Damon frowned at Sarah, searching her designer-clad form, she suddenly realised, for some likeness to the unattractive, dowdy woman he recalled and, on top of the tension, it was quite simply too much for her sense of humour. She burst out laughing.
‘She’s like another woman,’ Damon said weakly. ‘I wouldn’t have known her.’
Androula smiled with an amusement similar to Sarah’s. ‘I think we shouldn’t have worried so much and we should have gone to the hotel. To think that Damon felt so guilty about you and Alex getting married!’ She laughed with clear relief and linked her hand in her husband’s saying, ‘Look at them, Damon... they’re lovers, not enemies!’
‘Yes...’ Damon still couldn’t stop staring. ‘She’s gorgeous, Alex.’
Alex curved an arm round Sarah’s waist. ‘Yes,’ he agreed with an obvious attempt to be more welcoming. ‘I suppose you have come to talk. Well, I don’t want to be insensitive but, to be brutally frank, I don’t want a whole lot of stuff raked up that’s going to upset my wife!’
‘Alex!’ Sarah gasped.
His cheekbones tautened, darkening in colour, and he looked down at her. ‘I’m sorry, but their problems have haunted us long enough,’ he muttered in an undertone. ‘I don’t want anything more coming between us.’
‘Nothing’s going to come between us. I promise,’ she whispered back, her heart turning over at his obvious concern and anxiety for their relationship.
‘Let’s get it over with, then,’ he sighed.
The four of them entered the salon. Alex closed the door. Damon sat down, Androula beside him. He cleared his throat awkwardly. He couldn’t meet Sarah’s eyes. Androula squeezed her husband’s hand supportively. And finally Damon took a deep breath and spoke. ‘I’ve been pretty inventive with the truth, Alex...’
‘He has told many lies,’ Androula rephrased ruefully.
Damon said something in Greek and suddenly Androula stood up. ‘I think it would be better if I waited outside,’ she said without resentment, and left the room.
Sarah sighed. ‘I know you didn’t let Callie down as badly as I believed.’
‘I did,’ Damon muttered. ‘I told Alex she was a gold-digger and that there had been other men. Callie wasn’t like that and you must hate me for it.’
She didn’t hate him any more, she discovered. He was very immature for his age. The boyishness was more than skin-deep. He was weak. Callie had been by far the stronger personality, she acknowledged.
‘You lied to me?’ Alex raked in raw intimidation at his brother across the breadth of the room.
As Sarah saw Damon turn white and flinch, her patience with Alex cracked. ‘Oh, keep quiet, Alex, and let him speak!’
‘When Andy came over to Oxford with the children, our marriage was in a lot of trouble,’ Damon admitted. ‘I told her I wanted a divorce—’
‘You did what?’ Alex broke in.
‘Alex!’ Sarah reproved.
Alex, his strong, dark features a mask of anger, compressed his lips again.
‘And Andy agreed,’ Damon completed tightly, ‘before she went back to Greece, before I got involved with Callie...’ He met Sarah’s gaze for the first time. ‘I’d never met anyone like her before. I just fell like a ton of bricks for her. You know, I asked her to marry me and at the time I did mean it.’
‘And I refused to believe you, pethi mou,’ Alex murmured heavily.
‘It doesn’t matter now.’ But she was very glad that Damon was finally telling the truth. Her love for her late sister demanded that truth.
‘Callie promised me that there was no risk of her getting pregnant,’ Damon continued tightly. ‘She knew I didn’t want that to happen and, when it did, I didn’t know how to handle it. There was no way I could get a divorce quickly enough. Callie and I had a major argument. Then I went back home to see the children and...and I...well, I realised—’
‘That you wanted to go back to your wife,’ Sarah put in, taking grudging pity on him.
‘Callie called me a useless wimp and I was in her eyes,’ Damon mumbled, studying the carpet. ‘I couldn’t face it all. I just wished I could put the clock back. She wouldn’t agree to a termination—’
Alex made a vehement sound of disgust, surveying his kid brother with flaming golden eyes of contempt. ‘You asked her to marry you, you got cold feet and then you dumped her. An eighteen-year-old girl, who was in love with you! How the hell could you be so bloody selfish and irresponsible and then turn me loose on Sarah and her sister?’
Sarah saw Damon’s shoulders quiver and knew he was fighting back tears. He covered his face with his trembling hands and just sat there, letting Alex’s chilling recriminations beat down on him, and then Alex switched to Greek.
‘That’s enough...that is enough, Alex!’ Sarah interrupted because she couldn’t stand it any more. ‘It’s finished with. It’s over. He’s not the only man in the world to let a woman down.’