The Good Greek Wife? Read Online Free PDF Page B

wife, who had actually been toasting the fact that he was dead as he opened the door. And was now staring at him as if he was her nightmares come to life.
    But what had he expected? That she would run to him on a cry of delight, fling herself into his arms? He’d be every kind of a fool if he’d even dreamed of that. She’d told him as muchto his face. And last night would have taught him that dreams of her waiting for him were nothing to base his future on.
    But forewarned was forearmed and so there was little to surprise him in the way that she just sat in her chair, slim and elegant in a dark green sleeveless linen dress, eyes wide, staring at him as if he had indeed risen from the dead right before her. If anything she seemed worse—even more appalled than Hermione, and his stepmother looked as if the devil incarnate had just risen up from hell to appear before her.
    â€˜So,’ he drawled cynically, injecting dark mockery into his voice as the silence lengthened and dragged out. ‘Is this any way to greet the prodigal son? I was expecting the fatted calf at least.’
    â€˜Then you should have let us know that you were coming!’
    Hermione had managed to regain some control but the hiss of fury in her words betrayed the way she was feeling deep inside.
    â€˜Or even that you were alive—it would have been nice to know.’
    â€˜I did not know myself—that I was coming.’
    Zarek couldn’t be unaware of the way that his answer had only incensed her further, the flare of her nostrils, the flash of fury in her eyes revealing just what she thought of his response. But quite frankly he didn’t give a damn. And he had no intention of launching into the lengthy and complicated explanation of how he came to be alive, and why he hadn’t let them know about it until now. Not here and not in front of everyone including Odysseus Shipping’s lawyer, their accountant and half the assembled members of the board, it seemed.
    â€˜I thought that I might wait awhile longer—and learn as much as I could about the home I was to return to. It has been an interesting experience to say the least. But suffice it to say that I am here. And I am staying. So…’
    Leaning forward, he picked up a pen that was lying on the polished wood of the table together with a sheet of paper that held, as he knew it must, a precise order of business as prepared by Leander, whose obsessive concern for detail had not, it seemed, eased up any in the time he had been missing.
    â€˜So this…and this…’
    With a rough slashing movement he scored the pen through the first point of business and then another and another. All of them dealing with the plans to have him declared dead and transfer the management of Odysseus Shipping to his stepbrothers, just as he had expected.
    â€˜â€¦can go—and this…’
    A couple more decisive strokes of the pen and the entire proceedings for the meeting had been obliterated apart from…
    â€˜â€œAny other business”,’ he quoted cynically. ‘Well—is there any other business?’
    One swift glance at the stupefied faces all around him gave him his answer and he screwed up the agenda into a tight ball and tossed it in the general direction of the waste-paper bin, heedless of whether it actually landed there or not.
    â€˜Then I now declare this meeting at an end. And you…’
    His pointed look was directed at everyone not the immediate Michaelis family.
    â€˜Can go home.’
    It was as if the command, and the general flurry of movement, with chairs pushed back and people getting to their feet, had broken the spell that had held almost everyone frozen in shock. Suddenly Jason— Jason —was coming towards him, his hand held out in greeting.
    â€˜It’s good to have you back. Amazing.’
    He actually sounded as if he meant it, Zarek reflected cynically, and if the grip that enclosed