by Sara Craven
In fact, it was all that she would miss, she added with a touch of defiance, and dived in.
She powered one swift, invigorating length, relishing the coolness of the water against her warm skin then, as she turned, she took a deep breath and submerged completely, enjoying once more the sensation of being enclosed in a silent world ruled by the glow of the sun.
Only to become suddenly aware that a shadow had fallen across the brightness ahead of her, shifting with the ripples on the water as she got nearer.
Gasping, Selena surfaced, grabbing at the tiled rim with one hand and pushing her wet hair back from her face with the other as she looked up. And found Alexis, waiting silently. Looking down.
Something—an amalgam of joy and fear—lurched inside her. Joy at seeing him again at last. Fear of revealing too much of the thoughts and dreams that had haunted her waking and sleeping since he’d walked away from her at the hotel.
The unguessed at longings, potent and unforgettable, that he’d awoken in a few short moments. And as quickly regretted. That, she knew, was what she should remember, just as much as she needed to hide the rest.
He said, ‘Did I startle you, Selene mou?’
She hunched a shoulder. Tried for nonchalance. ‘A little. I didn’t know you were expected.’
‘I was not.’ He added softly, ‘And I did not expect to disturb a water nymph.’
‘Oh’ seemed the only, if inadequate, answer to that. She felt silly, there in the water, gaping up at him like a goldfish in a bowl, but as she went to haul herself out of the pool, he reached down, his hands firm under her armpits, and lifted her bodily, and all too easily, on to the tiles.
In the next instant, he’d unslung the towel—her towel—draped across his shoulder, and wrapped it round her, tucking in the edge above her breasts to secure it.
The contact with her skin was infinitesimal, but it ran like wildfire through every pore—every nerve-ending.
‘I think,’ he said quietly, his dark gaze holding hers endlessly, almost mesmerisingly, ‘that we need to talk.’
‘Yes—perhaps so. I—I’ll just go and get dressed...’
‘And I will wait here.’ His hands descended on her tense shoulders, directing her towards her room.
She showered, then rough-dried her hair, dropping the brush twice, her fingers all thumbs, knowing—and resenting that she was unnerved by Alexis’s sudden reappearance.
We’ll talk and he’ll go, she told herself. That’s all there is to it, so calm down.
She opened the wardrobe and reached for the shelf where her clean underwear was deposited each day. But although her lace-trimmed briefs were there in a neat pile, there was no sign of her bra. Oh, hell, she muttered under her breath. It must have been taken to Millie’s room again.
And she didn’t have time to hunt through that particular chaos.
She picked a white vest top in ribbed cotton, which, she decided, was sufficiently concealing, then buttoned on her denim skirt, and went out into the courtyard to join him.
She said flatly, ‘Obviously, we need to discuss Millie and what to do next, because Plan A has failed and we don’t have a Plan B.’
She paused. ‘Did you know that a couple of days ago, she actually made a feta cheese? A feta cheese. For Kostas to take to his mother.’ She sighed. ‘You have to admit she’s been clever.’
‘Determined, certainly.’ His tone was dry. ‘But Anna Papoulis is equally so, and her mind is fixed on a substantial dowry for her handsome boy.’ He paused.
‘Perhaps if your aunt will give her nothing, she might be persuaded to come here and say so. It could lead to the result she desires.’
He added brusquely, ‘Her leg must have healed by now.’
Selena hesitated. ‘It’s out of plaster, but apparently she’s having serious physiotherapy every day. And her mind is made up. Millie goes home. No compromise.’
His brows lifted. ‘So, you have spoken to her?’
‘Only briefly. She’s either having treatment or she’s out.’ Selena shrugged. ‘Her friends are gathering round, taking her for little trips in their cars to provide her with a change of scene.’
‘She would not regard Rhymnos as a change of scene?’ Alexis asked ironically.
‘No,’ Selena said baldly. ‘As a climb-down.’
She looked down at the ground. ‘You really think that Millie having no money could be a deal-breaker and Kostas’s mother will force him to give her up?’
‘She will try,’ he said drily. ‘But perhaps she will discover that love is not so easily dismissed from the heart and the mind.’
‘Then you believe Kostas really does care about Millie?’
Alexis shrugged. ‘He shows every sign of it. In my bar now, he sells only drinks, not his—company.’
Selena flushed. ‘Well, that’s a good choice,’ she returned awkwardly.
‘He is fortunate he can make it.’ There was an odd harshness in his voice, and she looked up at him, startled.
His smile was reassuring. ‘But on this lovely day, I, too, have choices and I choose to show you Rhymnos—if you will come with me.’ He added wryly, ‘Your aunt should not be the only one to have a change of scene.’
She knew she should not do this. That she should invent an excuse—any excuse. But she could hardly claim to be busy when he’d found her in the pool.
And maybe she could risk one day in his company before she finally admitted defeat and went home. Or what passed for home anyway, she thought wryly, imagining the atmosphere that her failure would engender.
Although she didn’t have to stay in Haylesford, she reminded herself. Millie’s future was no longer a consideration, and she could get on with her own life.
If she could find another job before the next term began, she could even begin to establish her future independence right away.
He said, ‘Well, say something, Selena mou.’ His tone was faintly mocking as if he was expecting her to refuse his offer. ‘Just tell me if you wish to be left in peace.’
Peace. The word stung at her brain, sending her into renewed turmoil.
What peace is there in never seeing you again? she wanted to cry. When I know that, in spite of myself, you’ve been there in my head every day and every night since I arrived on this island.
Do I really need to deprive myself of a final hour or two in his company—knowing how precious their memory will be? Or to let him know I’m scared to be alone with him?
She met his quizzical gaze with sudden recklessness, her mouth relaxing into a smile. ‘I should like to see more of Rhymnos—before I leave.’ Adding, ‘Efharisto.’
‘Parakalo,’ he returned and smiled back at her. ‘So—shall we go?’
And that, she thought, was how, swiftly and easily, she’d made the choice which had changed her life for ever.
CHAPTER SEVEN
IT HADN’T SEEMED like that at the time, of course.
He was just being a good host, she’d told herself, but that hadn’t stopped her wanting to dance at his side as they made their way out of the courtyard. And not even glimpsing Eleni frowning at the saloni window could spoil her mood.
So where could they be going? she wondered as he started the Jeep. After all, there couldn’t be much of the island that hadn’t been already covered during their search for Millie and Kostas.
Unless he was planning to take her back to the cave...
Even the thought of it was enough to send her body tingling into dangerous warmth, shocking her with the force of her own yearning.
To hide her confusion, she hurried into speech. ‘This is very good of you.’
‘Not at all.’ He paused. ‘I thought you might like to discover a little more about our most important industry.’
Geography and economics...
Disappointment was almost choking her but she kept her tone bright. ‘Am I going to see round Rhymnos Oil? How marvellous.’
‘Not now,’ he said. ‘Not today.’ He turn
ed the Jeep to the right, following the rough road along the coast, between the sea and yet more olive groves, all new territory for her. ‘Instead, we shall go back to where it all began.’
With some history thrown in...
Her mouth was beginning to ache with the effort of smiling, but she persevered. He was being kind and she needed to be grateful. Which was all he would expect from her in return.
But already, she was far too conscious of his presence beside her. Much too aware of his dark sculpted profile and the movement of his lean, strong hands on the wheel of the Jeep, evoking memories of his touch it was far safer to forget.
She forced herself to turn her head and concentrate on the sea, the faint breeze barely troubling its azure smoothness today as it stretched out to the horizon and beyond. A distance that, very soon, she would be covering on her journey back to England.
The prospect of her return and its inevitable confrontation with Aunt Nora was not one she relished.
She would be thankful when term recommenced and she could lose herself in the demands of her course work, she thought, feeling her eyes sting and telling herself it was just the dazzle of the sun on the water.
‘What troubles you, Selene mou?’
His question jolted her. She hadn’t realised she was being observed in her turn and she looked back at him, flushing a little. ‘Oh, the usual back-to-reality blues, I guess.’
‘Rhymnos has not seemed real to you?’
No, she thought, as longing tightened her throat. Because of you, it’s turned into a wild, impossible dream. And I don’t want to wake...
By some superhuman effort, she shrugged. Kept her tone casual. ‘Well, hardly—under the circumstances. If I’d come here on my own account, it might have been different.’
‘Ah,’ he said softly. ‘Then do you think you will come back?’
If you asked me, I’d stay...
And where had that come from? she asked herself wretchedly, nailing on another smile and thanking heaven she hadn’t spoken aloud. ‘Oh, one day, perhaps, in the distant future when I’m no longer a struggling student but qualified and working. Who knows?’
‘Who, indeed, agapi mou.’ There was an odd note in his voice. ‘So we must make the most of what time we have left.’
Sudden anger flared inside her. She wanted to turn on him. To demand, ‘If you think that—if you really think that, then why have you stayed away all this time? Why have you left me alone to wonder—and suffer through these empty days? And what’s this afternoon all about? Crumbs from the rich man’s table?’
But she bit back the words, because these were dangerous questions which, in all honesty, she had no right to ask. And, probably, would receive answers she didn’t want to hear.
Leave it there, she adjured herself. Accept what there is. Hope for nothing more.
She realised that Alexis was turning the Jeep inland up a well-worn track through the shade of yet another massive olive grove, their route flanked by trees with trunks so gnarled and twisted they looked a thousand years old. And perhaps they were long past their ‘best by’ date because for the life of her, even by craning her neck, she could see no sign of any fruit.
Eventually, she broke the silence. ‘Are these your trees? I suppose you must be thinking of replacing them.’
He shot her a swift, amused glance. ‘Yes, they are mine and, on the contrary, Selene mou, I am expecting them to bring me a wonderful harvest in November.’
‘Truly?’ She gave the overhanging branches another dubious look.
‘The olives are still tiny,’ he said. ‘But they are there.’
She was half expecting him to stop the Jeep and show her, but he drove on, accelerating up the slight slope which, eventually, rose more steeply as it took them out of the shelter of the grove towards the grassy upland beyond.
Where he stopped, parking the Jeep under another massive tree, its leaves shimmering in the sunlight.
He reached into the back of the Jeep and extracted a rucksack. He said, ‘From here we walk, Selene mou.’
‘Oh.’ She swallowed, glancing at the rock-crowned hills ahead of them. ‘I’m not really dressed for mountaineering.’
He slanted a smile at her. ‘You need not fear. It is not far and we go round, not up.’
The tussocky grass, studded with wildflowers, was springy under her feet, and Alexis reached for her hand and steadied her as they walked, skirting the steeper slopes as they headed round the curve of the hill.
And there cradled in its folds as if set down there by some giant hand were three tall pillars of creamy stone rearing towards the sky from their flat rocky platform, all of it encircled by grass, green as an emerald.
Instantly, prosaically familiar from bottles on a supermarket shelf and yet, in their proper setting, startling and somehow alien, part of an entirely different world, ancient and mysterious.
Alexis said softly, ‘The pillars of Apollo, agapi mou. All that still remains of his temple. My own private sanctuary since I was a young boy. Where I have always come to think about what I truly wanted from my life. And the place where Rhymnos Oil became for me more than just a dream.’
She took a deep breath. ‘It’s—beautiful.’ She hesitated. ‘But it can’t always have been private. Not with holidaymakers swarming all over it.’
He shook his head. ‘They come to Rhymnos for the beaches and tavernas. There’s nothing here to tempt them. It is not Delphi. There’s no cave for an oracle or glorious statuary waiting to be uncovered like buried treasure. It is just another small ruin.’
She said quietly, her heartbeat quickening, ‘But special to you.’
‘Yes. For so many reasons.’ He paused, looking at her, his gaze broodingly intense as it held hers. ‘Shall we go down?’
The slope of the ground was gentle but Selena felt as if she was standing on the edge of an abyss. That one false move and she would fall quietly—endlessly into oblivion.
You don’t need to be here, whispered the voice in her head. You already know what you’re doing with your life. You can’t risk any second thoughts—especially when they’re foolish and impossible.
But you can always step back. Take your hand from his. Make an excuse. Tell him you’re leaving early tomorrow and you need to pack. Tell him something. Anything that will get you back to safety.
Only to hear herself say haltingly, ‘Yes, that would be good.’
Silence folded round them as they walked down to the temple. Not the hush she’d sensed on that other day before the storm, but something deeper and even more intimate than the clasp of his fingers round hers. And infinitely more dangerous.
At the foot of the slope, the ground levelled out, its cover of grass even as a carpet, soft and springy underfoot.
Alexis released her hand and she moved forward, climbing up the two steps which led to the rocky floor of the shrine, and looking across to the tumble of fallen masonry below the columns, which, she supposed, must once have been an altar.
How many thousands of years ago, she wondered, had people built this place and come there with their offerings?
A breeze like a sigh moved between the columns, bringing with it a delicate almost spicy scent. Oregano, she thought wonderingly as she breathed it, mint and thyme. Did they grow wild here?
She turned to ask Alexis and saw that he’d taken a rug from his rucksack and spread it in the shade of two large rectangular stones and was now reclining, very much at his ease, drinking from a bottle of water.
He produced another, uncapped it and held it out to her. ‘Are you thirsty after our walk?’
It made no sense to deny it. She walked back slowly and took the bottle from him, taking care to sit on the furthest edge of the rug.
How quiet it was, she thought, letting the water trickle blissfully down her throat. And—how remote. Too remote and too quiet.
And she needed to leave, she told herself with sudden unease, while she still could.
Find some excuse
to cut the afternoon short and go back to the house. But what could she say? That her sister would be worried, when he must know as well as she did that Millie never gave her a second thought?
But she could at least break this dangerous silence.
She rushed into speech. ‘Why Apollo? I thought Zeus was the most important Greek god.’
He smiled. ‘On Rhymnos, it was always Apollo. Eleni’s mother, who was my nurse when I was a baby, was born here, too, and she filled my head with all the old legends. How he was Apollo the Healer, the god of music and poetry as well as prophecy. How as Phoebus Apollo he drove the chariot of the sun across the sky each day.’
‘Wow.’ This was better. This was casual conversation, she thought as she smiled back. ‘A god of many talents. And I thought all he did was chase girls.’
‘He found time for that, too,’ Alexis agreed solemnly. ‘Or he would have had no sons.’
‘And that was important—even for a god?’
‘I think—for anyone,’ he said, after a pause. ‘Besides one of his sons, Asclepius, became the father of medicine and another, Aristaeus, taught the Greeks agriculture. How to keep bees, to look after livestock, to grow olives, and even make cheese.’ He added lightly, ‘So we should be thankful.’
She matched his tone. ‘While I know who’s really responsible for Millie’s sudden expertise in the kitchen.’
‘Efharisto,’ he said. ‘I thought you would blame me.’
‘Hardly.’ She sighed. ‘She seems determined to prove herself, but I still feel it’s far too soon for her to commit herself like this.’
‘Ah,’ he said softly. ‘So you do not believe that sometimes all that it takes is a look—a word—in order to be lost for ever?’
Selena swallowed. ‘No, I don’t,’ she said defiantly.
Adding silently, I can’t—I won’t believe it. I need it to be impossible. Need it so very badly...
‘Tell me something, Selene mou.’ His tone was almost idle. ‘How many times have you telephoned to England since you came to my house?’