by Cat Porter
“Come on, love, wish me well—” Kaspar held out a glass of vodka to me as he grabbed one for himself.
Behind me, Turo cleared his throat.
“You will slay them all tonight.” I grinned brilliantly as he tossed back his shot. “I have to check in with the restaurant. I’ll see you later, okay?” I touched his arm. “Have a great show.” We double kissed in goodbye and I moved back, leaving the stage. Kaspar was immediately swarmed by his staff and the entertainment coordinator from the beach club, fans hungry for him. He and his vodka were gone in a vortex of enthusiasm and cacophony.
I turned to Turo with a slight dip of my head, and he immediately leaned in closer. “I need to check in with Alessio and the models. It’s almost time.”
He glanced at his watch. “Right. Ten minutes.”
His eyes scanned the crowd as he guided me toward the restaurant area. He held out his hand and I took it as we mounted the few steps to the restaurant and my insides fluttered. He knew, he knew exactly what I needed and when I needed it. Either for him to hover when a journalist began to ask me overtly personal questions, as one had earlier, or simply a hand reaching out for support as I made it up three deep steps.
And thank God because these bloody shoes were merciless. My feet were already killing me. They were good for taking a few steps to your table and sitting there for hours, then getting back in the car to go home. Not charging around like an army captain drilling his regiment, keeping close watch that every soldier was in form. And this battlefield was full of wooden steps, pebbled pathways, irregular stone tile.
That distinctive touch of Turo’s settled on my bare back and my pulse skipped a beat once again. It didn’t matter that we had spent the entire day together, that he’d been in close proximity all evening long. With his every touch, no matter how slight, my body reacted. I reacted.
Flanked by the hair and makeup artists, Alessio was going down the line of the ten models who wore his jewelry. The models, Athens’s finest along with a few imports, had been strolling through the cocktail party wearing Alessio’s creations for an hour already. It was now time for the grand finale.
“How’s it going?” I asked Alessio who was arranging the leather bindings of a choker around a model’s neck.
“Bene.” His fingers worked quickly, his focus on his task fierce. “Have you seen Kaspar? He was asking for you.”
“Yes, he’s all set up and ready. Doing last minute checks, but everything’s set.”
Alessio’s dark eyes flashed as he pulled on the ends of the leather necklace, placing them down the model’s chest. Eva, one of the latest Greek model stars that Silia had insisted we hire, wore a silk, dark pink bikini top and a long, mandarin orange silk skirt with two high slits up the sides and a bit of a train in the back that Silia had designed for us. Eva was barefoot and wearing colorful beaded leather and gold anklets on both her ankles and a larger one around a thigh. Wrapped around her head and nestled in her long, wavy, dark hair was a strip of leather with a hanging gold charm that Alessio had designed as part of his new summer beach collection.
I squeezed an arm around his waist. “This is it,” I said to him.
“This is it,” Alessio repeated.
“Perfetto, Alessio. It’s all so perfect,” I said, and he took in a deep breath.
He needed to hear it, and it was all true. I was very proud of him. I’d encouraged him to spend the outrageous amount of money to open his boutique here in Mykonos and I felt responsible for its success. It had done well, but I knew it could do better. This event had been an idea of mine from last year.
Alessio was a sexy character who was very personable. His jewelry being branded with exclusive Mykonos boho-chic worked. Putting him at the center of a party promoting his own exclusive Mykonos boho chic line really worked. Tonight we were making it all a visual in action. We were making it an experience.
“Grazie, cara.” Alessio planted a quick kiss on my mouth, and Eva slid her arm through his.
I gestured at the four other models who waited to proceed. “Páme, go on!” I said.
They grabbed their small, gourd-like baskets filled with flowers and descended the steps, moving through the crowd, tossing the red and purple petals and bay leaves everywhere to the oohs and ahhs of the guests. Topless young male musicians who waited on either side of the steps struck on their touberlékia, handheld goblet style drums which produced that rolling deep Middle Eastern bass beat that was very Greek. Their hands snapped, slapped, popped, and rolled on the small drums. Alessio and the models wove through the crowd and the palm trees and the candlelit tables like beach royalty to that ritual-like rhythm.
Photographers and news cameras rushed around them to capture their every move. Brightly colored Eastern rugs lined a pathway for the models and more topless male dancers who posed along the walkway with tribal hennaed tattoos all over their oiled skin. After Alessio and Eva passed, they joined in the parade, holding lit torches, dancing suggestively along with the Middle Eastern beat.
The crowd cheered, danced, and hooted. Kaspar’s original music perfectly underscored the drumbeats, setting a dramatic, daring but fun rhythm to the goings-on. My heart swelled. This was everything I’d hoped for. More even.
Turo’s hand touched my back as he leaned into me, his heat searing my side. “Adri, Theo’s trying to get your attention,” came his low voice in my ear, and heat pooled in my belly. “Nine o’clock.” His warm hand fell away.
I turned my head in the direction he noted and found Theo, the Athenian PR specialist who was officially running the show, grinning. I waved at him, blowing him a kiss, and he blew me a kiss right back, giving me a thumbs up.
“She conquered,” Turo whispered from slightly behind me, his low voice sending sparks through my bloodstream, his warm breath tickling my ear, fanning the side of my neck. His hand moved down my back.
I turned and touched his lapel, fingering the edge. “Thank you for being here. For helping me blast through it. It was just what I needed tonight.”
“This is all you.”
“It was a lot of people working together.”
“You coordinated it all, and that’s an amazing feat.”
I shrugged, my face heating. “It’s fun for me.”
He leaned in even closer to me. “Adri, you hit all the right notes and you hit new ones. It’s a gift.”
My hand pressed over his tie. “I’m glad Alessio is pleased. He deserves this,” I murmured.
A jubilant roar went off in the crowd, and we turned to see what the commotion was about. Alessio and his models had taken the stage, and with the mic in hand, Alessio welcomed everyone to the official beginning of summer. Cheers and champagne bottles popped madly. He introduced Kaspar and the crowd jumped up and down eager for his magic. Kaspar’s synth music exploded over the speakers, beating a new, very loud, hard driving rhythm. The coloured lights strobed. The crowd danced and yelled for more.
“Alessio’s on top of the world.” Turo grinned.
“Agápi mou esí!” A voice I recognized had me turning. Turo’s grip on my back deepened.
“Elektra!” I hugged my friend, and we kissed cheek to cheek. I introduced her to Turo. “Elektra is a legend here in Greece.”
“A legend?” Turo’s face lit up as he studied her.
A woman in her late forties, Elektra could easily be mistaken for a glamorous hipster in her early thirties. A formidable figure in the Greek music scene for over twenty-five years, Elektra was adored and respected both by the very young and the older generations. A powerful and unpredictable presence onstage, her voice was incredible, strong and operatic, her own distinctive musical instrument. She was an icon, continually setting trends with her changing looks and free spirit lifestyle.
“In America you have Stevie Nicks,” I explained to Turo. “In Greece we have Elektra.”
“Ah, the great Stevie is in a class by herself, vre Adri!” Elektra laughed.
“So are you, darlin
g,” I said.
“It’s an honor to meet you, Elektra,” Turo said as they shook hands, assessing one another.
A rush of photographers and journalists surged on us. “Elektra! Elektra! Adriana!”
I stiffened, my chest constricting at the onslaught of faces, cameras, flashing lights. Turo stepped away, yet remained a wall behind me. The heat of his body in defensive mode was palpable, and I steadied myself, throwing an arm around Elektra’s waist and pulling her close.
She conquered.
“Here we are!” I declared, my lips curving. My legs instinctively angled out, my head slanting, an eyebrow raised, my smile just so. I didn’t have to think about it. I’d grown up doing this, and it was an automatic reflex when needed. But tonight, tonight I was enjoying it. These moments were mine, I’d achieved something to be here.
Elektra pulled me close, striking her own pose, her newly coiled hair falling in her eyes the way she always liked. She greeted the photographers she knew, answering the questions they flung at her about her new hair color, her latest boy-toy. I laughed at her risqué responses, but she kept it oblique at the same time. Satisfying them, making them hungry for more.
“You’re good,” I murmured to her as we posed for another round of photos.
“I know,” she replied, her hand squeezing my waist. “Live and learn.” She certainly had. She’d started from a small country village in the north, but that voice and her determination had her striking gold at a young age. And as the years wore on, she kept her golden balls in play at all times, through the husband, the boyfriends, the world tours, platinum albums, style trends, and a bit of nip and tuck here and there.
Elektra showed off the Alessio jewelry she wore this evening, and I piped in about the pieces. We posed, showing off our Alessio rings. Weeks ago I’d sent her the four rings she wore tonight—gold and silver rings emblazoned in colored enamel with skulls, crosses, a broken heart. Around her neck hung Alessio’s red skull pendant along with his jagged pink lightning bolt. Paired with her own mass of long, thin, gold chains and beads, her smoky eye makeup and thickly coiled and curly dirty blonde hair, flowing silk blouse with a torn hem and tattered skinny jeans with high-heeled sandals and a sequined vest she was perfection—the perfect personification of Alessio’s brand. Authentic rock and roll and luxury bohemian chic in one.
Ten minutes later the paps scattered to the next celebrities who swept by, a pop star acquaintance and her footballer husband. “Thank you so much for coming, my love.” I kissed Elektra on the cheek.
“Since you gave me that first necklace last year, I’ve fallen in love with Alessio’s jewelry,” she said. “And any excuse to come to Mykonos. These new pieces are fantastic.”
“I love you.” I hugged her.
“I know you do,” said Elektra. “I brought Dimitri with me. Come meet him.”
“Yes, I will. I’ll come find you in a bit.”
She hugged me and strode off into the throng.
“She’s pretty incredible,” said Turo.
“Isn’t she? Having her wear the jewelry, be photographed wearing it, at this party is—”
“Perfect,” he said, his beautiful lips curving into a smile. “You did that, Adri. You.”
His smile filled me with a dancing heat. Turo’s approval, his esteem lifted me somewhere higher, where normal breathing was difficult. The air was sharper, purer here.
“Who’s Dimitri?” he asked, clipping my reverie.
“He’s an actor she just started dating,” I said. “He’s younger than me.” I winked at him.
“Oh yeah?”
I loved teasing him, ever since he’d made a point of our age difference. What was the eleven years between us? Not fifteen or twenty or thirty, but even if it was, if we got along, could communicate and have interesting conversations, and enjoyed each other in bed, really, where was the issue?
His eyes narrowed, their fierceness flashing at me for just a moment. “You like that don’t you?”
“When I’m Elektra’s age, I hope I can do the same.”
“A husband and babies aren’t in your future plan?”
“I don’t have a future plan, Turo. I want to swallow what life has to offer as it comes.”
Damn, you sound so good, Adri. If only you’d do as you want for a change. Yes, that’s what I wanted, but I’d become a fearful creature the past two years, hadn’t I? Hiding behind my parents, behind work, Alessio. Tonight felt different, though. I felt different.
Turo and I continued to weave through the crowd under the palm trees dancing with fairy lights. “Louder!” Kaspar’s voice demanded over the speakers. “Everybody!” At his side, Alessio clapped, hands in the air. Two dancers in silver bikinis dripping with crystal tassels danced on a huge speaker, throwing flower petals and beaded bracelets to the crowd.
Turo’s attention was captivated by something at the edge of the dance floor. He was perfectly still, his gaze intense, a predator tracking, keeping watch. My insides dipped at the sight. God, what was wrong with me? He could crack an egg into a bowl and I’d probably get turned on.
“Is something wrong?” I asked.
“Hmm. Not sure. Luca’s arguing with someone. And that someone doesn’t seem to belong here, by the looks of him.”
“Do you need to go over there?”
“No.” His gaze returned to me, and softened and my pulse raced, my lady parts thrummed. “I’m busy,” he said, just above a whisper.
“Hmm, yes you are.”
The mass of partiers danced and jumped to Kaspar’s booming electronic beat, hands in the air, reveling in something primal and wild. I moved to the throbbing rhythm, dancing with friends. I drank the pink champagne. The moon beamed through the passing wisps of gray blue clouds, and delivered its silvery, shimmery approval over us. And Turo watched, and watched me.
I climbed up a stone step to where he stood leaning next to a wooden pillar. My hands slid up his firm chest. A sharp exhalation escaped him at my touch, and I blinked at the sound. Did he want me as much as I wanted him? Did my touch make him reel with desire as his did to me?
“I want to fuck you,” he’d said. Abrupt. Brutal. A jolt.
And I want him to.
I pressed my lips to his, and his mouth immediately opened to mine. His arms wrapped around me and pulled me up the last step, behind the thick layers of sheer white drapery at the edge of the restaurant.
Lost in each other’s heat, a heat that pounded out a rhythm of its own over my flesh, binding us together like a magnetic force of nature, his tongue slid against mine, no longer teasing but demanding, deepening the kiss. Our bodies pressed together, my every nerve ending tingled and erupted with thrilling possibility, with a tidal wave of raw desire. He pulled back suddenly and stared at me, his eyes piercing mine.
“Turo,” I breathed. A plea of need, a plea of mercy.
“Indulging again?” his voice rasped; a dark query. Was he annoyed with me? Here I was throwing myself at him, and for all he knew I was with Alessio.
My fingers dug into his hair. “Kiss me, dammit.”
He kissed me, he punished me. He delivered me.
We twisted in each other’s arms. The gauzy white curtain fabric caught on the crystals of my dress and wrapped around us, binding us.
The two of us, wrapped in our own web of moonlight.
19
Turo
I tore my mouth from Adri’s delicious tongue.
Someone was in the back of the empty restaurant. I gripped her shoulders, tracking the shift in movement in the shadows beyond where we stood.
Adri’s choppy, ragged breaths matched my own. Her wild eyes gleamed in the flickering light of the tall, flaming tiki torches around the porch.
The thin, dark haired man I’d noticed Luca arguing with earlier clocked us, turned, heading for the bathrooms. Was he a dealer? Did Luca know him? He’d seemed out of place at this party with the glitterati, and it wasn’t just his ill-fitting suit—he’d
been observing, not partying, slinking through the crowd, making small talk here and there, searching for an opportunity.
Luca stopped on the stairs, his eyes on us. Speak of the devil.
“I—I’m sorry,” Adri sputtered. “Damn.” Her fingers worked to untangle the wispy curtain that had wrapped around us. It wasn’t working.
“I’m not sorry, baby,” I said, my thumb rubbing a corner of her mouth. “But Luca is watching us, and I don’t think that’s a good thing, do you?”
She bit her lip, and I ripped the curtain away from us. Exposed to the night air again, to the world.
Luca tossed his cigarette and headed off in the direction of the men’s room. His bodyguard draped himself over a railing at the other end of the porch steps from us talking up a blonde in a bikini.
Raising Adri’s chin, I brushed her lips with mine—I just had to—and she let out a perfect little cry. Fuck me. “I want you to go to Gennaro’s table.”
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“Turo—”
“Go interrupt Luca’s bodyguard over there and have him take you to Gennaro and Miguel. I need to talk to Luca. I’ll come find you right after. I promise I won’t be long. You stay with them until I get back to you.”
She took in a tiny breath, teeth scraping that swollen bottom lip again. “Okay.” She left me, her heels clacking on the restaurant veranda tile. She talked to Luca’s bodyguard, and he raised his chin at me. I gestured toward the bathroom, and he nodded at me and led Adriana into the crowd.
I headed toward the back of the restaurant to find Luca. One loud voice. Luca growling in his rough English, his tone unmistakeable. He was livid. “Who do you think you are, you piece of shit?”