by Trish Morey
‘Loukas,’ she called across the sea of shifting heads. He turned and made his way over, smiling at her, casting a wary eye over her partner.
‘You look wonderful, tonight, Athena,’ he said, kissing her cheek. ‘And you must be Alexios?’
Beside her Alexios nodded, holding out his hand. ‘Loukas.’
The pair shook hands and Athena got the distinct impression that Loukas was sizing the other man up, his eyes sharp and perceptive and more like a warning than any greeting. Then he turned back to Athena, his eyes suddenly warm again. ‘It seems we’re on the top table. Imagine that for a couple of dusty archaeologists. This way.’
‘Imagine,’ she said, and the smile she sent Alexios was as heartfelt as it was unwise. Because his lips curled and he winked at the shared secret, and sensation sizzled down her spine. She cursed as he put his hand to the small of her back to guide her through the tables and the spine tingles continued, and she cursed again that she was not stronger, that she could not turn off this desire for Alexios like turning off a tap.
Dinner proceeded, the chatter at the table full of today’s headlines in magazines and articles, before the plates were cleared away and the formalities got under way. Speeches followed. A short film recording the discovery, commentary from team members excited to be part of such a find. Then it was Loukas’s time to say a few words, thanking the team and the gods for the opportunity to uncover such a trove. He sat down to great applause, the MC announcing Athena as the next speaker.
‘What’s going on?’ said Loukas, looking at the paper at his place setting. ‘That’s not on my programme.’
She patted him on the shoulder as she rose. ‘You’ll see.’
Heads from a score of tables turned her way as she started her speech, announcing the construction of a new wing on this very museum to display the treasures recovered from the shipwreck in all their glory, a new wing that that would be dedicated to Professor Loukas Spyrides, a man who had devoted his entire life to the pursuit of Greece’s ancient past, a man who had overseen arguably the greatest discovery in modern times, and who deserved this honour like no other.
Loukas was crying, she could see, the tears streaming unashamedly from his eyes, mixed with smiles, mixed with hugs from those around him, flashes from cameras going off all over. Her gaze swept the table, landing on Alexios as she headed from the podium.
‘Bravo,’ he mouthed, and something shifted inside her, something she knew would never quite fit back in place again.
* * *
‘I’ve never seen Loukas so happy,’ she said, in the back of the limousine on their way home. ‘He had no idea. He actually whispered to me, wondering what all those dreary politicians were doing on our table. How could I tell him?’
Street lights splashed mottled light against the windows of the car. The night had grown cold, rain lashing at the windows, but it was a night for celebration and Athena was still fizzing with the success of the night too much to feel cold. Fizzing with the thrill Loukas had experienced. Fizzing with being next to this man all night. So close and yet so far.
And suddenly it felt too far.
He wanted her, she knew from that night he’d helped her with her zip. She knew from every heated glance and every secret smile he sent her way. She knew from the crackle of the air around them when they were together. Like now, in this car, almost alone. The air seemed to shimmer with expectation, and she was hostage to it, just as she was hostage to the knowledge that she wanted Alexios too.
No. Didn’t just want him. Loved him.
Her breath caught in her throat, a little half-hitch, the way it used to do when she thought about Alexios before he was back in her life. But if she couldn’t admit such a thing on a magical night like tonight, she could never be honest with herself.
‘You did a wonderful thing,’ Alexios said, ‘honouring your friend that way.’
She slipped her hand into his, needing his touch, relishing the warmth of his fingers against hers.
‘You’re the one paying for it.’
He looked down at their clasped hands, clearly surprised that she had reached out to him, but he didn’t take his hand away. ‘I think we both know that’s not true.’
‘It makes no difference,’ she said. ‘It happened, however it happened. And that’s the most important thing.’
Beside her he shifted, angling himself towards her. He squeezed her hand. ‘I have never met anyone as selfless as you, Athena. After what I did...’
He didn’t have to say it. She knew what he’d done. ‘Can we not talk about that tonight? Can we not be adversaries for once?’
She took his hand to her mouth and pressed the back of it to her lips. ‘I don’t want to feel sad on such a night.’
His voice, when it came, sounded as if it were grated from orichalcum itself. ‘What do you want?’
‘I think—I mean, I do...’ She smiled, feeling her heart tripping over itself, a drumbeat of encouragement. ‘I want you to make love to me.’
* * *
Alexios was torn apart. Here was another of those requests he wouldn’t ordinarily refuse.
Asked to make love to a woman he had hungered after since the day she walked into his life, the woman who was now carrying his child, should be a no-brainer.
Until now.
Because he knew in this moment with her hand held in his that what he wanted wasn’t just one night of sex, or two, or however many. He wanted Athena in his life, and permanently. And it couldn’t happen, not until he told her everything. Not until she understood why he had done what he had done.
‘Do you know how hard it’s been,’ he said, his voice thick with want, ‘to have you share my apartment, to have you within reach and yet not be able to touch you or pull you into my arms?’
She blinked up at him, the tiniest of creases between her brows as her eyes searched his.
He found a smile. ‘I want to make love to you, Athena, but I want this time for it to be right—perfect—and the only way that can happen is for there to be no more secrets between us.’
His eyes beseeched hers for understanding. He couldn’t believe he was asking her to wait for him. It was all kinds of madness and he was risking everything he held precious. Why had it taken him so long to work out what was precious?
But she’d told him she loved him once, and the only way she could possibly love him again was if he were to bare his soul and speak the truth. ‘There’s somewhere I have to show you first. Something I have to tell you. Will you come with me?’
She looked afraid, her bottom lip trembling, and he put up the pads of his fingers to still it. She kissed his skin, a whisper of air, a butterfly kiss. ‘All right,’ she whispered against his fingers. ‘I’ll come.’
CHAPTER TWELVE
EVEN UNDER A cloud-scudded sky, Argos appeared as a jewel in a turquoise sea. Athena recognised it when it came into view, feeling a stab of sorrow for the past, and for the father who wouldn’t be there on the island to welcome her this time, even if he’d handed her over to the care of the housekeeper a scant ten minutes later and disappeared into the rabbit warren that was his island home.
Why had Alexios brought her here? He’d been so strange last night, so fervent. He’d left her at her bedroom door with a whispered kalispera and the brush of his cheek against hers, before leaving her restless and yearning. Whatever was troubling him, whatever he’d wanted to tell her was of such magnitude that he could not tell her then. But what was so special about this island? What did Argos have to do with anything?
It didn’t matter. She wouldn’t let it. Whatever Alexios thought she had to know, she’d already made up her mind. She loved him. She hadn’t been able to stop loving him so she was hardly going to stop now.
And then, afterwards, when he’d said his piece, they would make love.
Beside her, Alexios
pointed out of her window. ‘Argos,’ he said, shouting to be heard over the rotors, and she nodded back, feeling her past and present collide.
A few minutes later, they were down. ‘It’s so strange to be back,’ she said as he handed her out of the helicopter and they ducked together low under the blades, heading for the herb-lined path. It had rained earlier and the scent of oregano and thyme hung on the air.
‘Have you been here often?’
She smiled, remembering. ‘A few times. My mother would send me to Greece for school holidays. My father would bring me here. I hated it.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I was just a kid and I wanted to stay at home with my friends, not be stuck on what I thought was an island in the middle of nowhere. Even if it was in Greece. To me the plane ride by myself from Melbourne was more exciting.’
‘But you had your father when you were here?’
‘Not really. He didn’t know what to do with a child. He expected the staff to entertain me. Besides, he was too busy.’
‘Working?’
‘That, and entertaining his latest mistress. He had enough of them. This island was his plaything, as were they.’ They reached the bridge over the pool, and Athena stopped, taking in the full view of the building. ‘There it is, the mausoleum.’
‘Why do you call it that?’
‘Because it’s so cold inside.’ She shrugged as she looked around her, before letting her gaze settle on the man who’d brought her here. ‘So, Alexios, why did you bring me here? What did you want to tell me?’
* * *
Alexios had been waiting for just that question. Dreading it. He gave a rueful smile and gestured towards an outdoor setting further along the patio near the pool. ‘Come and sit down.’
The housekeeper met them with a tray of coffee, iced water and olives. Alexios thanked her and worked out where to start his story. ‘It’s about why I did what I did to the Nikolides Group—and to you.’
She shook her head. ‘Do I want to hear this? You wanted the money. The lawyers told me to look out for people like you. I should have been more careful.’
‘I wish it were that simple, but... Argos was not always your father’s property.’
‘No?’ She shrugged, and he could see the confusion on her face. ‘I guess not. So?’
‘A long time ago, Argos had belonged to an old fisherman, a distant cousin of my mother, and who was moving to Australia to be looked after in his retirement by his recently emigrated family. The fisherman had offered Kostas, my father, the island for a good price, but still too much for a lowly villager to afford, even a lowly villager with big dreams.’
‘What dreams?’
‘He worked hard in his village. Everyone did. He had dreams of a hotel that catered for families from their mountain village and surrounds, a modest hotel on the sea but one that would still seem luxurious in comparison to their harsh village existence, with the potential over time for the hotel to grow, and become something larger. Something more.’
She nodded. ‘Sounds fair. What happened?’
‘My father reached out to an old friend, who’d grown up in the same village before he’d headed to Athens to make his fortune. Surely he’d help out a fellow villager, my father thought. His old friend would be nothing but fair—they could be equal partners. So Kostas shared the opportunity along with his dreams.
‘And that friend shook hands and agreed. Right before he went and bought the island out from beneath him.
‘My father was still busy drawing up plans and telling everyone in the village about Argos, when the news filtered out that my mother’s cousin had left for Melbourne, the island sold.
‘And when he went to the city to find out what had gone wrong, because it had to be a mistake, his supposed friend set his goons on him, and all but threw him out into the street. “Some people are destined for success,” he told him with his parting words. “And some people are destined to stay in the village.”’ His voice was becoming more embittered as he spoke. So filled with the poison that had pulsed for so long through his veins that it was impossible to quarantine and keep out.
‘So Kostas returned home devastated, his faith in people and his spirits destroyed.
‘My mother was diagnosed with cancer a year afterwards. My father had no money for treatments, no assets he could borrow money against.’
Alexios looked out across the stretch of water that divided Argos from the mainland. ‘When my mother died, it broke my father’s heart. He couldn’t cope. He spiralled into depression.’ He shook his head. ‘It was the end. And on his deathbed, I promised... I promised him that I would break his so-called friend the way he had left my father broken.’
‘But I still don’t—’ He heard her intake of air. Her long exhalation. He saw realisation awaken in her eyes. ‘This friend,’ she ventured at length. ‘This friend was my father. Am I right?’
He looked into her eyes, dipped his head. ‘Yes.’
‘And because of what my father is supposed to have done—’
‘He did do it.’
She took another breath, tried again. ‘So let me get this straight. Because of what my father is supposed to have done, you orchestrated an entire fiction to get even—not just get even, but get even with a dead man?
‘And yet all that time, didn’t you realise, you were getting even with me, someone who knew nothing about this? Who was never involved?’
‘It wasn’t about you,’ he said, the words grinding their way out between his teeth. ‘It was never about you. It was about your father. It wasn’t personal.’
‘Of course it was personal.’ She jumped to her feet. ‘You slept with me. That was personal. You got me pregnant. That was personal!’
‘Stavros cheated my father out of Argos island! My father took him a deal and he stabbed him in the back—he betrayed him, and left him broken. My father died a broken man.’
‘So this is how you get even with my dead father? By screwing up my life? By making me pay the price for something he’s supposed to have done?’
‘Athena, listen to me. Your father betrayed my father. I lost both my parents as a result.’
‘But you can’t pin that on me! Do you think my father cares about your revenge? Seriously? Do you think he’s sitting in hell applauding your evil genius?’ She raked her fingers through her hair. ‘I thought you were just greedy—money hungry—I thought maybe I could excuse you for that. I’ve met enough people in my life that are, but you’re mad, do you know that? This is madness. I want to go home. My home. Get your pilot to take me home, Alexios.’
‘Athena, please... I thought if I told you, you might understand.’
‘Sure I understand. And maybe you will too. Because it was bad enough when I thought you were just greedy. Money hungry. Because my inheritance meant little to me when I’d never expected it. I hadn’t been a billionaire long enough to use it. It was no real loss to lose it, and I thought I could almost forgive you when you made my dream for Loukas’s wing to come true. I really thought there was a kernel of good in you.
‘But I was wrong. There’s no good in you at all.’ She shook her head, loose tendrils of her hair flicking about her face. ‘And the funny thing is, I knew I could never trust you after what you did before, but somehow you got my guard down enough to think that we might even have a future together.’ She snorted a very unladylike snort. ‘Thank you for putting my guard right back up.’ She looked down to where the helicopter stood waiting. ‘Have you called your pilot yet?’
Alexios reeled. He’d thought they could clear the air. Start afresh. So he’d laid his cards on the table and she’d flung every one of them back in his face. And now there was only one card left to deal. One card he’d been hoping to share in more romantic circumstances.
‘Please, Athena,’ he said. ‘There’s something else I wan
ted to tell you.’
She sniffed, refusing to look his way.
‘I love you,’ he said. ‘It’s taken me a long time to realise it—too long—but I love you. Please...’
She turned her eyes to his, and he saw a wealth of pain there, pain that he’d caused. ‘Please don’t hate me.’
‘I don’t hate you, Alexios,’ she spat. ‘I pity you.’
* * *
They didn’t talk on the return flight to Athens. They didn’t talk until they reached the tarmac in Athens and Alexios could tell her what he’d decided.
‘Our deal is concluded,’ he said, as he handed her in the limousine to take her to a hotel that would be her temporary accommodation until she could find a suitable apartment. ‘I’ll have all your clothes packed and sent over, and then I’ll see the lawyers. You’ll get your fortune back, I promise.’
‘I don’t care about the money,’ she said as he closed the door.
‘You should,’ he said, ‘for that one,’ nodding towards her growing baby bump. ‘It’s yours. It was always yours and it was wrong of me to take it.’
She nodded as the limousine started off. ‘It was wrong. Goodbye.’
* * *
Loukas took her in, only too willing to give Athena a place to stay, accommodating her in his tiny spare room while her old friend tried to give her space, trying not to fuss. It was no long-term solution, they both knew, but it was so good to have a refuge.
Not that there was any refuge from the storm of her emotions.
Why had she ever imagined it might work?
How could she have been so stupid not just once, but twice to fancy she was in love with the same man? Love wasn’t for her. Abandoned by her father, tossed aside by boyfriends when she ceased to be any use to them—surely the writing was on the wall. She’d been a fool to think this time was any different.
She put her hands over the bump where her unborn baby lay. What could she tell her baby about his or her father? That he was a liar? A thief? No, it was better they never meet. Her child was better without him.