by Sara Craven
Except tonight, she thought, putting tentative fingers against the swollen fullness of her mouth.
Decent men, with perfectly honourable intentions, had wanted her, and she had sent them away without one pang of regret. Why in hell, she asked herself despairingly, had she had to learn her first lesson in desire from a stranger who cared nothing for her, who was only taking her to satisfy some primitive notion of justice?
Yet he himself was far from primitive, she thought wonderingly. He might wear peasant clothing, but everything he had, including the shirt she herself was wearing, was of the finest quality. He was educated and sophisticated—so how could he lend himself to this barbarity?
And all the time, as she sat there, watching the little flame and thinking, she was listening for the moment when he would come upstairs.
He’d promised—but would he keep that promise, she thought, her heart thudding oddly. After all, he’d brought her to the brink of surrender as his own instincts and experience must have told him. Wasn’t it more than likely that he might decide to follow up the advantage he’d gained?
And if he came upstairs and saw a light under her door, mightn’t that provide the final prompting he needed?
With a burst of nervous energy, Gemma blew out the lamp. Moving quietly in the darkness, she washed her face and cleaned her teeth in the bathroom. The shirt she removed and hung over a chair. It might once again be all she had to wear tomorrow, she thought wryly. She turned back the coverlet to the bottom of the bed, and slipped under the thin sheet, welcoming its fresh coolness against her heated skin.
But she couldn’t relax. Tensely she lay looking up at the ceiling, and waiting for what might be.
It wasn’t a very big house, and in the quiet night air every little sound seemed magnified. She could hear him moving around downstairs—even, she thought, hear the chink of a bottle on a glass. It sounded as if he was drinking, and she wasn’t sure whether this was a good thing or a bad.
And it was while she was trying to decide, that exhaustion finally claimed her, and she fell asleep.
When Gemma awoke, it was early daylight. For a moment, she was totally disorientated, staring round her wondering where she was, then memory came flooding back, and she sank back against the pillow with a little groan.
The events of the past twenty-four hours might just have been some awful dream. Now, she knew, it was all only too real.
She wondered what had woken her. It was at least an hour before she normally stirred. She slid out of bed, and, naked, padded over to the window, opening the shutters a cautious fraction. She could see the road leading down to the village quite plainly, and walking down it, away from the villa, was a girl, dark-haired and wearing a red dress.
As Gemma watched, the girl swung round in her tracks and stared back at the villa. Even from that distance, Gemma could see that she was a vibrantly pretty girl, although her looks were currently marred by a sullen expression, and her shoulders had a dejected droop as she continued to trudge down the track.
Gemma pursed her lips in a silent whistle, then grabbed the shirt from the chair, and thrust her arms into the sleeves, her fingers clumsy with haste as she tried to fasten the buttons. She needed to talk to that girl, and fast.
She let herself quietly out of her room, and slipped stealthily down the stairs.
The sun pouring in through the light curtains illuminated the living room with merciless emphasis. Gemma’s nose wrinkled as she surveyed the bottle and used glass which stood by the sofa, the ash tray, overflowing with butts, and the general disarray of cushions and rugs. But she didn’t have time to worry about that now, she told herself impatiently, and if she could just talk to that girl for a few moments, she might never have to bother about it at all.
She’d expected to have to wrestle with bolts on the door, but to her surprise it wasn’t even locked. She opened it with care, gritting her teeth as the hinges squeaked slightly. Not that it mattered, she thought optimistically. If that bottle was anything to go by, her captor should still be sleeping it off at noon.
‘You’re going somewhere?’
Gemma almost screamed. Certainly she jumped, whirling round, her heart thudding painfully. And, of course, he wasn’t sleeping anything off. He was standing in the archway watching her, hands resting lightly on his hips. He looked the worse for wear, however, his eyes narrowed against the light as if it hurt him, and she hoped that it did. His hair was dishevelled too, and he hadn’t shaved.
‘I was just letting in some fresh air,’ she returned defensively. ‘Or perhaps you don’t think it’s necessary?’
He shrugged as if fresh air or poison gas were all the same to him. ‘Do as you wish,’ he said flatly. ‘And then you may prepare breakfast. You will find fresh bread in the kitchen,’ he added shortly.
‘Oh?’ Gemma was intrigued in spite of herself. ‘How did that get here?’
‘One of the villagers brought it.’ His tone was impatient. ‘Now, if you have no more questions, I will go and finish dressing.’
She said, ‘I saw a girl from my window. I thought that perhaps it might be Maria.’
‘Then I advise you not to think,’ he said unpleasantly. ‘Just do as you’re bidden. And call me when breakfast is ready,’ he flung at her over his shoulder, as he turned towards the stairs.
‘Certainly,’ Gemma returned coolly. ‘And where would you like breakfast—in the dining room—on the terrace?’ Or thrown at you, she added silently.
He shrugged again. ‘On the terrace will do perfectly well.’
‘And when I do call you,’ she went on cordially, ‘what do I say?’
He frowned. ‘What do you mean.’
‘Well, I don’t know your name,’ she said. ‘So how do you wish to be addressed. Sir, perhaps? My lord? Your majesty?’
The frown deepened to a scowl. ‘I recommend you to guard your tongue, thespinis. I am not in the mood for your insolence this morning.’
‘So I’ve noticed,’ she returned drily. ‘Sexual frustration and a hangover seems to be a lethal mixture.’
His eyes narrowed dangerously. ‘What do you dare say to me?’
‘Nothing,’ Gemma said hastily. ‘A little joke, that’s all, but out of place. I’m sorry.’
He looked at her for a long, disturbing moment. ‘I think you will be,’ he said at last, and went upstairs.
Gemma drew a deep breath, and expelled it shakily. She was a fool to provoke him, even mildly, under the. circumstances. She would have to keep her natural sense of mischief firmly under control, she decided wryly.
She tidied the living room hastily, clearing away the debris from the previous night, and shaking up the cushions and hanging the rugs to air over the terrace balustrade.
Then she went into the kitchen. The bread was on the table. It was still warm, and it smelled wonderful, Gemma thought ecstatically, as she emptied a carton of orange juice into a jug, and filled a dish from the tin of jam in a cupboard. There was fresh coffee, but she wasn’t sure how to make it in the Greek manner, so she compromised with instant.
She carried the tray out to the terrace and set it on the table, covering the food with a cloth as a safeguard against the inquisitive wasps which were already gathering.
Then she went upstairs. Her hand was raised to tap on his door, when it opened suddenly, startling her. Downstairs, he’d been wearing a pair of faded denims and nothing else as far as she was aware, but now he had changed once again into the Cretan dress, minus the jacket he’d been wearing the previous day. He’d shaved, and his hair was wet from the shower, and she could smell the cool, damp fragrance of his skin.
He was one of the most physically arresting men she had ever seen in her life, Gemma thought dazedly, looking at the way in which his damp hair clung curling to the shape of his head, the length of the lashes which shadowed eyes as black as onyx, the sculpturing of that wickedly experienced mouth...
She said huskily, ‘Your breakfast is ready,’ and turned
swiftly to escape downstairs, only to be brought to an abrupt halt by his hand on her arm.
He said silkily, ‘Perhaps the day should begin here. Kalimera, Gemma mou.’ And bending his head, he brushed his mouth lightly across hers.
As a kiss, it was over almost as soon as it had begun, but it left Gemma with the bruising, shameful knowledge that she had wanted it to go on. Her pulses were pounding, and breathing was suddenly difficult. She did not dare look at him again, merely turning and almost stumbling in her haste to get downstairs.
By the time he joined her on the terrace, she had almost regained what rags of composure were left to her.
His eyes flicked over her, travelling frowningly from her aloof expression to the empty plate in front of her.
He said, ‘The bread is good, Gemma. Take some.’
‘I’m not hungry,’ she informed him defiantly.
‘Nevertheless, you must eat, or you will make yourself ill.’ There was a steely note in his voice.
Gemma raised her eyebrows. ‘Yet only twenty-four hours ago you were threatening to let me starve.’
‘It still seems to have much to recommend it,’ he said grimly. ‘However, I have allowed humanitarian counsels to prevail. Besides,’ he added with a shrug, ‘a girl weak from hunger is unlikely to prove very stimulating as a companion in bed.’
Gemma’s lips tightened. She was incredibly hungry—the sun, the air, the appealing fragrance of the bread all putting an extra edge on to her normally healthy appetite. Now, she was damned if she would eat as much as a crumb in front of him.
She said glacially, ‘But then providing you with that kind of entertainment is the last thing I have in mind.’
‘So—what is the first?’ He sounded politely interested, no more.
‘Getting out of here,’ she said between her teeth. ‘And putting you in jail where you belong.’
‘An ambitious scheme.’ He didn’t sound particularly perturbed. He spread jam on to a slice of bread and ate it with every appearance of enjoyment.
‘But not an impossible one.’ She hesitated. ‘After all, you can’t hope to get away with this. I’m not completely alone in the world. I have a return flight to take—a job at home in England— my family. If I don’t return when I’m supposed to, then enquiries will be made. You must see that.’
He shrugged, ‘And when these enquiries are made, Gemma mou, what will be discovered? That you were here with me. That we were lovers. It is a story as old as time, and will surprise no one— except, perhaps, your family, and it is my intention that they should suffer through your dishonour anyway.’
Her voice thickened. ‘They don’t deserve that.’
‘Nor did Stavros and his wife,’ he said coldly. ‘It is something this brother of yours should have considered before he seduced Maria.’
She lifted her chin. ‘So—what would satisfy them? If Mike married her?’
‘Do you think that is likely?’
Gemma bit her lip. ‘No,’ she said honestly after a moment’s thought. ‘He’s still a student. He can’t afford to get married to anyone for several years yet. Although I suppose he’ll have to contribute something to the baby’s support,’ she added frowning. She was silent for a few moments, staring down at the empty plate in front of her, tracing its pattern with her forefinger. Then she said, her voice unsteady, ‘If you’re determined to punish Mike through me, can’t you leave it at that?’
‘I’m not sure I understand you.’ He drank some coffee.
The colour deepened painfully in her face. ‘If I—agree to—to let you do what you want to me, will you let me go afterwards—when it’s over?’
His mouth twisted wryly. ‘I have had more beguiling invitations, matia mou. Why should I agree to any such thing?’
‘I’ve told you—I have a life in England to return to—a career. I want to get back to them,’ she said fiercely.
‘And a man too, perhaps?’
The words of denial were already quivering on her lips, when Gemma scented danger in the apparently idle question.
She said, ‘That’s none of your concern.’
‘You think not? Yet I am naturally interested to know whether you will come to me a virgin, or some other’s willing pupil.’
She tried for nonchalance. ‘Of course there have been men.’ She shrugged. ‘As you’ve implied yourself, things are different in England. We—we don’t lead the same sheltered lives as your girls.’
‘Is that a fact?’ He leaned back in his chair, surveying her through lazily narrowed eyes. ‘But if you are so free with your favours, Gemma mou, why the virtuous protests?’
Gemma could have ground her teeth in frustration and temper. She had been certain that he’d wanted her to admit she was a virgin—that for some reason, probably to make his revenge totally complete, she supposed bitterly, it was important to him. It had been a long shot, but she’d hoped that if she claimed experience, hinted that he would be one of a long line, he might find it sufficiently distasteful to bring about a change of mind where she was concerned.
She said sharply, ‘Because I prefer to have a choice. Having forced me into this situation ...’
He laughed. ‘What force have I used?’ he challenged. ‘Within the confines of this house you move freely. I have not tied you to my wrist— dragged you screaming into my bed. There are no marks of violence on your skin—no bruises.’
She met his glance defiantly. ‘Not yet.’
‘Not ever.’ He lifted a dismissive hand. ‘Why should I use brute strength when I know a little patience will succeed in bringing me everything I desire from you?’ His eyes met hers, steadily, unsmilingly. ‘As we both know, Gemma mou,’ he added softly.
The silence between them seemed to crackle. Gemma swallowed quickly. ‘You—you revolting egotist,’ she said.
His mouth twisted. ‘So—if we are calling names—you, my lovely Gemma, are a little hypocrite. At Knossos you were as aware of me as I was of you. I need not have been honest with you. I could have sought your acquaintance, as if you were any pretty tourist to whom I was attracted—could have brought you here, seduced you, taken you body and soul—and then, but only then, told you the truth. It was a temptation, believe me, matia mou. Is that what you would have preferred?’
She sat very still, her mind considering and rejecting the all-too potent images his words had conjured up. She could imagine only too well how she’d have felt, falling asleep in his arms, sated with passion, believing herself desired, then waking to the ultimate cruelty of the truth.
It could, she realised stunnedly, have destroyed her—and the shock of that realisation drained the colour from her face. It contained implications she had no wish to explore—implications with the power to terrify her.
From a great distance, she heard him repeat quietly and remorselessly, ‘Is that what you would have preferred?’
She said thickly, ‘No.’
‘That is what I thought.’ He sounded as if the question had only been of minor interest to him. He drank the rest of his coffee, and pushed the cup away, glancing at his watch as he did so.
Gemma took herself in hand. ‘An appointment?’ she asked with heavy sarcasm. ‘Please don’t let me keep you.’
He smiled thinly at her. ‘You could not, Gemma mou, if I did not wish to stay. And, as it happens, I do have an appointment—business to attend to elsewhere today. I hope you will not be too lonely.’
She stared at him. ‘Oh, I imagine I’ll survive.’ She spoke calmly, but her heart was beating faster with the first stirrings of excitement. He was actually going to leave her here—alone. Of course, he’d be taking the jeep, she hadn’t the slightest doubt about that, but there were other ways— there had to be ...
‘I expect you will.’ His smile widened slightly. ‘But to ensure it, I have arranged a companion for you.’
The balloon of hope inside her deflated as quickly as if it had been stabbed with a pin. She forced her face and voice to remain impas
sive.
‘You’re very thoughtful, kyrie. But I really don’t need a surrogate jailer.’
‘You think not?’ He pushed back his chair and got up. ‘But you need something, pedhi mou, to protect you from the consequences of your own recklessness. And I feel sure that if I left you here, completely alone, you would be tempted to be— very reckless.’ He paused. ‘As it is,’ he added sardonically, ‘I can relax and go about my business, knowing that you are here, safely occupied with your domestic concerns. Who knows?’ He shrugged slightly. ‘You might even miss me a little.’
Her pulses felt erratic. ‘I wouldn’t count on it.’
‘You might also,’ he went on silkily, as if he hadn’t heard her last remark, ‘give some further thought to the fascinating offer of your body you made me earlier.’ He paused again. ‘I am inclined to accept, so if you were not serious, now is the time to say so.’
‘I wasn’t serious,’ she said.
‘Very wise.’ He sounded almost approving. ‘You see, agape mou,, I would have guaranteed nothing in return. You assumed, did you not, that I would be satisfied with one brief coupling which you would somehow endure?’ He shook his head, smiling faintly. ‘You are wrong, my lovely one, on all counts. Once I have you, Gemma, I intend to keep you—for a while at least. And it is also possible that once you belong to me, you will not want to leave either,’ he added softly.
She wanted to say something shattering, something which would blast his ego, his selfesteem to smithereens, but no words came. Did he really believe, she found herself wondering shakily, that his physical enthralment of her would be so simple, so effortless as he implied? And knew, in that moment, that he did.
At last she heard herself say in a voice which did not seem to belong to her, ‘You’re mad—you have to be. It’s the only explanation.’
‘It’s a crazy world, Gemma mou.’ He paused. ‘I will bring food for this evening with me when I come back. Is there anything else you require? Anything you would like me to bring you from the town?’