by Kim Baldwin
“Is that a proposition?” Melina asked. “If you want Ariadne to kiss you, then say so.”
“Yuck.” Jo threw a couch pillow at her. “She’s like my sister.”
“Yuck, indeed,” Ariadne said. “But, yeah, girls are different. Not that I have a lot of experience with guys, but women are sincerely passionate. It’s not like they need to prove something. With girls, kissing is just as exciting as sex. With men, it’s a three-second prelude to your breasts or panties.”
“My ex was like that.” Natasa sighed. “The hit-and-run type. We’d be kissing one minute, then scrambling around on the floor to find his briefs the next.”
“How many guys have you kissed?” Jo asked Ariadne.
“I…” How she wished it had still been just one. “Two.”
“Was it that bad?” Melina asked.
“The first time was in high school. It left me indifferent, like kissing a fish.”
“And the second?”
“It was, uh…like kissing a girl.”
“So you liked it,” Jo said.
“Well, duh.” Natasa rolled her eyes. “She said it was like kissing a girl.”
“When was this, and who?” Melina asked.
“I really don’t want to talk about it. It was a horrible mistake and one I want to forget,” Ariadne replied.
“Koo Club’s the place for forgetting,” Natasa said, referring to the trendy Santorini nightclub they planned to hit the next evening. “Your dad told me Alex was going to be our chaperone.”
“Chaperone, my ass. He’s going to be my primary objective.” Melina smiled. “And I don’t want anyone coming to look for us,” she added, looking pointedly at Ariadne.
“Go crazy. Have at it, bonk till you drop, etcetera, etcetera. You have my blessing.” Ariadne joined her friends on the floor. “Pour me some of that, will you?” she asked Jo, who was nearest the bottle of wine. “And can we talk about something else, please?” She needed a distraction from the memory of Alex’s kiss and Melina’s plans for him.
*
Switch felt her pocket to make sure the keycard was still there. She could remember taking it from Ariadne, but only vaguely. She wasn’t sure what had just happened and was even more confused about the why, but what was clear were the repercussions. Her whole body still buzzed and her lips tingled from the lingering sensation of Ariadne’s mouth. Switch had wanted to disregard the mission, forget the icon and TQ, and surrender to those lips. She’d wanted to scream that she was a woman, tell Ariadne the truth, but the truth would have been dangerous for her and obscene for Ariadne.
What bothered Switch the most were Ariadne’s reasons and intentions. Ariadne had probably had to endure plenty of guys coming on to her, so why was she so concerned about proving to Switch how impossibly gay she was?
She couldn’t think about that now. She had to focus on taking immediate advantage of having this keycard. Ariadne was going to meet her friends in Melina’s room, and Lykourgos and his wife were topside having dinner, so it was the perfect time to get into the master suite, but she had to work quickly.
She headed toward the wing where the Lykourgos family stayed. No one was about. After knocking, not too loudly, on Ariadne’s door, and getting no response, Switch used the borrowed keycard to slip inside.
The blue keycard to the master suite was back in Ariadne’s desk drawer, as she hoped it would be. She retrieved it and used it to get into Lykourgos’s room, after knocking again first to make sure no one was inside.
The master suite was tomb quiet, so she started a quick but methodical search of the main living room, checking behind every painting, tapping on walls for inconsistencies, examining the desk for any latches or buttons that might release a hidden passageway or chamber. She couldn’t waste time. Though Europeans in general and Greeks in particular could linger over a meal for hours, Lykourgos or his wife could easily decide at any time they needed to retrieve something from their quarters.
Once she’d exhausted likely possibilities in the living room, she headed toward the back of the suite, bypassing the bathroom for the bedroom just beyond it.
She found the enormous wall safe, hidden behind a massive ancient fresco, five minutes later. Though she’d been trained to open a lot of different kinds of locks and devices, she had no chance of getting into this vault because she’d never seen anything quite like it before.
The Theotokos had to be in there.
But she’d need Allegro’s expertise to get it out.
Switch checked her watch. She’d been in here almost a half hour. Time to leave. She’d taken a few steps out of the bedroom when she heard the distinct click of the lock to the doorway entrance.
She glimpsed that the light had changed from red to green as she ducked into the bathroom, the nearest hiding place.
Not a good choice, she realized immediately.
If Lykourgos or his wife had come back to use their own john, certainly a reasonable possibility, she was screwed. The shower was made of semi-transparent glass, so the only place for her to hide was behind the door.
She held her breath and waited, peering through the tiny crack between the door and frame.
A few seconds passed. All was quiet, though she was certain someone had come in.
Then a noise, but scarcely there—the brush of shoes over Lykourgos’s oriental carpet.
A male figure passed by her extremely narrow field of view, headed toward the bedroom.
But it wasn’t Lykourgos.
It was Fotis, her second bosun.
And also, apparently, TQ’s man on the inside.
She didn’t think he’d even be able to find the safe—the latch for the panel that hid it was pretty well concealed. And even if he did, he’d probably never be able to open it.
But she certainly had to eliminate him as a threat to her getting the Theotokos.
Very slowly, she slipped out of her hiding place and peeked into the bedroom. Fotis was searching the walls, all right. Not the right one, at the moment, but perfect for her because he had his back to her.
She slipped out of the master suite, closing the door silently behind her, and went next door to Ariadne’s quarters. A soft knock. No answer, so she used Ariadne’s red card to get in again and put Lykourgos’s blue card back in the desk drawer where she’d gotten it.
Switch left Ariadne’s red keycard on top of the desk, hoping that she’d think she’d just forgotten to take it with her, and went back into the hall, not too close to the master suite, but where she could keep an eye on the door.
She called the first mate on her radio and asked him to patch her through to Lykourgos.
“Yes?” His voice came through less than a minute later.
“I’m sorry to disturb you, Mr. Lykourgos,” she said, “but I was headed to see your daughter and her friends to make arrangements for tomorrow when I saw my Second Bosun Fotis going into your suite. I just wanted to make sure you authorized him to be there. It seemed unusual.”
“I did not. I’ll be right there,” Lykourgos said. “If he tries to leave, detain him.”
Chapter Fifteen
The women were heatedly debating which celebrity was most fuckable when a knock on the door interrupted them.
Melina got up to answer it. “Here for the party?”
Manos walked in and shut the door behind him. “So, what happened?” he whispered, looking at Ariadne with a worried expression.
“What are you talking about?” Ariadne asked.
“Fotis. What did he do?”
Ariadne got up and so did the others. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she replied. “Fotis hasn’t done a thing.”
“We haven’t seen him since this morning,” Jo added.
Manos pulled his hair back in obvious distress.
“Speak up, already. What’s going on?” Ariadne took a step toward him. “Is he all right?”
“Your dad’s muscle just escorted him off the boat.”
> “Why?” Ariadne asked. “What happened?”
“I couldn’t hear most of it. Your dad told me to mind my own business, but what I got from hiding around the corner is that Fotis will be arrested if he ever sets foot on the ship again. I heard your dad say to Alex that he was thankful Alex had reported him, that he’d done the right thing.”
“Oh, my God. Reported him for what?” Natasa asked. “He’d never hurt anyone. Fotis is such a sweet guy, and he’s been around forever.”
Manos looked like he was about to cry. “Yeah, I know.” He bit his nail. “I want to ask Alex, but I don’t know him that well, and I don’t want to get in trouble for interfering. Your father was pretty upset. I can’t remember ever seeing him that angry.”
“Why would Alex get Fotis fired? What the hell is going on?” How much stranger could this day get, and how much more trouble could this Alex possibly cause? It was as though everything had gone to pieces since he’d set foot on the boat, Ariadne’s sanity included. She’d had enough of the new bosun screwing up their summer and her peace of mind. “Where is he?” Ariadne pushed forward. “I want to talk to him.”
“I think he went to his quarters.” Manos got out of her way. “But I’m not sure.”
Ariadne slammed the door on her way out. She stomped to the crew quarters on the other side of the yacht, fuming the whole time. How dare he come here and screw up all our lives?
She reached Alex’s room and didn’t bother to knock. “I want to—”
Ariadne’s breath caught in her throat. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
Alex stood next to the bed, wearing only a towel from the waist down. Nothing else. “What the—?” Alex quickly grabbed a T-shirt from the pile on the bed and put it on. “Shut the door, please.”
Ariadne, in a trance-like state, shut the door, never taking her eyes off Alex.
“You…you…you’re…”
“I’m a woman.”
Ariadne nodded, still unable to speak. She looked from Alex to the spandex torso bandage on the bed.
“Say something,” Alex said.
“I don’t know how to react.”
“Would you like to sit?” Alex pointed at the only chair in the room. “I’ll explain.”
“I can’t sit just yet,” she mumbled. Ariadne couldn’t stop looking at Alex’s chest, covered or not. The image of those breasts—not too large, but beautifully shaped—was burned into her memory.
Alex looked down at herself. “I know I have no right to ask, but please don’t tell anyone.”
“Why? Why are you a woman? I mean, why did you lie?”
“Because your father hires exclusively male bosuns.”
“You wanted the job that badly?” Ariadne pointed at the compression tank top on the bed.
“Yes.”
“There are so many other positions you could have applied for.”
“I wanted this one,” Alex replied.
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Say you won’t tell your father, or anyone else.”
“But I have to tell him.”
“It’ll get me fired, and…” Alex sat on the bed. “He’s already upset with Fotis. This will push him over the edge. I’ll never work on another yacht again.”
The initial shock had started to wear off, and Ariadne began to feel a sense of betrayal, instead. “You can’t go around lying and misleading people.”
“I never meant to harm anyone.”
“What happened with Fotis?”
Alex looked up at her. “He stole your brother’s keycard to break into your parents’ suite. I was on my way to find you to make arrangements for tomorrow night, since…since we hadn’t gotten the chance, earlier…when I saw him going into the room.”
Ariadne looked away. Alex referring to their earlier argument and kiss disconcerted her even more than she already was, and she didn’t want to think about all that right now. “What was he doing there?”
“I don’t know, but I immediately called your father and he came right down. We went into the suite together and found Fotis in the bedroom. He wouldn’t say much at all, other than he’d taken your brother’s card.”
“He never said why he was there?”
“No, but we found him moving paintings around, and drawers had been opened.”
Ariadne couldn’t believe it.
“Your father had him escorted off the yacht.”
She needed to sit for a moment. This was all too much to take in. Ariadne took the chair, a few feet away from Alex. Fotis had been with them…six or seven years, at least. Was good at his job, always polite and attentive to her, and he’d even partied ashore many times with her brother. The Greek economic crisis had driven many to take desperate measures, but she’d never imagined Fotis could be one of them. “This has been a hell of a summer” was all she could think to say.
“Are you going to tell them?” Alex got up like she was ready to face bad news.
“I…” Ariadne nodded. She didn’t know how she was going to keep this a secret from her father and friends.
Then she looked at Alex’s worried expression and considered the ramifications of that decision. If she agreed to remain silent, then she’d have to keep her word. Was she willing to lie for a stranger? And could she trust Alex enough to become an accomplice in this game of changing sexes? “No,” she said finally, and got to her feet as well.
“No?”
“I won’t tell anyone.”
Alex sighed in relief. “Thank you. It means a lot to me.”
“I sure hope so, because I don’t like lying and fooling people I care about.” Ariadne moved to the door. She needed to be alone and hopefully not flip out when the realization of what she’d seen and agreed to really sank in.
“I’m sorry if I…freaked you out.” Alex approached her. “But you should’ve knocked.”
“You did, but…” Ariadne frowned as realization dawned. No wonder she’d been so confused about her attraction to the bosun. “In retrospect, it makes absolute sense.”
“Oh?” Alex looked surprised, almost troubled.
“You make for a convincing guy, on a superficial level.”
“Too polite, too sensitive?”
“I’m not sure.” She searched Alex’s face. “It’s the way you…” Ariadne suddenly felt exposed.
“I what?” Alex came closer. “The way I what?” she repeated when Ariadne didn’t answer, her gazed fixed on Ariadne’s mouth.
“I should go.” Ariadne opened the door. “Keep it locked from now on,” she added before she shut the door behind her.
*
Thessaloniki, Greece
TQ paced her suite with the phone in her hand. “Well, that’s just brilliant.” She fumed at the setback. “That’s what you get when you work with moronic amateurs,” she said to Thanos, the skinny one of her pair of goons and the man responsible for contacting and hiring the second bosun.
“He’s worked for Lykourgos for seven years. He was our safest bet,” the man replied.
The icon was slipping through her fingers with every second that passed. “We need to come up with something fast, because I’m not going to leave without it, and you’re not going to live if I don’t get it.”
“I have something in mind,” he offered hesitantly.
“My patience is wearing thin, so get on with it. What is it?”
“An exchange.”
“For?”
“His daughter.”
“That ungodly creature.” TQ liked the idea of anything bad happening to that icy bitch.
“He’ll do anything for her. And it’s not like he can run to the police. What’s he going to tell them?”
“He’ll never confess to being behind the theft of the icon,” TQ mumbled to herself.
“It would destroy him. So, we take the girl and contact him right afterward. Tell him he can have her back if he agrees to cooperate.”
“Don’t spell everything out. Thi
s is not prime-time TV.”
“Sorry.”
“If you in any way involve or even so much as imply my name…” She let the threat go unfinished, so he could imagine the worst.
“Yes, I know.”
“I want that icon on my desk in forty-eight hours.”
“It’ll be there.”
“Not if you’re still on the phone. Move it!” she shouted.
TQ had to trust that these idiots knew what they were doing, because she didn’t have a choice. Neither did she have the array of helpers and contacts she did back in the States. Here in Greece, she had only two men to rely on, and that made her nervous.
A tiny part of her wanted to forget the whole thing and leave, but quitting wasn’t what had gotten her this far up the ladder. She’d become too powerful and feared to back down from a challenge this trivial. And what an addition this relic would be to her collection. She already had one of the world’s largest, but this one would put her in first place. The prospect made her almost giddy. “Girl!” she shouted.
Her Asian Cyclops came running to her side, like a well-trained dog. “Madam?”
“Where have you been cowering?”
“I have been polishing your jewelry, as you instructed. I am almost finished.”
TQ laughed. “Are you, now?”
“Yes, Madam.”
TQ bent to the smaller woman’s height. “Would you like the rest of the day off to roam this wonderful city? It’s hot enough to remind you of your lice-infested country.”
The servant’s smile at the question was so broad she looked like the Joker. “Yes, Madam. I would like that very much.”
“Hmm, I thought so.” TQ smiled, enjoying the torture, and sat at the desk.
“Can I go now, Madam?” the girl asked expectantly.
TQ laughed so hard she had tears in her eyes. “You stupid cow.” She laughed harder.
“Madam?”
“Why in my name would I let you do that?”
“I don’t—”
“Start polishing from the beginning.”
The woman hung her head in defeat and walked away.
“Life is good.” TQ sat back in the chair and stared out the window at the Aegean, feeling content and exhilarated at the prospect of owning the Theotokos.
