The Redemption of Darius Sterne

by Carole Mortimer

  ‘Cleaning is an emergency?’

  Lily thought about the state of some of the houses she cleaned. ‘Sometimes, but in this case it’s more that the owner decided to arrive without notice. He spends most of his time in the US.’ She dug in her bag for more sunscreen. ‘Can you imagine being so rich you can’t quite decide which of your many properties you are going to sleep in?’

  ‘What’s his name?’

  ‘No idea. The company is very secretive. We have to arrive at a certain time and then his security team will let us in. Four hours later I add a gratifyingly large sum of money to my bank account and that’s the end of it.’

  ‘Four hours? It’s going to take five of you four hours to clean one house?’ Brittany paused with the water halfway to her mouth. ‘What is this place? A Minoan palace?’

  ‘A villa. It’s big. She said I’d be given a floor plan when I arrive, which I have to return when I leave and I’m not allowed to make copies.’

  ‘A floor plan?’ Brittany choked on her water. ‘Now I’m intrigued. Can I come with you?’

  ‘Sure—’ Lily threw her a look ‘—because scrubbing out someone’s shower is so much more exciting than having cocktails on the terrace of the archaeological museum while the sun sets over the Aegean.’

  ‘It’s the Sea of Crete.’

  ‘Technically it’s still the Aegean, and either way I’m missing a great party to scrub a floor. I feel like Cinderella. So what about you? Are you going to meet someone tonight and do something about your dormant love life?’

  ‘I don’t have a love life, I have a sex life, which is not at all dormant fortunately.’

  Lily felt a twinge of envy. ‘Maybe you’re right. I need to lighten up and use men for sex instead of treating every relationship as if it’s going to end in confetti. You were an only child, weren’t you? Did you ever wish you had brothers or sisters?’

  ‘No, but I grew up on a small island. The whole place felt like a massive extended family. Everyone knew everything, from the age you first walked, to whether you had all A’s on your report card.’

  ‘Sounds blissful.’ Lily heard the wistful note in her own voice. ‘Because I was such a sickly kid and hard work to look after, no one took me for long. My eczema was terrible when I was little and I was always covered in creams and bandages and other yucky stuff. I wasn’t exactly your poster baby. No one wanted a kid who got sick. I was about as welcome as a stray puppy with fleas.’

  ‘Crap, Lily, you’re making me tear up and I’m not even a sentimental person.’

  ‘Forget it. Tell me about your family instead.’ She loved hearing about other people’s families, about the complications, the love, the experiences woven into a shared history. To her, family seemed like a multicoloured sweater, with all the different coloured strands of wool knitted into something whole and wonderful that gave warmth and protection from the cold winds of life.

  She picked absently at a thread hanging from the hem of her shorts. It felt symbolic of her life. She was a single fibre, loose, bound to nothing.

  Brittany took another mouthful of water and adjusted the angle of her hat. ‘We’re a normal American family, I guess. Whatever that is. My parents were divorced when I was ten. My mom hated living on an island. Eventually she remarried and moved to Florida. My dad was an engineer and he spent all his time working on oil rigs around the world. I lived with my grandmother on Puffin Island.’

  ‘Even the name is adorable.’ Lily tried to imagine growing up on a place called Puffin Island. ‘Were you close to your grandmother?’

  ‘Very. She died a few years ago, but she left me her cottage on the beach so I’d always have a home. I take several calls a week from people wanting to buy the place but I’m never going to sell.’ Brittany poked her trowel into the ground. ‘My grandmother called it Castaway Cottage. When I was little I asked her if a castaway ever lived there and she said it was for people lost in life, not at sea. She believed it had healing properties.’

  Lily didn’t laugh. ‘I might need to spend a month there. I need to heal.’

  ‘You’d be welcome. A friend of mine is staying at the moment. We use it as a refuge. It’s the best place on earth and I always feel close to my grandmother when I’m there. You can use it any time, Lil.’

  ‘Maybe I will. I still need to decide what I’m going to do in August.’

  ‘You know what you need? Rebound sex. Sex for the fun of it, without all the emotional crap that goes with relationships.’

  ‘I’ve never had rebound sex. I’d fall in love.’

  ‘So pick someone you couldn’t possibly fall in love with in a million years. Someone with exceptional bedroom skills, but nothing else to commend him. Then you can’t possibly be at risk.’ She broke off as Spyros, one of the Greek archaeologists from the local university, strolled across to them. ‘Go away, Spy, this is girl talk.’

  ‘Why do you think I’m joining you? It’s got to be more interesting than the conversation I just left.’ He handed Lily a can of chilled Diet Coke. ‘He’s a waste of space, theé mou.’ His voice was gentle and she coloured, touched by his kindness.

  ‘I know, I know.’ She lifted the weight of her hair from her neck, wishing she’d worn it up. ‘I’ll get over it.’

  Spy dropped to his haunches next to her. ‘Want me to help you get over him? I heard something about rebound sex. I’m here for you.’

  ‘No thanks. You’re a terrible flirt. I don’t trust you.’

  ‘Hey, this is about sex. You don’t need to trust me.’ He winked at her. ‘What you need is a real man. A Greek man who knows how to make you feel like a woman.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, I know the joke. You’re going to hand me your laundry and tell me to wash it. This is why you’re not going to be my rebound guy. I am not washing your socks.’ But Lily was laughing as she snapped the top of the can. Maybe she didn’t have a family, but she had good friends. ‘You’re forgetting that when I’m not cleaning the villas of the rich or hanging out here contributing nothing to my college fund, I work for the ultimate in Greek manhood.’

  ‘Ah yes.’ Spyros smiled. ‘Nik Zervakis. Head of the mighty ZervaCo. Man of men. Every woman’s fantasy.’

  ‘Not mine. He doesn’t tick a single box on my list.’

  Spy raised his eyebrows and Brittany shook her head. ‘You don’t want to know. Go on, Lily, dish the dirt on Zervakis. I want to know everything from his bank balance to how he got that incredible six pack I saw in those sneaky photos of him taken in that actress’s swimming pool.’

  ‘I don’t know much about him, except that he’s super brilliant and expects everyone around him to be super brilliant, too, which makes him pretty intimidating. Fortunately he spends most of his time in San Francisco or New York so he isn’t around much. I’ve been doing this internship for two months and in that time two personal assistants have left. It’s a good job he has a big human resources department because I can tell you he gets through a lot of human resources in the average working week. And don’t even start me on the girlfriends. I need a spreadsheet to keep it straight in my head.’

  ‘What happened to the personal assistants?’

  ‘Both of them resigned because of the pressure. The workload is inhuman and he isn’t easy to work for. He has this way of looking at you that makes you wish you could teleport. But he is very attractive. He isn’t my type so I didn’t pay much attention, but the women talk about him all the time.’

  ‘I still don’t understand why you’re working there.’

  ‘I’m trying different things. My research grant ends this month and I don’t know if I want to carry on doing this. I’m exploring other options. Museum work doesn’t pay much and anyway, I don’t want to live in a big city. I could never teach—’ She shrugged, depressed by the options. ‘I don’t know what to do.’

>   ‘You’re an expert in ceramics and you’ve made some beautiful pots.’

  ‘That’s a hobby.’

  ‘You’re creative and artistic. You should do something with that.’

  ‘It isn’t practical to think I can make a living that way and dreaming doesn’t pay the bills.’ She finished her drink. ‘Sometimes I wish I’d read law, not archaeology, except that I don’t think I’m cut out for office work. I’m not good with technology. I broke the photocopier last week and the coffee machine hates me, but apparently having ZervaCo on your résumé makes prospective employers sit up. It shows you have staying power. If you can work there and not be intimidated, you’re obviously robust. And before you tell me that an educated woman shouldn’t allow herself to be intimidated by a guy, try meeting him.’

  Spyros rose to his feet. ‘Plenty of people would be intimidated by Nik Zervakis. There are some who say his name along with the gods.’

  Brittany pushed her water bottle back into her backpack. ‘Those would be the people whose salary he pays, or the women he sleeps with.’

  Lily took off her hat and fanned herself. ‘His security team is briefed to keep them away from him. We are not allowed to put any calls through to him unless the name is on an approved list and that list changes pretty much every week. I have terrible trouble keeping up.’

  ‘So his protection squad is there to protect him from women?’ Brittany looked fascinated. ‘Unreal.’

  ‘I admire him. They say his emotions have never played a part in anything he does, business or pleasure. He is the opposite of everything I am. No one has ever dumped him or made him feel less of a person and he always knows what to say in any situation.’ She glanced once across the heat-baked ruins of the archaeological site towards the man who had lied so glibly. Thinking of all the things she could have said and hadn’t plunged her into another fit of gloom. ‘I’m going to try and be more like Nik Zervakis.’

  Brittany laughed. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘No, I’m not kidding. He is like an ice machine. I want to be like that. How about you? Have either of you ever been in love?’

  ‘No!’ Spy looked alarmed, but Brittany didn’t answer. Instead she stared sightlessly across the plateau to the ocean.

  ‘Brittany?’ Lily prompted her. ‘Have you been in love?’

  ‘Not sure.’ Her friend’s voice was husky. ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Wow. Ball-breaking Brittany, in love?’ Spy raised his eyebrows. ‘Did you literally fire an arrow through his heart?’ He spread his hands as Lily glared at him. ‘What? She’s a Bronze Age weapons expert and a terrifyingly good archer. It’s a logical suggestion.’

  Lily ignored him. ‘What makes you think you might have been in love? What were the clues?’

  ‘I married him.’

  Spyros doubled up with soundless laughter and Lily stared.

  ‘You—? Okay. Well that’s a fairly big clue right there.’

  ‘It was a mistake.’ Brittany tugged the trowel out of the ground. ‘When I make mistakes I make sure they’re big. I guess you could call it a whirlwind romance.’

  ‘That sounds more like a hurricane than a whirlwind. How long did it last?’

  Brittany stood up and brushed dust off her legs. ‘Ten days. Spy, if you don’t wipe that smile off your face I’m going to kick you into this trench and cover your corpse with a thick layer of dirt and shards of pottery.’

  ‘You mean ten years,’ Lily said and Brittany shook her head.

  ‘No. I mean days. We made it through the honeymoon without killing each other.’

  Lily felt her mouth drop open and closed it again quickly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘I let my emotions get in the way of making sane decisions.’ Brittany gave a faint smile. ‘I haven’t fallen in love since.’

  ‘Because you learned how not to do it. You didn’t go and make the same mistake again and again. Give me some tips.’

  ‘I can’t. Avoiding emotional entanglement came naturally after I met Zach.’

  ‘Sexy name.’

  ‘Sexy guy.’ She shaded her eyes from the sun. ‘Sexy rat bastard guy.’

  ‘Another one,’ Lily said gloomily. ‘But you were young and everyone is allowed to make mistakes when they’re young. Not only do I not have that excuse, but I’m a habitual offender. I should be locked up until I’m safe to be rehabilitated. I need to be taken back to the store and reprogrammed.’

  ‘You do not need to be reprogrammed.’ Brittany stuffed her trowel into the front of her backpack. ‘You’re warm, friendly and lovable. That’s what guys like about you.’

  ‘That and the fact it takes one glance to know you’d look great naked,’ Spy said affably.

  Lily turned her back on him. ‘Warm, friendly and lovable are great qualities for a puppy, but not so great for a woman. They say a person can change, don’t they? Well, I’m going to change.’ She scrambled to her feet. ‘I am not falling in love again. I’m going to take your advice and have rebound sex.’

  ‘Good plan.’ Spy glanced at his watch. ‘You get your clothes off, I’ll get us a room.’

  ‘Not funny.’ Lily glared at him. ‘I am going to pick someone I don’t know, don’t feel anything for and couldn’t fall in love with in a million years.’

  Brittany looked doubtful. ‘Now I’m second-guessing myself. Coming from you it sounds like a recipe for disaster.’

  ‘It’s going to be perfect. All I have to do is find a man who doesn’t tick a single box on my list and have sex with him. It can’t possibly go wrong. I’m going to call it Operation Ice Maiden.’

  * * *

  Nik Zervakis stood with his back to the office, staring at the glittering blue of the sea while his assistant updated him. ‘Did he call?’

  ‘Yes, exactly as you predicted. How do you always know these things? I would have lost my nerve days ago with those sums of money involved. You don’t even break out in a sweat.’

  Nik could have told him the deal wasn’t about money, it was about power. ‘Did you call the lawyers?’

  ‘They’re meeting with the team from Lexos first thing tomorrow. So it’s done. Congratulations, boss. The US media have turned the phones red-hot asking for interviews.’

  ‘It’s not over until the deal is signed. When that happens I’ll put out a statement, but no interviews.’ Nik felt some of the tension leave his shoulders. ‘Did you make a reservation at The Athena?’

  ‘Yes, but you have the official opening of the new museum wing first.’

  Nik swore softly and swung round. ‘I’d forgotten. Do you have a briefing document on that?’

  His PA paled. ‘No, boss. All I know is that the wing has been specially designed to display Minoan antiquities in one place. You were invited to the final meeting of the project team but you were in San Francisco.’

  ‘Am I supposed to give a speech?’

  ‘They’re hoping you will agree to say a few words.’

  ‘I can manage a few words, but they’ll be unrelated to Minoan antiquities.’ Nik loosened his tie. ‘Run me through the schedule.’

  ‘Vassilis will have the car here at six-fifteen, which should allow you time to go back to the villa and change. You’re picking up Christina on the way and your table is booked for nine p.m.’

  ‘Why not pick her up after I’ve changed?’

  ‘That would have taken time you don’t have.’

  Nik couldn’t argue with that. The demands of his schedule had seen off three assistants in the last six months. ‘There was something else?’

  The man shifted uncomfortably. ‘Your father called. Several times. He said you weren’t picking up your phone and asked me to relay a message.’

  Nik flicked open the button at the neck of his shirt. ‘Which was?’

&n
bsp; ‘He wants to remind you that his wedding is next weekend. He thinks you’ve forgotten.’

  Nik stilled. He hadn’t forgotten. ‘Anything else?’

  ‘He is looking forward to having you at the celebrations. He wanted me to remind you that of all the riches in this world, family is the most valuable.’

  Nik, whose sentiments on that topic were a matter of public record, made no comment.

  He wondered why anyone would see a fourth wedding as a cause for celebration. To him, it shrieked of someone who hadn’t learned his lesson the first three times. ‘I will call him from the car.’

  ‘There was one more thing—’ The man backed towards the door like someone who knew he was going to need to make a rapid exit. ‘He said to make sure you knew that if you don’t come, you’ll break his heart.’

  It was a statement typical of his father. Emotional. Unguarded.

  Reflecting that it was that very degree of sentimentality that had made his father the victim of three costly divorces, Niklaus strolled to his desk. ‘Consider the message delivered.’

  As the door closed he turned back to the window, staring over the midday sparkle of the sea.

  Exasperation mingled with frustration and beneath that surface response lay darker, murkier emotions he had no wish to examine. He wasn’t given to introspection and he believed that the past was only useful when it informed the future, so finding himself staring down into a swirling mass of long-ignored memories was an unwelcome experience.

  Despite the air conditioning, sweat beaded on his forehead and he strode across his office and pulled a bottle of iced water from the fridge.

  Why should it bother him that his father was marrying again?

  He was no longer an idealistic nine-year-old, shattered by a mother’s betrayal and driven by a deep longing for order and security.

  He’d learned to make his own security. Emotionally he was an impenetrable fortress. He would never allow a relationship to explode the world from under his feet. He didn’t believe in love and he saw marriage as expensive and pointless.