The Touch of Aphrodite

by Joanna Mansell

'If you think you can handle the responsibility.'

  'Yes, I can,' she said at once, hoping that she could live up to the confident note in her voice.

  'You shouldn't run into any major problems. The hotel's usually fairly quiet at night.'

  'Even if there are problems, I'll cope with them,' Emily said firmly. She was determined to prove to Nikolaos that she was capable and competent, and that she had benefitted hugely from her intensive training over the past few weeks.

  Nikolaos looked at her assessingly for a few moments; then he gave a brief nod, and walked away.

  Emily went straight up to her room to get herself ready. When she glanced in the mirror, she saw that her eyes were shining with excitement. To be in charge of this large hotel, even if was only during the night, when things were much less hectic than in the daytime—it was both an exciting and terrifying prospect. She was sure that she was ready for this kind of responsibility, though, and she was certainly looking forward to it. She was almost disappointed when the evening went very smoothly, with no crises for her to deal with. The restaurant slowly emptied as guests drifted up to their rooms, the bar closed and takings were counted, then sent to the accounts manager. There had been a small private dinner party in one of the hotel's special function rooms, and Emily made a point of saying goodnight personally to the guests, and discreetly checking that they had enjoyed their evening and had no complaints. After that, the hotel slowly became very quiet as the staff who had been on the evening shift went home and the guests settled down for the night.

  Lights were switched off in the restaurant, bar, kitchens and function rooms, leaving only the main reception area staffed and lit. Emily began to make her way back to the small office she was using, intending to get on with some paperwork, but then heard her name being called by Maria, the girl on the reception desk.

  As she went over, she could see that Maria looked worried. 'What is it?'

  Emily asked.

  "There's a disturbance on the second floor,' Maria told her. 'Room twenty-two. Some of the guests in the nearby rooms have been phoning down and complaining; they say that it's keeping them awake.'

  'All right, I'll deal with it,' Emily said at once.

  'Shall I ask one of the night porters to come up with you?'

  'No,' Emily said, after a moment's thought. 'I can always send for them, if I need them. I'll just go up and see what the problem is. Who's in room twenty-two?'

  'A Mr Ron Carson. He checked in late this afternoon; he's here for a few days on a business trip.'

  'On his own?'

  Maria nodded.

  'Then perhaps the problem is that he s found company since he arrived, and is having a small private party,' Emily said drily. 'I'll turf out anyone who shouldn't be in that room, and politely remind him that other people are trying to sleep.'

  'Be careful,' Maria warned.

  'Don't worry, I'll be fine,' Emily assured her.

  'Are you sure you don't want to take one of the night porters with you?'

  'No. I'm going to try and handle the situation myself. It'll be good practice; it's the kind of thing that happens now and again in hotels, and I need experience in coping with it.'

  Maria looked doubtful, but Emily gave her a reassuring smile and then ran quickly and confidently up the stairs. Be polite but firm, she instructed herself. She was sure that Mr Carson would be willing to listen to reason. As she approached room twenty-two, she soon realised why the guests in the adjoining rooms were complaining. She could hear loud, tuneless singing in a deep male voice, stopping for a few moments and then starting up again, the same song, as if the singer didn't know any other.

  Emily knocked lightly on the door; then, when heobviously didn't hear, rapped more loudly. The door to the next room opened and an irate guest peered out. 'About time,' he grumbled. 'This has been going on for ages.'

  'I'm very sorry, I'm going to put a stop to it right now,' Emily told him.

  'Please go back to bed, and accept my apologies for the disturbance.'

  The guest looked slightly placated and disappeared back into his own room. Emily knocked on Mr Carson's door one more time, then tried the handle. It turned easily, the door wasn't locked. Cautiously, she pushed it open and went inside.

  The room was medium-sized, and comfortably furnished with a double bed, an armchair, wardrobe and plenty of cupboards. Mr Carson was sitting slumped in the armchair, crooning softly to himself now. He looked to be in his forties, rather overweight and very red in the face. He was also obviously very drunk.

  He looked up, saw her, and his expression immediately became belligerent.

  "Who are you?' he demanded. 'And what are you doing in my room?'

  'My name is Emily Peterson,' she told him. 'I'm the night manager. Mr Carson, I'm afraid that we've been getting a lot of complaints. You're making a great deal of noise, and keeping some of our other guests awake.'

  He took no notice of what she had said, but instead just kept staring at her, his eyes a little wild and unfocused. 'This is a private room,' he said at last, in an angry tone. 'You've no right just to walk in here.'

  'I've not only got the right to be here, I've also got the right to ask you to leave if you continue to make a disturbance,' Emily said, deliberately keeping her voice very calm and courteous. 'It's late at night, Mr Carson, and I think that it's time you stopped singing —and drinking —and tried to get some sleep.'

  He got to his feet, and Emily involuntarily took a step backwards. He was a heavily built man, and suddenly looked very threatening. She began to regret her decision to come up here on her own, but told herself that now she was here she had to cope with the situation.

  'Don't tell me what I can or can't do,' he said hostilely. 'I've paid for this room, I've got rights.'

  Emily decided to try another tack. 'You're here on a business trip, aren't you, Mr Carson?'

  'Yes, I am,' he said suspiciously. 'Not that that's any business of yours,' he added, glaring at her and swaying a little on his feet.

  'You'll need a clear head if you've got meetings to attend and deals to negotiate. Why don't you sleep for a while? When you wake up in the morning, you'll feel refreshed and relaxed, and ready for work,' she said persuasively.

  Ron Carson's eyes suddenly gleamed. 'You could help me relax,' he said in a slurred voice. 'A pretty girl like you —I'm sure that you'd be really good at something like that.'

  Emily had enough common sense to realise that this situation was beginning to get out of hand. Never mind about her resolution to cope with it on her own, to prove that she could tackle any problems that came up. It was time to get some help.

  She began to move towards the door. 'Where are you going?' Ron Carson demanded at once.

  'I have to go and see someone,' Emily said, and this time it was a real effort to keep her voice sounding calm. 'I'll be back in just a few minutes.'

  He suddenly lunged towards the door, moving with surprising speed for someone so drunk. 'You're not walking out on me,' he shouted. 'Everyone walks out on me; even my wife walked out, said I was a rotten husband. I'm sick of it, it's got to stop, so you're staying right here!'

  Emily's heart had begun to pound so loudly that it was making her feel slightly dizzy, but she knew she had to get out of this room. 'I won't be gone for long,' she tried to assure him shakily, but his arms were waving wildly now, he seemed to be losing all control.

  'No,' he yelled, 'you're staying here; I'm going to make you stay.'

  Emily ducked away from him; she had already decided to make a run for it; all she had to do was weave past him and get that door open. As she moved, though, one of his arms flailed round and hit her hard, knocking her off balance so that she nearly stumbled to the floor. Panic instantly shot through her, the fear of physical violence, a fear that had lain dormant for many years but suddenly flared into life again. She found herself seized by a crippling paralysis; she couldn't even seem to breathe and she certainly couldn't run.


  Then the door was abruptly thrown open, a dark figure moved swiftly into the room, and only seconds later Ron Carson had been pinned down on the bed and was being held there by powerful arms.

  Nikolaos briefly turned his head and looked at Emily, his black eyes brilliant with a mixture of anger and tension. 'Are you all right?' he demanded. 'Did he hurt you?'

  Emily was sure that he was angry at her because she hadn't been able to control the situation. She tried to say something, but couldn't; her throat seemed to have seized up. And although she was sweating with fright she was also freezing cold; she could feel herself shivering violently. Nikolaos held Ron Carson in place with just one hand while he reached for the phone. He spoke into it swiftly and curtly for just a few seconds. In no time at all, two of the night porters appeared at the door, and seized hold of Ron Carson.

  'Take care of him,' Nikolaos said abruptly. 'You know what to do.' Then he turned back to Emily. 'Can you walk?'

  Somehow, she found her voice again. 'Of course I can,' she croaked. Her legs were still trembling so violently, though, that he had to hook one hand under her arm to keep her upright. He guided her along the corridor, past the wide-eyed guests who had come out to see what the commotion was all about, and then up in the lift to his suite of rooms at the very top of the hotel.

  Emily had been to his office before, but not the rooms that were reserved for his own personal use. They were luxuriously furnished in plain colours, and he sat her in a soft leather armchair, then fixed his dark gaze on her again.

  "All right,' he said in a rather grim tone, 'now tell me exactly what happened.'

  'There —there were complaints of a disturbance in room twenty-two,'

  Emily said in a very quavery voice. 'I went up there and the man —he was drunk —and singing —and I explained that the other guests were trying to sleep, but he didn't care; then I tried to get help, but he closed the door. And his arms were swinging about, I got knocked —'

  "He hit you?' Nikolaos cut in incredulously. For a moment, he looked so furious that Emily shrank back. Then she realised that he wasn't angry at her; his fury was directed at the man who had behaved so loutishly.

  'No —well, yes —he didn't mean to, I'm sure he didn't,' she said rather incoherently, her teeth beginning to chatter as she remembered all over again how frightened she had been, how terrified that, in a drunken temper, he would begin to hit her purposefully.

  'Are you hurt?' he said quickly. 'Do you need a doctor?'

  'No, no, I'm not hurt.'

  His eyes remained locked on to her own hugely dilated pupils. 'But something's wrong. You must have seen men drunk before, most women have, you know how stupidly and irrationally they can behave. You had an extremely unpleasant experience tonight —and it could have been a great deal more unpleasant if Maria hadn't had the sense to phone me and tell me there was a problem —but you say that you're not hurt, and you've dealt with other problem guests over the past few weeks, and you coped with them very well. Why was tonight different? You were trembling from head to foot when 1 came into that room. You're still shaking,' he pointed out. Emily managed to get a little control over her quivering limbs. 'I'm fine,' she mumbled.

  'No, you're not." He moved closer and looked at her more intensely. 'What's the matter with you, Emily?'

  'I'm all right,' she insisted, frantically fighting back the fresh prickling of tears behind her eyes. She managed to get to her feet. 'I have to get back to my office; I'm still on duty.'

  With the quick, easy movement of just one hand, Nikolaos forced her back into the armchair again.

  'You're not leaving here until I find out what this is all about.' ,

  'Look,' she said, making a huge effort to gather herself together, 'I had a bad experience, but it's over now, and I want to get back to work.'

  'I'm taking you off duty for the rest of the night. And I think that someone should be with you. You're not in a fit state to be left on your own. I'll ask Maria to sit with you for a while.'

  'I don't need anyone with me,' she said stubbornly.

  Nikolaos sat down opposite her, and looked directly into her feverishly over-bright eyes.

  'Why not?'

  'Because —' she began. Then she clammed up. 'It's none of your business.'

  'This is my hotel, that man was one of my guests, and I'm making it my business,' Nikolaos said tautly. 'I'm giving you two choices. Either you talk to me and tell me why you reacted so badly to what happened this evening, or I'm sending for a doctor. You're behaving very strangely, Emily.'

  'I don't want a doctor,' she said at once. 'I don't want anyone to know —'

  'Know what?' Nicolaos questioned her relentlessly, his dark eyes still boring straight into her own.

  "That — that I can still get upset over something like this,' she muttered at last.

  He gave a quick frown. 'And what did upset you so much? The man's drunkenness?'

  She shook her head. 'No,' she said in a low voice. She had to force the words out now. This was such a very private fear, something that she never spoke about to anyone. 'It was —it was the threat of violence. The way he hit me.'

  'But you said it was accidental,' Nikolaos reminded her sharply. 'And that you weren't hurt.'

  'Yes, but it —brought back bad memories,' she whispered, so quietly that he could only just hear her.

  Nikolaos's eyes abruptly narrowed. 'Of someone who hit you on purpose?'

  he said in a harsh voice. 'And did hurt you?'

  Emily didn't answer him. She couldn't seem to say any more. Even Dimitri hadn't known about it, and she and her mother had carefully avoided the subject for years.

  'Who, Emily?' demanded Nikolaos. 'A lover?' Then his expression suddenly changed. 'Not Dimitri,' he said fiercely. 'Don't ever try and tell me that Dimitri would do something like that!'

  'No, of course it wasn't Dimitri,' Emily said at once. 'He was one of the kindest, gentlest men I ever knew. It —it happened long before he came back into our lives. When I was young —'

  A look of incredulity spread over Nikolaos's taut features. 'Your father?' he said in clear disbelief. 'Are you talking about your father?'' Emily realised that his was the automatic reaction of a Greek man who put the protection and love of his family before all else, and couldn't believe that another man would do otherwise. But she knew differently. Her head came up and she looked back at him defiantly. 'Do you think that I'm lying?' She pulled up the sleeve of her blouse. 'Feel my arm,' she said with some bitterness. ' Feel it!'

  His strong fingers ran over the smoothness of her skin, but then stopped at a certain point. 'There are old scars here,' he said slowly. 'And there's something wrong with the bone.'

  'My father knocked me to the ground so hard that I broke my arm,' Emily said in a suddenly choked voice. 'The bone-splintered, it wouldn't set properly afterwards. And something inside of me has never quite healed. Violence still frightens me, I hate it, hate it!'

  And then, to her utter consternation, the tears she had been holding back so valiantly began to pour down her face in an unstoppable flood. CHAPTER FIVE

  NIKOLAOS 'S face darkened, but his voice was unexpectedly gentle as he murmured to her soothingly, as he might have done to an upset child. Emily found herself supplied with a clean white handkerchief, and then his warm fingers gripped her hands until they stopped shaking. When the worst of the tears were over, he then coaxed her into drinking just enough brandy to help her get control of herself again.

  When she finally looked at Nikolaos with her bruised, reddened eyes, though, she immediately shrank back when she saw the anger still clearly written on his face.

  'I —I'm sorry,' she mumbled. 'I shouldn't have told you, shouldn't have made this embarrassing scene. It's nothing to do with you, not your problem.'

  'Do you think I'm angry at youT he said incredulously.

  'Aren't you?' she said in a small voice.

  'I'm angry at anyone, man or woman, who treats a child like that,' he
said, in a barely controlled tone. 'That kind of abuse is quite unforgivable, there's nothing in this world that can excuse it.'

  Emily gave a tired shake of her head. 'You can't say that; you don't know the circumstances —'

  'I don't need to know them,' he cut in, in a hard voice.

  'He —my father —he wasn't like it all the time. And when something did happen he was always so sorry afterwards. There were expensive toys, special treats —'

  'Given out of guilt,' Nikolaos said ruthlessly.

  Since Emily knew that was the truth, she didn't reply.

  'Did you love him?' Nikolaos asked abruptly, a few moments later.

  'I don't know,' Emily said softly. 'I tried to, I knew that I ought to, he was my father. And when he died I was sad, but there was also this enormous sense of relief. And that made me feel guilty for such a long, long while, because I knew that I shouldn't feel like that.'

  'How did he die?'

  'He worked on the oil rigs, there was an accident, an explosion--'

  'How old were you?'

  'Ten. Nearly eleven.'

  'That's a very impressionable age. How long had he been knocking you around?' Nikolaos asked with a directness that should have upset her all over again, and yet didn't.

  'I'm not sure. I can't quite remember. I suppose since I was about five or six.'

  Nikolaos muttered something almost violently under his breath.

  'You're making it sound as if he did it all the time, but he didn't,' Emily added defensively. 'And now that I'm older I can understand it more. My mother's second marriage —it wasn't happy. She married my father on the rebound, after she and Dimitri were divorced. She was still in love with Dimitri, though, she never really loved anyone else. And my father must have known that; I remember rows, accusations. And I don't think —' Emily hesitated for a moment, because this was all getting far too personal, but she had bottled all of this up inside her for too long, she desperately needed to talk about it. 'I don't think that my mother would sleep with him for those last few years,' she blurted out. 'It made my father angry, frustrated, and he just lashed out blindly when it all got too much for him. And, sometimes, I just happened to be in the way.'