The Touch of Aphrodite

by Joanna Mansell

  'You're making excuses for him,' Nikolaos said harshly. 'And what he did was quite indefensible.'

  'No, I'm not making excuses,' Emily said in a low voice. 'I'm just saying that, now that I'm an adult, I understand better what can drive a man to behave like that. When I was a child, it was just —well, totally bewildering.'

  'And frightening,' Nikolaos said, his tone still grim.

  'Yes, very frightening,' she admitted softly. 'I didn't understand why it was happening, I kept thinking that I'd done something wrong, that it was somehow all my fault —'

  'Your mother,' Nikolaos cut in, 'she must have known what was going on. Why the hell didn't she stop it?'

  'Because she was frightened as well,' Emily said simply. 'He only hit me occasionally, but he hit her a lot, and sometimes hurt her quite badly.'

  'She should have walked out, and taken you with her.'

  'She was always sure that he would find her, no matter how far she ran. And my father always threatened that he would kill both of us, if he ever came home and found we weren't there.'

  'What on earth made her marry a man like that?' Nikolaos demanded.

  'My mother said that he wasn't like it when they first married. It was only when the marriage started to go wrong that the violence started. Then he began drinking heavily, which made things much worse. I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't been killed in that accident. I think that my mother would have left him —she would have had to, to save her sanity. But if he'd found us I think he might have killed us. He was probably capable of it, when he was in one of his drunken tempers.'

  Nikolaos was silent for quite some time. Then he finally said, 'I think you should get some rest. It's been a very long night. Do you want another brandy, to help you sleep?'

  Emily shook her head. 'No. I think that I'll be all right now. I'm sorry that I've caused all this trouble.'

  'You've caused me trouble since the day I first met you.' Yet his tone was unexpectedly soft, and when she got up and walked towards the door he followed her.

  Emily found herself swallowing hard. Telling him all those intimate things about herself seemed to have forged some kind of link between them. And from the dark glow that suddenly shone in his eyes she knew that he was aware of it, too.

  Nervously, she licked her lips, then realised almost at once that she shouldn't have done that. His gaze locked on to her soft, shining mouth, as if he would like to eat it. She felt her skin suddenly grow hot, and her breasts ached, as if they were being gently caressed. Yet he hadn't laid a finger on her, hadn't even tried to kiss her.

  Nikolaos took an unexpectedly deep breath, and then stepped back from her. 'I'll arrange for you to work the late shift tomorrow, so that you can sleep late,' he said in a carefully controlled voice. 'Goodnight, Emily.'

  'Goodnight,' she mumbled. Then she made herself walk away from his suite rather quickly, in case she was tempted to say —or do —something very silly. Like asking to stay a little longer. Asking to talk some more. And, perhaps, not only talk —

  Back in her own room, Emily showered and then got into bed. She felt much better than she had expected to feel. That flood of tears seemed to have finally washed away some of the bad memories of her frightening and often unhappy childhood. It was a long time before she got to sleep, though, and she had the feeling that it wasn't entirely because of that unpleasant encounter with Ron Carson. It had more to do with how much of herself she had revealed to Nikolaos. . .

  When Emily finally opened her eyes again, she immediately remembered last night and tensed up a little. Then she slowly relaxed again as she realised that she was OK, she had laid some of the ghosts of her past to rest, and she was ready to move forward again. She peered at the clock beside her bed, then her pale gold eyebrows shot up. It was eleven o'clock! The morning was almost over.

  She clambered out of bed and was just heading towards the bathroom when there was a knock on her door.

  Oh, good, she thought, one of the staff was being kind enough to bring her some coffee. She hoped it was strong and sweet. She still felt sleepy and needed something to help her wake up!

  Emily padded over to the door in her bare feet, and opened it. Then her sleepy eyes shot wide open as she found herself face to face with Nikolaos. She could feel herself slowly going bright red. Too late, she remembered that she was only wearing a baggy cotton T-shirt, pulled on before she had crawled into bed last night. Right now, Emily wished that she was wearing a pair of very respectable pyjamas.

  'I —er —I overslept,' she mumbled at last.

  'So I see,' Nikolaos said drily. At the same time, his dark eyes fixed on her, and she was sure that they were taking in every detail, from her tousled blonde curls to her bare legs and feet.

  'I d-don't usually open the door dressed like this,' she said, and she was annoyed to hear that slight stammer in her voice. She really had to get over this awful nervousness that he could so easily provoke in her. 'I thought

  —well, I thought it was one of the girls bringing me a cup of coffee.'

  She fervently wished that he would stop looking at her. There was something about his eyes this morning that made all her nerve-ends twitch and jump uncomfortably. They glittered so very brightly, as if there were a small flame burning in their depths.

  Nikolaos finally seemed to realise how intently he was staring at her. His face became more shuttered and his voice, when he finally spoke to her, was quite formal again.

  'When you've dressed, I'd like you to come to my office,' he told her. Emily started to say something but found that, for some strange reason, her throat had gone completely dry. She cleared her throat and tried again.

  'I'll be there in ten minutes.'

  This time, she managed not to stammer, but her voice was definitely quavery. What on earth's the matter with me this morning? she thought edgily.

  Whatever it was, she was quite sure that it would improve considerably if Nikolaos would just turn round and walk away. Was he going to stand there all day, staring at her in that disturbingly intense way? When he finally wheeled round and strode off, though, she was aware of a deep twinge of disappointment. She hurriedly closed the door, then leant against it, because she had discovered that her knees had gently begun to shake.

  Why was she reacting like this? she wondered worriedly. And hadn't Nikolaos also been acting rather oddly? Really, everything had become very peculiar since yesterday. And she still couldn't quite believe that she had told Nikolaos all those extremely personal things about herself, actually talked to him about her father, confessed all the dark secrets of her childhood.

  Emily shook her head. That encounter with the drunken Ron Carson must have affected her even more than she had realised, or she would never have told Nikolaos so many of her secrets. The fact that he now knew so much about her made her feel horribly vulnerable.

  And she still had to cope with that summons to his office. What did he intend to say to her, when she got there? As Emily quickly showered and then dressed, she found that her legs still felt uncomfortably unsteady. When she was finally ready, she took the lift up to his office. Then she paused outside the door for a few moments, to take a couple of deep breaths. Suddenly impatient with herself for letting him affect her like this, she tossed her head, sending rebellious gold curls dancing in all directions, opened the door, and quickly walked inside.

  Nikolaos was sitting behind his desk, his features dark, his mouth set in a taut line.

  'Take a seat," he said, and something about his tone of voice made Emily immediately obey.

  'After that incident last night, I want to lay down some rules for the future,'

  he went on. 'In future, if there are any reports of trouble in a guest's room, you will not go up there by yourself. Similarly, any cases of drunkenness in any part of the hotel will be dealt with by a male member of staff." But although this man could make her feel so vulnerable—and quite a lot of other things that were equally disturbing! —Emily
wasn't ready to let him treat her like a child. 'Look, I know that I made a terrible mess of things last night,' she said, 'but if the same kind of situation comes up in the future I'm sure that I'll be able to cope with it.' She was determined not to let him use last night's fiasco as an excuse for branding her incompetent. She forced herself to give him a bright smile. 'I realise that I should have handled it differently from the very start, got help as soon as I saw the state Mr Carson was in. I've enough experience to know that you don't walk into that kind of situation on your own.'

  His dark eyes bored into her. 'If last night is anything to go by, it seems that your experience of that kind of situation is extremely limited. In fact, for a girl of your age, you seem amazingly naive about men and the way they can behave.'

  'I don't think that I'm naive," she said indignantly. 'And I know about men. I've had boyfriends.'

  "I wasn't talking about sexual experience,' Nikolaos said curtly, making her skin suddenly burn as she realised that she had made a bad mistake.

  "Although if your behaviour on the night of the masquerade ball is anything to go by you're certainly not lacking in that.'

  'What do you mean?' she said furiously.

  His own black eyes had begun to glitter dangerously. 'Only that you kissed almost every man in the room. And appeared to enjoy it.'

  'I did not kiss every man there,' Emily denied, in outrage. 'Just a few. And they were only friendly kisses! Except for —' She abruptly stopped, because she had been about to say, Except for the kisses that you gave me. Only that wouldn't have been wise. Not wise at all.

  She was alarmed to find that Nikolaos's gaze had moved to her mouth as if he, too, was remembering those kisses. He got up from behind the desk, and she, too, jumped to her feet. The room suddenly seemed full of a tension that was quite unlike anything she had ever experienced before. The very air seemed to crackle with it; she could almost see the small electric sparks jumping between them.

  'There's one easy way to find out just how experienced you are,' he said softly. And before Emily had a chance to ask nervously what it was he leant forward and slid his fingers through her bright gold curls so that they tumbled over his fingers; then he gripped them tightly, so that she couldn't pull away from him.

  His mouth, when it closed over hers, was almost hard enough to hurt, experienced enough to know how to drown the fierceness of the kiss in a swift wave of pleasure. Emily had never been kissed like that in her life before; part of her shrank away from the sheer physical force of it, but another part of her seemed to flare into life as brand-new sensations rushed through her. It was the most terrifying thing that had ever happened to her, because she could feel herself losing control, and she had never done that with any man before.

  The kiss went on and on, until she couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't hear anything except the hard, erratic thumping of her heart. One of Nikolaos's hands remained tangled in her hair, making sure that she couldn't get away. The other slid over her bare wrist, moved up her arm; her skin felt raw from his touch and yet she wanted him to go still further, she loved feeling like this. And Nikolaos knew it; she was absolutely certain that he knew it. She heard his breathing quicken, felt his powerful body tense, and then he was hard against her, as if he would like to drown himself in her softness and warmth. Desire pulsed between them like a dangerous, uncaged animal, ready to spring, seize, devour. Heat surged through Emily's body, she was giddy, aching, longing for more, terrified of what was going to happen, every nerve utterly raw, but most of all wanting-- And he knew exactly how to satisfy that want; his fingers unerringly found the most responsive, the most vulnerable curves and hollows of her body, his mouth could turn a kiss into a turmoil of a hundred different sensations. But his control of his own desire was slipping; he pulled her more tightly against him, the hot closeness bringing both satisfaction and a raging need for even more intimate contact.

  Emily found herself shivering in anticipation, closed her eyes as his hand slid beneath the soft cotton of her blouse. Then she stiffened at the sound of a discreet knock on the door, and felt Nikolaos similarly freeze.

  'Mr Konstantin,' said his secretary's voice nervously and apologetically,

  'there is someone here to see you.'

  Nikolaos abruptly drew back, his eyes dark as night. He seemed to get control of himself again very quickly, but it was a few more moments before Emily could even speak.

  'I —I'd better go,' she managed to mumble at last.

  'Yes, I think that you had,' he said tautly.

  Emily ran her fingers through her dishevelled curls, and tried to breathe normally again as she headed rather blindly towards the door. She thought that, at the last moment, Nikolaos might try and stop her leaving, but he didn't. She supposed that he, too, had realised just how close the situation had come to running completely out of control. And from his silence now she guessed that he didn't like it; such a lack of control was something entirely new to him.

  As Emily went through to the outer office, where Nikolaos's secretary worked, she was brought to a halt with an abrupt jolt because it was Nikolaos's cousin Sofia who was waiting for him.

  Sofia looked exquisite this morning, in a beautifully cut pale cream suit and high-heeled, thin-strapped shoes. Every strand of her glossy black hair was set perfectly into place, and she wore just enough makeup to enhance her dark, vivid features.

  By contrast, Emily still felt hot and extremely flustered after those devastating kisses. She also knew from the heat in her cheeks that there was a flush of hectic colour in her face, could feel that her mouth was swollen and bruised, and suspected that her eyes were far too bright. Sofia's dark gaze slid over Emily, and seemed to take in every dishevelled detail.

  'I thought that you would be working, not spending your time in Nikolaos's office,' she said at last, in an extremely cool voice.

  'I —we —there were some things we had to discuss,' Emily said rather incoherently.

  Sofia looked as if she knew exactly what those things had been. And didn't like it one little bit. To Emily's relief, though, the door to Nikolaos's office opened again at that moment, and Nikolaos himself came out.

  'Emily, I —' he began in an edged voice. Then he saw Sofia, and his face changed; he gave his cousin a warm smile.

  'We have a lunch date,' Sofia reminded him, walking over and laying one hand possessively on his arm.

  'So we do,' he said, standing very close to his beautiful cousin.

  'Was there something you wanted to say to Emily?' Sofia asked, rather pointedly.

  'Nothing important,' he said smoothly.

  Emily took the hint and scuttled out of the office. She was deeply alarmed at the jealousy that had rushed through her as she had seen Nikolaos and Sofia together. Stupid, of course, because it shouldn't matter to her who he took to lunch, or spent his spare time with — or even slept with. An involuntary shiver ran down Emily's spine as she briefly thought of him in bed with the beautiful Sofia. It had probably happened, though. Nikolaos might have a very cynical attitude towards love, but he was still a highly sensual man. She staunchly shook her head and told herself not to think about it; he could sleep with whomever he liked, and it was absolutely nothing to do with her.

  She worked furiously hard for the rest of the day. The last twenty-four hours had been extremely disturbing in all different sorts of ways, but she knew that she was going to drive herself a little crazy if she couldn't stop thinking about them. She forced herself to concentrate only on the job in hand. Towards the end of her shift, she was beginning to congratulate herself on having succeeded. She was exhausted, but that was not surprising, since she had probably done the work of three people. She hadn't thought of Nikolaos for —oh,nearly half an hour, she told herself with a sense of accomplishment.

  Then one of the bellboys came with a message for her. Nikolaos wanted to see her in the hotel lobby as soon as was convenient.

  Emily's new-found composure instantly vanished. She
found herself rushing to the nearest mirror, to see if her mane of gold curls had got completely out of hand while she had been working. Then she was immediately furious with herself for behaving like that. She forced herself to march away from the mirror, although she couldn't resist one last glance, to check that she hadn't gone completely white with nerves.

  Of course, there was no reason to be nervous, she told herself as she made her way down to the lobby. It was just some small item about the running of the hotel that he wanted to discuss with her; he couldn't possibly have any other reason for wanting to see her.

  When she got there, she found that the lobby was fairly crowded, and realised at once that that was why he had chosen it for this meeting. With so many people around, there would be absolutely no chance of the situation between them getting out of control again.

  All the same, Emily's pulses were thumping uncomfortably hard as she walked towards Nikolaos. And when his black gaze swung round to fix on her, when she saw the familiar planes of his face, the hard line of his mouth, her legs very nearly crumpled completely.

  With an effort, she took the last few steps that brought her to his side.

  'You wanted to see me?' she said, amazed at how steady her voice sounded, because inside she was a quivering mass of nerves.

  'Yes,' he said shortly. 'What happened earlier was — unfortunate. If we are going to continue working together, then we need to make sure that nothing like it happens again.'

  'That's fine with me,' she lied. "I've never had this sort of problem with an employer before, and I'll be very happy if I don't have it again.'

  'I'm not your employer, in the strict sense of the word,' Nikolaos reminded her. 'You're simply working with me to gain experience. You're also free to leave at any time you wish.'

  Was that what this was about? Emily thought with new indignation. He was hoping she would just meekly go, and solve the problem?

  'I'm not going anywhere,' she said firmly.