'Thank you,' Tiana said.

Milo laughed. 'You see! You should learn how to accept a compliment, Alice like Tiana.'

'But she is pretty,' Alice said.

'And so are you, isn't she, Tiana?' Milo said.

'I just said so,' Tiana said, looking confused.

Milo laughed. 'You did and she is and that's the end of it.'

Alice shook her head and continued eating this time, with two pairs of eyes fixed upon her. When she looked up again, she caught Milo's eye and he grinned at her. She gave him a warning look and he cleared his throat.

'Get on with your dinner, Tiana,' he said, 'you're putting Alice off.'

They ate the rest of their meal with furtive glances and funny little giggles doing the rounds of the table. Finally, the food was finished and Milo told Tiana to return to her room.

'Can't I stay and talk to Alice?' she asked, her eyes big and soulful.

Milo shook his head. 'She's had a long day,' he told her. 'You can chat to her in the morning. Go to your room. I'll come and tuck you in later.'

With a resigned look on her face, she left the room.

'Night, Tiana,' Alice called after her. 'She's wonderful,' she told Milo.

'Yes, some of the time,' he said with a little smile.

'You must adore her.'

He nodded. 'I can't imagine life without her.'

'It must be hard, though, raising her on your own.'

'It's no more than I can handle,' he told her and a serious look crossed his face.

'What is it?' Alice asked, feeling that she had touched a nerve.

He shrugged. 'We've had a bit of a rough time recently. Family stuff. You don't want to hear about it.'

'Yes, I do,' she said. 'I've told you all about my family. I'd like to know more about yours.'

Milo sat down at the table again and poured some more wine for them both and then he told her about Georgio and Sonya and what had happened over the last few days.

'They just took her?' Alice said in shock.

'It had been building up for some time,' Milo told her. 'But I hadn't realised just how desperate they were to have her.'

'Will they try it again?'

'I don't think so. I think they got a bit of a shock at how unhappy Tiana was about it all, but what did they expect? All she's known is this island. You can't just drag a child away from her home and expect her to be happy about it.'

'You must have been so worried.'

'Well, I crashed my bike trying to get to her.'

'Ah,' Alice said. 'I didn't think you'd been tearing round the roads just for the sake of it.' She looked at the cut on his head. 'Is that going to scar?'

His fingers brushed it. 'I don't know. Perhaps it should as a reminder of what's important.'

Alice nodded and then stood up and began clearing the table.

'You don't need to do that,' Milo said.

'But I'd like to. You've gone to all this trouble-'

'It's no trouble,' he told her. 'Please, go and sit down.' He motioned to the sitting room next door and Alice relented, leaving the kitchen and sinking down onto a sofa.

It felt funny to be in somebody's house not doing anything. She didn't even have a book to read. She looked around the room for a moment. There was a row of novels on a little shelf near the television but they were all in Greek. Anyway, she didn't really feel like reading. She was too tired to concentrate. In fact, her eyelids were feeling very heavy. She'd just close them for a bit.

'Alice?' a little voice came from a long way away. 'Alice?'

She opened her eyes. 'Oh!' she cried. 'Was I asleep?'

'I think so,' Milo said, sitting down next to her. 'Can I get you something? A cup of coffee?'

'Oh, no, thank you. I guess I'd better call it a night.'

He nodded. 'I'll show you your room.'

They walked down the hallway together and Milo opened a door to the right. The bedroom was small and simply furnished with a small double bed, a bedside cabinet on which stood a pottery lamp, and a large wardrobe in the corner. Milo stepped inside to draw the curtains.

'You'll love the view in the morning,' he told her. 'You can see right down to the sea.'

She nodded and noticed that there was a towel and a brand new toothbrush on the bed together with a T-shirt and a pair of socks.

'Just in case you get cold,' he said, noticing that she was looking at the socks. 'Tiana is always complaining about cold feet.'

Alice smiled. 'Thank you.'

'The bathroom's along the hall on the left.'

'Okay.'

'Is there anything else you need? Anything else I can get you?'

She looked up at him. He was standing awfully close to her now and she could feel his warm breath on her face. This was the man she had swum naked with in the sea. This was the man whom she had made love with in the ruins of an ancient temple. She swallowed hard.

'I'm fine,' she said.

'I'll be next door if you need anything,' he said, his eyes dark and warm.

'Thank you,' she whispered, watching as he left her room and closed the door.

What was she doing here? She was sending out all the wrong signals by staying here and yet she didn't feel awkward at all. In fact, she'd never been made to feel so welcome anywhere in her life.

She sat down on the bed and picked up the pair of perfect woollen socks. He had a little sister, she thought to herself. That was the big secret he'd been hiding. He hadn't been married with six children. She had painted him as a total villain when he had, in fact, been what? The perfect man?

She shook her head. The perfect man, she thought. She had thrown away her one chance of happiness with the most perfect man she had ever met and, yet, how else could it have ended? Even if he was perfect, their relationship had been nothing more than a holiday romance, hadn't it? It didn't have a future.

Unless...

Alice switched the little pottery lamp on by the bed and gazed at the warm pool of yellow light it cast, her mind whirling with sudden, unexplored, unanticipated thoughts.

She'd never thought very much about the future before because she'd been so resolutely stuck in the present with her job and her rented house, but the inheritance from her father might give her the chance to choose a future for herself. It might just allow her to make a decision that would change her life forever, she thought.

'If I have the courage,' she whispered to herself.

Chapter 39.

Milo hovered around Alice's door for a while after having closed it, wondering if she would think of something that she needed. He wished she'd stayed and talked to him a little longer. It seemed too early to say good night.

Finally, he walked back through to the kitchen and tidied a few things up and prepared Tiana's packed lunch for the next morning. It was as he was crossing the hall to the sitting room half an hour later that he saw Tiana. She was standing in the doorway to Alice's room.

'Tiana! Come away. What are you doing?' he hissed.

'Just watching her,' Tiana whispered back. 'She looks so sad. I think she's been crying.'

'You shouldn't have opened her door.'

'It just came open,' she said.

Milo sighed but couldn't resist joining Tiana at the bedroom door and looking inside, the hallway light falling softly on Alice's face as she lay in bed.

'She does look sad,' he said.

'What's she so sad about when she's here with you?' Tiana asked.

'She has a lot to think about at the moment.'

'Like what?'

'Well, her father's just died and there are other things too.'

'And she doesn't have a big brother to take care of her like I do?' Tiana asked.

'No, she doesn't.'

'So you're looking after her instead?'

Milo cleared his throat. 'Something like that. Now, you should be in bed, young lady.'

'Can I kiss her good night?'

'No, you can't.'

'Are you going to?'

'Go to bed,' he said.

He escorted her back to her bedroom and, once she was tucked up in bed with the promise that she wouldn't go wandering into Alice's room in the middle of the night, Milo retraced his steps and popped his head around the door again and gazed at the pale face of Alice asleep in the bed. It was strange to think of her wearing his T-shirt and socks. Strange but rather wonderful.

'Good night, Alice,' he whispered, and gently closed the door and walked silently to his own room next door.

Alice awoke in the strange bedroom and looked across at the pale blue curtain through which the sunlight streamed. She had no idea what the time was so leapt out of bed and grabbed her watch. It was after ten. She'd slept for twelve whole hours.

As she drew back the curtain, she was instantly drenched in sunlight. Milo had been right about the view it was breathtaking. The land rolled away in gentle hills and, there beyond a silver-bright olive grove, was the sea. Today, it was a deep sapphire-blue that almost hurt the eyes to look at it but Alice couldn't tear her gaze away from it. It was mesmeric and she could easily imagine becoming obsessed with such a view and spending endless hours staring at it.

What must it be like to live somewhere like this, she wondered? To be able to look at the sea whenever you wanted to and to observe its changing nature, its myriad colours and its volatile moods swinging from calm and glassy to stormy and savage. No wonder Tiana and, indeed, Milo didn't want to live anywhere else. Alice could totally understand that. A place like this became part of a person. It was the very breath you took, it was what filled your mind and your heart. It was an emotional anchor that gave you a true sense of who you were and where you belonged. That, Alice thought, must be one of the most satisfying feelings in the world and it was one that she'd never had.

Nipping quickly into the bathroom, she took a shower and got dressed. There was an old mirror above the sink and Alice glanced at her reflection. Her skin had paled since her last trip to Kethos and her hair had lost the warm highlights that the sun had graced her with, and her eyes were more pink than blue after her crying the night before.

Walking back through to the bedroom, she sat on the edge of the bed for a while thinking about all the possibilities that the future held and then she felt incredibly sad because the very thing that was giving her such opportunities had been the death of her beloved father and she wouldn't have wanted that for the whole world.

She took a deep breath. She was going to get through this. She was going to sort out this whole Aphrodite business and then she would sort out her father's estate. Then, she promised, she'd do something wonderful for herself.

Leaving the bedroom, she ventured through to the kitchen where Milo was making a cup of coffee.

'Good morning,' she said. 'I'm sorry I slept so long. You should've woken me.'

'I didn't want to,' he said. 'I guessed you'd be exhausted after yesterday.'

'Where's Tiana?'

'She's left for school.'

'Oh, of course,' Alice said, realising it was a weekday.

'Did you sleep all right?'

'Yes, thank you.'