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‘I’m sure you’ve helped him, too.’ Anna’s voice was noticeably cold. ‘He’s achieved a great deal since he deserted the island, which was what he wanted, I’m sure.’ The vividly blue eyes searched hers. ‘Sometimes it’s necessary to leave a beloved place to gain the experience we need,’ she said. ‘Andreas could not have stayed in Cyprus and satisfied his ambition. I recognised that as soon as we met, and I needed someone to help me over a bad patch. I’m in the hotel business, as you must know, and I could see how eager he was to make good. He was star quality and I needed that sort of dedication at the time. He has proved extremely loyal.’

Anna tried to deny the fact, but could not. Andreas had obviously been loyal to this beautiful, wealthy woman he now served.

‘I’m sorry you feel that you could not let us have some of your surplus land.’ The businesswoman in Lara was evidently hard to suppress. ‘We would have extended judiciously, but it was your choice, of course. I think Andreas felt that you didn’t want to be overshadowed by our great height, but that could have been discussed. The original plan was to build more tennis courts and perhaps another pavilion, which you could have shared. We’re a consortium, but we don’t build indiscriminately.’

‘I—we’re fundamentally opposed,’ Anna smiled. The small hotel feeling its way and the de-luxe giant not having to care very much about future prosperity.’

‘Oh, but we do!’ Lara protested. ‘Before we expand we have to think very carefully, weighing up the odds for and against. I think that is what Andreas and I find so stimulating,’ she added. ‘Expanding can be something of a lottery, however it is done, and we both like a challenge. Soon he will be appointed to the Board and I think that will satisfy him.’

Anna looked down at the scattered papers on her desk. ‘I have a lot to do,’ she said. ‘Can I order you some tea?’

Lara shook her head, taking the hint. ‘I mustn’t delay you, but I would be very glad if you would come over to the Crescent Beach for dinner with us one evening. It would please Martha,’ she added quietly. ‘She has spoken much about you.’

‘I have already refused Andreas,’ Anna said. ‘You know how busy one can be, even in a small hotel.’

‘This would be for Martha,’ Lara said deliberately. ‘You were very kind to her.’

‘For Martha, then,’ Anna agreed, wondering why she should have given in to this woman who seemed to have everything.

‘Will you bring your mother?’ Lara asked. ‘I feel that we will have much in common.’

It had been so quickly settled, Anna thought, rising to walk to the door with her unexpected visitor, but then Lara Warrender was no doubt used to getting her own way when she really put her mind to it. Backed by her position as a member of a powerful consortium and by her obvious wealth, there was probably nothing she couldn’t do, no personal wish she could not easily fulfil.

‘Shall we say the day after tomorrow?’ she asked when they had reached the door. ‘Andreas will be in Athens all day tomorrow and I’m sure he will wish to be there.’

Anna nodded. ‘Do you wish me to come early?’ she asked. ‘We dine very late, as a rule, but you said that Martha ’

‘She would never forgive me if we sent her to bed before you arrived,' Lara declared. ‘Do you mind very much coming early?’

‘No, not at all.’

‘Would seven o’clock be all right? It would mean nine before she was in bed, but it could be counted a special occasion,’ Lara smiled. ‘She loves to stay up late. Andreas would indulge her if he got half a chance, so I have to put my foot down most of the time. I’m the Ogre while Andreas plays the Knight in Shining Armour, you see!’

With a brief wave of her hand she walked away, the smile still on her lips and some of the sadness gone from her eyes.

The following day was a busy one, the sort of day that Anna had come to expect towards the end of the week. She did the bulk marketing herself, going into Limassol early to park her car as near the market square as possible so that she could bring some of the softer fruit back with her. It was while she was inspecting some fish on her way out that she was aware of being watched from across the street, but the stalls were so crowded with early shoppers that it was difficult to pick out anyone in particular. The sensation of being watched, however, persisted, but it wasn’t until she had reached the junction of Hellas and Gladstone Streets that she recognised the diminutive figure of Susan hurrying to catch her up.

‘Hullo, there! I wondered if I would be able to attract your attention,’ she said breathlessly. ‘I saw you coming out of the market but I was on the other side of the road and there was so much traffic and people milling around I just got across in time to miss you!’

Anna looked round for Martha.

‘She isn't with me,’ Susan informed her. ‘It’s my morning off and she’s having a lesson from the tennis coach before it gets too hot to play. Her mother will be in the hotel all day so I thought I would seize the opportunity to buy a pair of shoes. But where to go? Every second shop seems to sell shoes.’

‘I can tell you where to go,' Anna agreed ‘depending on what you are looking for.’

‘Oh, something smart with a highish heel. I’m small, you see, and I feel demoralised in flatties except on the beach.’ She paused. ‘I say, you wouldn’t come with me, would you? I know you must be busy, shopping and all that, but I would appreciate your advice. Then perhaps we could have a coffee or something before we went back to the daily grind.’

‘I mustn’t be too long,’ Anna said, ‘but I’ll come with you if you like. There’s a very good shop quite near here—quite reasonable, too.’

‘Oh, don’t worry about the price,’ Susan said airily. ‘I get frequent presents from my employer because I do her duty for her rather well.’

Anna led the way across the street in silence.

‘Pity I don’t take her size in shoes,’ Susan chattered on. ‘I do very well with dresses, though, because I can shorten them to suit me. She buys the most expensive clothes, mostly in Paris and New York.’

‘Do you go to America with her?’ Anna found herself asking.

‘Not very often,’ Susan said. ‘She goes home then and takes Martha with her, but I’ve half a notion she plans to stay here for a while. It would be easy enough for her to hop on a jet at Lamaca and be in London or Paris or even New York in next to no time. The thing is—she would expect me to stay here, too, and I don’t know that I would want to do that. I like to travel. That’s really why I took the job in the first place and I’m not sure that a villa in the mountains would be my cup of tea.’

She paused for breath and Anna seized the opportunity to change the subject.

‘We can go in here and see what they have to offer,’ she suggested, indicating the open door of the nearest shoe shop. ‘I think you’ll get what you want.’

‘Oh, yes, thank you!’ Susan dived into the shop ahead of her. ‘Can you translate for me?’

‘You’re quite safe with your English,’ Anna assured her. ‘You don’t really need me to come in with you.’

‘But please do, all the same! I like to have a second opinion.’

It was almost an hour before they emerged, leaving the floor strewn with rejected shoes, but Susan had made a decision in the end and the assistant saw them off the premises with a pleasant smile.

‘Let’s have that coffee,’ Susan suggested. ‘We’ve still got time. Can we go somewhere with lots of atmosphere, not just to a fashionable coffee-shop?’

‘There’s one round the next corner,’ Anna said, ‘but I must be on my way home by eleven o’clock. Some of the things I’ve bought will be needed for the buffet.’

‘It’ll do you good to put your feet up for ten minutes,’ Susan grinned, tripping behind her into the taverna with her fancy carrier-bag swinging from her arm. ‘I just love those shoes, by the way. Thank you for sparing the time to come with me.’

Anna ordered two cups of coffee and a honey cake for Susan who sat munching it thoughtfully as she gazed out of the window at the passing crowd.

‘I’m still worried about staying on,’ she said, at last. ‘I like the job and I suppose I would have difficulty finding another one quite so lucrative if I went back to England but it can’t last much longer than a year. Once Martha is a little older and things are more settled she will be going off to boarding school, I expect, and that will mean goodbye to Susan Loftus! Andreas didn’t make any promises when he hired me.’

Anna gazed at her across the table. ‘Andreas?’ she said. ‘I thought it would have been Martha’s mother who would have made that sort of decision.’

‘He was on the spot at the time. Our Man in London, so to speak.’ Susan drank the remainder of her coffee.

‘Mrs Warrender wanted her daughter’s minder to be English, you see, so Andreas advertised and—there I was! I think he preferred me to someone older as a companion for Martha. I don’t know.’ She gazed into her empty cup. ‘One never does with Andreas,' she added after a moment’s thought. ‘He’s the complete enigma, like the Sphinx, thinking deeply behind that noble brow of his without even flickering an eyelid and giving nothing away. But you must recognise that even better than I do,’ she suggested with an oblique glance in Anna’s direction. ‘You’ve known him for a long time.’

‘A long time ago,’ Anna said, gathering her parcels together. ‘Andreas, the adolescent, and Andreas, the grown man, appear to be different.’

‘Why don’t you like him ?’ Susan demanded. ‘Because I can see you don’t.’

Anna flushed scarlet. ‘It’s not just a question of liking,’ she answered. ‘It—goes deeper than that, but I’d rather not talk about it, Susan, if you don’t mind.’

‘I think you must have been in love with him at one time,’ Susan suggested outrageously. ‘Is that why you treat him so coldly now? He didn’t leave you in the lurch when he went off to conquer the world, did he?'

Anna got to her feet, moving to the counter to pay the bill. ‘No, we weren’t in love,’ she said steadily enough. ‘We were good friends once upon a time.’

‘That’s fatal!’ Susan declared, her roguish eyes full of laughter. ‘Seriously, though, I wonder if he’ll marry Lara Warrender when the time comes. Lara may even be buying this villa in the mountains with that in mind.’ She paused in the doorway, looking up and down the street. ‘I want to buy a pair of decent sun-specs,’ she announced. ‘Where would you suggest? I want to make sure that I don’t damage my eyes with anything cheap.’

Anna glanced pointedly at her wristwatch.

‘If you want a good optician,’ she said, ‘I can take you round to Adolf Kanneti, but you may have to wait. He’s a very busy man.’

‘No problem!’ Susan assured her. ‘I have all morning till one o’clock.’

‘I’ll drive you to Nicolaides Street,’ Anna offered, ‘but I can’t promise to wait.’

‘Don’t worry about me,’ Susan said airily. ‘I’ll get the bus back, or a taxi. They seem to be all over the place.’ She chattered all the way back to the market where Anna had parked her car, although she did not mention Andreas again, probably thinking that she had already exhausted the subject as far as Anna was concerned. When they parted at the optician’s she said breezily, ‘Have fun! If you stumble upon anyone from the Crescent Beach I’ll be back before one and I’m still all in one piece in spite of the heat!’

She vanished up the indoor stairs to the shop and Anna drove away wondering why the sunshine was suddenly less bright and the view across the bay clouded as if by rain.

When it was time to go to the Crescent Beach the following evening she found herself thinking of an excuse to stay away from the dinner-party which would include both Andreas and Lara Warrender, but she knew that it would only disappoint her mother if she refused to go.

‘Mrs Warrender is such a beautiful person,’ Dorothy remarked before they went up to dress, ‘and she makes me feel relaxed. It would appear that Andreas owes a great deal to her influence and I’m sure he’s grateful.’

Grateful and in love? Anna pressed her hands tightly against her sides as they went up in the lift. She could never have imagined Andreas in love like that—not for a reason, not out of gratitude at being helped up the ladder of success by a beautiful woman at least ten years his senior and the mother of a six-year-old child into the bargain, but these things happened, didn’t they? The world, and love, and bitterness were all too complicated to understand.

‘What will you wear?’ Dorothy asked.

‘I don’t know.’ Anna’s voice was rough with suppressed emotion. ‘Something blue, I suppose. I can’t hope to compete with Mrs Warrender.’

As the lift stopped Dorothy said, ‘You have youth on your side and I like you best in blue!’

They walked to the Crescent Beach along the road because it was already dark, arriving just before seven o’clock to be ushered into the vast hall by a doorman in an immaculate white uniform who seemed to be expecting them.

‘Mrs Warrender is waiting in the lounge,’ he informed them, but already Martha was half-way across the hall, greeting them with a vivid smile. ‘I’m to stay up, just for this once!’ she announced. ‘How do you do?’ she added politely if belatedly. ‘There’s a cabaret tonight and I can’t wait to see it.’

Anna introduced her mother and they made their way across the polished floor to where Lara Warrender was waiting for them with Andreas by her side.

‘Mama!’ he said, taking Dorothy’s hands in his. ‘It’s good to see you looking so well.’ He kissed her on both cheeks. ‘I was in Athens yesterday and I called in on John Malecos. He asked how you were and said to tell you he would come for that promised holiday one day.’

Dorothy blushed prettily. ‘He is always promising but he never arrives!’ she said. ‘I suppose you found Athens much the same?’

‘I hadn’t much time to look around,’ he told her, ‘but the traffic seemed worse than ever. Everyone behind a steering-wheel in Athens seems hell-bent on suicide, to say nothing of the pedestrians!’

‘I wouldn’t like to live there,’ Dorothy said as Lara greeted her. ‘It’s not at all like Cyprus.’

Andreas turned to Anna, at last. ‘I wondered if you would come,’ he said. ‘I half expected you to find some excuse.’

‘Why should I do that?’ she asked defensively.

‘Because you can’t let the past go,’ he said without hesitation. ‘You demand too much, Anna, and I’m not the sort of person who says “sorry” more than once.’