by Trish Morey
She pressed her lips together and nodded, moved by the sadness of his story and the scars her friend bore, scars from his dedication to his work that clearly went far beyond the physical.
‘And now,’ he said, stiffening his spine and slapping his knee, ‘I have wasted enough time in useless reminiscences. How many divers did you say we should use?’
She put an arm around his bony shoulders and gave them a squeeze.
* * *
It took a week to assemble the necessary equipment and crew, a record time to arrange such an expedition, but the divers were happy to rearrange their schedules for such a rare find, and suppliers were for once bending over backwards to help, knowing that funding was guaranteed. Athena kept a nervous eye on the weather forecasts the entire time. If the weather held, and if the coordinates they’d been given were right, if the find was as extensive as they’d been told and if the site hadn’t already been looted and the treasures of millennia lost... So many ifs, so much at stake. But it could be the crowning glory of Loukas’s long and esteemed career, and the making of her own.
That was why her stomach was churning, Athena rationalised as the small expedition set off. That and the shifting sea beneath the small boats. The morning was warm, though the sun had barely risen, while the air around the team seemed to shimmer with anticipation.
The divers pulled on their masks, adjusted their regulators and, with a thumbs-up, tipped themselves backwards into the water. ‘This is it,’ said Loukas, with a hand to her shoulder, sounding every bit as shaky as she felt. She smiled weakly at him, her stomach roiling as she watched the gathering clouds, not wanting to put voice to her fears. Were they in the right place? Would they have time to find anything before the weather changed? Had looters already got wind and picked over the site? She took a deep gulp of the fresh sea air. No wonder she felt ill.
But one thing she was sure of—if they found anything today, she was going to do everything she could to ensure Loukas’s name would be attached to the discovery for ever. Whatever it took.
Together they went into the cabin and turned their attention to the screen, where the divers’ cameras were already sending images as they descended, the water growing a murkier blue, the sea floor lit with torchlight, illuminating weed-covered rocks scattered between shrubby sea plants that swayed in the shifting waters. Here and there a school of fish darted to and fro ahead of the divers.
Athena bit her lip doing her best to try to ignore the rocking movement of the vessel, her eyes scouring the seabed, searching for a sign they were in the right place. It came what felt like an entire lifetime later, despite the clock insisting only forty minutes had elapsed from the time they had begun.
‘There,’ she said, pointing at a corner of the screen to where it looked as if a curve of rock protruded from the sand. Covered with a thick growth of weed, it could have been exactly that, but there was something about the shape of it that drew Athena’s eye and wouldn’t let go. It was too perfectly formed, as if even the scum and weed of millennia were nowhere near enough to obliterate the skill of the artist who made it. ‘Loukas, that could almost be the curved lip from an amphora. What do you think?’
And the older man’s eyes lit up.
* * *
It was a jubilant-sounding Athena that Alexios picked up his phone to that evening, her voice competing against a background of boisterous voices and music.
‘You won’t believe what we found!’ she said, unable to keep the excitement from her voice, her words bubbling over each other in her rush to get them out. ‘We brought up forty-six ingots and three perfect tiny amphorae that were still sealed. There were other finds too, shards of pottery and metal objects and a hundred other things we’ve brought back to examine besides. It was the best day.’
‘Congratulations,’ he said, when she finally paused long enough to take a breath.
‘Forty-six ingots!’ she repeated. ‘The biggest find ever. Can you believe it?’
The excitement in her voice all but reached down the phone line and zapped straight into his bloodstream before heading south, as if she’d plugged a live electric wire directly into his groin, and he felt her absence from him in a rolling wave of want. He’d had her every night she’d been in Athens, tumbled her under and over him and supped deeply on her taste and her scent. But right now, what had happened in the preceding nights was irrelevant. Right now he wanted nothing more than to be in the same room as that excitement. He wanted to have her in his arms and plug himself into that intensity and feel that electric passion explode all around him.
‘I have to see you.’
‘I’m not sure how long we’ll be here—’
He heard the noise going on behind her, music and the sound of raised, exuberant voices. ‘Where are you now? I can barely hear you.’
‘Celebrating with the team.’ She gave him a name of a bar he knew was down near the port, but she was having to shout louder now, and he imagined her with her hand over one ear, trying to hear. He heard more laughter, and someone in the background calling her name, and he had to stop himself from growling.
Because he had the uncomfortable feeling of being cut out. Excluded from a part of her life that meant so much to her. And despite the logical part of his brain telling him that this was her work and that these were her colleagues, it didn’t ease the scrape of aggravation against his raw nerve endings. But only because he was close, and he knew it. She was almost where he wanted her, and he was impatient to see this through. That was all.
‘Come out for dinner with me. I’ll pick you up. I want to toast your success with you.’
‘I’d love that. But I have to warn you, I’m not exactly dressed for dinner.’
‘Let me worry about that.’
He heard her name being called again, more insistent this time, as a familiar tune started up in the background. ‘What’s happening?’
‘They’re dancing. They want me to join in. I should go.’
He named a time he’d pick her up and let her go.
* * *
Athena’s blood was still fizzing from the excitement of the discovery and the dancing when Alexios’s car pulled up outside the bar, but the fizzing ramped up tenfold even as her heart skipped a beat when Alexios unwound himself from the car. So tall and broad-shouldered, already dressed for dinner in a crisp white shirt and fitted black trousers and looking handsome as sin, the man was simply arresting.
And he’d come for her.
She put a hand to her chest in time to feel her heart kick back in again, but also a twinge, low down in her belly. About time that put in an appearance, she vaguely thought, though if her period held off a few more hours, so much the better. She had plans for this evening.
She smiled as he cut through the traffic, parting it as if he owned the road, to reach her. When had she grown so bold? It wasn’t just the excitement of the discovery. It was because of Alexios, and what he’d unleashed in her. A woman wanton and reckless. A woman who wanted to give pleasure as much as taking it.
And tonight she would show him how bold she could be.
Tonight she would pleasure him.
* * *
In her cargo pants and zip-up jacket, with her hair pulled behind her head in a ponytail, she looked more like a university student than a qualified archaeologist, but whatever she looked on the surface, he knew she was all woman underneath.
She called his name as she flung herself into his arms and he used her momentum and spun her around, her joy tangible, her laughter contagious, and like a living thing. And then he put her down, and smoothed back the loose tendrils of hair where they’d whipped around her face, and dipped his mouth to kiss her smiling lips.
Theos, but she tasted good.
She tasted of sweetness and light, of dark nights and sin, and for just one moment he was thrown, because he had the oddest sensatio
n. A memory had flitted through his mind, of coming home on a weekend from his work in the city and rounding the final bend in the windy road to catch the first view of his village, where he knew his mother and father would be waiting for him, his father tending his garden while keeping an eye out for his son, his mother cooking up his favourite dishes, pasticcio and loukoumades. It had been so many years, he’d almost forgotten what that moment had felt like.
Her eyes were bright when he gently eased away, still bubbling with joy over the successful discovery she’d made with her team this week, but, if he wasn’t wrong, a good part of that wattage was down to him. That was why the feeling of coming home, he rationalised. Because soon the deathbed promise he’d made to his father would be fulfilled. Soon, the loss of his parents would be avenged.
‘You wouldn’t believe how special today was,’ she said, sounding breathless after their kiss. ‘It’s the most exciting work I’ve ever been involved in.’
‘I want to hear all about it.’ And he did, if only to watch the way her mouth moved when she talked. If only to imagine those lips moving upon his. He was acutely aware their time together was growing shorter and he was determined not to miss a moment of it.
And then her smile turned to a frown as she looked him up and down. ‘But I warned you I wasn’t dressed for dinner. No one will believe we’re together.’
‘They will once you get changed.’
‘But I didn’t bring—’
He stilled her mouth with a fingertip to her lips. ‘I have a surprise waiting for you. Come.’
They weaved their way back to the car and within minutes Alexios was pulling up in the garage of his apartment and speeding up with her in the lift to his penthouse.
Champagne chilling in an ice bucket greeted them, and Alexios dispensed with the cork and poured them both a glass of the liquid gold. ‘Congratulations,’ he said, clinking his glass against hers, tasting his wine, before putting his mouth on Athena’s, the bubbles sparkling as the wine swirled over their duelling tongues.
She all but melted against him in the kiss. ‘That,’ she said, wobbling a little, her eyelashes fluttering open, when finally they separated, ‘has to be the best way to drink champagne.’
‘There are other ways I can think of,’ he said, and was rewarded by a smile that told him she was rapidly catching on to his wavelength. And not for the first time, it struck him that he would miss her eagerness and her enthusiasm. Earning her trust had been like unlocking the key to her sensuality. Once inside her guarded doors, he had access to her most secret places. ‘But first, that surprise I told you about.’ He took her hand, led her through the living room and into his bedroom where a dress he’d had delivered hung on a rack.
‘I thought you might like to wear this to dinner, seeing you were feeling a little underdone.’
Athena gasped as she spied what was hanging up waiting for her. The silver-grey gown featured a beaded bodice with pearl-studded collar, with cutaways over the shoulders before falling to a high-low hemline of pleated silk. A pair of strappy sandals stood to attention below while various silken underwear and accessories were scattered on the bed.
She turned to him. ‘You bought all this for me, because I had nothing suitable to wear to dinner? I could have found something remotely suitable to wear at home.’
‘But where is the fun in that?’ He turned her to face him and took her hands in his. ‘I bought these for you, because you’re worth it. Because you’re a beautiful woman and you deserve beautiful things and it makes me proud to be with you.’
‘Oh, Alexios!’ She pulled him closer. ‘I have never, ever met anyone as amazing as you. Thank you.’
She kissed him then, open-mouthed and full of promise for the coming evening, and he felt the tug on his desire like a yank of a chain attached to his groin.
‘I’ll leave you to get ready,’ he said, his voice gruff with want, ‘but I warn you, don’t keep me waiting too long, or we may not make it to dinner.’
She laughed, husky and deep, as if he wasn’t the only one affected by wanting. ‘I won’t keep you waiting.’
* * *
True to her word, she appeared at the door a scant twenty minutes later. ‘What do you think?’
‘Breathtaking,’ he said, and even that was an understatement. The bodice fitted her like a silver second skin leaving the smooth sweep of her shoulders bare to his gaze and to his touch, the pleated skirt floating around her legs as she moved, like the mesmerising sway of delicate sea plants under the sea, while her long hair fell in soft waves around her face. ‘I think I’ve found the real treasure today. You could be a mermaid from Atlantis.’ His thumbs stroked the perfect skin of her shoulders, finding their way under the beaded bodice as he leaned his head close to hers and drank in her beguiling scent and the intoxicating heat of a woman.
She laughed a little. ‘Then you would be a Greek god,’ she countered, ‘come to life. You said we made a good pair that first day we met, remember? That the world would be a safer place in our joint hands.’
His thumbs stopped moving and he pushed himself a step away. Because he remembered it all so well, the neatly laid plans, the thrill of the chase. She’d taken the bait well, believing the lies he’d spun, and now she was as good as his, and suddenly he was impatient for this game to be over.
He summoned a smile and kissed her cheek in spite of the discomfort roiling deep in his gut. Anticipation, he told himself. ‘Come,’ he said. ‘You must be starving.’
He took her to a restaurant in the penthouse of the office block alongside his, with a view of the Acropolis where the grandiose ruins of the Parthenon glowed, beneath the temple of Athena Nike, that had set him on this course.
She was electric through the meal, lit up with the discovery and alive with it, her passion for her work, her love for uncovering the past, infusing every gesture, every word. And he couldn’t help but notice that he wasn’t the only man who noticed her tonight. Other men stole glances every time their partners looked away. Some openly stared at Athena, and looked at him, their lips curling in envy.
Little did they know that she would soon be available.
‘Were you always like this?’ he asked as she took a sip of her wine. ‘So passionate about this period of history?’
She laughed then. ‘No, far from it. My teenage year, for example, were a complete disaster.’
‘Why?’
She shrugged, a soft shadow scudding across her eyes. ‘When I was in my second-last year of high school, mum got sick. By the time she had a diagnosis, it was too late. She only had weeks to live.’ She pulled a face and shrugged. ‘I guess I went off the rails a bit after that. I abandoned school. My poor grandparents couldn’t cope. They did the best they could but they were grieving themselves and so let me leave school, but only on the condition I came to Greece to live with my father.’
He leaned on one elbow. ‘I’m sorry—about losing your mother that way.’
‘Thanks,’ she said, shrugging as she reached for a glass of sparkling water, taking a long swig. ‘Cancer’s a bitch.’
‘How did it go living with your father?’
This time she managed a chuckle. ‘A nightmare. Living with my father was as good as being in prison. We argued for six months about me wanting my freedom while he tried to truss me up and keep me isolated from the world, before he finally gave up and I went traveling with some of my friends. They’d finished high school and were by that time doing a gap year. And while they were living on the savings they’d put away while they studied, I had money to burn. Lots of money. Before long it wasn’t just my school friends I was traveling with, I was everyone’s best friend, even people I shouldn’t have been, not that anyone could tell me that then.’
She took a deep breath, remembering the late-night police stations lit with cold electric light, the even colder metal benches and the l
ong, agonising wait for rescue.
‘I got in trouble—nothing too serious but, looking back, it must have been so humiliating for my father. Eventually I screwed up too many times and my father stopped sending his minders to bail me out of trouble. I didn’t care at the time. I was still angry at the world for losing my mother. Then one day, I got word from his lawyers that my father had disowned me. Sorry. Probably too much information. It’s not a time in my life I’m particularly proud of.’
Alexios thought of the picture of her he’d seen the day he’d learned of Aristos’s death, the grainy file photo of her on a boat clearly taken with a telescopic lens from a long distance away. She’d looked every bit a spoiled A-lister then, beautiful, rich and leading a self-indulgent life full of hedonistic pleasure and devoid of purpose and meaning.
That was the woman he’d been expecting to meet, and it was hard to reconcile that image of Athena with the woman she was now—passionate and driven with her work, while leading a life that couldn’t be more low profile if she tried. He didn’t care, of course, he was just information gathering. Waiting for the right opportunity. Waiting for the key to roll out his plans.
‘So what changed?’
‘I met someone.’
‘What was his name?’
She laughed. ‘You’re so sure it was a man?’ And amusement replaced the guilt he’d heard in her voice a moment before.
‘Wasn’t it?’
She smiled, a knowing smile. ‘It was a man, as it happens, but not in the way you think.’ And he listened, as she told him of the man who’d been crouched in a fenced-off hole in the ground while she’d been traveling through Crete. She’d been walking past on her way to the beach with a group of friends, and it hadn’t been the man she’d first noticed. It had been the mosaic she’d seen on the floor of the pit below—the azure blue of the recently excavated tiles, the curved sweep of the dolphins’ backs, the flare of their tails and their seemingly smiling faces as they surfed the foaming waves.