‘I’VE got to go out to the villa today, to meet with one of the contractors, and I wondered if you’d like to come with me?’
The sudden frown that followed Ilios’s invitation made Lizzie wonder if he had spoken without thinking and was now regretting having done so. But, faced with the prospect of another day on her own, sightseeing in the city, when she could instead see the house that had such a fascinating history, she was not going to ask Ilios if he would like to withdraw his invitation.
‘I’d love to,’ she told him truthfully. After all, it wasn’t just Villa Manos she would get to see properly. She would also be with Ilios. Her heart leapt even as her thoughts filled her with guilt.
It had been disquieting to wake in Ilios’s arms in the early hours of the morning after they had made love—several days ago now. She’d known that she had crossed a barrier she had never intended to cross. Lying with her head on Ilios’s chest, listening to the sound of his breathing, Lizzie had been forced to admit to herself what she had recognised earlier in the evening. Somehow emotion had become entangled in what she had truthfully believed to be merely physical desire. And that emotion was love. An emotion Ilios had already told her he did not want in his life.
But that was all right, she assured herself determinedly now. After all, she was not going to tell him about her love for him. She wasn’t going to offer it to him. She wasn’t going to do anything different because of it. When the time came she would still pack up her belongings, fold her love in tissue paper in her memory, and take it with her. It was hers, and if she wished to cherish it and protect it, and every now and again remove it from the place where she had hidden it to relive those memories she had made, then that was her business—wasn’t it? She was mature enough not to allow it to intrude into what was in reality a business relationship, a business commitment. Ilios had paid her—not to sleep with him of course, but to marry him. In doing so she was providing him a means of outmanoeuvring his cousin, and preventing him from causing him difficulties and delays with regard to their grandfather’s will.
What on earth had made him ask Lizzie for her company? Ilios didn’t know—or rather he was determined not to know, because of what knowing the answer to his own question might mean.
The night he had taken her to bed had changed everything between them. And it had also changed him. Ilios knew that there were those who came into contact with him who considered him hard and demanding, but the demands he made on others, the expectations he had of them, were nothing compared with those he made on and had for himself.
In taking Lizzie to bed in the first place he had broken his own rules, and that was bad enough. However, even though he had known they were not using contraception he had still gone ahead—and it was that fact that most challenged his perceptions of himself. He could have stopped. His mind had given him a warning that had in turn given him the opportunity to stop. But he had ignored that warning. Why? Because at that point he had been too aroused to want to stop? He was thirty-six years old, dammit, not a teenager and he knew it. Now it was that knowledge that was rubbing a raw place inside his head. Like grit in a shoe, demanding attention, a question that wanted an answer.
Why, when he had been aware of what he was doing and the risk he was taking, and when he had had the opportunity to stop, had he not done so? Why had he, in fact, deliberately continued? Knowing what might result? His life was planned out—his way ahead clear. Impregnating Lizzie with his child was not part of that plan, and neither that child nor Lizzie herself had any place in his future.
And now, when surely he ought to be distancing himself from Lizzie, he had actually invited her to spend the day with him.
It would be both heaven and hell to spend the day with Ilios, Lizzie knew. What had happened to her determination to fight what was happening to her? She would recover it, she assured herself. But just for today she was going to allow herself to bask inwardly in the happiness she felt and the delight of being with him. Inwardly. Outwardly, of course, she must treat the day and Ilios himself in exactly the same way she would have done an appointment with any client she might be accompanying, to view a property they wanted her to restyle for them. All right, so Ilios wasn’t going to be asking her to restyle Villa Manos, and for her own sake she must remember why he had married her. As soon as Ilios deemed that their marriage had served its purpose she would be on her way home, and their marriage would be brought to an end.
With that in mind, when she joined him in the living room half an hour after they had finished breakfast, she was wearing her ‘professional uniform’ of jeans and a white tee shirt—although the new jeans were part of her Mrs Manos wardrobe and were designer. They fitted her perfectly, just like the tee shirt. She carried a jacket over her arm.
Like her, Ilios was also casually dressed in jeans. When he turned his back on her to place his coffee mug in the dishwasher Lizzie had an excellent view of the way in which the denim fitted the muscular firmness of his buttocks, and shamefully she could feel her heartbeat increasing as her gaze lingered on him longer than it should have done. Her? Ogling a man’s body? Since when? But Ilios was no ordinary man, was he? He was the man she loved. And the temptation to go up to him and lean against him, hoping that he would turn round and take her in his arms, was almost overwhelming.
It didn’t help that Ilios was now coming to bed after she had fallen asleep and getting up in the morning before she was awake, making it very plain that he did not want a repetition of the intimacy they had shared. Although the one good thing about her discovering that she loved him was that she did not now need to fear being overcome by her lust—knowing that she loved him had changed everything. It meant that she would not and could not risk Ilios recognising how she felt.
Pinning a bright, businesslike smile to her face, she asked Ilios conversationally, ‘Is the interior of Villa Manos modelled on Villa Emo as well as the exterior?’
This was another unfamiliar issue he was having to deal with, Ilios acknowledged. The fact that not once since he had taken her to bed had Lizzie made any reference to what had happened. Not so much as by a look, never mind a word. Because she regretted what had happened? Because her sexual desire for him, once satisfied, had vanished? Either of those alternatives should have been welcomed by him, and yet here he was feeling they were unsatisfactory—that the situation between them was unsatisfactory. It left him feeling that there was unfinished business between them, that he wanted…
He wanted what? To take her back to bed and repeat his reckless behaviour? Double the chances of her becoming pregnant? Was that really what he wanted? The ferocity with which his heart slammed into his ribs caught him off guard. It was the realisation of what could happen that had caused that surge of emotion inside him, that was all. Nothing else. The last thing he wanted was for Lizzie to be carrying his child.
Ilios forced himself to focus on Lizzie’s question.
‘Yes and no,’ he answered. ‘It is both similar and different—you will have to judge for yourself. However, what I can tell you is that structurally my ancestor followed Palladio’s measurement ratio for the interior, just as he did for the exterior, so the villa follows Palladio’s beliefs in the importance of architectural harmony. Internally, the living space forms a classical central square core, within which are six rooms that size-wise form repetitions of one of Palladio’s standard modules. For instance, either side of the entrance hall are two rooms which are sixteen Trevisan feet in width by twenty-seven Trevisan feet in length.’ He paused, in case what he was saying was going over Lizzie’s head, but he could see from her expression that she was following what he was saying perfectly.
‘To create a ratio of six to ten,’ she agreed. ‘The perfect numbers in Renaissance architecture. I’ve read references to Palladio’s buildings being like frozen music, because he adopted the proportions that Pythagoras said produced combinations of notes that fall harmoniously on the human ear.’
Ilios gave an approving nod of his head. ‘That Greek connection had great appeal for my ancestor, according to our family lore. As far as Villa Manos goes, in between the smaller rooms—the two I’ve already mentioned—facing east and the west of the villa, are four more rooms which together have the same Palladio measurements. The central grand salon comprises two of those modules side by side, and the floor plan of the piano nobile is repeated in a second piano nobile over it, with mezzanine rooms in between.’
‘Like Villa Cornaro?’
‘You’re obviously a Palladio fan.’
‘It’s impossible not to be if you love classical architecture.’ Lizzie smiled. ‘I was half toying with the idea of training as an architect when my parents died. It hadn’t been my first choice of career, but working as an interior designer showed me how important structure is. From there… What is it?’ she asked, when she saw how his own expression had changed and hardened.
Reluctantly he told her, ‘My father was an architect, and as a boy it was my ambition to follow in his footsteps in that regard—to build modern structures in celebration of Palladio’s own style, based on his principles. Of course there wasn’t the money, although as a boy I didn’t realise that. The Junta imposed such heavy taxes and fines on those who antagonised them, as my grandfather did, that they beggared him. He was left with nothing, and he had to watch Villa Manos falling into disrepair, unable to do anything to halt that process. Keeping it in defiance of the Junta was something of a pyrrhic victory for him. By the time the Junta was deposed there was nothing left for him to sell or mortgage, and certainly no money to educate me to the standard necessary for me to train as an architect. He loved the villa more than he loved any living person.’
Abruptly Ilios stopped speaking, wondering why he had allowed himself to reveal so much about his childhood and his family, telling Lizzie things he have never disclosed before to anyone, much less a woman who had shared his bed.
What was it about her that caused him to react in the way he did? As though she was different—and special? He must not exaggerate the situation, or his own reactions to it, Ilios cautioned himself. It was the fact that Lizzie was knowledgeable about Palladio and his work that had led to him confiding in her the way he had, nothing more.
Lizzie fought back the emotional tears stinging the backs of her eyes as Ilios finished speaking.
‘But he must have loved you as well. After all, he left you the villa,’ she told him impulsively, wanting instinctively to ease what she knew must be his hurt. Who would not be hurt in such circumstances?
‘No, my value to him lay in my genes, that is all,’ was Ilios’s harsh response.
Lizzie ached with sadness for him. Was his own childhood the cause of Ilios’s determination not to marry and not to allow any woman to knowingly have his children? Had having to be so self-reliant, unable to trust the one adult he should have been able to turn to, left him so badly scarred that he was unable to trust other human beings himself? It would have taken great emotional strength and endurance and great maturity to have survived the childhood Ilios had had and emerge unscathed from it, far more than any young child could have been expected to have.
Lizzie felt desperately sorry for the little boy Ilios must have been—so sorry, in fact, that she wanted to gather that child up in her arms and hold him safe, give him the same loving childhood she herself had known. But of course that child no longer existed, and the man he had become would scorn her emotions as mere sentiment, she suspected.
‘The past is over. Looking back toward it serves no purpose,’ Ilios told her curtly. ‘We live in the present, after all.’
‘That’s true, but sometimes we need to look back to what we were to understand what we are now.’
‘That is self-indulgence and it also serves no purpose,’ Ilios insisted grimly, looking at his watch and adding, ‘If you are ready to leave…?’
Lizzie nodded her head. The subject of his childhood and the effect it must have had on him was obviously closed, and she suspected it would remain that way.
It would soon be spring, and the temperature was beginning to rise a little. Wild flowers bloomed by the roadside, the way they had their faces turned up to the sun making Lizzie smile as Ilios drove them towards the east and the peninsula where Villas Manos stood.
Since Ilios was a good driver there was no logical reason for her to feel on edge. No logical reason, perhaps, but since when have the emotions of a woman in love been logical? Lizzie asked herself wryly.
They passed the turn-off for Halkidiki and the famous Mount Athos peninsula, with its monasteries and its rule that no female was allowed to set foot there, including female animals, and then had stopped briefly at a small tavern for a simple lunch of Greek salad and fruit. It was eaten mainly in the same silence which had pervaded since they had set out.
If Ilios was regretting inviting her to join him, then she was certainly regretting accepting his invitation. She felt rejected and unwanted, deliberately distanced from Ilios by his silence—a silence that her own pride would not allow her to break.
Ilios drove straight to the villa on the western side of the promontory, ignoring the fork in the road to the east where the apartment block had been.
It seemed a lifetime since she had first met Ilios there. Then she had been a single woman, her only concern for her financial situation and the future of her family. Her own emotions as a woman simply had not come into the equation. Now she was married and a wife—at least in the eyes of the world. Her family were financially secure, and her anxiety was all for her own emotions.
Ruby had sent her a photograph of the twins via her mobile, so that Lizzie could see the new school uniforms she had bought for them at Lizzie’s insistence that she must do so and that they could afford it. A tender, amused smile curled Lizzie’s mouth. The two five-year-olds had looked so proud in their grey flannel trousers and maroon blazers, their dark hair cut short and brushed neatly.
Lizzie loved her nephews. She had been present at their birth, anxious for her young sister, and grieving for the fact that Ruby was having to go through her pain without their parents and without the man who had fathered her children. But when the twins had been born and she had held them all the sad aspects of their birth had been forgotten in the rush of love and joy she had felt.
They had reached the villa now, and even though she had seen it before, and knew what to expect, Lizzie was still filled with admiration and awe as she gazed at its perfect proportions, outlined against the bright blue sky.
The warm cream colour of the villa toned perfectly with the aged darker colour of the marble columns supporting the front portico and with the soft grey-white of the shutters at the windows. The gravel on which the car was resting exactly matched the colour of the marble columns, and the green of the lawns highlighted the darker green of the Cyprus trees lining the straight driveway. The whole scene in front of them was one of visual harmony.
There was no other car parked outside—which Lizzie presumed meant that the man Ilios had come here to see had not as yet arrived.
‘We’re earlier than I expected, so I’ll show you the inside before Andreas arrives,’ Ilios announced as he opened the car door for Lizzie and waited for her to get out.
They walked to the entrance side by side. Side by side but feet apart, Lizzie thought sadly as she waited for Ilios to unlock the magnificent double doors.
Above them, where in Italy there would have been the family arms and motto, was an image of a small sailing ship.
‘Alexandros Manos earned his fortune as a maritime trader,’ Ilios informed her, following her gaze. ‘It was his fleet that paid for this land and for the villa.’
Ilios had opened the door, and was stepping back so that Lizzie could precede him inside the villa.
The first thing she noticed was the smell of fresh paint, unmistakable and instantly recognizable. Her educated nose told her that the smell came from a traditional lime-based paint rather than a modern one.
With the shutters closed the interior was in darkness—until Ilios switched on the lights, causing Lizzie to gasp in astonished delight as she spun round, studying the frescoes that ran the whole way round the double-height central room.
She had seen frescoes before, of course, many of them. But none quite like these.
‘Are they scenes from the Odyssey?’ she asked Ilios uncertainly after she had studied them.
‘Yes,’ Ilios confirmed. ‘Only Odysseus bears a striking resemblance to Alexandros Manos. To have oneself depicted as the hero of the Odyssey was, of course, a conceit not uncommon at the time. I’ve had the frescoes repainted because of the damage they’ve suffered over the centuries. Luckily we had some sketches of the original scenes to work with. The work still isn’t finished yet,’ Ilios added, indicating the final panel of the fresco, where a woman was bending over a loom, unpicking a thread, with the outline of a large dog at her feet.
The fresco was badly damaged, with paint peeling from it and marks across it that looked as though someone had scored the panel angrily with something sharp. Even so it was still possible to see what the panel was meant to represent.
‘Penelope? The faithful wife?’ Lizzie guessed, remembering the legend of how Odysseus’s wife Penelope had held off the suitors who wanted to marry her and take possession of Odysseus’s kingdom by saying she would only accept one of them when she had finished her tapestry, and then unpicking it every night in secret so that it would never be finished, so sure had she been that her husband would eventually return.
Ilios’s terse, ‘Yes’, told Lizzie that he didn’t want to discuss the subject of the panel, so she turned instead to follow him into one of the smaller rooms.
Here scaffolding showed where craftsmen were obviously working to repair the ornate plasterwork ceiling, which Lizzie could see held a central fresco of a family group.
‘I had to go to Florence to find the craftspeople to do this work,’ Ilios told Lizzie.
‘It’s a highly skilled job,’ Lizzie agreed.
Two hours later Ilios had given her a full tour of the house. The man he was supposed to be meeting had telephoned to say that he would have to cancel and make another appointment. He was unavoidably delayed because his wife had gone into premature labour.
‘I hope she and the baby will be all right,’ had been Lizzie’s immediate and instinctive comment as they’d walked down the return staircase.
The villa would be stunningly beautiful when the restoration work had been completed—a true work of art, in fact. But Lizzie simply could not visualise it as a home.
‘It won’t be easy, bringing up your sons here,’ she felt bound to say.
‘I don’t plan to live here,’ Ilios told her.
Lizzie looked uncertainly at him. ‘But I thought—that is, you said that the house had to stay within the family.’
‘It does, and it will. But not as a family home. I’ve got other plans for it. There’s a shortage of opportunities for young apprentices to learn the skills that go into maintaining a house like this. I found that out for myself. So I’ve decided that Villa Manos will become a place where those who want to master those skills can come to learn them. Instead of turning the villa into a dead museum, I plan to turn it into a living workshop—where courses are run for master craftsmen, taught by those who have already mastered those trades themselves.’
‘What a wonderful idea.’ Lizzie didn’t make any attempt to conceal her approval.
‘I shall build a house for myself on the other side of the promontory.’
‘Where the apartments were?’
‘Yes. There will also be an accommodation block, and schoolrooms and proper workshops for the students. They will be situated in the wooded area between the villa and the other side of the promontory—’ He broke off as Lizzie’s mobile suddenly started to bleep.
‘I’m sorry,’ she apologised, scrambling in her bag for it so that she could silence it. Her face suddenly broke into a smile as she looked at the image which had flashed up on her screen.
‘It’s the twins—my nephews,’ she told Ilios. ‘My sister sent me a photograph of them earlier, in their new school uniforms, and now she’s sent me another picture of them.’ Lizzie held up the phone so that he could see.
Ilios glanced dismissively at the screen, and then found that he couldn’t look away. The young woman in the photograph, kneeling down and clasping a uniform-clad boy in each arm, had that same look of love and happiness on her face as Lizzie herself wore when she was talking about her family. There was no doubting the closeness her family shared, and no doubting Lizzie’s love for her sisters and these two small dark-haired boys. Fatherless they might be, but they were laughing into the camera, confident in the love that surrounded them. Neither was there any doubt about Lizzie’s determination to protect her family and provide for them. If Lizzie herself were to have a child then she would love it with the same absolute loyalty and devotion he could see on her face now. A child…his child… Absorbed in the enormity of what he was thinking, Ilios didn’t notice Lizzie move towards him until he felt her hand on his arm as she told him, ‘It’s thanks to you that they were able to have those uniforms.’
Thanks to him? Ilios tensed against what was happening to him—against the savage dagger-thrusts of pain that tore into him with Lizzie’s words. Because they reminded him of the truth. The only reason she was here with him was because he had blackmailed her into marrying him.
He shrugged off Lizzie’s hand on his arm, stepping back from her as he told her, ‘There are some interesting features in the garden. I’ll show you.’
Feeling rebuffed, Lizzie switched off her mobile and returned it to her handbag. Ilios obviously wanted to make it plain that their relationship was strictly business. He didn’t want to be forced to look at photographs of her family.
‘How long do you think it will be before your cousin accepts that he doesn’t have any grounds to try and overset your grandfather’s will?’ she asked Ilios as they headed for the garden at the rear of the villa.
Here, beyond a wide flagged terrace, steps led down to what must once have been intricately formal beds of clipped box, surrounding a pool with a fountain. But Lizzie wasn’t really concentrating on her surroundings. Instead she was hoping desperately for a miracle—for that miracle to be Ilios telling her that he had changed his mind about ending their marriage because he wanted them to be together for ever.
He shrugged dismissively. ‘You are, of course, impatient to return to your family?’
‘I do miss them,’ Lizzie agreed, her heart sinking. That wasn’t the response she had hoped for at all. It was true that she did miss her family, but she was also finding it increasingly difficult to behave as though nothing had happened between her and Ilios. Take now, for instance. When they had come out of the house she had almost put her arm through Ilios’s, just as if they were actually a genuine couple. Of course it was because she craved the intimacy of physical closeness with him, just as any woman in love would.
‘Regrettably, my lawyers feel that we should remain married for the time being, as a divorce so soon after our wedding would look suspicious. However, you can rest assured that I am every bit as eager to bring our marriage to an end as you,’ Ilios announced coldly, his response driven by pride and the need to defend himself from the alien emotions that were threatening him.
The cold words struck into her heart like ice picks. But it was her own fault if she had been hurt, Lizzie told herself resolutely.
‘This is what I wanted to show you,’ Ilios told her nearly half an hour later, when they had walked through the extensive gardens to the villa and emerged at the side of a pretty man-made lake. He gestured towards a grotto dotted with statuary and ornamented with a small fresh water spring.
‘What is it?’ Lizzie asked him.
‘It’s a nymphaeum,’ Ilios explained. ‘An artificially created grotto for which the statuary has been specifically designed. Villa Barbaro has one—some of its statuary executed by Marcantonio Barbaro, supposedly. It’s a conceit, really. A way for the villa-owner to show off either his own talent as a sculptor or that of an artist to whom he was a patron. The lake here needs dredging, and the small temple on the island renovating.’
‘The whole place is stunning,’ Lizzie told him truthfully. ‘I can understand why your ancestor wanted it kept in the family. I do think, though, that your plan to turn it into a living workshop is a wonderful idea—and so very generous. A wonderful gift to future generations, enabling such special skills to be carried on.’
‘I’m not motivated by generosity. I’ve been held up on too many contracts by the lack of skilled artisans—that’s why I’m doing it.’ Ilios’s voice was clipped, as though her praise had annoyed him.
Because he didn’t want it? Just as he didn’t want her? She mustn’t dwell on what she could not have, but instead hold in her heart what they had briefly shared, Lizzie told herself. She mustn’t let that joy be overshadowed or diminished.
Nor must she allow the fact that Ilios did not return her feelings to prevent her from behaving as she would have done had she not loved him.
‘I’ve really enjoyed today. Thank you for bringing me and showing me the villa,’ she told him, with that in mind, as they headed back to the car for the return journey to Thessaloniki.
He had enjoyed it too, Ilios acknowledged. When he had not been battling with the emotions his conflicting feelings towards her aroused.
On the way back to Thessaloniki they stopped at the same tavern where they had had lunch. The small village overlooked the sea, and the front of the tavern was protected enough from the breeze for it to be warm enough to sit outside.
They’d eaten plump juicy black olives and delicious grilled kebabs, and were just finishing their coffee when it happened. A dull noise like thunder, and the movement of the ground beneath their feet.
The trestle table shifted, spilling Lizzie’s coffee, and then Ilios got up, coming towards her and taking hold of her, pushing her down to the ground, covering her with his own body as he warned her, ‘It’s an earthquake.’
‘An earthquake?’ she echoed.
‘This area’s notorious for them. It will be all right—just keep still.’
She had no other option other than to keep still with Ilios’s body a protective weight over hers, pinning her to the ground. His hand was cupping the back of her head protectively, pushing her face into his shoulder, allowing her to breathe in the now familiar scent of him. Lizzie just hoped he would assume that the heavy sledgehammer thuds of her heartbeat were caused by her shock and fear of the earthquake rather than by the proximity of their bodies. How fate must be enjoying its joke at her expense, knowing that when she had longed to be held in Ilios’s arms these were not the circumstances in which she had envisaged it happening. To be held by him in an embrace outwardly that of the most intimate and tender of lovers which in reality was nothing more than a means of safety felt painfully ironic, even if his prompt actions were for her own benefit.
‘What’s that?’ she asked anxiously above the growing noise she could hear.
‘Just a few stones and boulders dislodged by the quake rolling down the hillside.’
Lizzie gasped as the earth moved again, in a shudder she could feel right through her body, causing Ilios to tighten his hold on her. Had he loved her, this moment would have been filled with the most intense emotion—and surely would ultimately have resulted in them celebrating their survival and their love for one another in the most intimate way possible once they had had the privacy to do so. Sex was, after all, the only human activity that combined life, birth and even a small taste of death in that moment when it felt as though one flew free into infinity.
Ilios. Why had she had to fall in love with him? Why couldn’t she have simply wanted him on a physical level and nothing more? Because she was a woman, and the female sex, no matter how much it might wish for things to be different, was genetically geared to making an emotional commitment?
The earth had steadied, and so had her heartbeat, slowing to match the sturdy tempo of Ilios’s. In a situation that would normally have filled her with fear for her own safety she had felt completely secure, protected—safe because of him. But here in Ilios’s arms there was no emotional safety for her, only emotional danger, Lizzie reminded herself.
Against her ear Ilios spoke again. ‘That should be it now, but we’d better stay where we are for a few more minutes.’
The warmth of his breath sent small shudders of sensual delight rippling over her nerve-endings, and the knowledge that his lips were so close to her flesh made her want to compel them even closer. Memories of how it had felt to have him caressing her skin with the stroke of his tongue-tip broke through the embargo she had placed on them.
‘Will it affect the villa?’ Lizzie asked, genuinely concerned about the villa but equally intent on distracting herself from thinking so intimately about Ilios and how much she loved him.
‘No. The promontory isn’t affected by the fault line.’
Lizzie could hear voices as people called out to one another. Ilios lifted his body from hers. She badly wanted to beg him not to do so—and not because of the earthquake. He stood up, and then reached down to help her to her feet.
‘You’ve got dust on your face.’
Before she could stop him he leaned towards her, brushing her cheek with his hand.
She wanted to stay like this for ever, Lizzie thought achingly. With Ilios’s hand on her skin, his gaze on hers, his arm supporting her—just as though she genuinely did matter to him, just as though he cared about her and wanted to protect her because he loved her. She moved towards him yearningly, only to have him move back.
What was happening to him? Ilios asked himself grimly. Increasingly his own behaviour was so alien to what he knew of himself that witnessing it was like confronting a stranger wearing his skin. A stranger who was challenging him for full possession of himself? A stranger who owed his existence to the arrival of Lizzie Wareham in his life? A stranger whose first thought was to protect Lizzie? Why?
Because it was in his own interests to protect her. He had a vested interest in her safety after all.
No one in the village seemed particularly disturbed by the tremor. Everyone was going about their normal business, and men were working to clear the debris from the hillside from the road as Lizzie got to her feet.
‘Are you okay?’ Ilios asked her.
‘Yes, thanks to you.’
Oh, yes, he was definitely withdrawing from her—rejecting her gratitude, rejecting anything remotely emotional between them, and of course rejecting her physically.
Ilios stepped back from her physically as well as emotionally with a brisk nod of his head. ‘In ancient times they used to believe that it was the gods’ anger that was responsible for these tremors,’ he commented a few minutes later as he opened the car door for Lizzie. ‘Now we construct buildings especially designed to cope with the movement caused by them.’