“Well, you could ask me a few questions,” Kizzy suggested, feeling bolder. “As if this were an interview, perhaps?”
“Very well,” Andreas replied, putting on a bored expression. “If you must insist on being so incredibly uptight, we’ll play your game for a maximum of ten minutes. I’m tired of working.”
Which was a lie, he acknowledged, watching her. He was always working on something; his energy and insatiable drive were what made him who he was.
Tonight, though, he wanted to play for a change.
“Fire away,” Kizzy said, a smile dancing on her lips. “I’m ready.”
Andreas said nothing for a few moments, stroking his chin thoughtfully, making her wait just long enough to force out a blush at the awkward silence he was creating between them.
“What was your degree?”
“Honors,” Kizzy said promptly.
“No,” he corrected her. “I meant, what did you study at university? What was your degree in?”
“Oh, sorry,” Kizzy mumbled. First mistake. “Art and classics.”
“Not the most practical of disciplines. What had you planned to do afterward? Become a librarian?”
“I didn’t plan that far ahead,” Kizzy admitted uncomfortably, and then realized she must sound like a complete airhead. “My mother and teachers encouraged me to study whatever interested me most, as I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do. They said it would make working hard and achieving good grades so much easier if I had a passion for the subject. I could worry about my future career path later.”
“And that proved to be sound advice?” he asked softly. “Considering your circumstances now?”
“Probably not.” She looked down at her hands. “But at that stage I had no idea we were virtually penniless, and that my mother had taken out huge loans. If I’d known, I would have been a lot more pragmatic, taken something more vocational. Or not gone to college at all.”
“I see.” He speared a shiny black olive on a fork. “But you got top grades, which proves you can apply yourself and see something through to the end.”
“I loved it,” she explained. “I have no regrets, apart from the fact that my earning potential is virtually nil as it stands. And that my mother sacrificed so much.”
“So how old are you? Twenty-two, twenty-three?”
“Twenty-four.”
Andreas noted the flush appearing on the pale flesh of her throat. “You weren’t at Timi’s for two years, surely? You must have been able to get a better job than that in such a time. Or maybe you just couldn’t be bothered.”
“It wasn’t like that. I’d only been working at Timi’s for a few months before they sold, just to tide me over.”
He did the mental calculations. “So there’s a full year missing out of your CV. Do I spy an indulgent gap year in there somewhere? Cheap cocktails and free love in the South China Sea, perhaps?”
Kizzy gritted her teeth at the way he seemed to be laughing at her. “I worked as a temp for a year in Portsmouth before I went to college. To save some money to help Mum out. I didn’t want to feel like a freeloader.”
“Not sufficiently independent that she didn’t have to go into debt to bail you out though?”
He had gone too far now.
“I had no idea about the debts until after she died. She kept them secret from me, told me she had put money away when we were living with my stepfather and that I wasn’t to worry. She was adamant that I should have a good education, that I should develop confidence in myself and never have to rely on a man like…like she had to.”
She paused to catch her breath, which was becoming shaky with emotion.
“And before you even think about saying anything unpleasant about my mother, you need to be aware that she had sensible plans in place for paying back all that money. She had a job, she was managing the payments…and she was only forty-two. I don’t suppose she had any reason to think she was going to die.”
Andreas looked at her. Her eyes might be angry and defiant, but they were also shimmering with tears.
“Five months ago, you said?” He looked discreetly away as a tear slipped down her cheek. He knew only too well the bitter pain she was suffering and how badly he would not have wanted someone see him cry. “Then you are still in mourning. I’m sorry.”
Kizzy was relieved to see Dorinda re-emerge from the kitchen, a large earthenware casserole in her arms.
Dorinda took one look at Kizzy and snapped an accusing glare at Andreas before depositing her burden noisily onto the table between them.
“Kleftico,” the older woman announced gruffly and left, though not before glancing Andreas a sharp, surreptitious blow with her kitchen towel.
“I never asked if you were a vegetarian,” Andreas said as he lifted the lid and flinched backward from a blast of steam. “It’s lamb stew.”
“Sounds good,” Kizzy replied.
“So, getting back to what you were saying earlier,” he ladled a huge spoonful of stew onto her plate, “I’m curious to know how you ended up at Timi’s. If that’s not too intrusive a question.”
“Not at all.” He had a perfectly legitimate right to be interested in her rather shabby career profile, and she needed to be professional and pull herself together. “Mum worked for the Antonideses as a waitress after we left my stepfather’s house. She found us a place to live nearby while I studied. I helped out from time to time, and then did more once I’d graduated, to cover Mum when she started to get ill.”
Andreas noticed her distress. “It’s okay, take your time.”
“When she died, everything came to light—including the debts that I’d inherited. I couldn’t afford to stay in the flat and had to sell pretty much everything in it. Theo and Ana took pity on me, invited me into their home, and treated me like their own daughter. I paid them back in the only way I could—by working in their restaurant.” She sighed. “Everything’s happened so quickly over the past six months. I owe them a great deal.”
Andreas shifted uncomfortably in his chair. The Antonides family had made it a lifetime quest to play the Good Samaritan, it seemed. “Then you will no doubt be comforted to know that they want for nothing now. Their kindness over the years has been rewarded and they have the dream retirement they so richly deserve.”
“Of course I am,” she agreed quickly. “Now maybe you can see why I would never want to hurt them? They’re like parents to me.”