Playing by the Greek's Rules by Sarah Morgan

ensure she could live comfortably without ever lifting a finger again. ‘You would really want her at your wedding?’
    â€˜Callie, no. But Chloe? Yes, of course. If I had my way she would be living here with me. I still haven’t given up hope that might happen one day. Chloe is my child, Nik. My daughter. I want her to grow up knowing her father. I don’t want her thinking I abandoned her or chose not to have her in my life.’
    Nik kept his eyes forward and the past firmly suppressed. ‘These things happen. They’re part of life and relationships.’
    His father sighed. ‘I’m sorry you believe that. Family is the most important thing in the world. I want that for you.’
    â€˜I set my own life goals, and that isn’t on the list,’ Nik drawled softly. Contemplating the complexity of human relationships, he was doubly glad he’d successfully avoided them himself. Like every other area of his life, he had his feelings firmly under control. ‘Would Diandra really want Chloe to be living with you?’
    â€˜Of course! She’d be delighted. She wants it as much as I do. And she’d really like to meet you, too. She’s keen for us to be a proper family.’
    A proper family.
    A long-buried memory emerged from deep inside his brain, squeezing itself through the many layers of self-protection he’d used to suppress it.
    It had been so long the images were no longer clear, a fact for which he was grimly grateful. Even now, several decades later, he could still remember how it had felt to have those images replaying in his head night after night.
    A man, a woman and a young boy, living an idyllic existence under blue skies and the dazzle of the sun. Growing up, he’d learned a thousand lessons about living. How to cook with leaves from the vine, how to distil the grape skins and seeds to form the potent
tsikoudia
they drank with friends. He’d lived his cocooned existence until one day his world had crumbled and he’d learned the most important lesson of all.
    That a family was the least stable structure invented by man.
    It could be destroyed in a moment.
    â€˜Come home, Niklaus,’ his father said quietly. ‘It has been too long. I want us to put the past behind us. Callie is no longer here.’
    Nik didn’t tell him that the reason he avoided the island had nothing to do with Callie.
    Whenever he returned there it stirred up the same memory of his mother leaving in the middle of the night while he watched in confusion from the elegant curve of the stairs.
    Where are you going, Mama? Are you taking us with you? Can we come, too?
    â€˜Niklaus?’ His father was still talking. ‘Will you come?’
    Nik dragged his hand over the back of his neck. ‘Yes, if that’s what you want.’
    â€˜How can you doubt it?’ There was joy in his father’s voice. ‘The wedding is Tuesday but many of our friends are arriving at the weekend so that we can celebrate in style. Come on Saturday then you can join in the pre-wedding celebrations.’
    â€˜Saturday?’ His father expected him to stay for four days? ‘I’ll have to see if I can clear my diary.’
    â€˜Of course you can. What’s the point of being in charge of the company if you can’t decide your own schedule? Now tell me about Lily. I like her very much. How long have the two of you been together?’
    Ten memorable hours.
‘How do you know her name?’
    â€˜We’ve been talking, Niklaus! Which is more than you and I ever do. She sounds nice. Why don’t you bring her to the wedding?’
    â€˜We don’t have that sort of relationship.’ He felt a flicker of irritation. Was that why she’d spent so much time on the phone talking to his father? Had she decided that sympathy might earn her an invite to the biggest wedding of the year in Greece?
    Exchanging a final few words with his father, he