by Cat Porter
The cool breeze skimmed our hot skin, and she curled into my chest. I held her in my arms, our heavy breaths slowing. Spent, full. Tingling. I gulped in the perfumed air around us as her lips nuzzled my throat.
A vast, black, starry sky filled my vision. “So many stars,” I murmured.
Her fingertips traced over my chest. “You know, your god Dionysus fell madly in love with a princess.”
“Did he? I don’t remember.”
“Ariadne. Her Athenian prince boyfriend dumped her on an island and took off.”
“Ass.”
She let out a soft laugh. “And she’d just saved his life too. Anyway, Dionysus found her, rescued her, and they fell in love. Years later when she died, he took a crown he had given her and placed it in the sky with the stars.”
“He was a soulful lover,” I said, kissing her forehead, and she snuggled against me.
My gaze returned heavenward. Yes, my and Adri’s pleasure was up there in that Greek sky—a crown of bright stars. Bright, bright, and so damn fierce.
37
Turo
Flutter, flap, flutter, flap invaded my sleep, and my arm curled tighter over Adri. Flutter, flap. My eyes peeled open. The light wind was making something snap close to us.
My shirt.
My linen shirt, perfectly clean from the rose liqueur was stretched out end to end on a small laundry line to the side of the garden terrace. The fabric puffed and filled with air. Bright, white in the morning sun. Teasing me.
Last thing I remembered was her ripping it off me, and us losing ourselves in each other. Adri smiled, her eyes still shut.
“What did you do?” I asked her.
“I woke up to get a glass of water and washed it for you,” she replied, her voice lazy and warm. “I didn’t want it to be stained.”
“I liked that stain,” I murmured.
She kissed my throat and nestled back into the blanket.
“Thank you, Lovely.”
“Hmm. You’re quite welcome.” A smile rose over those lips—damn, I loved those lips—and I kissed them.
I reached up and snapped a soft branch of small jasmine flowers and traced them down her back, her arm. She hummed. I dropped the jasmine at her side on the pillow. “Sleep, baby.” I pulled the hand knit blanket higher over her bare shoulders. The awning of woven ribbons of canvas flapped in the wind overhead as if we were on a great sailboat. Our very own cutting through our own blue, blue sea.
“Let’s be lazy today,” I whispered. “I’ll go get us breakfast and bring it back.”
“Hmm,” and a slight grin were her only responses.
I moved the blanket out of the way and planted kisses on her bare ass. She buried her face in the pillow and giggled softly.
“You stay here, I’ll be right back.” I put on my jeans, took the washed shirt off the line and put it on. Sea air and bright sun had suffused the material with a fragrance unlike any other. The fabric was rough on my skin, and I grinned as I buttoned it.
I left the veranda but turned to grab another look at her. A greedy man, a thief. On a garden bed lay my ravaged sleeping beauty. My satisfied siren. I took her house keys and left.
The croissants were warm and steamy in the bag, and I inhaled their yeasty, buttery sweetness as I left the bakery. I stopped in at Hermes and placed an order for two freshly squeezed orange juices. I’d make the Greek coffee myself this morning. I paid for the juices and headed back up the cobbled main street to the house. The bells of the clocktower in the main square bonged. Ten a.m. Shop owners were unlocking their doors, taking out their display stands, getting their coffees and small cheese pies, tirópites—the national breakfast on the go—delivered.
I passed the shop where Adri had stopped one afternoon and tried on a pair of flat leather sandals. It was a high end jewelry and accessory boutique, and the owner was just opening the display window’s deep blue shutters.
“Kallí méra,” she greeted me as I stopped and took in her well designed display.
“Good morning,” I replied.
A variety of vintage and modern necklaces and bracelets had been posed around a number of painted seashells and starfish. Many pieces were on leather cords, others on silver and gold chains and a few on a variety of delicate blue cords, the same blues like the painted doors all over town. I found one that was perfect for my girl, and I went in and bought the necklace.
“Is it a gift?” she asked.
“Yes. Very special one.”
Smiling, she nodded and wrapped the necklace for me in azure blue tissue paper and I tucked it in my pocket. “Thank you.”
I made it back to the house and heard Adri speaking in terse Greek in the kitchen. She wore a short, white cotton robe, her hair a mess of long waves down her back. A tray with two white demitasse cups was on the counter. Her face was drawn, and she chewed on her lips as she listened to her caller, the teaspoon rigid in her fist.
I took our breakfast from the bags and placed her orange juice next to her, but her hand curled into another fist. With a steady hiss, the lava-like coffee bubbled quickly, flooding over the sides of the tiny pot. Adri barely noticed.
I shut off the stove.
“Entáxi. Né, né, áde. Yia.” She signed off in a tense barrage of Greek and tossed her phone on the table, a muscle along her jaw pulsing. She cursed under her breath, shutting off the stove, letting out a ragged sigh at the sight of the pooling lake of coffee.
“Hey.” I picked up a sponge cloth and wiped it up. “What’s going on?”
“Everything I’ve been trying to avoid.”
“Who was that?”
She only took in a deep breath, her eyes watering.
“Adri.” My sharp tone made her eyes lift to mine. “Who was that?” I asked.
She touched the orange juice cup carefully as if it were burning hot and not icy cold. “My father.”
I took a sip of juice. “What did he say? Is there news?”
“Plenty. Always plenty of news from him. He always wants something.”
Her bitter tone had me set my cup on the table. “And what is it that Petros wants?”
She let out a short dark laugh. “Not Petros.”
“I’m not following, baby. You said your father—”
She took in and let out a deep breath, her eyes hard, lifeless. She looked years older than her twenty-three. “Petros is not my biological father.”
“Okay. And who is?”
“My mother’s first husband.” She got up from the table and opened a drawer, taking out a pack of Camels. She lit one and inhaled deeply. “Yianni was a former Olympic water polo player who was her windsurfing instructor at this fancy beach resort all upper crust Athenians go to in the summer. Torrid first love. But he wasn’t a somebody. He was a penniless nobody with a perfect tanned muscular body, and an enticing smile. Her parents forbid her seeing him, but she spent time with him secretly, got pregnant, and got her way. Marriage. It was a scandal, but a sexy one that people liked. My grandmother never forgave her for it.”
“How long did it last?”
“Barely two years.”
“But you have Petros’s name?”
“He adopted me about five years after he married Mum.”
“And you and your real father, obviously you know him—”
“Oh yes, I know him.” Her eyes lit up, but the gleam in them was cynical. “Liar, philanderer, dreamer, gambler, egotist, narcissist. That’s my father.” She took a deep inhale on the cigarette.
Huh. That did sum it up nicely for me too, didn’t it? “Why did he call now?” I asked.
“He’s been calling since the shooting in Athens, but I’ve been ignoring his calls. Being in a particularly good mood, I answered today. Shouldn’t have. Same old story. Only worse this time.”
I pulled out a chair and sat at the table across from her. “What’s going on?”
She blew out a long, thick plume of smoke like an experienced smoker. “He’s in debt
to the wrong people. First of all, he’s always in debt. But this time was supposed to be different. He’s always asking me for money. I used to give him here and there when he couldn’t make his rent or he needed a new car, a new motorcycle, a vacation with a girlfriend. I always felt bad for him. He’s never had what I have, and I wasn’t a real part of his life. His reality is quite different from mine. But I always felt that as his daughter, why shouldn’t I share some of what I have with him?”
“That’s good of you. Generous,” I proceeded carefully.
“My mother caught on and told me to stop, that I was only feeding the monster.”
“She’s right.”
“But then he started owing money to the wrong sort of people.”
“A lot of money?”
“Yes. He had this great idea to start a sailboat rental company with two other friends. He needed startup money and asked me for it. It was a lot but I thought yes, it’s a good idea, this is perfect for him. The tourist trade is what he’s good at, talking with people, teaching sailing, water sports. Perfect fit. And his own business.
“But then Grigori got killed and I was a mess and went back to Geneva and kept to myself. He was impatient, very impatient. And annoyed with me. He borrowed the money from a loan shark. There are many, many loan sharks here in Greece. And he knows a few personally from his days at the hotel and the nightclubs he frequents. The point being he owes money.” She sucked on her cigarette, the end burned brightly.
“How much?”
Her hand gripped the plastic cup tightly as she sucked on the straw, swallowing juice. The sum must have danced a polka in her head.
I wrapped my fingers around her wrist. “Baby, how much?”
She swallowed hard. “I’m not sure. He wouldn’t say. But it’s got to be over eighty-thousand euros at least, gamóto.”
Fuck, was right.
And it all made sense.
I lifted her chin. “They’re after you now, aren’t they? You think they’re the ones that shot at you, don’t you?”
She nodded slowly, putting out her cigarette. “I think so, yes.” Her eyes widened. “It’s not a secret that he’s my father. Now he tells me they’ve been threatening him and used my name last week. They called him again just after the shooting.” Her voice was hushed, strained. Her face pale.
Saying it out loud, sharing it, had finally made it real.
“Didn’t he warn you?” I asked.
“I haven’t been answering his calls lately,” she said. “I was busy with Alessio’s party, and I just wanted to avoid him and his mess for a little while longer.” She made a face and took another hit of smoke. “This is where my hiding got me. Foolish girl.”
“Stop. Do your mother and Petros know?”
“No. But my mother always suspects him whenever anything goes wrong.”
“Smart woman. So what did he say now? How does he feel about you almost getting killed on his account?”
She squashed the cigarette butt in a small ceramic ashtray. “He was upset.” She didn’t sound convinced.
“Adri, did he ask you for money?”
“Of course he did, but I don’t have that much cash available at the touch of a button. Maybe half if I liquidate my…but even then—”
“Don’t panic.”
Her head knocked back and she laughed. “All I do is panic. I panic on a constant basis, but I’m good at covering it up. Now, my mother will be livid, and Petros will be hurt and disappointed in me.”
“I doubt that. You have a good heart, Adri. You were trying to help your father.”
“Reporters will find out soon and make a mockery of all of us. And the men he owes money to will be pissed off with the publicity.”
“Does Alessio know about this?”
“No. I’ve never told anyone. It’s my dirty little secret.” She lit another cigarette.
We all had dirty little secrets, didn’t we? Even the most golden among us.
“I need to go back to Athens. I’m sorry,” she said, her voice low.
“Call Alessio. Tell him you need him.”
“What? Why? We can take the ferry back. I don’t want to bother him now that he’s—”
“Partying? Getting laid? Drinking champagne? Bother him. If he’s the man I think he is, this won’t be a bother. He’d sprout wings and fly to you himself if he could. We’re going to need him.”
She blinked. “We? We are?”
“This isn’t Chicago. I can’t take care of this on my own. ”
She threw the lighter on the table. “Who are you really?”
“My father is a con artist and a liar and a thief too, Adri. Only mine is smart and mean and built an empire on those virtues. He’s one of the most powerful men in America.”
“And you…you don’t save lives, like you did mine, do you? You take them, don’t you?” A bitter laugh ripped from her throat. She threw the lighter on the table. “This is crazy, I can’t—”
She fled the kitchen on a torrent of Greek epithets. I darted up the marble staircase after her, grabbing her arm, twisting her around. “Adri! I saved your life and I’d do it over and over again. I want to help you now. Let me help you.”
“Turo…” A warning, a plea. Her face was wet.
I took her in my arms, and she pushed against my shoulders. “Everything will be all right, baby. We’ll deal with it together. I want to help you. I’m going to help you.”
“Everything’s a mess. A mess. Like it always is.”
“Shh. It’s all right.”
“Don’t tell me it’s all right when it’s not, when it never will be!” Her fists battered at my chest.
I opened her robe, and her breathing sharpened. I ripped it off her body and it fell back onto the steps. “You trust me with your body, don’t you? With your pleasure? Your body knows me.”
She grunted, pushing at my chest, a punch, kicked out a knee, but I grabbed her thigh and steadied her on the steps with an arm around her waist. Nipping and sucking on her throat like a fucking vampire, sliding down her torso, pulling her to the steps with me. My fingers slid between her legs, stroking, and she gasped.
“You’re wet for me.”
She grit her teeth. “I’m always wet for you.”
“Yes. But do you trust me?”
Her eyes bored into mine. “What is it, Turo? Our little self-imposed exile’s over. You want my soul now? You want to claim me for your dark underworld like some Persephone?”
I did. I fucking did.
I replied by going down on her, and she let out a curse in Greek, her back arching, legs falling open and hitching around my shoulders, her fingers clawing at my hair. I scrubbed her smooth inner thigh with my scruff and clenched her ass, holding her against me, my tongue, my lips devouring.
My tongue, my lips were her slaves.
There on the stairs I devoured her until she stopped crying. Only moaning loudly, only repeating my name over and over and over.
Fuck, I loved that.
I kneaded her tits harshly, scraping her nipples with my teeth. I wanted her attention. She tensed, her eyes widening, fingers digging into my hair. There’s my girl.
“Let me help you, Adri. We’ll go back to Athens together and resolve this.” A promise from the bottom of my dark soul. A soul that had made many threats, ultimatums, vows, but never a promise like this.
“I’m not leaving you,” I said.
But that was a promise I wouldn’t be able to fulfill.
38
Turo
Alessio insisted on leaving Mykonos and picking us up in Chóra on his yacht. We got off the launch, climbed up onto the boat, and he took Adri in his arms, murmuring in her ear, wiping a hand down her hair. I ground my jaw at the tenderness in his face, the soft waves of his Italian. Intimacy level ten, the motherfucker.
Staff appeared and took our luggage, setting the table with iced teas and coffees, a platter of crimson strawberries.
“Is Gennaro here?�
� asked Adri.
“No, he and Miguel stayed on at Cavo Tagoo. It’s his favorite hotel. He doesn’t need to be involved. He sends you his love, cara.”
A smile brightened her mouth for a moment but her tense gaze darted at me. She wanted me and Gennaro to come to terms, for me to get what I wanted. My Lovely. She curled her legs underneath her body on the banquette next to me and slid her sunglasses over her eyes, a cigarette at her lips as we both watched Andros receding from us. Getting smaller. Farther and farther away. A speck.
Goodbye, beautiful, magical island.
I tugged on a piece of Adri’s hair. Her chin wobbled and something scraped at the edge of my heart. Our secret escape was over. Our idyllic banishment in paradise had to come to an abrupt end. From the very beginning we both had known it wouldn’t last, but there was still something shocking about it now which sent a prickly chill right through me, made my chest heavy. I didn’t want anything to change between us. But everything was changing.
“Baby,” I breathed as I entwined her cold hand in mine, our fingers meshing tightly. I brushed her cool cheek with my lips and she leaned into me, and my breath came easier.
Alessio left us and got on his cell phone at the railing.
“Remember I told you about my baby sister who’d gotten sick?” she said, her voice raw.
“Yes.”
“She died in September. The summer before, my mother had sent me to Andros to stay with my grandparents while they took Anna-Maria to London for treatment. I hadn’t wanted to go, to leave them and my sister. Of course, my grandfather and I had a wonderful time together, it was the idyllic summer holiday, but behind it all was so much grief and worry.
“Anna-Maria died and they brought her home to bury her. Everyone thought the funeral would be too traumatic for me, so my grandparents and I stayed on the island. I felt banished, left behind, not less sad. I wanted to be with my parents, to hug them. I wanted to say goodbye to Anna-Maria, to see her one last time. I wanted—” She swallowed hard. “A week later my mother sent her assistant to bring me back to Athens, and when we got on the boat, this was how I felt crossing the sea—” She clutched at her chest. “How I feel right now. Sad and homesick at leaving Andros, and full of dread as to what I’d find at home.”