Shauna sat transfixed by the news. Demetrios was going to a party at the palace. Did he know the princess? Had he met her before? Was she as lovely as she looked?
‘He knows how to enjoy himself,’ said Eric, who was sitting further down the table, helping himself to more French bread. ‘When we were in Naples last year, we had a party on board and Dudley Moore and Liza Minelli came.’
‘And Kathleen Turner, Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Mann,’ chipped in his girlfriend, Rebecca.
‘That was some party,’ said Jeremy. ‘We almost ran out of champagne.’
With widening eyes, Shauna listened to the tales of famous names, people she couldn’t imagine ever meeting.
The afternoon found her creeping up to the top deck with a couple of She magazines left behind in one of the guest cabins and a borrowed striped towel that co-ordinated with the sunshine yellow of the cushions on the sun loungers. She also had a tumbler full of ice, a couple of candy-striped straws and a can of Coca-Cola, which seemed the height of luxury.
Even though she’d taken the precaution of checking with Jeremy that it was OK to come up here and made sure that she had the boat to herself, with the exception of the skeleton crew of two who were doing maintenance work on the engines, she moved quickly and stealthily, unable to shake the feeling she really shouldn’t be doing this. But once she’d stripped off her jersey dress, covered herself in sun cream and laid down on the wooden sun lounger in her bikini, she began to relax. Even so, she was too excited to pay much attention to the glossy pages of her magazine. Instead, she used it as cover while taking surreptitious glances at her surroundings.
Across the marina, she could see the stark white stone of the royal palace on top of the hill, and to her right the pinks, oranges and creams of the buildings that perched on the steep slopes of the town. Below her the water lapped at the hull with a somnolent rhythm that made her want to close her eyes. Two yachts down, on a boat nowhere near as big as the St Helena – she grinned to herself with a flicker of pride – a group of twenty-somethings were flitting about with glasses of wine, talking in loud voices that carried across the water, making sure the tourists could see and hear them. The girls were all in jewel-bright bikinis topped with sheer kaftans, displaying their bodies like a group of brilliantly coloured hummingbirds.
A smile lit her face as she thought how wonderful it all was. Moments later, her daydreams turned into dreams as she drifted off to sleep.
When she eventually floated to the surface again, luxuriating in the warmth of the sun and gentle breeze, she had no idea how long she’d been asleep. Reluctant to break the spell, with a murmured sigh she stretched her body, enjoying the sensation, smiling to herself – and then a shadow fell across her.
Her eyes shot open. Demetrios was looking down at her, a soft teasing smile playing around his mouth. ‘Hello, Sleeping Beauty.’
Suddenly feeling very vulnerable and naked, she swung her legs over the side of her chair and grabbed a towel to shield her body.
‘Oh, don’t do that. I was admiring the view.’
‘How long have you been here?’ she demanded, feeling at a disadvantage given that she was faced with a man wearing a tie, shirt and trousers with a suit jacket hooked on one finger tossed casually over his shoulder. She wrapped her towel around her like a dress and attempted to snatch up the magazines, which slipped and slithered about on the table, making them impossible to hang on to.
‘Not long. My meeting finished early so I thought I’d come back. And now I’m glad I did.’
Shauna glared at him, annoyed that her heart, currently pounding at a thousand beats per second, chose to betray her. ‘I need to go.’ She took a step forward, expecting him to move aside, but he remained where he was, so she found herself almost nose to chest with him.
‘Please carry on,’ he purred in his deep voice, a boyish mischief twinkling in his eyes. ‘You looked like you were enjoying sunning yourself, and I won’t tell if you don’t.’
‘I didn’t realize you were coming back … I have work to do.’
Demetrios grinned. ‘Now I know you’re telling lies, Beauty. You have the afternoon off, along with the rest of the crew, as a reward for working so hard and looking after my guests so well. If you’re not careful, your nose will grow – and that would be a shame because it’s quite a pretty nose.’ He crossed his arms and held his position, making it difficult for her to get past him.
‘And now I know you’re talking rubbish, because noses aren’t pretty,’ she observed acerbically, taking a step back. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I really must—’
‘It’s only one o’clock. Do you really want to spend this beautiful day making beds and cleaning bathrooms?’ He tapped his foot, a bit impatiently, she thought. ‘Besides, if you really want to work, you can help me.’
‘With what?’
‘Follow me and I’ll show you.’
Shauna followed him below deck to a small office, where Demetrios took a seat behind a mahogany desk and indicated that she should sit next to him.
‘Have you heard of the Greek island of Ithos?’ he asked her as he opened a large ledger which appeared to be full of figures.
Shauna shook her head. ‘Can’t say I have. I’ve only really heard of Corfu.’
‘It’s nothing like Corfu.’ He sounded horrified, but his eyes gleamed with amusement. ‘Your education is sadly lacking.’
‘I haven’t travelled much, and Greece is a long way from Enniscrea. Anyway, you must think I have something to offer in terms of education, otherwise you wouldn’t have asked for my help.’
Demetrios nodded in apology. ‘You are right and I forget my manners. This is your afternoon off, and I appreciate your time.’
Shauna was surprised to see he was sincere.
‘We must focus, Shauna O’Brien. Here, let me show you something. These are my father’s ledgers. You know we sell boats and ship goods all over the world?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘Chantelle told me.’
‘I must earn my keep by attending to the family business. We have many customers, many suppliers, and some of them cannot be trusted. Given the chance, they will try to take advantage of us, so we must be vigilant. I know there is something amiss in this ledger, but no matter how many times I look, I cannot get to the bottom of it. Will you help me?’
‘I don’t know anything about business.’
‘But you know about numbers.’ He drew his hand across his face, suddenly looking younger than a man pushing thirty, though the strain he was under showed in his eyes.
‘What do you see around you?’
Shauna didn’t hesitate. ‘A lot of money and wealth.’
‘Nai.’ He nodded. ‘But this wealth, this money, all these beautiful things – we have worked for them, Shauna. People are jealous and too lazy to work for themselves. They think we do not deserve all this, but the truth is my father and his brothers have made many sacrifices for this – and I must protect my father’s interests and keep this business thriving for the generations that will come after us. We put our family first.’
‘It sounds almost like a family code.’ Shauna laughed.
There was no humour in Demetrios’s face when he replied, ‘It is a code. We live by it.’
‘Then I’ll help you, if I can.’
‘Let us concentrate.’
For the next hour or so, Shauna and Demetrius pored over the books together; Shauna found it disconcerting to be so close to him, but her interest in the problem and her tenacity soon kicked in. Eventually, her scrutiny paid off and she spotted a discrepancy.
‘These two figures don’t correspond.’ She pointed to a line in the ledger. ‘This company, Valma and Partners … The hours they worked for you don’t correspond to what they billed. According to my calculations, you should have been billed $6,400, but this invoice is for $64,000 dollars. That’s why the columns don’t tally.’
‘Those sneaky bastards!’ Demetrios thumped his fis
t on the desk. ‘The head of the company is one of my father’s oldest friends. You’d think he could be trusted, no? But this isn’t the first time we’ve been cheated by people we should be able to trust. That’s why we try to keep everything in the family.’ He was lost in thought for a moment, his brow creased in concentration. ‘My father will not like this.’
Shauna could see that it was a serious matter but she wasn’t sure how to respond. To her relief, Demetrios shook off his anger at the decption and said, ‘I must repay you for saving my company a lot of money. When we get to Ithos, I’m going to take you out myself in one of our boats. Then you will see the Ithos that I want you to see.’
Shauna felt a thrill at this, but couldn’t help thinking that, by the time they got to Ithos, she would have been forgotten. While he was genuinely grateful in the moment, he was a busy man and she was just a chambermaid, a helpful one who had just saved his family a lot of money, but a chambermaid all the same.
‘There’s nowhere quite like Ithos in the whole of the Greek Islands,’ he went on. ‘It is a jewel. It’s also my home.’ His eyes were distant for a moment.
Moved by his sudden quietness, she said softly, ‘It sounds as if you love it very much.’
‘I do. It’s the one place where I can be me.’
Shauna saw something in Demetrios then, a seriousness and honesty that his playboy persona belied, and it touched her. ‘I don’t think I know who me is,’ she said, wondering where her own candidness had come from.
‘One day you will, but first you must live a little, Sleeping Beauty.’ He looked at her then, holding her gaze, and Shauna felt her heart quicken. She was convinced that he was going to reach out to her, and it was all she could do not to touch him first. For a moment she thought of the underwear strewn across his bed and wondered what it would feel like if she were the one sharing that bed.
Then Demetrios dropped his gaze and reached for the satellite phone. ‘Now you must excuse me, I have calls to make. Thank you again, Shauna O’Brien, I can see you are an asset to the Theodosis Shipping Company.’
Shauna hunted for an ironic smirk behind that comment but was surprised to find only sincerity. He was already punching out a number on the telephone and, as she crept out, she could hear him talking animatedly in Greek. As she made her way to her cabin, she couldn’t stop thinking of Ithos and wondering what might await her there.
Chapter 6
The following day, Shauna found herself on duty in the master suite again. She half hoped that she would run into Demetrios, but he was nowhere to be seen so she tidied his suite quickly, noting with satisfaction that there was no sign of Normandie’s lingerie this time.
As she went about her work, her thoughts kept returning to Demetrios. Jeremy had said that Demetrios would be attending a party at the Grimaldi palace tonight. What Shauna wouldn’t give to be to be a fly on that opulent wall right this moment. She imagined Princess Grace sitting on a Louis XV chair in her enormous dressing room, flicking through a copy of Vogue distractedly while her maid paraded a series of glamorous and elegant gowns before her so she could select what she would wear later for the reception. Her seventeen-year-old wild-child daughter, Princess Stephanie, beautiful, tanned and tempestuous, would come running in, demanding her mother’s attention, and the business of tonight’s outfit would have to wait while her mother listened to Stephanie’s excited chatter. Perhaps they would be catching up on the latest gossip about the rich and powerful Monaco elite … or maybe they’d be planning a trip to watch John McEnroe play in the French Open, or to visit Elton John backstage at his latest concert …
She was startled from her daydream by the rumble of tyres down below on the jetty as a bright red Ferrari screeched to a halt. She stepped to look over the side of the yacht at the open-topped sports car. In the driving seat was the unmistakable Normandie and Demetrios was beside her. It was clear that all was not well. Shauna took a step back to avoid being seen. She knew it was wrong to eavesdrop, but she was afraid to draw attention to herself by moving. So she stayed rooted to the spot as their words drifted up.
‘You are a shit, Demetrios! How dare you treat me this way.’ Shauna could hear the anger in the girl’s voice, and she could sense that the girl was on the verge of tears.
‘You are exaggerating,’ Demetrios answered her, his own voice cool and unemotional.
‘I saw you with that little whore, you didn’t even try to hide it.’
‘Sofía Constantis is the daughter of one of my father’s business associates. Of course I must spend time with her – it is my duty to show her around Monaco while she is here.’
‘Is it also your “duty” to take her back to her hotel for the night and then screw her?’ She spat the words at him, her voice rising a couple of notches.
‘Keep your voice down,’ he hissed. ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Why must you be so jealous and childish? Always demanding attention and throwing tantrums.’
‘You were seen leaving there this morning at seven a.m.’ Normandie’s voice was ragged with emotion.
Demetrios’s patience seemed to snap. ‘So, you’re having me followed now? What the fuck do you think you are playing at?’ Shauna was surprised by his anger. ‘I don’t answer to you, I’m not one of your horny little tennis players or ageing rock stars who think they need you on their arm to make them look good.’
‘You’re a bastard!’ Normandie sobbed.
‘And you’re an insecure, needy brat.’ His voice was like steel. ‘You can’t control me, and all you’ll get for trying is my contempt.’
‘Demetrios …’
Shauna couldn’t resist taking a peek. She saw Normandie reach out to Demetrios and try to put her arms around his neck, sobbing uncontrollably. Demetrios calmly took her arms, pushing them firmly away and then opened the car door and stepped away.
‘Tidy yourself up,’ he said, ‘you look a mess.’
Normandie didn’t answer but hung her head on the wheel of the car. Shauna could see her shoulders heaving as she cried. She didn’t know anything about Normandie, other than what she had heard, but she felt a tug of sympathy and wondered how Demetrios could treat her this way.
‘I’ll get one of the crew to drive you back to your villa; you aren’t fit to drive in your current state.’
At this the girl threw her head up and said defiantly, ‘I don’t need one of your minions, fuck you to hell.’ With that she reversed the car, the tyres throwing up gravel and smoke as she spun the vehicle around. But Demetrios was already making his way up the gangplank without a backward glance, heading to his quarters no doubt.
Shauna stepped out from the shadows and wondered at this new side to Demetrios. He was certainly a man of many faces.
That evening, after she had finished her day’s work, Shauna made her way to the small deck at the stern. She’d found an old paperback in the staff lounge: Chances, by Jackie Collins. According to the back cover, it told the story of Lucky Santangelo, the daughter of a gangster, and was set in the playgrounds of the rich and famous. It sounded just the thing to take her mind off the incident she’d witnessed earlier – try as she might she couldn’t stop thinking about Demetrios’s cold indifference to Normandie’s tears. How could the sensitive man she’d spent time with the previous day suddenly have turned into this heartless rat?
It was still preying on her mind when she sensed someone approaching along the gangway behind her. She turned to see Demetrios, clean-shaven, dressed in a sharp black Armani suit and bow tie. For a moment, she wondered if she’d conjured him up; he looked like a Greek James Bond, almost dazzling in his handsomeness. It was all Shauna could do to tear her eyes away and the realization made her want to laugh.
‘What are you doing, Beauty, with that secret smile on your face? Don’t you have somewhere exciting to be tonight?’
‘No. Some of the crew were going drinking in the town, but I didn’t want to go with them.’
‘Why not? A
ll work and no play makes Shauna a dull girl, no?’
‘I’m not dull.’ She was piqued by his teasing. ‘It’s not my scene, that’s all.’
‘And what is your scene?’ He nodded at her book, and Shauna felt a little ashamed of her trashy paperback; no doubt the sophisticated girls he mixed with would have better ways of spending the evening. She thought then of Normandie, and wondered if she was still drying her tears after his treatment of her.
‘Anyway, I’m glad you didn’t go,’ he said. ‘I have a favour to ask of you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes, tonight I must attend a reception at the Grimaldi palace. I would like you to be my guest.’
Shauna’s jaw dropped, making the shape of a large O. She didn’t know what to say.
‘But I … I … why me?’
‘Why not you?’
‘I’m just an ordinary girl, I don’t even have a dress.’ Shauna felt completely blindsided; could he really be serious? She felt annoyed at him, why would he want to take one of the ship’s crew to a party at the Grimaldi palace. ‘You’re teasing me, aren’t you? I don’t think this is very nice of you. I know I’m not important but I do have feelings, and making fun of me like this … well, it’s just cruel,’ she said, her voice shaking a little.
Demetrios shook his head and gently took her hand in his. ‘Shauna, the reason I am asking you is precisely because you do have feelings. If I have to spend one more hour in the company of the attention-seeking, insincere little fakes that take up way more of my time than they should, then I think I’d … well …’ He looked around him, trying to find the right words. ‘Well, I’d jump into the Mediterranean and swim back to Ithos.’
Shauna thought the look on his face was so sincere that she couldn’t help bursting into laughter. ‘That bad, is it?’ she asked.
He grinned. ‘You have no idea.’
‘Maybe I do,’ she replied, and the two of them smiled at each other. For a moment, Shauna felt his equal, two friends sharing an intimate joke. Then she remembered. ‘I really don’t have anything to wear.’
Under a Greek Moon Page 4
