The Touch of Aphrodite

by Joanna Mansell

  When she got back to the hotel, she went straight up to her room, locked the door, and finally found some relief in a great flood of tears. She seemed to be crying over so many things. Her loss of her mother from a severe stroke. Unusual in someone of her age, the doctors had told them, but it happened. Then, just a few months later, the devastating discovery that Dimitri was seriously ill. His illness had progressed with terrifying speed. Emily had given up her own flat, taken extended compassionate leave from her job, and moved baci into her family home so that she could help to nurse him through those last few weeks. And now they were both gone, and she was left with such an awful sense of loneliness, a frightening lack of control over the situation she now found herself in, and growing trepidation about the future.

  When the tearing sobs finally subsided to a few hiccups, Emily was so exhausted that she slept for a while. When she finally woke up again, she was still tired but felt much less depressed, as if the tears had washed away much of her sadness. An almost cold shower livened her up still further, and she realised she was beginning to feel hungry. She didn't quite feel up to a solitary meal in the hotel dining-room, though, and so phoned Room Service and asked for a simple supper to be brought to her room.

  After she had eaten, she went to bed and slept very soundly. She finally drifted into a much lighter sleep just after dawn, and was eventually woken up by a discreet knock on the door. Emily rubbed her eyes, blinked a few times, and then saw that a young maid had come in and was beginning to gather her clothes from the wardrobe. She immediately sat up in bed, much more fully awake.

  'What are you doing?' she asked, in a puzzled voice. 'I think you must have the wrong room.'

  'No, this is the right room,' said the maid a little nervously. 'I'm following orders from Mr Konstantin — you have to move out.'

  Emily blinked. Nikolaos was throwing her out of the hotel? But why? Because of yesterday? Had Sofia told him what had happened after he had left the two of them in the car? Or was it because she had had the temerity to threaten him with legal action? He most certainly hadn't liked that!

  She scrambled out of bed and hurried into the bathroom. First, she had to get dressed; then, she intended to confront Nikolaos Konstantin. He probably wouldn't want to listen to her, but she was determined to let him know, in no uncertain terms, her opinion of a man who would throw a lone woman out on to the street just because she had had the nerve to stand up to him!

  She took the lift up to the penthouse suite and then marched along to his office, going straight past his secretary, who made a couple of flustered attempts to stop her. Emily threw open Nikolaos's door, walked in, and then planted herself in front of his desk, her blue eyes blazing down into his own dark, short-tempered gaze.

  'I thought that, if you were nothing else, at least you were a gentleman!' she accused furiously.

  His secretary, who had scurried into the room after her, looked askance. Nikolaos flicked a quick glance at her, and then gave a curt nod. 'It's all right, I'll take care of this,' he said shortly.

  His secretary scuttled out of the room again, looking extremely relieved. This obviously wasn't a situation that happened too often, and she clearly didn't feel confident of dealing with it.

  Nikolaos's dark gaze swivelled back to rest on Emily's face. She nearly flinched under the intense scrutiny of those almost black eyes, but forced herself to stand up defiantly straight.

  'I'm busy,' he said crisply. 'Whatever you have to say to me, please keep it brief.'

  'Oh, I'll keep it very brief,' she retorted. 'In fact, I can say it in one sentence. I am not going to let you throw me out on to the street! At least, not until I've had a chance to find alternative accommodation.'

  Nikolaos looked bemused. 'I don't have the slightest idea what you're talking about!'

  'You're making me leave this hotel,' Emily said accusingly.

  'Yes, I am. I'm moving you to Limassol.'

  'Moving —moving me to Limassol?' Emily echoed, her tone much less confrontational.

  'Bringing you here was only a temporary arrangement. I thought you understood that.'

  'How could I? No one bothered to tell me about it.'

  'The mistake seems to have been mine. I apologise for it,' he said formally. Emily nearly fell over backwards in surprise. Nikolaos Konstantin apologising for something? That had to be a first! She supposed that she ought to respond to it in some way, though.

  'In that case —I apologise as well,' she said rather stiffly. "I shouldn't have burst in and accused you like that. I should have given you a chance to explain why you wanted me to leave the hotel.'

  'Yes, you should have,' he agreed coolly. 'But since we now seem to be discussing the subject in a more adult fashion, do you have any objections to being moved to Limassol?'

  'Well —no —' she said, half wishing that she could think of a reasonable objection. 'Except that I don't understand why I have to be moved.'

  'I needed to be in Larnaca for a few days for business reasons, and it made sense to bring you with me, since you know no one else on the island. My hotel in Limassol is where I intend you should begin your training, though. Once you've had a good grounding in hotel management, we will then move on to Paphos, where Dimitri's hotel is situated.'

  'I wish you'd told me all of this,' Emily said with a fresh touch of annoyance. Really, the man was quite impossible! He arrogantly made plans without consulting anyone.

  'I believe I've already apologised for that,' Nikolaos said more coolly, without a trace of genuine apology in his tone.

  'Are you sure that you're not keeping me in the dark on purpose?' she said suspiciously.

  'I don't have the time to play such childish games. I promised Dimitri that I will do for you what he once did for me, and I will keep that word.'

  Emily looked at him with fresh curiosity. 'What he once did for you? What do you mean?'

  Nikolaos looked as if he regretted having made that admission. After a brief pause, though, he said, 'When I was quite young, my father's health became bad, and I had to take over his business affairs. Dimitri taught me all that I needed to know, and provided the support that I needed in those early days. I will now do the same for you. What you do with that knowledge will then be your affair.'

  'You must have been very fond of your uncle,' Emily said slowly.

  'Yes, I was. Which is why, even though I disapproved of his remarriage to your mother, I agreed to incorporate his hotel into my chain and run it for him while he lived in England. Why I agreed to the terms of his will.'

  Emily began to understand the conflict that lay behind the hostility he so often showed to her. His deep affection for Dimitri had made him make a promise that he was honour-bound to keep, even though he had no wish to.

  'You do realise that, at the end of the year, his hotel will belong to me?' she said, wanting to get everything perfectly straight between them. 'Whether you think I'm capable of running it or not?'

  'I accept that you are Dimitri's legal heir,' he said shortly. 'Although I sometimes wonder how you managed that,' he added, his dark eyes narrowing. 'I suppose that it probably wasn't too difficult. Dimitri was already very ill and at a low ebb when he drew up that will —and he always had a weakness for beautiful women.'

  Shock hit her as she realised just what he was insinuating.

  'That is a terrible thing to say!' she got out in a choked voice, hardly able to speak.

  He was unmoved by her emotional response. 'Is it? It's a fact that beautiful women find it far easier than plain ones to get what they want.'

  That was the second time he had called her beautiful. It threw Emily even further off balance; she was still angry, but now she was confused as well; he couldn't really think she was beautiful —could he? Or was he doing it on purpose? Was he deliberately trying to make her feel mixed up, because it made her easier to handle?

  She knew that she needed to retreat, get herself together again. She backed towards the door, realising tha
t she had had as much as she could cope with of Nikolaos Konstantin for one day!

  His black gaze glittered scathingly, as if he knew very well that she was running away, but right now she didn't care. Getting away from his domineering presence was the only thing of any importance at the moment. Emily left his office, didn't even look at Nikolaos's secretary as she hurried past her desk, and went straight back to her room.

  Once she reached it, she found herself moving over to the mirror and staring at her reflection. She studied her astonishingly blue eyes; the glossy gold coils of her hair; the shape of her face, much thinner than it used to be because the sudden, awful loss of her mother and Dimitri had taken its toll, and yet the new thinness suited her; it emphasised the fine bone-structure that lay underneath. Then she gazed at her mouth, her lips a little moist where she had nervously licked them.

  She realised that she didn't look quite as drawn, as pale as she had a couple of days ago, as if the gentle sun of Cyprus had already worked a little magic. But beautiful? Emily gazed at herself wonderingly, unable to decide. And she was more certain than ever that Nikolaos couldn't have meant it when he had used that emotive word. His taste surely couldn't run to her English rose kind of looks? He would be drawn to the dark, sultry, sun-kissed women of his island —someone like his cousin Sofia.

  Emily suddenly shook her head, as if trying to wake herself from a dream. This was ridiculous, she told herself firmly. All this because of a word that had probably been no more than a slip of the tongue. And if he had used it on purpose, then it had been because he had wanted to confuse her. And how pleased he would be if he ever found out how well he had succeeded!

  She forced herself away from the mirror, and began to make a start on her packing. It was time to be the old, sensible, capable Emily again, the one who had learnt to cope with most of life's problems, thanks to Dimitri's influence. And if she sometimes felt as if that old Emily was slowly falling apart, with little chance of putting her back together again, then she was determined that no one else would know about it.

  When she was ready to leave, she found that

  Nikolaos's car was waiting outside the hotel, to take her and her luggage to Limassol. There was no sign of Nikolaos himself, though. Instead, the chauffeur loaded her luggage into the boot, courteously opened the door for her, and then drove her to Limassol.

  It was a much larger town than Larnaca, but one thing was the same

  —Nikolaos's hotel occupied a prime site on the seafront. And, once again, Emily found that she had been given a suite of rooms with gorgeous views. The promenade and the wide expanse of Akrotiri Bay stretched out in front of her windows, and the rooms themselves were spacious and luxurious. She supposed that it was because she was part of the Konstantin family

  —although Nikolaos certainly wished that she weren't —that she had been given this preferential treatment.

  Once she had finished unpacking, Emily wandered down to the hotel restaurant and ordered a light lunch. She had no plans for the afternoon, but she knew that she had had enough of sitting around, doing nothing. She wanted to get down to some serious work. As soon as Nikolaos arrived, she would ask him when her training could start. If only she didn't have to work under him, she told herself with a small grimace. That was the one big drawback to all the arrangements that Dimitri had made!

  She found herself remembering Sofia's accusation that Dimitri had thrown her and Nikolaos together deliberately, in the hope that some kind of romance would blossom. Emily found herself giving a small grimace. Even if that had been Dimitri's intention — and she didn't believe, for one moment, that it had been —it was a plan that had been doomed to total failure from the very start.

  She was just drinking a cup of sweet black coffee at the end of her meal when a tall, good-looking man came over. 'I am the hotel manager, Alexandras Stavrolakis,' he introduced himself. 'Mr Konstantin asked me to take care of you personally. Is everything satisfactory?'

  'Yes, quite satisfactory,' she said. 'But isn't Mr Konstantin here, at the hotel?'

  'I believe he has business commitments elsewhere,' said the manager. 'We are expecting him in a couple of days.'

  'Oh,' said Emily, disappointed. It looked as if she would have to wait to begin work.

  'Mr Konstantin wanted me to tell you about the carnival,' the manager went on. 'Today is the day of the big parade. He thought that you might like to attend, if you have no other plans. Everyone goes to the Limassol carnival,'

  the manager told her with growing enthusiasm. 'There are lots of bands and floats, and everyone has a good time. And tonight, at the hotel, there will be a masquerade ball. All guests at the hotel are welcome, and the hire of a costume for the evening can be arranged.'

  'I'm not sure about the ball, but I'd certainly like to go to the carnival,' Emily said at once.

  'You'll enjoy it,' he promised her. 'And you must come to the ball as well. A pretty girl like you will have a lot of fun.'

  But Emily wasn't sure that she was entitled to have fun yet. It didn't seem right; she felt as if she still ought to be in mourning. And yet both her mother and Dimitri had been people who had enjoyed their lives to the full once they were back together again — she knew that they wouldn't have wanted her to shut herself away, to go on feeling sad and depressed for month after lonely, empty month.

  She decided to think about the ball later. She would definitely go to the carnival, though, and she was aware of a sense of anticipation as she left the hotel and stepped out into the bright sunshine.

  She found that the carnival route was already lined with crowds of noisily cheerful people. The floats had already begun to trundle past, and Emily pushed through to the front to get a better view.

  The carnival turned out to be a noisy, cheerful, colourful spectacle. Great papier mache figures perched precariously on the floats, and looked as if they might topple off at any moment into the crowds of laughing people. The figures had been decorated in brilliantly coloured costumes, and had huge, grinning, and sometimes grotesque heads. Emily found herself actually grinning back at an enormous jester with red and yellow trousers, great red pointed shoes, and brightly patterned cape. Other floats had been decorated with oversized birds or animals, people danced and sang, music blared out as bands marched past, and children looked adorable in their carefully made costumes. The atmosphere was relaxed and carefree, and Emily loved every moment of it. She had been afraid that, going on her own, she might feel rather lonely, but everyone was so friendly, the people all around her talked to her, and she was made to feel part of the festivities. When the parade was finally over, she found herself singing under her breath as she made her way back to the hotel. It was a very long time since she had felt this good.

  Alexandras Stavrolakis was standing in the lobby as she went in, and he immediately smiled at her.

  'Did you enjoy the carnival, Miss Peterson?'

  'Oh, yes,' she said, her face still glowing.

  'And now you want to choose your costume for the masquerade ball tonight?'

  Buoyed up by the feeling of light-heartedness that had come over her during the carnival, Emily nodded her head.

  'Yes, I do.'

  The manager led her to a side-room, where a selection of costumes had been laid out. Other guests were already there, choosing their costumes, and there was a lot of laughter and teasing as people picked up outfits that were obviously wildly unsuitable. Quite a few of them spoke to Emily, either asking for advice or offering it, and she easily joined in the relaxed, friendly atmosphere. She finally chose a dress for herself that was based on a medieval design, with a fitted bodice, square neckline and long, loose, flowing sleeves. It was a dark, rich red in colour, and a sequinned mask completed the outfit.

  She went up to her room, showered and washed her hair, and then let her hair dry in a loose riot of gold curls. She had to admit to a distinct flutter of excitement as she finally put on the long red dress. She used a dark gloss on her lips to inten
sify their colour, and her blue eyes sparkled behind the sequinned mask.

  When she finally made her way back downstairs, the ball was already under way. Music throbbed through the large room where it was being held, the lighting was subdued, and costumed figures whirled round the dance-floor. Suddenly shy, Emily stood inside the doorway for a couple of minutes and found herself wishing that Nikolaos were here, not because she wanted to go to this ball with him — of course she didn't, she told herself firmly —but at least his would have been a familiar face. Soon, though, a man with a friendly smile and eyes that were warm and kind behind the silk mask he wore, came up to her and whisked her off on to the dance-floor. As soon as the dance was over, another masked and costumed man eagerly took his place, and it soon became clear that she wasn't going to be short of partners that night. Smiling men introduced themselves, carried her off to dance, and offered to get her food and drink. Some were expert dancers, others trampled all over her feet, apologising charmingly. Emily didn't mind; her shyness had worn off now and she was thoroughly enjoying herself and glad that she had decided to come.

  As the evening wore on, she sometimes exchanged light kisses with her partners at the end of a dance. The kisses didn't mean anything, they were simply a friendly exchange, part of the carnival spirit. Most of the men were here with their wives, and any flirting was very light-hearted. The hours slid by, midnight came and went, the lights were turned down even lower and the atmosphere became more intimate and seductive. Emily decided that it was time for her to leave. The last kiss she had received had been a little more serious than the others, and she didn't want to get involved in any complications of that kind. She was still flushed and hot from being whirled round the dance-floor, though, and she wanted one last cooling drink before she left, a fruit juice this time, because she had already drunk too much of the legendary Cyprus wine and she knew that it was beginning to go to her head.