Cristos sank down on the side of her bed and entrapped her restive hands in both of his. Stunning dark golden eyes framed by spiky black lashes assailed hers. 'I want to make everything all right for you again and I can't… I feel helpless,' he confided roughly under his breath.

He seemed so sincere, so caring. She wanted to wrap both arms round him and hug him tight. He was upset about the baby. Was it possible that she had misjudged him? Reacted to an overdose of jealous insecurity?

'I've wrecked so many things in your life,' she muttered shakily.

'That's rubbish.' His hands tightened on hers. 'You haven't wrecked anything.'

Then why did he not mention the possibility of their having another baby? Why the heck could he not offer her the one option that would be a consolation and persuade her that he still saw them as having a marriage that had a future? For goodness' sake, why was she so pathetically weak? All he had to do was be kind and sympathetic and she was willing to keep him tied to her for the rest of his days! Did he deserve that? Did he deserve to have to stay married to a woman he didn't love just because she had fallen inconveniently pregnant? After all, there wasn't going to be a baby now.

Hauling her hands back from his, she flipped away from him, no longer trusting herself that close. 'I need time to think about things-'

'What things?'

'About stuff like how I feel,' she mumbled tearfully. Cristos gathered her closed and crushed her against him.

'You're miserable right now… you shouldn't be thinking about anything!'

She wanted to sneak her arms round him but she wouldn't let herself. He was very good at doing the supportive thing but it wouldn't do to read too much into it. She was in no hurry to remember it but Cristos, she reminded herself, was still the guy who had told her that he wasn't looking for love from her. Pulling herself back together again, she told him she was tired and eventually he took the hint and left. He had only been gone five minutes when the phone by her bed rang.

'This is Petrina Rhodias… may 1 visit you?' Betsy tried and failed to swallow. 'When?'

'Now…' The voice was cold, imperious, feminine. '-' Betsy acceded and wondered whether that had been wise. What could Petrina possibly have to say to her? Was there any point in putting herself through a potentially upsetting meeting? But the truth was that Betsy was curious, very curious about the other woman.

By the time, Petrina entered the room, Betsy was seated in the chair by the bed, clad in a white wrap. Petrina was very much the kind of woman who turned male heads, Betsy noted uneasily. Slim and curvaceous with big blue eyes and a wealth of blonde hair, she was as dainty as an elegant doll.

Petrina studied Betsy with unhidden dislike. 'I won't waste your time or mine. When are you planning to let Cristos have his life back?'

'Meaning?'

'Let him have a divorce.'

'If Cristos wants a divorce he only has to ask,' Betsy countered, tilting up her chin.

'He's not going to request a divorce the instant you lose your baby! Naturally he feels sorry for you.' Betsy lost color and compressed her lips. 'Woman to woman,' Petrina said snidely, 'Don't you think Cristos has paid enough yet for the mistake of getting you pregnant?'

Petrina was not a nice person. Betsy felt oddly relieved by that discovery even as she flinched. She wondered if Cristos had ever seen this nasty side of Petrina and knew he would not like it at all. But maybe he loved Petrina. Lovers did not demand perfection. And Petrina had yet to utter any lies. Cristos did feel sorry for his wife and even if he did want a divorce, she too was pretty sure that he would not ask for one while she was still grieving for the child she had lost. Furthermore, Cristos had suffered for his decision to marry Betsy. He had suffered both in his business and in his personal life and had even endured differences with his grandfather.

'Have you nothing to say.’ Petrina derided, her scorn palpable.

'I just want Cristos to be happy,' Betsy muttered, and she wasn't entirely sure about what she was saying. She believed that she ought to mean every syllable of the sentiment she had uttered. But when it came to picturing Cristos with Petrina, she felt gutted and desperate.

'He will be happy with me. He loves me,' Petrina asserted without hesitation.

'And yet you didn't mind that he wasn't faithful. Betsy pressed half under her breath.

The Greek woman settled scornful eyes on her. 'Why should it bother me when he amuses himself with a little slut like you.’

Betsy walked over to the door to spread it wide. 'I think it's time you clambered back on your broomstick.'

But, although Petrina departed, Betsy's mind had been made up for her. If Cristos loved Petrina, he deserved the freedom to choose to be with the other woman and Betsy ought to remove herself from his

path as tactfully as she could. "-

'I think I should go home for a while,' she informed. Cristos when he came in to visit her that afternoon.

His lean, strong face set in taut lines. 'I don't think

that's a good idea at present. You need to convalesce.' 'I can do that in London. I'd like to see my family.' 'Then we'll go together.'

'I'd prefer to go on my own.'

'We've only been married a few weeks,' Cristos reminded her.

'And a very eventful few weeks they've been,' Betsy pointed out tightly.

Cristos lodged at the window and she watched his lean, powerful hands curl into fists and flex loose again. 'I still believe that we should stay together and work through this. We can go away… anywhere in the world that you like, yineka mou.'

Her throat thickened and she would not allow herself to meet his intent gaze.

'Will you stay at our country house in England?' he asked abruptly.

'OK.'

'If you are there 1 can at least be sure that you're being properly looked after.' Suddenly, Cristos sounded as weary as she felt. 'That matters to me.'

'I know…' Her voice was going all wobbly and gruff.

'If 1 let you go, you have to promise to come back to Greece again.'

Her blood ran cold when she tried to imagine making a final visit to discuss the end of their marriage. 'No problem.'

'I'll give you two weeks-'

'That's not long enough,' she muttered. 'I need a month.'

'A month is a long time,' Cristos gritted.

Yes, long enough for him to tire of the role of being a supportive husband with no wife around. A month in which they could both heal and he could start considering the futility of resurrecting a marriage in which they were already living apart. When she came back

… to Greece it would be to agree to the official separation he was almost certain to request. And she would make it easy for him. She would be bright and breezy and he would never ever guess that her heart was breaking…

'I'll phone you every day,' he murmured flatly. Betsy breathed in slow and deep and suppressed her anguish. 'I think we both need more space than that…1 think it would be better if you didn't call.'

CHAPTER TEN

IN THIRTY minutes, the private jet would be landing on Greek soil.

Betsy went off to tidy herself. She wondered if her black shift dress and jacket looked a little funereal. She had put her hair up in an effort to look cool and restrained and now she decided it made her look plain. Cristos might not want her back, but she didn't fancy the idea of him looking at her and wondering what he had ever seen in her.

For the whole month, she had stayed at Ashstead, the Stephanides country house in Devon. The first week she had done nothing but cry and sleep. At the start of the second week she had dutifully gone to London to visit her family, accept their commiserations over her miscarriage and admire Gemma's engagement ring. When she returned to Devon, she began going out for long country walks. Her appetite came back and a sparkle returned to her eyes. Patras came to stay for two days and, although she had to ban him from trying to behave like a heavy-handed marriage guidance counselor, she really enjoyed his company and absolutely adored all the stories he told her about Cristos as a boy. By the end of the fourth week, when Cristos had his PA call her to relay her travel arrangements, she was feeling thoroughly rested.

But while she had come to terms with her grief, she found it quite impossible to come to terms with the prospect of losing Cristos. Even worse the, concept of surrendering Cristos to Petrina, who she was convinced was wholly undeserving of him, kept her awake at night. She missed him every hour of every day. A hundred times over, she almost lifted the phone to ring him just to hear the sound of his voice. Only the question of how she would explain herself prevented her from succumbing to temptation.

After the jet landed at Athens, Betsy was ferried across the airport to board a helicopter. When the flight winged out across the Aegean Sea she wondered where on earth she was being taken, yet in another sense she didn't care enough to try and ask. If journey’s end meant politely accepting that her marriage was over, she would just as soon remain an eternal traveler. As she'd left London her spirits had been buoyed up by the knowledge that she would soon be seeing Cristos again. Fear of what he would be telling her had plunged her into the downward descent of misery.

So preoccupied was she that when the helicopter landed she scrambled out without the smallest idea of where she was. A few hundred feet away the turquoise sea shimmered in the, late afternoon sunlight and the golden beach bore not a single footprint. Disbelieving the evidence of her own eyes, she discounted the strong sense of recognition that was trying to persuade her that she was back on the island of Mos again. In that mood, she hurried round the helicopter and there, nestling below the headland, sat the little villa with the terracotta roof.