen forgot, from moment to moment, that Ffionwasn’tactually a family member. But then, Selwen believed, on a deep emotional level, that finding Ffion had been fate, not an accident.
Or anyway, she’d come to think that it had been fated, her coming to know Ffion the way she had. The sweet old woman who had taken her in when she was literally a stranger on the street and who Selwen had taken care of in return when the time came, because neither of them had anyone else.
And, more importantly, because she had come to love Ffion as if they really were family. To Selwen, that was exactly what they were.
She’d carefully disposed of all of Ffion’s things in accordance with her wishes. She’d sold the sweet old house in Pembrokeshire. And the ancient motorcar that had been sat inthe shed for years. She’d given the money that Ffion had set aside to the various charities that she had stalwartly supported during her life.
And then she’d turned her attention to thelife listthe old woman had created for her unofficially adopted niece. It was a list aimed at forcing Selwen to live the grand life Ffion had fretted over, thinking it was how Selwen ought to have been living instead of caring for an old woman in her final years. No matter how many times Selwen had told her that there was nothing she would have preferred to do than care for Ffion, her friend wouldn’t hear of it.
There is nothing extravagant or special about a terraced cottage, love,Ffion had said.
You are in it,Selwen had replied, every time.
But Ffion had furnished her list all the same, in her spidery cursive that made Selwen think of all the years her friend had seen. The demands were simple, really. Grow out her hair. Dress to look pretty, not to hide. Ride a train to Europe. Dance on a Greek island. Watch the sun come up with a man she was in love with, preferably from a well-tested bed.
