Oriel felt the colour mounting in her cheeks but she stared unblinkingly back at the Greek diva. ‘If you really believe Damian is interested in me, I’m surprised you’re so calm about it. That is, if you really are in love with him.’
Yolanda laughed, throwing her head back, and the sapphire-and-diamond earrings dangling from her lobes caught the light from the lantern in the hallway and shimmered as dangerously as the diva’s eyes. ‘At least you get to the point, Despinis Anderson. Yes, I’m in love with Damian, and he’s in love with me. Our love story goes way back and though we haven’t yet tied the knot, we’re still lovers. But I’m not blind to his faults. I don’t just love him, I know him and, most of all, I know how to handle him.’
‘Meaning?’
‘Damian is a womanizer. His natural charm and charisma attracts many young ingénues like you. Women have been trying to get their hands on him since we were teenagers.’ Yolanda threw her a disdainful grimace. ‘You’re not the first pretty girl he’s thrown his cap at, you know. But he doesn’t usually go for insipid foreign blondes … the milk-and-cookies type is too bland for such a passionate man. That ninny-just-out-of-school appeal won’t last with him.’ She gave a contemptuous laugh. ‘What can you give him that he won’t soon find boring? You are like syrup when what he needs is pepper …’
This was awful. Oriel stared unblinkingly back at the singer, frozen, unable to find a response.
Yolanda moved closer to her with feline grace. ‘But you see, although Damian wanders away from me occasionally to give you or some other blue-eyed woman a whirl, he always comes back.’
A stab of jealousy pierced Oriel but she managed to shrug. ‘I don’t believe I’d care to have a man like that. Besides, you’re wrong about Kyrios Lekkas and me. I’m just an employee.’
‘Believe me, after all this time I know the signs. Damian wants to take you to bed and that doesn’t worry me, you see … we’re lovers, special lovers.’ Yolanda’s small pink tongue outlined the full curve of her lips in the same sensual way it had that morning when she had clung close to Damian, and she laughed suddenly. ‘He’s a terrific lover, the kind of man no woman in her right mind would turn down, if you know what I mean.’
Oh yes, Oriel knew only too well what she meant.
‘Damian likes his women hot and tempestuous and I give him all that. You wouldn’t be able to hold him. You have no alahtee, no salt, as we say in Greek. You can’t even begin to understand the Greek woman’s capacity for passion.’ Yolanda’s hands stirred the air with emphatic gestures as she spoke, flames smouldering in her eyes. ‘He’s all fire, and there’s something frosty about you, Despinis Anderson. You’re all alike, you pale and insipid northern women, you run after our men but have about as much knowledge of their true nature as you have of a lion.’
Although she felt as if a steel door had slammed inside her, Oriel managed to force a smile. ‘I don’t know why you’re telling me this, Despinis Christodoulou. I have no interest in Kyrios Lekkas and I’m not particularly fond of your island so you have nothing to worry about. As soon as the job is finished, I’ll be off.’
Yolanda arched a speculative eyebrow. ‘That’s good. You’re an intelligent lady, I wouldn’t want you to get hurt. As I’ve said, Damian may stray from time to time but he comes back eventually because he is inside here …’ She bunched the fingers of her hand together and tapped her heart. ‘Eínai orycheío, he’s mine.’
‘And what if he falls in love with someone else? I mean, really in love?’ Oriel couldn’t help saying. Her polite English coolness carried an edge with it – and a meaning Yolanda couldn’t fail to understand.
Oriel saw the shock of the implication in her words drill through the dusky woman. The singer’s dark eyes narrowed and she gave her a hard, calculating look. ‘Then I might have to take more drastic action.’ Although the smoky tones of Yolanda’s cultured voice hadn’t changed, Oriel recognized the almost mafiosa quality in her conclusion. She couldn’t help noticing how Yolanda’s expertly applied make-up concealed harsh lines around her mouth. That was a bald threat, one the diva made no effort to conceal.
Oriel didn’t answer, she was too dazed by the whole conversation.
‘I must go now. Damian is meeting me for a drink at Manoli’s before I go out.’ She gave a rueful smile. ‘He doesn’t like to be kept waiting, and I’m already late.’ Yolanda placed a perfectly manicured hand on Oriel’s arm. While her voice was saccharine, her eyes held no hint of a smile. ‘I’m so glad we’ve had this little conversation … and that we understand each other.’ With that, she was through the door and, before Oriel knew it, she was gone.
Oriel went back to the kitchen. Too angry to eat, she made herself a cup of tea then forced herself to have some fruit. She was aware that her hands were clenched, her nails digging into her palms. She didn’t unlock her fists immediately but stretched out her arms and then, very slowly, tried to open one finger after another until she was able to spread them out completely. Then she opened and closed her hands a few times to work off the tension.
Yolanda was, Oriel decided dismally, a finished, polished work of art and she was in love with Damian, there was no mistaking that. She had shamelessly flirted with him that morning and now she had come, claws out, to defend what she thought was hers. There was hate in this woman, she felt, the kind born out of frustrated love. It was eating at her heart like a cancer, and it made her dangerous …
It had been difficult to see what Damian thought of such an open parade of emotions. He’d been as reserved as ever, and certainly annoyed with Yolanda that morning, even offering a sharp rebuke when the singer stepped over the line. But had his irritation not stemmed from the fact that he was feeling compromised? Caught between two lovers, just when he was trying to make up lost ground with Oriel …
If there had been the slightest remains of a voice in Oriel’s subconscious clamouring her love for Damian, it was now stifled and it sank, mute, within her. It wasn’t enough to love someone, you had to trust them, and the atmosphere between Damian and Yolanda that morning and the words of the diva this evening did not make for a feeling of trust.
It was a long time that night before Oriel found escape from her troubled thoughts in sleep. Too much had happened too soon, she told herself, making her feelings towards Damian such a tangle of emotions that the logical processing of them was impossible. Perhaps, given a few days, she might have been able to rationalize the whole situation. Still, would that be possible now that she was about to spend several days and nights in close proximity with this man, who played havoc not only with every cell in her body but also with her mind?
CHAPTER 11
Damian ran down the cliffs. He could see Oriel ahead of him, laughing and beckoning, but the faster he ran, the faster she did also. It seemed that she could run much more quickly than him, for he panted and sweated as he went, and sometimes lost her altogether.
He called out to her but she wouldn’t wait for him. Then at last he caught up with her and she was not alone. Vassilis was there with his arm around her shoulders, laughing at Damian and calling him énas anóitos, a fool. Damian struck him and suddenly they were not Oriel and Vassilis but Cassandra and Pericles.
The agony of hurt smote him and he moaned as Cassandra and Pericles moved away from him before, once again, he saw Oriel. Now she was sitting on a rock, gloriously naked, her hair tumbling freely over her bare shoulders and chest in a torrent of moonspun silk. Under the night sky the water at her feet was liquid black, glistening like obsidian.
Oriel stretched out luxuriantly on the mossy rock, her flesh the colour of alabaster, provocatively exposing herself to him. When, with a languorous smile, she signalled him to come closer, Damian obeyed. He stood in front of her as though transfixed, like an artist memorizing each detail, his eyes languidly tracing her form: from her firm, ripe, rounded breasts with their dusky pink areolae, over her slender waist and smooth belly to the pale triangle between her white-skinned, sli
ghtly parted thighs. Her body was eloquent, and each feature of her face was beckoning him to explore her.
His appraisal finished, Damian continued to watch her with leaping eyes, knowing things about her, secrets they had shared. He sucked in a breath and his mouth went dry. He’d like nothing more than to kneel beside her and draw every luscious line on this canvas with his tongue. Lightning fires seared through him. He was ablaze, a mass of tension and desire; pulsing beats strained his muscles and his loins throbbed, desperately seeking release. Damian felt himself grow painfully harder, near breaking point, yearning to be a part of Oriel, at one with her.
And then, as he bent down to taste her, they appeared from behind a boulder – Vassilis, Pericles and Rob – and Oriel burst out laughing. Her laugh was so loud, it echoed over the cliffs, awakening the birds sleeping in the trees; they flew out shrieking, joining their eerie cries to the sounds of Oriel’s mirth.
Soaking with sweat, Damian jerked awake, his eyes blank and staring, mouth bitter with bile. His ears were still full of the disquieting sounds of his nightmare and blood pounded in his head, while a strange pressure constricted his chest. He couldn’t think or move, as if he were locked in a freeze-frame. Glancing at his aching hands he realized that he had curled his fingers into tight fists as if needing to strike someone. Shoulders drooping, he growled inwardly as he looked down at the hard, swollen evidence of his desire, his whole body a sea of pain, the bittersweet ache spreading through him like quicksilver.
The room was still and hot. He glanced at the clock on his bedside table: it was three o’clock. Shaking his head, he wiped the perspiration off his face and ran a trembling hand through his hair and down his unshaven jaw. Pushing himself up, he reached out for his cigarettes, snatched one from the packet and lit it. He inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with the nicotine, his only release for the time being. The most frustrating fact was that, from the first moment he knew Oriel had applied for the archaeologist job, he hadn’t been able to take another woman to his bed. Why did she have such a hold over him even though they hardly knew each other? But he knew the answer …
‘Oriel …’ he whispered, and her name resounded like a soft agonizing sigh in the quiet bedroom, long and tremulous. She was such a contrast: there was a certain shyness about her; something in her eyes that spoke of innocence … until she was in his arms in the throes of passion, when she became a weaver of sensual fantasy. He loved her voice, full of layers, husky and supple with dips and slows. The intonation of her moans excited him even more: low, voluptuous and erotic. He had sensed the magic that first faraway night on Aegina and wouldn’t have walked away if fate had not intervened. If only he hadn’t seen that one misleading photograph.
A stroke of luck had brought them together again and he couldn’t forget their night together in the Room of Secrets; he still trembled at the thought of it and knew he had to hold on to her, as passionately and fiercely as he could, for always.
He smiled grimly to himself. If fate did exist, then the gods must have been jealous of his fortune and had decreed otherwise. They had set the Moirae on him in the shape of Helena and Vassilis, and probably even Yolanda. Damian sighed. Of course he hadn’t been blind to his former mistress’s open overtures the previous day and knew how it must have looked in front of Oriel. He cursed under his breath.
It’s funny how, sometimes, the people you’d take a bullet for are the ones behind the trigger.
Well, at least in the past he’d have felt that way about Yolanda. No longer.
He should have said something at the time, but what? He could read Oriel like a book and it had been neither the time nor the place to open that particularly sensitive subject. He would talk to her during their journey.
Still, he wished that he could set the clock back, wipe the slate clean, and that he and Oriel could start all over again – except he knew only too well that you can never go back. Once the wine is drawn, it must be drunk, goes the proverb. The torments of his past could never be erased, nor could his blindly jealous outburst with Oriel. It was done now.
Would she ever be able to forgive the cruel words he had said to her? Would she ever trust him again enough to surrender herself – her all – to him once more?
He had been mortified when Mattias had rung to tell him why Oriel hadn’t spent the night at Heliades; mortified when he realized how unfair he had been towards her, condemning her once again without proof; ashamed at the unfounded thoughts his imagination had conjured up. He had galloped on his horse, Ánemos, all round the island until dawn to relieve the tension cramping every limb in his body. Still, Mattias’s words had also been a relief: they signified that Damian had been mistaken and was responsible for all his torment, not Oriel.
He had expected Oriel to look tired when he saw her but had been shocked to see that she looked more than simply fatigued. She was pale, the smooth skin beneath her eyes smudged with purple shadows. Yet to him she still looked the most beautiful woman on earth and he wanted her with a craving that ran much deeper than anything physical; it was soul-deep … beyond anything and everything he had felt before.
Still, gazing into her dark-green eyes, he’d read that she was nowhere near trusting him – she was afraid of him, he thought, afraid of the animal passion they shared, which she craved as much as he did. It meant that he had to tread carefully, bide his time, be patient, a trait which did not come easily to him; but Oriel was worth waiting for.
Life had suddenly become complicated for Damian. Romance was complex enough without tossing in vexing outside influences to muddy the waters. Already he’d had more than his fair share of pain during his lifetime. He had always dealt with the hurt by burying himself in his work: it had been his escape, his deliverance, his obsession. And now, having admitted to one obsession, he could recognize another.
Damian lay there brooding, lighting up one cigarette after another until finally, cursing again, he stubbed out the last and dragged a hand over his face. It was almost four-thirty – time to get up if he wanted to be on time for Oriel. He needed a shave and a long hot shower to get rid of the frustration, the sweat and the cigarette smoke, although Oriel had told him the other night that the smell of Gitanes, mingled with the fragrance of his aftershave and his maleness, turned her on.
Oriel turned on … no, he mustn’t think of that now … mustn’t think of the hot, erotic, scandalous things they did to each other when she allowed her emotions free rein. Damian swore under his breath. Desire twisted inside him like a hot knife. He was rock hard again … No, he needed to pull himself together, he chided, as he headed towards the bathroom.
* * *
When Damian arrived at the staff house to collect Oriel, the stars had faded in the sky, leaving it a translucent blue that soon turned to lilac. In the pale light before dawn, Helios had a look of sleep about it; the dominant impression was one of deep abiding peace. It was misty; the birds were just beginning to whisper in the trees. Over the sea came a chill soft wind, sweeping in across the slumbering island.
Oriel had come down to the kitchen to have some breakfast. She was wearing khaki shorts with a striped, tone-on-tone, beige men’s-style shirt, tied in a knot at the front, and a pair of comfortable canvas shoes. As the doorbell went, her foolish heart gave that too familiar leap and she looked out of the window to see Damian – handsome as ever – in sea-faded canvas shorts that showed off his lithe, strong thighs, and a red shirt with the sleeves rolled above the elbows of his muscular arms. As far as she could assess, the traces of the fight of two nights ago seemed to have almost vanished. Definitely the swelling had gone down, and the bruise was only a shadow on his jaw. Oriel put down the kettle she was about to fill and went to the door.
‘Good morning, Calypso. Up and ready, I see.’ Damian beamed as she appeared on the threshold.
‘Good morning,’ she replied, trying to ignore his smiling voice that seemed to imply so much more than the lightly spoken words.
‘Sleep well?’
His blinding, charismatic grin was unforgivable.
‘Very.’ It was a lie, of course. She’d barely closed her eyes through the long eternity of the night but she wasn’t about to tell him that and changed the subject quickly. ‘I was just going to have something to eat. Would you like to join me?’
‘Thank you, but there’s a delicious breakfast waiting for us aboard Alcyone. You might find that the food tastes better while you’re watching the sun come up over the sea, instead of eating it in a dreary staff house kitchen. What do you think, eh?’
‘I suppose so,’ she conceded.
He pointed at a Havana-coloured backpack. ‘Is that your bag?’ he asked, picking it up.
‘Yes, thank you.’
‘Do you have any sun cream? You’ll need it. There’s barely any shade on Delos other than in the museum or the small cafeteria, where I would feel ashamed to take you. No roofs, hardly any trees. It’s a pretty stark place.’
‘Don’t worry, I have everything I need.’
‘Well, don’t forget your sunglasses, whatever you do. The light on Delos has a strange glitter that really dazzles the eyes. You’ll understand why it’s been described as the “whirling of silver wheels” when we get there. It takes a while to get used to, especially if you’ve got eyes the colour of yours.’
His gaze lingered on hers and she almost had to clear her throat. ‘Thanks, I’ve got a pair of dark glasses in my bag.’
‘Well then, if you’re ready, pahmeh, let’s go.’
Oriel followed Damian to the Jeep. He stowed her case in the back before helping her in, then walked round to slide beside her, his thigh brushing hers as he made himself comfortable. She shivered at this contact, but the early morning air was still cool and she pulled her collar up.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked and, without waiting for an answer, produced a plaid blanket from underneath his seat. ‘Here, put this around you.’
Aphrodite's Tears Page 48
