by Sara Craven
He said quietly, ‘So, pedhi mou, it is gone. Now put it out of your mind. It is no longer between us.’
She flung back her head. Her voice was shaking. ‘How—how can you possibly say such a thing? How can I forget the way you treated me because of it? Do you think—do you really imagine, Kyrios Mandrakis, that striking a match and burning a few scraps of paper could ever be sufficient recompense for what you’ve done to me?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Yet I hoped it might at least be the beginning of a new understanding.’
‘Then you’re fooling yourself. Because it will always be between us. Always. And if you think otherwise, you’re sadly mistaken.’
‘So it would seem.’ His tone was almost casual. He finished his drink and put down the glass. ‘But it is an error that need not spoil our dinner.’ The smile he sent her did not reach his eyes. ‘So, shall we go?’
To Natasha’s surprise, dinner was not as much of an ordeal as she’d anticipated.
The setting, she admitted unwillingly, could hardly be faulted. The table had been set on the main deck under an awning, and shone with silver and crystal. And a few feet away the restless Aegean rippled and glittered in its own wide ribbon of moonlight.
The food was magnificent, beginning with a platter of spiced meat in filo pastry, stuffed vine leaves, fresh anchovies, tiny garlicky sausages, little cheese pastries, tomato and oregano tartlets and cubes of sharp feta cheese.
This was followed by tiny chickens simmered in wine, served with green beans and potatoes sautéed in olive oil, accompanied by a refreshingly dry white wine, while a creamy dessert fragrant with cardamom and honey completed the meal.
Admittedly, Mac Whitaker’s cheerful presence helped relieve some of the tensions of the situation, although Natasha was frankly startled to find that the two men were on Christian-name terms. She could not imagine Basilis Papadimos ever allowing such familiarity from any of his own skippers, even those who’d worked for him for years.
Much of the talk between them seemed to relate to an extensive refit of the Selene which had not long been completed, so she wasn’t required to contribute much to the conversation, which suited her just fine.
On the other hand, could the yacht possibly be old enough to warrant such expenditure? she asked herself, bewildered. It seemed unlikely. It was no wonder Alex could afford to acquire the Arianna line, along with everything else. Bucephalus Holdings, she mused, must have money to burn.
‘So, Miss Kirby.’ Mac Whitaker turned to her over coffee, interrupting her reverie. ‘How do you feel now about Alex’s moonlight goddess?’
She stared at him, sudden colour flaring in her face. ‘I—I don’t understand.’
‘Heck, have I got it wrong?’ He looked at Alex, spreading his hands in mock-dismay. ‘Didn’t you tell me that Selene was the Moon Deity in the old myths? And that you’d picked the name on purpose?’
‘Yes,’ Alex said, his dark eyes quizzical as he observed Natasha’s blush. ‘You are quite correct. And, on reflection, I think I made entirely the right choice.’ He covered her hand with his. ‘Don’t you think so, pedhi mou?’
Anger warred with embarrassment, and won. ‘Actually, no,’ she said, her voice a chip of ice, as she removed her fingers from his clasp. ‘I think Circe would have been a much more appropriate name. After all, wasn’t she the goddess who turned men into swine?’
She saw a look of shock flicker across Mac Whitaker’s tanned face, but Alex seemed totally unfazed.
‘So the story says,’ he returned softly. ‘But it took just one mortal man to outwit and tame her. Something that you should perhaps remember, Natasha mou.’
‘Which sounds like my cue to be elsewhere,’ Mac remarked to no one in particular, pushing back his chair. ‘I wish you both goodnight.’
When they were alone, Natasha said defiantly, ‘Well, say whatever you have to say.’
Alex studied the tips of his fingers. ‘You don’t think you might find your situation easier, matia mou, if you diverted your energies into pleasing me instead of attempting to cause me irritation?’
‘Easier for you, no doubt.’ She lifted her chin defiantly. ‘This may come as a surprise to you, Kyrios Mandrakis, but I have no plans to degrade myself by setting out to “please” you, or any other man, for that matter, because I belong to myself, and I always will, however long I may be forced to spend on that well-worn mattress of yours.
‘So, you’re going to have to take anything you want from me, because I don’t intend to give anything.’
He shrugged. ‘Then that is your choice. It does not, however, affect any of mine which were made long ago.’
He paused. ‘But your description of my bed is out of date, Kyria Natasha. If you had been listening over dinner, instead of inventing ways to annoy me, you would know that the entire master suite has been involved in a complete overhaul, which was finished only a week ago. And that everything in it—every fixture and fitting, every item of furniture—is now brand-new.’
He added levelly, ‘Including, of course, the bed, which I hope you will find comfortable.’
The smile he sent her was cool, even impersonal. ‘So, shall we go inside—and find out?’
She had tried to make the meal last as long as possible, eating slowly and even asking for another pot of coffee. Anything to delay the moment when she would have to be alone with him.
But now it was here, she thought as she got to her feet. As she made herself walk beside him, without protest, back to the suite.
And she had no arguments to use, or trump cards to play. She never had. He wanted her, and that was all there was to it.
She heard the door close, shutting them in together, and waited rigidly for whatever was going to happen next.
He said, ‘I am going to have some brandy. Do you wish to join me?’
She’d deliberately drunk sparingly during dinner, so she was stone-cold sober, as well as cold with fright, and shook her head mutely.
‘Then I suggest that you retire.’ His tone gave nothing away. ‘I will join you presently.’
Once inside the bedroom, Natasha closed the door and leaned against it, releasing her breath in a long sigh.
Lamps had been lit on either side of the bed, and the covers turned down. In addition, a drift of white was draped across its foot.
It was a nightgown, Natasha realised incredulously as she picked it up. A simple white lawn nightgown with narrow straps, and a row of tiny satin buttons fastening its bodice.
Something she might even have chosen herself—her clothes budget permitting. And indubitably, astonishingly modest.
Josefina, she wondered with irony, making some kind of statement?
In the bathroom, she undressed, washed and cleaned her teeth, before finally dropping the nightgown over her head.
One glance in the full-length mirror beside the shower cabinet confirmed that it was indeed virtually opaque.
She emerged from the bathroom and crossed irresolutely, reluctantly to the bed, wondering if that was where he’d be expecting to find her. If there was an etiquette in such matters that she needed to learn.
As she hesitated, she heard the door open behind her and turned.
Alex was standing in the doorway, his shirt unfastened, and barefoot.
He didn’t speak a word, or take a step, just remained where he was, looking across the room at her.
He probably couldn’t believe his eyes, she thought, her throat tightening. The demure fabric of the nightgown must be hiding everything from his gaze—she knew that—yet in some odd way she felt more self—conscious in front of him at this moment than she’d done when she was naked the night before.
Yet how could that be? she asked herself with bewilderment. And why didn’t he say something? Do something? Or was he waiting for some sign from her?
She took a breath then lifted her chin, looking back at him in an attempt to conceal this sudden and inexplicable shyness.
And a voice
in her head whispered, It shouldn’t be like this. It shouldn’t…
But he still didn’t move, just went on staring at her, the dark eyes hooded and unreadable.
When he finally spoke, his voice was abrupt, almost harsh. He said, ‘Will you marry me?’
The words jolted her like a blow to the stomach, and she gasped and stepped backwards, shock rendering her mute. When she could speak, she said hoarsely, ‘Is that some kind of joke?’
He said curtly, ‘I am asking you to be my wife. Will you?’
‘No!’ She drew a trembling breath. ‘My God—no. Not even if the world were going to end tomorrow. And you must be mad—or drunk—even to suggest it.’
His face was all planes and shadows. A stranger’s face. His mouth was a straight line. ‘May I know what makes me so unacceptable?’
‘I’d have thought that was obvious—even to you.’
‘If it were, I would not ask,’ he said. ‘So tell me. After all, you once said you were willing, and in writing too.’
‘But that really was a joke,’ she said unevenly. ‘If not a very good one. As you well know. Because, if I had my way, I wouldn’t spend another hour with you. So what on earth would ever make me tie myself to you for life?’
She drew a deep breath. ‘Or did you think buying me a cupboard full of new clothes would change my attitude? Make me see you in a new and agreeable light and reconcile me to your company? If so, you can think again.
‘You’re rich and spoiled, Kyrios Mandrakis, and as far from good husband material as it’s possible to get. I wouldn’t have you if you came gift-wrapped.’
She added, ‘Besides, you must be the last man alive to want to be married, so what’s the purpose of this ludicrous proposition?’
He said slowly, ‘I believe the correct term is “proposal”. And perhaps its purpose, as you put it, is to offer the recompense you spoke of earlier today.’
He paused. ‘And to ensure,’ he went on levelly, ‘that if we made a child together last night, it will have a legal right to my name.’
‘Please don’t concern yourself on that score,’ Natasha threw back scornfully, aware that her pulses were hammering unevenly. ‘If by some remote chance I am pregnant, I guarantee I shan’t stay that way for long. Any child of mine will be born to a man I love and respect, kyrie, a scenario in which you couldn’t even feature.
‘And the only amends you could possibly make for your behavior would be to get me on the next flight to London, so that I never have to see you again. But that’s probably not on offer.’
‘No,’ he said, very quietly. ‘It is not.’
‘Then let’s forget all about this marriage nonsense, shall we?’ she said tautly. ‘And get back to what I’m really here for. Or perhaps I should jog your memory, Kyrios Mandrakis.’
Her hands went to the little buttons on her bodice, tugging them loose. She pushed the straps of the nightgown off her shoulders, and let its soft folds slip down to pool on the floor at her feet.
Then she posed, deliberately, defiantly provocative, one hand on her hip, the other raking her blonde hair back from her face.
She said, ‘What you see is what you get, kyrie. And it’s all you’ll ever have of me. That was a wonderful meal tonight, so no doubt you’ll be expecting your own private feast in return. I’ll try to make sure you’re not disappointed—this time.’
There was a silence, then Alex said icily, ‘I am grateful, of course, but I find my appetite has strangely deserted me. So I will wish you goodnight.’
He went out, shutting the door behind him, and a moment later Natasha heard the sound of the saloon door closing.
Telling her with quiet finality that he would not be coming back.
CHAPTER EIGHT
WHICH was, Natasha told herself, exactly what she wanted. Wasn’t it?
She suddenly realised that, in spite of the warmth of the night, she was shivering violently. She retrieved her nightgown from the floor and huddled into it, before climbing into bed and pulling the covers round her.
She had not expected to sleep. She’d imagined she would be spending the night subject to Alex’s mercy—if there was such a thing. This, she thought, was a reprieve, and she’d make the most of it.
But sleep, she found, was not so easily come by. The events of the evening and their astonishing aftermath kept rolling through her mind like a video clip with far too many action replays.
She thought, I’ve had my first proposal of marriage, and didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
At the same time she was disturbed and bewildered by the violence of her own reactions.
I could have said a simple ‘no’, she thought, without screaming abuse at him like a fishwife. My God, I must have sounded like Irini on a very bad day.
Yet she’d been perfectly justified, she told herself with renewed defiance. He deserved everything she’d thrown at him, and more. She’d been hurt and insulted, therefore he needed to be hurt and insulted in his turn.
And she’d succeeded beyond her wildest dreams. The bleakness in his face as he’d walked away had told her that. So why wasn’t she turning mental cartwheels? Scoring it as a direct hit?
And the answer to that was—she didn’t know.
She’d just endured the most terrible twenty-four hours of her life. She couldn’t deny that. But she’d also begun to discover complexities in the situation that frankly alarmed her.
Because there’d been moments when she’d almost let herself forget why she was there. Which might be because Alex Mandrakis had made her do so, she thought with a sudden thud of the heart.
Because sometimes he’d talked to her as if she was a human being instead of a mere sex object. And, although the way he’d quite often looked at her left her in no doubt that he wanted her, he hadn’t attempted to make any kind of move on her.
Not even when they’d returned to the saloon together and she expected him to take her in his arms, not send her off to bed alone.
Awakening within her something dangerously like disappointment.
And wasn’t that why she’d given him that tongue-lashing just now? Why she’d deliberately flaunted herself naked with a vulgarity she cringed to remember?
Because she’d been scared by her own potential weakness. By the vivid memory of his body against hers—inside hers—and how it had made her feel. By the knowledge that she’d been aroused by him, however briefly. And that the strange, fugitive yearning he’d created still lingered.
Knowing too that for one torn, impossible moment she’d wanted him to walk across the bedroom, and take her—whether it was to heaven or to hell.
She’d needed to find a defence against him and find it fast.
And that unexpected, incredible marriage proposal had supplied it.
Every instinct told her that he would not take rejection well. And that he might respond with equal scorn to her contemptuous sexual challenge.
And it had worked. Only now she needed to find some way of turning this temporary respite into permanent separation.
She’d made him angry once, she thought. Surely, she could do it again—and keep him so.
‘I don’t want him to be kind to me,’ she whispered passionately into the darkness. ‘Whatever Thia Theodosia may say, I want to judge him harshly. I need to build on dislike, and resentment—keep them permanently simmering—in order to stop me wondering, speculating on possibilities that I shouldn’t even want to contemplate.
‘God knows, I have so many reasons to hate him, and not the least of them is the state of confusion I’m in now. And which I don’t—I can’t—understand.’
Because this was not her, she thought, seizing an uncomprehending pillow and punching it fiercely into shape. The real Natasha Kirby ran her business and her life with clear-headed efficiency. She used rational judgement to solve problems, and knew that, for her, friendship, shared interests and mutual respect formed the only foundation for a relationship between a man and a woman.
You really shouldn’t drink wine with him in the moonlight, she thought derisively. That’s your problem, lady. And if you’d agreed to his offer of brandy, as well, you’d probably be imagining you were in love with him by now.
Besides, you’re curious—of course you are—about a man who can make love in four languages, she added with savage mockery.
But how on earth had that piece of tasteless information managed to lodge in her head for the past three years? she wondered. Not to mention her total recall of the way he’d looked at her on that long-ago evening at the embassy.
An occasion he too seemed to have remembered for some obscure reason of his own.
Natasha sighed as she turned onto her side and attempted to relax.
Her mind was simply going round in circles, she thought, and she needed to sleep in order to face whatever tomorrow might bring.
But it was more than a restless hour later before she finally fell asleep, and dreamed that she was running endlessly through a maze of streets, in her nightgown, as was the way in dreams, only to find that every twist and turn led to the same square with the same church, where Alex Mandrakis stood waiting for her in the sunlight, his hands filled with white roses for her bridal bouquet.
She awoke very early the next morning, and lay for a moment, totally disorientated, wondering firstly what had disturbed her and, secondly, why her bedroom was moving. Then she remembered the nightmare turn her life had taken and, groaning, buried her face in the pillow.
But at least she wasn’t going to suffer any more unsettling dreams about marriage, she thought grimly.
She’d attended a number of Greek weddings, and had always been moved by the symbolism of the exchange of crowns and the couple’s slow walk, hand in hand, round the altar.
But she’d never for a moment imagined herself taking part in such a ritual, even though, as a child and to please her foster parents, she’d been baptised into the Greek Orthodox Church.