SLEEP did not come easily to Camilla that night. Huddled awkwardly under a single sheet at the edge of the bed, she found her search for temporary oblivion distorted and disturbed by unwanted thoughts and images which even pursued her into her dreams.
A tall man with skin like bronze, and eyes like a dark flame, moved through those dreams, lay beside her, shared her pillow.
She could feel the warmth of his body against hers, the fever of his lips, the frank enticement of his hands as they explored her. Found herself reaching out in turn, seeking him vainly in the still heat of the night. Only to realise, with a frightening sense of desolation, that she was alone.
She drew an angry breath, kicking away the imprisoning tangle of sheet from her overheated body. What was happening to her? How could she possibly feel these things about a man who was still virtually a stranger, and almost certainly an enemy?
‘Damn you, Nic Xandreou,’ she whispered into the darkness. ‘I should never have come here, and now I’m trapped, and I can’t get away.’
She escaped at last into a restless doze, only to be jolted back into wakefulness again by the certainty that she could hear something—someone moving on the terrace outside.
She sat up, pushing the hair back from her face, staring towards the shuttered windows, her heart thumping erratically. She’d thought the sea house too remote for intruders, but now…
She swung her feet to the floor, reaching for the white cotton peignoir trimmed with broderie anglaise which matched her nightgown.
The early morning air was fresh as she stepped out on to the terrace. The sky was pale, almost misty. The sea was a ripple of silver. A faint breeze stirred in the bougainvillaea above her head. There was no one there, of course, and yet…
‘Kalimera.’
Camilla whirled with a startled cry. Nic Xandreou was standing, hands on hips, a few yards away outside the open window of the saloni from which he’d obviously just emerged.
He was wearing ancient denim jeans, hacked off at mid-thigh, and a short-sleeved black shirt, unbuttoned almost to the waist. He looked tough, virile, and devastatingly sexy—last night’s dream come suddenly alive in front of her.
Remembering the precise nature of that dream, Camilla found colour mounting in her face, and her hand went to her throat to clutch the edges of her peignoir more tightly together.
‘You!’ she said unevenly. ‘What are you doing here?’
His brows lifted, the amusedly cynical appraisal of his dark eyes telling her that neither the blush or the betrayingly defensive gesture had been lost on him.
‘This is my property,’ he reminded her drily.
‘But you never come here,’ she protested, then caught herself. ‘At least…’
‘That is what Arianna told you,’ he supplied. ‘She exaggerates. I come to visit Soula, naturally.’
‘At this hour?’ Camilla glanced at her watch.
‘No, this morning I’ve been fishing so there will be fresh mullet for your dinner tonight.’
She said blankly, ‘I don’t believe it.’
Nic shrugged. ‘The proof is in the kitchen. Do you wish to look?’
‘No—I mean—I can’t see you as a simple fisherman, alone in the dawn.’
He laughed. ‘Yet to a Greek the sea is like the blood in his veins. And on a boat you have time to be alone—to think. Often, it’s the only time.’
‘A boat?’ Camilla parodied astonishment. ‘I thought you had your own shipping line.’
‘I do,’ he said silkily. ‘But that is not the same thing at all. Like my father before me, I keep a caique for my own use.’ He paused. ‘However, I did not intend my visit to wake you. I apologise.’
She bit her lip. ‘It doesn’t matter. I didn’t have a particularly good night, anyway.’
‘No?’ The dark eyes mocked her.
‘No,’ she returned tautly. ‘This isn’t exactly an easy situation—for any of us.’
Nic shrugged again. ‘You can resolve it any time you wish,’ he retorted.
‘You mean—take the money and go.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Never.’
‘That will not be your final decision,’ he said. ‘I can wait.’
‘It isn’t my decision to make—or yours. Spiro and Katie are the people concerned—or should be.’
‘Unfortunately such sentimental notions have no place in real life.’ He sounded bored.
‘And what do you know about “real life”, Mr Xandreou, shut up in your ivory tower of power and money?’ Camilla’s voice had an edge. ‘You only have to wish for something and it’s granted—snap your fingers, and everyone dashes to obey.’
‘Naturally you exclude yourself from this fascinating picture of mass acquiescence,’ Nic said grimly.
‘Of course. You can’t expect to own the whole world.’
‘I’ve never wanted to.’ His tone hardened. ‘Once I thought, as you seem to do, that love could conquer all barriers. But not any longer. A collision between two different worlds can lead only to disaster.’ His face was brooding, bitterly introspective, as he looked around him. ‘This is a lesson I was forced to learn with the kind of pain I would wish on no one—least of all my young brother.’
‘But you can’t protect him from experience—or prevent him making his own mistakes,’ Camilla protested. ‘It doesn’t work like that.’
‘So you admit that Spiro and your sister would be a mistake.’
‘No,’ she said wearily. ‘I’m trying to say that you and I aren’t qualified to make judgements for them.’ She took a deep breath. ‘It’s terrible—a tragedy that your marriage ended as it did—that someone so lovely, with so much
going for her—’ her voice faltered a little ‘—should be simply wiped out, but Katie and Spiro are still entitled to lead their own lives, whatever the cost.’
Nic Xandreou was very still, his tall figure suddenly menacing in the clear morning light.
‘What do you know of my marriage?’
‘Nothing at all, really.’ She swallowed. ‘But—but I found your wife’s photograph, and realised who she was.’
‘What are you saying?’ His face was thunderous. ‘Show me.’
Camilla turned and went back into the bedroom, uneasily aware that he was following. She picked up the photograph and handed it to him. ‘It was in this drawer. It must have been pushed in there and forgotten.’
He said harshly, ‘An unforgivable oversight. I gave orders for everything to be removed. I wanted nothing left here to remind me.’ The dark eyes looked around him, taking in the disordered bed, the intimate clutter of Camilla’s toiletries, and discarded clothes. ‘Nothing,’ he repeated slowly.
Her voice shook a little. ‘But you can’t easily forget—beauty like hers.’
‘Yet you can try.’ His mouth was set. He took the backing from the frame, which he tossed contemptuously aside, then ripped the print across, again and again, letting the torn fragments flutter to the floor.
Camilla gave a small distressed cry. ‘Oh, no. Oh, how could you?’
‘It was simple, believe me.’ He swung back to her, his smile almost a snarl. ‘This—this is the complication.’
His hands were hard on her shoulders as he pulled her towards him. Her startled eyes read the purpose in his face, but even as her lips framed a negation his mouth possessed hers, making no concession in its fierce demand. The scent of his skin, fragrant with sunlight and the sea, seemed to invade her senses—to fill her being with a harsh and undeniable longing.
She found she was kissing him in return with the same vibrant, consuming urgency, her lips parting eagerly to accept the thrust of his tongue.
Pinned against his body, she was aware of every bone, muscle and sinew in his taut, virile frame. Could feel the heat and strength of his arousal, mirroring the rising flame inside her.
Nic’s hand shook as he pulled apart the ribbons of the peignoir, allowing his lips to traverse the vulnerable line of her throat, and the curve of her shoulder. His fingers slid under the strap of her nightgown, tugging it down, baring one rose-tipped breast to his caress.
His palm cupped the soft mound, his thumb brushing the tautening peak, piercing her with a shaft of bewildered pleasure bordering on pain.
The dark head bent to her, and he took the small engorged bud into his mouth, laving it with his tongue, his mouth like fire against her skin. She felt her body judder in anguished delight, her hands lifting to twist in the thick, crisp hair at the nape of his neck.
He lifted her on to the bed, and lay beside her. She was caught in the dream again, she thought dazedly, fright and excitement warring for mastery inside her.
She was sinking down into the softness of the mattress, the weight of his lean body imprisoning her, creating new hungers in every trembling inch of her as she strained towards him in this new and incomprehensible desperation.
He pushed down the other strap of her nightgown, his face absorbed, intent, his mouth hot and seeking against her fragrant flesh. His hands were urgent as they stroked her body through the thin fabric, pushing its hem up towards her thigh with swift and sensual purpose.
‘Se thelo.’ His voice was husky against the uneven beat of her heart. ‘Se thelo poli.’
And the alien words which instinct warned her spoke only of physical need, and no warmer, tenderer emotion, sent the dream shattering into sudden, cold reality.
She was insane, she thought with fear. She must be—lying here on the bed he’d once shared with his wife—a girl whose promisefilled life had ended in isolation and despair. Whose torn photograph was scattered at their feet in ultimate rejection.
And she was letting him touch her—oh, God—letting him use her like some sensual exorcism.
She braced her hands against his chest, pushing him away, her body rigid with panic and denial.
‘Matia mou—what is it? What’s wrong?’
‘Everything,’ Camilla said hoarsely. ‘Let go of me—leave me alone. How—how dare you…?’
She scrambled off the bed, dragging the bodice of the nightdress up to cover her breasts, her hands clumsy with shame and remorse.
Nic lifted himself on to an elbow and observed her struggles, his eyes hooded, his firm mouth twisting cynically.
‘There was no question of daring, agape mou. You wanted what was happening as much as I did. Perhaps more,’ he added with swift, silky cruelty.
Camilla gasped, mortified colour burning her face. She said unsteadily, ‘Get out of this room. Get away from me.’
‘Are you sure?’ There was deliberate insolence in his voice—in the look which raked her—stripped her. ‘Perhaps you should learn to be more accommodating—like your sister. You might find there was more to be gained. That, in certain circumstances, I could be persuaded to be generous.’
She flung back her head. ‘Become just another “Xandreou’s woman”?’ Her voice was uneven. ‘You over-estimate your attractions, kyrie. I’d beg in the streets first.’
Nic’s eyes narrowed, but he shrugged as he swung himself off the bed. ‘That is your choice, of course. But I should warn you there is a time limit to the terms I’m prepared to offer—all of them.’ He paused to allow the implication in his words to sink in. ‘Maybe it would be wiser, for your sister’s sake, to think again—and soon.’
He walked without haste to the open window, turning to touch his fingertips to his lips in a parody of a tender farewell.
He said softly, ‘Send me word when you have changed your mind.’
‘About what?’ Camilla demanded tautly.
His eyes swept her body again, and he smiled. ‘Everything,’ he said, and was gone.
It was another flawless morning, baking hot already, even under the protection of a sun umbrella. Camilla, ensconced on a lounger in a sheltered part of the terrace, could hear the sound of voices from the saloni, and guessed that Arianna had arrived for her daily visit.
Her misgivings about the Greek girl had been unjustified, she was bound to admit. Her presence at the sea house was, for Katie, a much needed link with Spiro, and also the outside world as the sea house had no phone.
Three endless days had dragged by since that devastating encounter with Nic, and, although there had been neither sight nor sound of him since, her emotions were still ragged, her senses in turmoil.
She had told herself a hundred times that this crazy, unwanted infatuation with Nic Xandreou—for that was all it was, all it ever could be—meant nothing. Absolutely and finally nothing.
Life in England might not have been easy, but she’d coped—earned herself a reputation for being calm and reliable. Yet now…
I don’t know what’s happening to me, she thought desperately. I’m not in control any more, and I hate it. I miss my peace of mind. I want it back.
But there would be no inner tranquillity for her on Karthos. Living in the sea house was a constant torment, with its reminders of the shadowed past Nic had shared there with his beautiful young wife—and those even more potent recent memories, from which there was no escape.
The thought of his lovemaking still seared her skin. His presence seemed to linger in the room, evoking a strange trembling awareness she had no power to suppress.
Soula had cleared up the torn fragments of the photograph, her plump face sad, her mouth discreetly compressed. Her employer’s marriage was a subject on which she was clearly not prepared to be drawn, although she would chat to Katie by the hour about the old days when both Nic Xandreou and his brother were boys.
Arianna had explained the situation to her, and she had taken Katie firmly under her wing, supervising her diet, and rationing her hours in the sun.
As for Nic himself, presumably he was staying aloof, awaiting her message to say she was ready to deal, Camilla thought bitterly.
But, even when he was absent, she was always aware of him, just the same. Sometimes, across the shimmering water, the Villa Apollo looked almost close enough to touch, and as she sunbathed or swam in the shallow waters of the cove she had the odd impression that unseen eyes were watching her, although she knew that was absurd.
The need to go—to get away before it was too late—had begun to obsess her. Part of her mind was saying that her mission to Karthos was hopeless, anyway. That maybe Nic did hold all the aces, and their best course would be to agree to some kind of financial settlement. But she knew any suggestion to Katie they should cut their losses and return to England would be indignantly resisted.
Katie, immersed in her own emotional maelstrom, had no idea of the confusion that was ripping her sister apart. Nor did Camilla want her to know.
‘Kalimera.’ Arianna appeared beside her, looking cool and elegant in a slim-fitting dress the colour of peppermint ice. ‘Soula insists your sister must rest on her bed a little.’
‘She’s been very kind,’ Camilla said rather stiltedly.
Arianna shrugged. ‘She loves Spiro, and wants to see him happy. But how to achieve it, that is the problem.’ She sat down on an adjoining lounger. ‘Petros has promised he will bring Katie and Spiro together as soon as the coast is clear.’
She spread her hands. ‘But Nicos is rarely away from the Villa Apollo these days, and when he is absent it is only for a short time—and he leaves Yannis to watch Spiro.’ She frowned. ‘We must find some way of drawing him from the villa, and keeping him away for several hours.’
Camilla said constrictedly, ‘Surely he’ll be going to Athens some time…’
‘You mean to see Zoe?’ Arianna gave a worldly shrug. ‘Who knows? Nicos does not discuss such things with me, and he is too concerned with Spiro anyway. In fact—’ she leaned forward ‘—he has told Petros that he may soon take Spiro to the States to see specialists there, and if he does…’ she shrugged again ‘…I think that will be the end of your hopes. You could not afford to follow him there.’
‘No,’ Camilla said quietly. ‘We couldn’t. Does Katie know about this?’
‘No. I thought it best to say nothing. But,’ Arianna said briskly, ‘it means there is no time to be lost. We must make a diversion somehow for Nicos. Get him away from the villa for half a day—a day even.’ Her brilliant gaze switched to Camilla. ‘This will be your task, I think.’
‘Mine?’ Camilla sat bolt upright on her lounger. ‘What are you talking about?’
Arianna’s smile was oblique. ‘You tell Nicos you wish to meet with him, to make a deal, but away from here so that your sister will not know and be upset. And then you keep him with you,’ she added, her smile widening. ‘It will be no problem. He is an attractive man, ne, and you—intrigue him, I think.’
‘No.’ Bright spots of colour burned in Camilla’s face. ‘I’m sorry, but I can’t—I won’t. It’s quite impossible.’ Her heart was thumping against her ribcage. ‘Anyway he wouldn’t believe me. I’ve made it more than clear that I won’t negotiate.’
‘But isn’t it also a woman’s privilege to change her mind?’ Arianna asked. ‘That is something Nicos understands very well, I think.’
Camilla sank her teeth into her lower lip. ‘I’m—sure he does. But I don’t play those kinds of games.’
Arianna shrugged again, this time with an air of fatalism. ‘Then we can do nothing. Spiro will go to America, and you will go home with a suntan and some money.’
Camilla groaned inwardly.
‘I’d never get away with it,’ she said desperately.
‘Unless you try, how can you know?’ Arianna demanded. ‘Besides, Nicos has always said that an easy deal is one not worth making. He expects a fight.’ Her eyes gleamed at Camilla. ‘But not always the choice of battlefield—or weapons.’
There was a loaded silence.
At last Camilla said helplessly, ‘All right—I’ll try, but I’m not promising a thing.’
‘Good,’ Arianna approved with the familiar cat-like grin. ‘Because now you could have the perfect opportunity.’ She pointed a pink-tipped finger. ‘My brother comes here, I think.’
Camilla saw that a blue boat, its tan sail neatly furled, had come round the adjoining headland, and was making for the cove.
‘Oh, God.’ The breath seemed to choke in her throat. She turned on Arianna. ‘You knew already—didn’t you?’ she accused. ‘That he was coming here. You’ve set me up.’
‘No, I swear it. He said nothing at breakfast. But it is a chance we cannot miss, ne?’ she went on pleadingly. ‘For the sake of Spiro and your sister, tell him you wish to talk to him privately. Make him take you with him on the boat, wherever he is going—then keep him with you until the sun has set. Give us time.’
She rose gracefully to her feet. ‘As soon as you have left with him, I will take Katie to the clinic to fetch Petros so that he may supervise their meeting, then we will all go straight to the Villa Apollo.’ She put her cheek swiftly against Camilla’s. ‘Good luck to us all,’ she whispered, and was gone in a cloud of warm fragrance.
Camilla looked at the approaching boat, and the dark figure at the tiller, then at the brilliant sky.
It would be a very long time until sunset, she realised numbly. And she would need more than luck to come through unscathed.
She said aloud, softly and despairingly, ‘Oh, God, what have I just agreed to?’