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‘I’m sorry to leave you in the lurch like this when we’re so busy,’ she apologised to Molly as she filled her overnight bag. ‘But it won’t happen again. Any future visits will be solely to see Thia Theodosia, and I’ll be able to schedule those during my normal holidays. That’s why I’ve booked evening flights, so I’ll only be away for a day.’
‘It’s all right, so stop fussing,’ Molly ordained severely. ‘We can cope without you for twenty-four hours, no worries, so go and do what you have to.’ She paused. ‘I just hope it won’t be too awful.’
Natasha shook her head. ‘Bound to be,’ she said wearily. ‘I—I just can’t believe it’s all collapsed so quickly. And what’s going to happen to the workforce? It’s a generational thing. Whole families are involved.’ Her voice was suddenly husky. ‘Thio Basilis was always so proud of that.’
‘Surely the new owners will keep them on,’ Molly suggested. ‘After all, the ships need to go on sailing.’
‘But not necessarily with Papadimos crews.’ Natasha zipped up her case. ‘Oh, God, why couldn’t those idiots make peace not war for once with Alex bloody Mandrakis? If they’d accepted his original offer, at least they’d have been left with something. But, no. They had to try and get the better of him.’
‘There was a picture of him in the paper the other day,’ Molly said idly. ‘Attending some film premiere with his latest squeeze. Admittedly gorgeous, but not someone I’d choose to mess with.’
‘You have wisdom beyond your years,’ Natasha said bitterly. ‘But—he’s done his worst, and all we can do now is try and pick up whatever pieces remain.’ She reached for the dark grey jacket that matched her skirt, and slipped it on over her crisp white shirt. Business clothes, she thought, for a business meeting, and sighed imperceptibly.
She added, ‘I almost feel sorry for Maria and Christina. They never bargained for this at those lavish weddings a few years ago.’ A note of mischief entered her voice. ‘But I bet they’re not treating their husbands with quite such doting devotion these days. In fact, with any luck, they’re giving them hell.’
And on that upbeat note, she grabbed her bag, and left for the airport.
Neil had offered to see her off, but she’d refused on the grounds that parking would be a nightmare and that, anyway, it was no big deal.
‘I’ll be back before you know it,’ she’d promised.
‘And I’ll be counting the hours,’ he’d returned, and taken her in his arms, his parting kiss displaying an unaccustomed hunger.
Something, she realised, that she’d found disturbing, and not altogether for the right reasons.
In effect, she thought as she sipped at the orange juice she’d ordered from the drinks trolley, it had been a candid reminder that, on her return, he was confidently expecting that they would be moving their relationship on a stage and becoming lovers. That she’d pretty much promised him that would happen.
‘Oh, God,’ she groaned under her breath. Don’t chicken out. Not again. Not this time.
You really like Neil. You may even be starting to fall in love with him. But how will you ever know—be sure—until you commit yourself, even in this most basic way?
The problem was she hadn’t been joking when she’d told Molly about the strictness of her upbringing. And it was difficult to shake off that kind of conditioning, even if you believed you might have met the right man.
For Thia Theodosia, Mr Right came with a wedding ring in his pocket, and treated you with total respect, knowing that your virginity was part of the dowry you brought him, until the ring was on your finger and the priest had pronounced you man and wife.
For her, it was that simple, and that iron-clad, and she would be distressed beyond measure if she thought that Natasha would ever consider a breach of that strict moral code.
And the fact that Natasha had begun to regard herself as some kind of curious anachronism would be no valid excuse.
But was it only the tradition in which she’d been raised that had held her back since she’d left Greece to live an independent life? Or was it more that she’d never been seriously tempted to break that unwritten sexual law?
And was she deeply tempted now—with Neil?
I wonder, she thought unhappily. I really wonder.
She considered Molly and Craig, who’d met at a party, fallen into bed together within twenty-four hours, become engaged a few weeks later and were waiting impatiently for Craig’s contract in Seattle to end so they could be married.
No one or nothing could have kept them out of each other’s arms, she acknowledged, their temporary separation being marked by letters, e-mails and nightly phone calls.
But perhaps I’m a different temperament, she thought. The slow, steady type as opposed to Molly’s headlong certainty about what she wants from life, and how to get it. Maybe that’s why we’ve been friends since school, and why we work so well together now.
So far Neil had seemed content to play by her rules, but that was not going to last much longer. She’d reached the same stage before, with other boyfriends, who’d got fed up when she kept backing off and had walked away.
She could read the signs. He wanted them to be like the other couples they knew. And when Molly and Craig were married, he’d expect her to live with him.
He had no idea, of course, how totally inexperienced she was.
And that could well be a major factor here, she realised. Perhaps she was just scared of the unknown. Simply lacked the courage to discover whether or not she’d be ‘good in bed’.
After all, wasn’t that the criteria by which everyone was judged these days?
He can make love in four languages…
She sat up, gasping, as Lin’s wistful words came back into her mind. And what had prompted that, for God’s sake?
Apart from the fact that Alex Mandrakis had engineered her brothers’ downfall, of course, she reminded herself wryly, and that was why she was on this plane at this moment. So it was going to be impossible to dismiss him totally from her thinking, however hard she might try.
His name was bound to crop up at some point, she thought, her mouth twisting. Probably more than once.
But at least he wouldn’t be around in person to administer the death blow. Some minion would do that for him.
As people said—this was business, not personal, which was something to be thankful for. She had no wish to set eyes on him ever again.
And now she would just have to relegate her heart-searchings about her love life with Neil until a more appropriate moment, she told herself firmly as the seat-belt light came on for the descent into Athens.
Because the next twenty-four hours would require a very different kind of courage from her, and nothing could be allowed to deflect her from that.
Nothing—and no one.
Chapter Three
NATASHA’S arrival in Athens occurred in the middle of a thunderstorm, but was otherwise painless. She had no baggage to reclaim, and a placard with her name on it was the first thing she saw when she emerged from Customs.
It was carried by a heavily built man in a pale linen suit who greeted her with unsmiling politeness, took her bag, and led her to a waiting limousine complete with uniformed chauffeur.
The air was like a hot, wet blanket smothering her and she was glad she’d decided on the cooler option of pinning her hair up into a loose knot on top of her head, rather than wearing it down.
She found herself being ushered into the rear of the car, occupying its luxurious seating in solitary splendour while her escort sat in silence beside the driver.
She leaned back, listening to the distant growl of thunder, and watching the rain pour down the windows, as she relished the rich scent of expensive leather.
No doubt the cost of this transfer would go on the lawyers’ bill, she thought with an inward grimace. It would have been far cheaper to get a cab, although, admittedly, not nearly as comfortable. And was it really necessary to send two people to collect her? After all, she was hardly likely to come all this way just to do a runner.
It was too dark to see anything, even without the distortion of the rain on the glass turning street lights and approaching traffic into a blur, so she closed her eyes and let her thoughts drift.
She had almost dozed off when she realised that the car was slowing down, then coming to a complete halt.
Now to face the family, she thought without pleasure. She sat up hurriedly, pulling her skirt over her knees, as the passenger door opened. Another man was standing there, holding a large umbrella, and for a moment, she assumed it was Manolis, the Papadimoses’ major-domo, and was just about to greet him when she saw that he was also a stranger. Realised too, that the brightly lit entrance she was being hustled towards was also completely unfamiliar to her.
She tried to hang back. ‘No,’ she said in Greek. ‘There has been some mistake. I should be at the Villa Demeter.’
‘No mistake, thespinis. This is the right place.’ The pair of them were on either side of her now, their hands implacably under her elbows as they urged her forward into a vast hall dominated by the wide sweep of an imposing marble staircase.
Natasha hardly gave her surroundings a second look. She was too angry for that, trying desperately to remember the name of the lawyer who’d sent them, because he’d be someone to complain to—and about—when this muddle was eventually sorted.
In the meantime, in spite of her efforts to pull free, she was being taken up those curving stairs to a galleried landing.
‘What is this?’ she demanded huskily. ‘Where am I? Tell me at once.’
Silent, impassive, they halted in front of a pair of double doors, and knocked. The man from the airport reached down to the ornate handles and the doors opened noiselessly.
They didn’t push her in. It wasn’t quite as crude as that, but somehow she was stepping forward, and they were moving backwards, and the doors were closing again behind her. Leaving her standing there, alone.
Except that she was not alone.
It was a very big room, but all Natasha noticed was the bed, lit on either side by tall lamps, like a stage set. Illumining, she realised dazedly, the man who was sitting in that bed, leaning back against a mound of snowy pillows, and naked down to the sheet discreetly draped across his hips, and probably beyond, as he worked in the laptop computer open in front of him.
He unhurriedly completed whatever task he was engaged on, then Alex Mandrakis closed the lid, put the laptop on the adjacent table and looked at her.
‘Ah,’ he said softly. ‘The beauty I was promised, here at last.’
His voice was cool. His English spoken with only a faint accent.
He can make love in four languages…
Her throat closed as, for the second time in her life, his dark gaze swept her from the silk of her blonde hair down to the neat black pumps on her feet. But this time, the expression of frank appreciation in his eyes was mixed with something altogether more disturbing.
Involuntarily, Natasha took a step backwards, and saw him smile.
She said hoarsely, ‘What’s happening? Why am I here?’
‘You offered yourself to me,’ he said. ‘In writing.’ He shrugged a bare, muscular shoulder. ‘I am therefore accepting your offer. It is perfectly simple.’
‘No.’ This time Natasha stood her ground, and glared at him. ‘It’s total nonsense, and you know it as well as I do. So don’t pretend you were fooled even for a moment by my agreement to marry you.’
She turned and walked to the door, with an assumption of calm she was far from feeling. ‘However, the joke’s worn thin for me now, so I’m out of here.’
She grasped the door handles, twisted them one way then the other, but the heavy panels they controlled did not move an inch.
‘You are wasting your time.’ His voice was tinged with amusement. ‘The door is locked and will remain so until morning.’
She swung round. ‘But you can’t do this,’ she said thickly. ‘You can’t shut me in—stop me leaving. I—I don’t know what game you think you’re playing here, Kyrios Mandrakis, but please believe I have no intention of becoming your wife. Now or ever.’
‘Then we are at least in agreement about that,’ he drawled. ‘Because there is indeed no question of marriage between us, Natasha mou. And you are the one playing games, not I.’
He paused. ‘You must understand that I am referring to your second letter, which was couched in very different terms from the first, and which promised me a range of intimate delights that few unmarried girls would dare admit they knew, let alone suggest to any potential husband.’ He added mockingly, ‘And least of all to a man they had never met.’
Her lips parted in shock. ‘Second letter?’ she repeated helplessly. ‘There was no second letter. I only signed the first under duress. You must be raving mad.’
‘And you are a hypocrite, which I find a disappointment,’ he told her coolly. ‘I had expected that a girl who spoke with such mesmerising frankness of her sexual desires and fantasies would at least have the courage of her convictions, when finally confronted with the focus of her…longings.’
‘You’re the focus of nothing, Kyrios Mandrakis, except my dislike and disgust,’ Natasha said curtly. ‘I thought my brothers had cornered the market in arrogance and conceit, but you beat them—hands down.’
‘And I shall continue to do so, Kyria Kirby,’ Alex Mandrakis retorted, ‘in every way that occurs to me, therefore your ludicrous assessment of my character does not concern me.
‘You may well regret your candour in writing to me, agapi mou,’ he added, the firm mouth twisting. ‘But I do not. And, while I may never have believed in you as a future wife, I look forward with eagerness to enjoying your versatility as my mistress.
‘Which is why you are here with me tonight, as you must know by now. To begin your new career in my bed.’
The breath seemed to choke in her lungs. She stared at him incredulously, her startled eyes taking fresh stock of his state of undress and its devastating implications.
The formal evening dress he’d worn at their first encounter had concealed broad shoulders, and a sculpted chest shadowed by body hair tapering down towards his flat stomach and lean hips. His tanned skin was almost shockingly dark against the white bedlinen.
She didn’t want to imagine how the rest of him might appear.
Her voice seemed to come from a great distance.
‘I’d rather die!’
His brows lifted cynically. ‘When it was your own idea?’ he challenged. ‘I hardly think so.’
‘But I keep trying to tell you,’ she protested, hating the edge of growing desperation she could hear in her own voice. ‘There was never any second letter. Oh, why won’t you believe me?’
‘Because I have the evidence which makes a liar of you.’ His tone was almost casual. ‘In which, of course, you are no different from the rest of the Papadimos clan. Liars and cheats all of you, and, like most of your persuasion, only sorry when you are found out.
‘But your foster brothers will have even more to regret,’ he went on. ‘They will have to endure the shame of knowing you belong to me as my eromeni—my pillow friend—and that when I tire of you they will have you returned to them—used, and discarded.’ He paused. ‘Maybe…even pregnant.
‘A final blow to their family honour from which they can never recover,’ he added harshly as Natasha caught her breath.
‘You can’t do such a thing.’ Her voice was ragged. ‘No one could. It’s barbaric—vile. And do you imagine that I’ll let you get away with it? That I won’t have you arrested for kidnap and—and rape, no matter how powerful you may think you are?’
‘Kidnap?’ Alex Mandrakis repeated musingly, and shook his head. ‘When you responded willingly to my invitation, and allowed my driver to bring you here? He reported no scene at the airport. No screams or struggles.
‘As for rape, I doubt whether such an accusation could possibly succeed. Not when your letter is made public, as it would have to be. No court would convict me for taking advantage of the services you volunteered of your own free will.’
She flung back her head. ‘I say you’re the one who’s lying, Kyrios Mandrakis. I don’t believe this letter even exists.’
He sighed, then leaned across to open a drawer in the bedside table.
The sheet slipped a fraction, and Natasha hastily looked away.
When Alex Mandrakis straightened, she saw with a sinking heart that he was holding a file. He extracted two sheets of paper.
‘The first,’ he said, holding it up. ‘Your agreement to become my wife as part of this mythical deal between our families. You accept that exists?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I admit that.’
He paused, his mouth curling sardonically. ‘And this is the second letter, which outlines your alternative proposals for our future union. The signatures on both documents are identical, as you see.’
Yes, Natasha thought numbly as she looked at them. She did see.
She said in a voice she hardly recognised, ‘I don’t understand.’
‘Shall I refresh your memory—of the third paragraph, perhaps, which seems particularly inventive?’
He began to read it aloud, his tone almost impersonal, but before he’d uttered more than the first couple of sentences, Natasha was whispering, ‘Oh, God, stop—please stop,’ her whole body burning with shame, her hands pressed to her ears.
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So you do remember.’ He replaced the papers in the file and returned it to the drawer, which he closed.
She stared at him, hugging herself with her arms. When she could speak, she asked, ‘you think that I could think about such things, let alone write them down? Degrade myself in such a way?’
He shrugged again. ‘Why not?’ he countered. ‘When you swim naked at night, careless of who might see you.’
She began, ‘But I don’t…’ Then stopped, the hot colour deepening in her face as she recalled the one occasion when she’d succumbed to the temptation of cool water against the entire surface of her skin.
She said with a gasp, ‘You mean that—even then—you were having me watched?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean, I came to see you for myself.’
‘But why?’
‘In case, by some remote chance, your brothers were serious about a marriage between us. I wished to refresh my memory of what was on offer, so I arranged a brief visit to your room while you were asleep.’ He saw the look of horror on her face, and flung up a hand, laughing. ‘No, agapi mou, nothing more. Not then.
‘But even that became unnecessary,’ he added softly. ‘Because suddenly you were there, and I had only to stand in the shadows and look at you in the moonlight.’
‘That’s not possible,’ Natasha said sharply. ‘You couldn’t get into the garden. We have cameras—a security patrol.’
‘Cameras can be switched off,’ he said. ‘And poorly paid men can be bribed. When I was informed you had been sent for, I made my plans accordingly.’ He smiled reminiscently. ‘And I was…infinitely rewarded.’
There was a silence while Natasha struggled to compose herself. To tell herself that this wasn’t happening. To pray that she was asleep and enduring the worst nightmare of her life. Was it only a couple of hours ago that she’d been sitting on that plane, debating the comparative morality of sleeping with Neil? Complacently considering her choices in their relationship as if they were all that mattered.
And now she was faced with this—this…
She was still aware of the snarl of the storm overhead, and found herself praying ridiculously that the house would be struck by a thunderbolt if nothing else could save her from this—horror.
Eventually she said, not looking at him, ‘Whatever you saw on your spying mission, kyrie, I still did not write those things to you. I—I couldn’t.
‘And you don’t really want me,’ she went on in a low voice. ‘If you…do what you’ve threatened, it will only be another form of revenge against my family. You’ve said as much.
‘But I—I have a life in England. A man I could love. And you—you’re seeing someone too. You…don’t need to do this. So, I’m begging you now to unlock that door and let me go.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I’ll tell my brothers my plane was delayed, and I won’t say a word about what’s happened here tonight. I swear it. No one will ever know except the two of us.’ She added, ‘And I’ll thank you every day of my life.’
‘Your brothers are expecting you to arrive tomorrow, just in time for the meeting,’ he told her softly. ‘And I want them to know about us, Natasha mou. Also to imagine what they cannot know.’
She said, ‘I am not your Natasha.’
‘But you will be,’ he said. ‘And your life will belong to me—until I decide otherwise. Did I not make that clear to you?’
He smiled at her. ‘However, you plead with passion, agapi mou. I hope you will bring the same intensity to the pleasure we shall soon share, when I prove beyond any doubt that I do indeed want you, and not just for revenge.’
He paused. ‘My attentions may even console you for the English lover you have lost.’
He took two of the pillows from behind him, and placed them beside him on the bed. ‘But we have talked enough. Now, my lovely one, it is time you came to me. So, take off your clothes.’
She took a step backward. ‘No,’ she said fiercely. ‘I won’t do it.’
His brows lifted. ‘Would you prefer my men to help you?’ he enquired pleasantly. ‘I have only to summon them.’
‘Oh, God.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Do you possess even a scrap of decency?’
‘When it is required.’ He shrugged. ‘To judge from your letter, none is needed in your case. To find yourself being stripped by strangers might even have appealed to you. But no matter. Now, do not keep me waiting any longer,’ he added. ‘A pretence of coyness is hardly appropriate.’
Pretence? she thought. When I’ve never knowingly undressed in front of anyone in my life. When I’ve never actually seen a man naked either, apart from paintings and statuary.
The door was locked, but the window might not be, she told herself desperately. If there was a balcony outside, she might be able to jump…
And stopped right there, knowing that a broken arm or leg might be the least harm she could do to herself.
She was trapped—caught between Scylla and Charybdis, the monster and the whirlpool, in the story of ‘The Odyssey’ that Thia Theodosia used to read to her.
She touched dry lips with the tip of her tongue. ‘Will you at least—turn off the lights?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘And I am becoming impatient.’ The dark eyes scanned her again more slowly. ‘You may begin by taking down your hair. I prefer to see it loose.’
Instinct warned her that she had nowhere else to go. That tears—the only option she had left—wouldn’t move him any more than her protests had done, her pleading.
She had abased herself for nothing, and she would not do so again, she told herself with cold determination. From now on, she would concentrate on survival alone.
She had never understood or been part of this feud between the two families, and had always found it faintly ludicrous that grown men should so implacably pursue each other’s downfall.
But all that had changed forever when she’d entered this room, and found him waiting for her. Because Alex Mandrakis was now her enemy too, and someday, somehow, he would pay for tonight.
I’ll make him sorry that he was ever born, she vowed silently as she took the clips from her hair and shook the long, silky strands free over her shoulders.
He said softly, ‘Like a cloud of gold. Now, continue.’
She took off her jacket, and let it drop. Stepped out of her shoes.
He can’t touch the real me, and he never will, she told herself. Whatever he does, however he treats me, I won’t let him reach me in any way.