by Julie Kenner
She turned to face him, a new question urgent in her mind. “And do you feel the need to escape often?"
He seemed to think about it. “No. Not often.”
She wondered suddenly if he traveled alone. If another woman had stood in this place, looking out over the ocean. If another woman had slept on his shoulder as they flew across the sky. Had slept in his bed when they landed.
The idea caused a violent surge of jealousy to rage through her. She walked back into the house to distract herself. “Who owns this place?”
The living room was modest in size, though obviously well designed and furnished with high end decor. It opened directly onto a dining room, which in turn led to a large kitchen visible from the living room.
“An associate,” he said.
She looked at him. “Is that part of your… business? Keeping secrets?”
His eyes darkened. “I’ll keep no more secrets from you, Diana. You can ask me anything you like, and I’ll tell you the truth. But first you should rest.”
“What about Antonis Stavros?” she asked. “Isn’t that why we’re here?”
“I’m still working on it,” he said. “But it’s been a long night, and already a long day. I have some things to do before I’ll know more. Why don’t you shower and rest? We’ll have dinner later, and then we’ll figure out what to do next.”
She felt like she should rebel. She wasn’t used to relinquishing control of her everyday life. She lived alone. Went to work and the gym. Made decisions about her present and future. Now she was on the run for her life, and her best friend was dead. It didn’t feel like the right time to give up control, even to Leo.
But she was out of her element. She had no idea what to do next. How to find out more information about Antonis Stavros and why he’d killed Maggie.
She nodded. “All right.”
He picked up her bag, led her up a set of tile stairs to a second floor hall, and continued into the second room on the left. Like the rest of the house, it was modest in size, grand in design, another wall of windows opening to yet another balcony overlooking the ocean. Was this whole side of the house made up of windows? She resolved to walk down to the beach later and get a look for herself.
“The bathroom’s there.” He pointed to a half open door, and Diana got a glimpse of more pristine white tile. “There should be towels and everything else you need. If not, just let me know.”
“Thank you.”
They looked at each other for a long moment, a lifetime of questions weighing heavily between them. He opened his mouth as if to say something, then seemed to change his mind.
“I’ll see you in a few hours.”
He turned and left the room, leaving Diana to wonder what he might have said. And why he hadn’t said it.
Chapter Thirteen
She woke to the sound of the waves rolling onto the beach below the balcony. She was in a pleasant state of limbo, between the horror of all that had happened and the uncertainty of what would come next. She was in no hurry to re-enter reality, and she stretched her naked body against the crisp, cool sheets and watched as the shadows from the fading sunlight played against the ceiling.
She’d showered right after Leo left her alone in the bedroom, standing under the spray for what had seemed like an hour, letting the water wash off the sweat and grime of travel. When she’d finally shut off the water, she’d dried herself off with one of the thick, white towels and walked naked into the bedroom. The balcony doors let in a wind that was both warm and dry, and she’d crawled between the sheets without a second thought and fallen into a deep and dreamless sleep.
The room had fallen under the spell of dusk when she finally kicked off the sheets, let the ocean breeze lay its fingers on her skin. Her nerve endings came alive, and she thought of Leo, of the way he’d looked when he’d emerged from the shower in London. Of the hard planes of his body and the line of hair that had led under the towel. The way it would feel under her palms, the touch of his lips on hers, the press of his body.
She groaned, squeezing her thighs together to stop the pulsing at her center. What was wrong with her? It was true that she’d found Leo attractive since adolescence when her body had come alive, making her notice boys in a way she’d somehow missed until then. But she’d never wanted them. Never longed for them.
Not like this.
Why now when everything had gone to shit? When everything was up in the air with no guarantee she would make it back to her old life alive?
She hit the bed with one fist, then got out of bed. She dug through the discount clothes in the backpack and came away with a painfully short list of options for dinner. Not at all like her expansive closet at home, filled with designer clothes and shoes suitable for every occasion. Sighing, she settled on a maxi dress. It was cheaply made, but when she slipped it over her head, allowing the garment to skim her curves, she was surprised to find that it looked quite good on her. The thin straps highlighted her slender but toned arms, and the white cotton stood in elegant contrast to her dark skin. She turned sideways, pleased with the way it hugged her waist, expanded just enough to showcase the hips of her hourglass figure.
Not bad. Maybe she’d been spending too much money on clothes all this time after all.
She contemplated trying to tame her hair, then gave up and let the springy curls have their way. Finally, she removed a pair of gold sandals from the bag and slipped them on her feet, then touched her lips with gloss. She gave herself one last look in the mirror before slipping into the hall, oddly nervous to see Leo.
Someone was in the kitchen. She could hear the sound of running water, the clank of pots and pans. Did Leo cook? It was something else she didn’t know about him in spite of their long friendship. She resolved to correct the oversight immediately. If nothing else, the situation that had thrown them into such close, extended proximity had highlighted her failings as Leo’s friend.
Friend being the operative word.
Maybe if she focused on being a good friend to Leo she would stop thinking about him naked.
She stepped into the living room and continued into the kitchen, then stopped in her tracks.
A woman with a long black braid stood with her back to Diana, her hands moving in the water running from the kitchen faucet. Steam rose from a pot on the stove, a cutting board on the counter next to it covered with what looked like parsley and garlic. A large knife sat on the counter.
Diana looked around, but Leo was nowhere to be seen. She turned her focus back on the woman, still oblivious to Diana’s presence, then cleared her throat.
“Hello.”
The woman spun, her cheeks flushed. Her smile was shy, and when she smiled, faint wrinkles fanned out from the corners of her eyes.
“Hello. You must be Miss Barrett.” Her English was good, with only the faint hint of an accent that didn’t sound Spanish.
“Yes,” Diana said, moving toward her and holding our her hand.
The woman dried her hands on a towel before taking Diana’s hand. “I am Mina.”
“It’s a pleasure meeting you.” Diana looked around the great room and onto the empty balcony beyond. “Do you know where I might find Leo?”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “Leo?”
“Mr. Gage?”
“Oh, yes!” The woman smiled. “Mr. Gage is on the beach.”
“Down there?” Diana asked, gesturing to the balcony.
The woman nodded. “He’s expecting you.”
Diana smiled. “Thank you.”
She crossed the living room and stepped onto the balcony. The sunset had turned the sky orange and pink. To the south, the city of Almeria was already lit up for the night, the sea expanding along the coast like an indigo ribbon. It was stunningly beautiful, but it wasn’t the scenery that made it hard to breathe.
It was the man on the sand below, walking toward her from farther up the beach.
Leo.
He wore black trousers rolled up at
the ankles, his white shirt unbuttoned halfway to his naval. He was looking out to sea as he walked, like the water held the answers to all of his questions. Even from the house she could see that his brow was furrowed, the familiar piece of hair falling over his forehead.
He turned his attention back to the beach, then spotted her. He seemed to hesitate, then raised a hand in greeting. She lifted hers in response, waited for him to make his way down the beach, relishing the opportunity to look at him. To really look at him.
When he neared the house, he called up. “Come down!”
She smiled, then made her way to the stairs that led to the beach. The white dress fluttered deliciously around her bare legs, but when Leo stopped in front of her, she wasn’t at all sure the goosebumps on her body were a result of the cool breeze blowing off the water.
He gazed at her for a long moment, his eyes seeming to see everything she’d been thinking all too clearly.
“You look lovely.”
Was it her imagination that his voice was gruff?
“Thank you.” She averted her eyes, pretended to scan the beach she’d already studied to avoid looking at him. “It’s so beautiful.”
“It is.” She thought he was agreeing with her about the beach, but when she turned to look at him, his eyes were on her.
She swallowed hard. “Who is Mina, the woman in the kitchen?”
“She works for the owner of the property,” he said. “I didn’t want to leave you to go to the market for supplies, so I asked her to cook for us instead.”
So maybe Leo did cook. Interesting.
“That sounds nice. I’m starving.” She laughed a little, realizing it was true.
He smiled, looked at her a beat too long.
“What?”
He shook his head a little. “Your laugh. It reminds me of something.”
“What does it remind you of?” she asked.
He hesitated, then shook his head again. “I’ll let you know when it comes to me.”
She had the feeling he was hedging, but she suddenly didn’t want to push the issue. Wasn’t sure she was ready to handle the truth.
“Shall we?” he asked.
“Shall we…?”
He gestured behind her, and she turned to find a table set up under the balcony, its underside strung with white lights.
She looked up at him. “You did this for me?”
She thought she caught the hint of color in his cheeks before he hurried forward to pull out one of the chairs. “Well, the lights were already here. I just brought down the table and chairs. As long as we’re here, we might as well enjoy the view.”
She sat down, felt a shiver run up her spine when his fingers brushed against her bare arms. He retreated to the other side of the table and poured wine into her glass. He raised his in a toast.
“To old friends.” The words seemed to stick in his throat, and she wondered if he regretted their friendship now. She’d brought him nothing but trouble the last two days.
“To old friends,” she said, swallowing around the lump in her throat as she clinked her glass against his.
She heard footsteps on the balcony stairs, and a moment later, Mina appeared with a plate of oysters on a bed of crushed ice. She set it between them on the table before heading back to the kitchen.
“Please,” Leo said, gesturing at the platter.
She took one of the oysters, squeezed some lemon on top, tipped her head back and let the slippery morsel slide down her throat. She closed her eyes, savoring the taste, primitive and salty, like eating a bite of the sea. When she opened her eyes, Leo was looking at her, his eyes dark with something she couldn’t define.
It was lost a moment later when he reached for one of the oysters. Diana took another long swallow of her wine, sighing as the alcohol reached her bloodstream. She was here, in a place almost too beautiful to describe, with Leo. She would try to enjoy their meal. Try not to overthink everything he said and did.
Try not to wonder if he felt it, too.
“So I found something,” Leo said. “Something about Stavros.”
She looked up, grateful for the distraction from her thoughts. “What did you find?”
“A shipment,” Leo said, “coming in to Beni Saf tomorrow night.”
“Beni Saf…” The name was like a punch to the stomach, and she was immediately taken back to the hall outside Maggie’s office, the paralyzing fear, the moment Stavros had killed her friend.
“It’s the name of a port in Algeria. More specifically, a port rumored to have more than its share of illegal arms shipments,” he said. “I didn’t put it together right away, but it came to me after those men showed up at the flat in London. I wanted to do some more research before I said anything.”
So that's what Stavros and Toumi had been talking about when they’d been interrogating Maggie. Not the name of a person, but the name of a port used to traffic illegal weapons.
“Do you think that’s why they came after Maggie?” she asked. “Because she found out about it?”
“Maybe not the shipment itself,” he said. “But it’s not outside the realm of possibility that she discovered anomalies in wire transfers that made her suspect money was being used to fund some kind of illegal exchange.”
She remembered how tired Maggie had looked the last day she’d been alive. She’d been worried, and Diana had postponed talking to her because of her lunch plans with Leo. She wished she could go back, do it all differently, insist Maggie tell her everything.
But there was plenty of time for guilt. Now was the time for justice.
“How can you be sure the shipment you’re talking about is connected to Stavros?” she asked.
“Because it’s registered to a company registered to a company registered to another company that’s in Stavros’ name. And because Briony was able to trace said company to other questionable shipments that have come in to Beni Saf in the past.”
She sat back in her chair. “What are we going to do about it?”
“I’ll know more tomorrow.” He lifted his glass again. “Until then, I say we enjoy the food. And the view.”
It was a tall order, but somehow they passed the next two hours in pleasant conversation punctuated both by the comfortable silences of old friends and a new kind of tension that was either real or imaginary. They talked about her parents, about her job at Abbott and whether she would be able to return to it once they’d found Antonis Stavros, about their childhood. They laughed over their shared memories, arguing about who had the more accurate recollection of events. The only thing they didn’t talk about was the truth Leo had only recently revealed.
And all the while Mina brought plate after plate of amazing food: fish so flaky it melted in Diana’s mouth, tender salad greens served with nothing but fresh lemon and sea salt, smoky lamb, roasted vegetables in a spicy tomato sauce. The food was an explosion of spices — chili and caraway and cumin all coming together to create a symphony of flavor. By the time she cleared the last plate, they’d worked their way through two bottles of wine, and Diana was feeling more than a little relaxed.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
The candles on the table were flickering low in their votive holders when the question tumbled out her mouth.
He turned his glass in his hand. She held her breath, waiting for an answer. Instead, he stood.
“Come on.”
“Come where?” she asked.
“Let’s put our feet in the water,” he said. “Like when we were kids.”
She smiled. “We didn’t just put our feet in when we were kids. Not usually anyway.”
A smile touched his lips. “You’re absolutely right.”
He grabbed her hand, pulled her up out of her chair, started running for the water.
She laughed, all too happy to let herself be pulled along in Leo’s wake, just like always. “What are you doing?”
He stopped at the water line and dropped her hand, then stripped off hi
s shirt. “Going in the water. Like when we were kids.”
“Leo…”
He unbuttoned his pants, and she sucked in a breath, half afraid and half hoping there would be nothing underneath. She didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed to discover he was, in fact, wearing boxer briefs.
Then again, any relief was short lived when he turned for the water, revealing perfect buttocks, hard and well-formed above big, muscular thighs.
“Come on, Diana.” His words were snatched by the wind as he rushed for the water. “We’ve done it a thousand times.”
Not like this.
“Oh, bollocks. Fine.” She stripped off her dress and ran for the water, glad Leo was diving under a wave so he couldn’t see her half naked.
By the time he came up, she was already waist deep in the surf, the waves buoying her upward as they swelled underneath her, dropping her back to the sand as they rolled onto the beach.
She swam a little farther out to meet him, then treaded water to keep herself afloat.
“Still crazy,” she said, splashing him.
“You were the one who usually wanted to go swimming,” he said.
“Yes, but not at night, and not without our suits.”
He grinned. “What’s the difference?”
She didn’t have an answer. She didn’t know the difference. She only knew there was one.
“No difference,” she said.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The ocean had grown calm, the waves turned to small swells. His wet hair was dark under the shimmer of the moon, drops of water clinging to his lips. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck, twine her legs around his waist, kiss the droplets of the sea from his mouth.
She was in a dangerous place, a place far from the reality of their lives, a reality that had kept them at a distance in spite of their childhood closeness. Here there was nothing but the moon and the sea, Leo looking at her with liquid eyes over the salty water that separated her from the thing she wanted and the things she knew to be true. It would be so easy. She would wrap her arms around his neck, press her lips to his. Maybe he wouldn’t want her the way she wanted him, but at least she’d know.