Symeon was a good man, a good father, a good husband. He was universally well-liked and respected but his intellect was not powerful and he was a lousy entrepreneur. Nikolos, on the other hand, had devoted his spare time as a teenager to some highly profitable trading in stocks and shares that had made him a millionaire before he even left school. To stand by powerless and watch his less clever and shrewd father stumble and make stupid mistakes was, for Nikolos, a punishment of no mean order.

‘I’ll be frank with you. This may be our darkest hour but we have been offered an escape clause,’ the older man confided in a taut undertone. ‘It came from a surprising source. In fact, I was astonished…However, I said it couldn’t be done. It wouldn’t be right-’

Mastering his impatience, Nikolos rested grim eyes on Symeon. ‘What wouldn’t be right?’

His father seemed reluctant to meet his son’s enquiring scrutiny. ‘I can’t ask you to make such a sacrifice at your age. You’re only twenty-two-’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’

Symeon Angelis expelled his breath in a hiss. ‘Theo Demakis approached me and offered to bail us out.’

Nikolos vented a startled laugh of incredulity. ‘Theo Demakis? Are you winding me up? Since when did we move in such exalted circles?’

‘It seems that we could move in those circles if we wanted to,’ Symeon murmured with the air of a man choosing his words with extreme care.

His son’s lean, bronzed face stayed unimpressed. ‘Demakis is as cold as a corpse. If you get into bed with him you’ll wake up with a knife stuck between your ribs.’

‘In other circumstances, that might have been my attitude as well. But Theo is offering a family connection rather than just a business transaction.’

At those words, Nikolos fell very still. ‘You can’t mean what I think you mean…’

The older man flushed a mottled pink. ‘I can see where Demakis is coming from-’