She didn’t feel like one, but figured it was a good idea and went off to the bathroom. She locked the door behind her, and felt stupid doing it. He hadn’t taken advantage of her when she was out cold, so why did she think he’d molest her in the shower?
The shower stall had a tiled seat, for which she was incredibly grateful. She sank down onto it and let the water from the multiple jets wash away the sticky haze of alcohol that seemed to be clinging to her skin. Had they really done ouzo shots in the bar? It also washed away some of the cobwebs, and she began to think more clearly, cringing to remember all she’d done. She really shouldn’t drink.
As the discomfort ebbed, Eirene began to feel grateful to Simon. Gallantry was not a quality that she’d associated with him, but he’d proved to be more gallant than Paul who had walked out on her in disgust over a couple of glasses of wine. She didn’t blame him for making a fool of herself, but he certainly hadn’t helped.
She finished her shower and came out, wearing one of the fluffy white robes the hotel provided, her dark hair wrapped in a towel.
“You look miles better,” Simon told her. “Breakfast just arrived. Come and sit down.”
“Why are you being so nice to me? You don’t know me.”
As he pulled her chair out he said, “You remind me of my sister, Athena. I’d hope that someone would be good to her if she made a misstep.”
Misstep. That was a nice way of saying that Eirene had fucked up hugely.
“Will your boyfriend give you grief about this?”
She sighed. “I doubt I still have a boyfriend after last night.”
“He didn’t see you as far as I know. Nobody did.”
She felt weak with relief, but then a new and surprising thought occurred to her, that she’d lost the chance to have Paul break with her.
“You don’t look happy. Anything I can do?” he asked as she sipped the hot, bracing coffee and prayed for the caffeine to do its work quickly.
“No.”
“Were you hoping he’d see you?”
“Let’s not talk about this.”
They ate in silence until Simon said, “Eirene, if you don’t want him anymore, then cut him loose.”
“The way you do with your women? No thank you, I’m no that callous.” That hadn’t come out the way she’d meant it to. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine. Yes, I can be callous. Marmalade?”
“I really am sorry,” she repeated.
“Let’s not talk about this,” he said, throwing her words back at her.
It was all confusion. Everything Eirene had thought was true about her life had been thrown into disarray in one night. Simon Katsaros had been a true gentleman to her, protecting her from the consequences of her silly, reactive behavior instead of taking advantage of it. But Paul, the man she’d thought seriously about spending the rest of her life with, had treated her as if she was a wayward child. Not only had he walked out of the wedding — and Eirene realized now that he had just been looking for an excuse to leave, a way to justify himself — but late the next day, he’d phoned to tell her how upset he’d been that she’d behaved so provocatively with a vacuous rich boy like Simon, and had chosen to indulge in behavior that had caused problems between them in the past, i.e., drinking too much. And she’d picked a fight with him, he added. When he was being nice enough to escort her to a wedding he hadn’t wanted to attend.
The sheer unfairness of his accusations left Eirene speechless. “You’re unbelievable, Paul. First, dancing with someone other than you is not behaving provocatively, all right? I was not spinning around on a pole in front of him, wearing pasties and a g-string.”
“Oh my God, Eirene—”
“And my drinking is not your damn business.” That one took some effort, she had to admit. She knew that she often behaved badly when she drank. It was fair that Paul didn’t like it and said so, but she was not willing to give an inch that afternoon. “And finally, you were the one who picked the fight and then walked out of the wedding, leaving me without an escort.”
“I imagine you found a protector pretty quickly.” The way he said “protector” made his meaning crystal clear.
“You’re being utterly offensive, Paul. I hope you realize that.”
“Telling the truth shouldn’t be construed as offense, Eirene, unless the offended party has something about which she feels guilty.”
She counted to ten. Then she did it again. Then she thought “Oh to hell with it!” and said, “Paul, you’re an asshole, you know that?”
Miracle of miracles, that seemed to shut him up, at least for a few seconds. When he responded, he was ice cold. “I think possibly we need to take a break,” he told her, and Eirene realized that she felt nothing but relief.
“I think that’s a good idea, Paul. But let’s make it a permanent one.”
His tone changed quickly. “It wasn’t my intention… Eirene, I didn’t mean I wanted to break up with you.”
“But that’s what I mean,” she told him. I think it’s for the best. This isn’t working for either of us.”
“But—”
“No hard feelings, Paul. It just wasn’t meant to be.” She stopped short of the “It’s not you, it’s me” line because it really was him. She hadn’t really understood how tiresome Paul was until she met Simon, who had treated her more considerately than Paul ever had.
When she went downstairs, her mother greeted her with a knowing look.
“No, just stop, Mom. It was nothing. Just breakfast.”
“He’s a good boy,” her mother observed.
Simon got back home in time to say good-bye to Athena who was headed back to London. He drove her out to the airstrip and on the way she asked him what was up with Eirene.
“It’s just what I told you. She had a fight with her boyfriend, so we went down to the bar and had a couple of drinks, and then went for a drive.”
“You drove drunk?” Athena was horrified.
“I was drinking club soda. I figured she’d need some moral support, so I was careful.”
“Okay. I approve.”
“What a relief,” he teased.
“So is there something there?”
“What makes you think that?”
“Because while you’re a good guy, you don’t often put that much effort into people you barely know.”
“Barely know? We were formally engaged at birth.”
“No you weren’t!”
Actually it was when we were teenagers, and it wasn’t formal, it was just the families saying, “Wow, those two crazy kids belong together.””
“More like “Wow, these family fortunes belong together,” right?”
“Probably. But you know Mom and Dad have been friends with Thea and Christ forever.”
“It’s a nice family. I’d marry into it.”
He kissed his little sister good-bye and waved her off, but the whole time he was thinking about Eirene. She was a beautiful woman, ravishing in fact. But Simon was curiously ambivalent about her. The blue-black curls that drifted around that perfect face, and the Aegean-blue of her eyes…dazzling, exactly the sort of looks he adored. But she seemed both vulnerable and prickly, and it kept him off balance. It shouldn’t have bothered him, but it did, and it made him want to take care of her even while he felt he really ought to keep his distance. She wasn’t just another party girl, she was a woman he thought he could love, and the thought frightened him.
The whole idea of love frightened him. He had such an amazing example in his parents, but how could he hope to be so lucky? How could Simon imagine finding his soul-mate in a woman who he’d known — though not well — since they were children? It seemed almost wrong, like falling in love with a relative. A close one, he corrected, since distant cousins married all the time.
No, he was certain it was her oppressive beauty that had ensnared him. He’d get over it. He’d grow tired of her and leave her the way he did with every other
woman. He’d be callous and she’d have something pithy to say about his going, something that would cut him down to size and make him wonder if he wasn’t making a mistake. She’d hang on to him because she was exactly what he had always hoped for in a woman. She was an equal.
He liked that he never quite knew what to expect from her. As he was driving her home and they were getting their stories straight, he’d said, “Would you like to have dinner with me one night soon? I’d really enjoy spending time with you when you weren’t drunk or hung over.”
“Nice invitation,” Eirene had snapped. But then she softened and said, “Oh why not? We are sort of engaged after all. Might as well find out what the fuss is about.”
As he watched Athena’s plane climb into the sky, he had a kind of epiphany, thinking about everything that had happened in the last thirty-six hours. He thought perhaps he could happily spend the rest of his life with Eirene. She’d never give him an inch, never be dull or tiresome. She’d go toe-to-toe with him sometimes, and other times she’d be right at his side. This wasn’t just another conquest, this was something that felt real and permanent, it was something to work toward, not just take and forget.
He planned their dinner date carefully, choosing a place that was intimate and not terribly expensive. Eirene wouldn’t be impressed with money, she’d appreciate good taste. He brought her flowers when he came to pick her up, nothing flashy, just some lovely white gardenias. She seemed surprised, pleased, and the sight of her with her head bowed and her dark hair curtaining the flowers as she took in their warm, sweet scent, touched a chord in Simon that made him feel hopeful.
“They’re beautiful,” she said, pressing them lightly against her cheek. Against her golden skin, the whiter-than-white petals seemed to glow.
“You seem like a gardenia girl,” he told her. He couldn’t read her expression and hoped he hadn’t said anything too sappy.
Over dinner they spoke honestly of their dreams and ambitions. He was impressed by her independence and her desire to see the world, and it was all he could do not to say, “I can show it to you, all of it.” He already knew her well enough to know that displays of his wealth would put her off.
“I haven’t traveled enough,” he admitted. “I mean I have, but not just to travel. There’s always some bit of business, or some family thing. I’ve been places, but I don’t know them, do you see what I mean?”
“I think so. You’ve not taken the time to know them intimately, yes?”
It was an odd moment because he had the sense that what she’d said was more about the women he’d known than the places he’d visited. “Yes, I think you’re right. I’d like to change that. I’d like to go somewhere just to be there, to look at the place with the eyes of someone who wants to drink it all in.”
“Only you can do that for yourself,” she reminded him.
“I know. Where’s the first place you’d visit if you could choose any destination?”
“There are so many. But I think I’d like to start somewhere like Bali, to experience the culture. And I’ve never seen the northern lights. Can you imagine?” Once she began to talk about her chosen destinations, Simon just sat back and listened. Her enthusiasm was contagious and he found himself longing to see the things she was describing, wanting to see them with her.
“What about you? What’s the one thing you’ve never done that you would love to do?”
Simon didn’t think saying “Marrying you,” would go over, so he chose a different dream, one that had been with him since he was a child. “It would involve time travel,” he admitted.
Eirene’s eyebrows shot up. “You don’t have modest dreams, do you?”
He shrugged. “The thing is, I wouldn’t want to change anything. That wouldn’t be fair or right. I want a clear bubble in which I can travel unseen to any time.”
“And when would you go to?”
“I’d spy on a lot of things. But mostly I think I’d like to see the beginning of the universe. I’d want to watch life evolve on this planet. I want to see dinosaurs! When I was a little boy I wanted that more than anything.”
“You’ve got enough money, you could make your own Jurassic Park.”
“That would be terrible. This isn’t their time. They’d be freaks, and you know how humans would treat them. No, I want to see them in their own time, and among their own kind. I want to see them when they owned this planet.”
She was staring at him.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re a romantic.”
“Guilty, I guess.”
“What else?”
Embarrassed, he mumbled something about great events in history.
“And you wouldn’t try to change even the bad things?”
“No, because everything that happens in the world effects everything that comes after. I could maybe kill Hitler when he was just a boy, but maybe that would mean that you would never be born.”
“Don’t you think that would be a fair trade? I do.”
“That call is not mine to make, is it?”
“No. You’re right. It’s just so satisfying to think of what good it might do.”
“And someone worse might have come up through the ranks to take his place in history’s void.”
She shuddered. “You make a good point,” she admitted. “Let’s talk about something else.”
After dinner they took a long, moonlit walk and talked about family and the future. Simon had a sense that they wanted much the same things, stability, children, a sense that they’d made the world a better place. Again, he felt hopeful.
It fell to Eirene to initiate a good-night kiss because Simon was determined to be the perfect gentleman. It was a sweet, tentative one, promising nothing and yet filled with promise. It made Simon dizzy. It made him blissfully happy. He felt like a teenager again, and once they’d said good-night, he drifted back to the car, thinking about weddings.
She was everything he wanted. He was certain of it.
Kosta had been right to turn his attentions to Athena Katsaros when he had because the next time he saw Simon, the man was changed. It was for the better probably, though not for the betterment of Kosta’s business. Simon planned to close down the business. He was going to work for his father’s company.
“I’ve finally convinced him that I’m ready to apply myself to the business. I am finally ready,” he added. “And I’m getting married.”
“Married? Well I can’t fault you for that,” Kosta admitted. “Who’s the lucky girl?”
“The daughter of one of the Katsaros business associates.” That was playing it close to the vest. He didn’t want Kosta to know too much. But as it happened, Kosta already knew that Simon had been seeing the Dimitrios girl pretty regularly for months.
“Can’t you do both? This is a nice sideline for us.” Kosta still needed financial backing, though he was close to being able to strike out on his own. And now he needed more introductions to people with the money to buy what he was selling. Simon’s rich, idiot friends were fine for the more minor-league items, but what he was getting lines on were museum-quality antiquities, very rare, and very hard to move if you didn’t know the right people.
Simon was looking Kosta up and down, clearly surprised by the changes he was seeing. “You’re looking… prosperous,” he observed.
“You think?” He brushed an imaginary speck of dirt off his cuff. “I thought it was time to take the business to a higher level. The people I buy from distrust me if I don’t look like I’m on the make, but the people I sell to prefer a little more respectability, even if it’s only on the surface.” Did you get that, rich boy?
“It’s a good move,” was all Simon said to that. He didn’t respond at all to any hidden meaning in Kosta’s words.
And it was a good move. Athena had responded very positively to his casual overtures. They’d actually had coffee together at a cafe in Neil’s Yard. She’d laughed at his jokes, had told him about her classes an
d her plans. She’d also agreed to have dinner with him the next time he was in London. He couldn’t help but smile as he remembered that afternoon. He liked the girl well enough that being around her wasn’t a trial. He’d be good to her, and she’d adore him. It was enough.
“What’s so funny?”
“I was just thinking about a joke I’d heard. It’s nothing. When is the wedding?”
Simon gave him a look that said the date didn’t matter since Kosta wouldn’t be invited anyway. “I thought I’d send a gift.”
“We haven’t set a date yet, Simon told him. We’re thinking in the winter.”
Good plan. Well let me know so I can pick out something nice.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
“So you’re determined to bow out of the business, then?”
“You can handle it. You’ve handled most of it all along.”
“Well, if I can’t convince you, then it simply remains to finish off the contracts we’ve made and get your money to you. I don’t suppose there are any job openings in the Katsaros empire.”
“For someone with your skill set? I don’t think so.”
“No? Pity. You’re putting me out of business after all.”
“I have a feeling you’ll land on you feet, Kosta.”
ROMANCE: THE SHEIKH'S GAMES: A Sheikh Romance Page 47
