The Good Greek Wife? Read Online Free PDF Page A

investigation into what had happened. ‘That’s the one. And, yes, he’s dead. I put a bullet in his head myself.’
    He had been so openly defiant, so proud at the thought that he had killed one of the hated Westerners, the rich who had so much more than he and his band had ever had, that he hadn’t even cared that he had convicted himself of murder with his own words.
    â€˜And then I watched him fall overboard into the ocean…He’s shark food by now for sure.’
    Penny shivered in spite of the sun beating through the window at her back. She had had nightmares about those words for months, could still wake up in a cold sweat with them pounding at her head, making her heart race in panic. In her nightmares she had seen Zarek’s face as he had walked away from her, his expression cold and hard, eyes dark and shuttered. The knowledge that she had lashed out in her own pain, using the words that were guaranteed to drive him from her, still haunted her with the thought that they had been the last words he had heard from her. And now, when she saw him again, in her dreams, she knew that the glaze on his eyes was put there not by anger but something far more devastating.
    â€˜Then you know that the lawyers told us that someone who had been exposed to “imminent peril” like that andfailed to return can be declared dead well before the legal time limit is up.’
    â€˜I know…’
    She knew but she didn’t want to face it. Making that decision would mean admitting that Hermione and her sons had finally dragged her down.
    Suddenly in the distance there was a faint scream and a crash that brought her head swinging round, eyes going to the door from behind which the sound had come.
    â€˜What…?’
    â€˜One of the stupid maids being clumsy, I suspect,’ Jason commented dryly, shrugging off the interruption. ‘I suspect that means that our coffees will now be delayed. Penny…’
    â€˜And the girl will have to replace the broken crockery out of her wages,’ Hermione added snappishly, frustration at the fact that things were not going her way obviously showing in her voice.
    Pushing back her chair, she got to her feet and headed for the door, obviously determined to reprimand the poor girl severely at the very least. And it was that small action that pushed Penny out of her inertia, reminding her forcefully of just why she had made her decision last night. Why she so wanted to get out of here.
    â€˜You’re so right, Jason,’ she declared with force. ‘Zarek’s gone and Odysseus Shipping is all mine to do with as I please. So once the formalities are over—if we can work out terms—then the company is yours, Jason.’
    And she would be free to live her own life.
    Reaching for the glass of water in front of her, she lifted it, tilting it in Jason’s direction in mockery of a toast, not daring to lift it to her lips for fear that her throat had closed up so badly that the water would choke her.
    â€˜The king is dead,’ she proclaimed, making her voice sound as light and careless as she possibly could. ‘Long live the king.’
    Her words fell into a strange and disturbing silence. A silence that seemed to reach out and enclose her, tangling round her throat and making it impossible to breathe.
    Suddenly Jason wasn’t looking at her. He had turned away and was staring in the opposite direction. They were all staring that way. Everyone in the room had their eyes fixed on where the door had swung open, pushed firmly but not violently from the other side so that it created a wide, wide space. And everyone was staring into that wide space, shocked, stunned, almost as if they had seen a ghost. Even Hermione had come to a complete halt, one long, elegantly manicured hand going up to her throat in a gesture of horror.
    â€˜Jason…’ Penny began, but the name died on her tongue, shrivelled on it by the