by Kim Baldwin
“Guys, I’m beat, and I need to get some rest, so if you’ll excuse me.” Ariadne had to get away from there to deal with what had happened, and what hadn’t happened, and she was desperate for a cold shower. “Are we okay?” she asked Melina.
“Not yet.” Melina smiled. “But we will be by tomorrow.”
Ariadne exhaled in relief. “Sh…he’s not what you think.” She kissed Melina on the cheek. “And definitely not the man you were hoping for.”
Though she headed off toward her own room, Ariadne was too unsettled to sleep, so she detoured to the hotel’s fairly busy pool bar. Once she got her gin and tonic, she chose a bench off to one side, in the small garden. She wasn’t in the mood for small talk and was actually more upset with tonight’s developments than she cared to admit to herself, let alone her friends.
She’d screwed up on so many levels. First with Alex, and then with Melina. She didn’t know what had possessed her to say all that to Alex, and she didn’t know where she’d found the strength to break that kiss.
She was mortified to realize that her frustration had more to do with how Alex had toyed with her than with how she’d behaved with Melina. Had she misread Alex’s interest in her? She did have a girlfriend, after all, and if she’d misjudged Alex’s intentions, then why didn’t Alex pull away when Ariadne kissed her on the yacht…Wait a minute. She had. Alex had been the one to stop things. But then, why not tonight? Especially with Alex’s girlfriend there?
Ariadne rubbed her temples. Everything about this woman confused and terrified her. She’d never met anyone she wanted to smack and sleep with at the same time, and she’d also never met a liar she wanted to protect and defend.
Everything she thought she knew about Alex had been bogus. And why would an obviously well-educated woman want to work as a male bosun, anyway? Something was off, and Ariadne wanted to be angry and suspicious, but all she could feel was desire for the beautiful liar.
“Typical,” Ariadne said out loud. The one time someone’s mind and manners turned her on as much as their beauty had to be an involved fake. And on top of that, after tonight, her friends would likely consider her a trysexual man stealer. Would she have the courage to let them believe that, or would she eventually tell them the truth and clear her name?
“The bartender told me I’d find you here.”
Ariadne jumped when she heard Alex’s voice. She turned to look at her.
“I’m sorry I startled you,” Alex said.
“There’s a reason I’m hiding here.”
Alex sat beside her on the bench as though she didn’t care about Ariadne’s need to be alone. She sighed and leaned back. “I know, but we need to talk.”
“Your secret is still safe,” Ariadne said. “Other than that, I don’t see what else we need to discuss.”
“How’s Melina?”
“She’ll be fine.”
“How about you?”
“What about me?”
“I know how you must hate lying to your friends.”
“Doubtful. Because you wouldn’t have put me in the position to do so if you had even the smallest insight into that.”
“I have my reasons.” Alex avoided eye contact.
“I know something’s going on, because there’s no way someone like you needs to so desperately work as a bosun.”
“Like me?”
“You’re too educated…too refined, to be doing this. You have a certain air. The way you move…everything about you, really, doesn’t fit the ‘woman struggling to survive’ profile.”
Alex’s startled expression confirmed her assessment.
“Don’t look so surprised,” Ariadne said. “It’s my job to read people and situations. It’s why I’m good at what I do.”
“As your father warned me,” Alex replied.
Ariadne sipped her drink. “So, what are your reasons?”
“I needed the job, but…not for the money.”
“What then?”
“The…” Alex rubbed her face. “I don’t want to lie to you. Not again. So please, let’s not talk about that.”
“Does this have to do with my father?”
“It has to do with me. Just know that I never meant to hurt your feelings or play with your friends, and I’m sincerely sorry for everything.”
“Does your girlfriend know?” she asked.
“That I kissed you?” Alex smiled that wonderful smile, and Ariadne found herself once again completely captivated by her mouth.
She nodded, unable to speak or move her gaze from Alex’s lips. How did she go from being furious with this woman to wanting to kiss her in mere seconds?
“She saw us.” Alex shifted to look at her.
“So, why are you smiling?”
“Am I?” Alex asked.
“Yes.”
“Angie and I have an arrangement.”
“Ah, one of those.” Ariadne felt inexplicably disappointed. “I never understood those relationships.”
“We have an arrangement that we pose as each other’s girlfriend when we want to get out of an uncomfortable situation.”
“You mean…?” Ariadne felt a flutter in the pit of her stomach.
“She got me out of a tough spot with Melina.”
“Oh.”
“Yup.”
“That explains a lot.”
“Does it?”
“Angie doesn’t strike me as your type. She’s too…”
“Butch?” Alex asked, still smiling. “Maybe I like butch.”
“Yeah, maybe.” Ariadne picked at her dress. “Do you?”
“I like smart women who aren’t afraid to go after what they want or afraid to get dirty. Women who feel just as comfortable in sweats and sneakers as they do in a cocktail dress and high heels. I like women who share my passion for diving and sailing.”
That’s me, that’s me. “I see.”
Alex looked from Ariadne’s eyes to her lips.
“So, Angie saved you from Melina, but not from me.” Now why did she have to say that?
“That’s right.”
Don’t push it. “Why not?” Too late.
“She’s a very perceptive woman.” Alex grinned.
Ariadne’s cheeks burned. The combination of Alex’s melancholic smile and subtle charm was irresistible. “I’m sorry I said those things to you earlier and pushed you away like that. I had no right to play with you, but I got really angry when I found out you had a girlfriend and still wanted to…kiss me.”
“I wanted more than that,” Alex replied.
The words reignited the fire from earlier, and it was spreading dangerously fast from Ariadne’s abdomen to the juncture of her thighs. She wanted to say something casual to douse the heat, but nothing came out. There was nothing flippant about how Alex made her feel.
“Was that kiss all about punishing me?” Alex asked.
Ariadne wanted to lie but couldn’t. “No.”
“I am very attracted to you, Ariadne, and I think you know that, especially after tonight.”
Can we stop talking and go to my room for hot sex and then plan our future?
“Please don’t say anything, because whatever your response…” Alex tucked a stray strand of hair behind Ariadne’s ear and she shivered. “It will upset me.” She got to her feet. “Maybe in another place and time we could’ve gotten to know each other…dated, but we have too much going on in our lives. Too many barriers.”
“I don’t know anything about you, but don’t presume to know what my life is like.”
“Frankly, I don’t think you understand the price you’re going to pay for being the Lykourgos heiress.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“In order to take your father’s place and live up to his role, and your brother’s and mother’s expectations, you’re going to have to change your priorities. Your mother and brother will become your responsibility, and so will your father’s empire.”
“So?”
> “You grew up in a loving and healthy family environment, which creates a sense of obligation. One that I respect,” Alex said, “but can’t relate to, because I never had that.”
“I still don’t understand.”
“Whoever you choose to be with will have to accept that they will always be in the shadows of your responsibilities and commitment toward your family.”
“They will be part of them, not a…a sidekick,” Ariadne said.
“You’re fooling yourself if you think that,” Alex replied. “You have such a rooted sense of responsibility and loyalty toward your family that no one will ever measure up to, and frankly, not everyone wants to be a responsibility. Some want to be more than an obligation, more than part of a collective commitment.”
“I don’t understand why that’s a problem.”
“Because anyone who loves you and not your money will tire of taking a backseat.”
“I wouldn’t want them to.” Ariadne got up as well. “I’d tire myself with someone who wouldn’t stand up and take the wheel.”
“Has your father ever given up the wheel? To you, or anyone, for that matter?”
“He trusts my judgment. He listens to me about work and he appreciates his advisors’ input.”
“And who has the final say?” Alex asked.
“He does, of course.”
“And does he listen to you, or whomever, when it concerns family matters?”
Her father was flexible when it came to most things, but not when it came to how family matters should be dealt with. According to him, his ways were always the wisest, because he was chief executive and owner of the family as well. “No,” she admitted.
“How do you feel about that?”
“It’s frustrating at times, but…” She shrugged. “It is what it is. It’s how it’s always been.”
“And how it will always be. Only you’re next in line to hog that wheel. You may think you want someone to take the wheel now, but deep in your heart you know you won’t be able to.”
Maybe Alex was right. Her father had already started to call her a control freak, and even domineering. “Be that as it may—”
“I don’t do well in the backseat, Ariadne,” Alex said quietly. “And I sincerely hope you don’t fall for someone who does, because anyone willing to get comfortable in the back probably deserves to be there, but not with you.”
Ariadne didn’t know what to say, and Alex looked around as well. An uncomfortable silence descended upon them.
Alex finally looked at her watch. “It’s late, and…” She suddenly covered her watch with her hand and sighed. “I really hate clichés. I’m going to leave now because I’d like to be alone, and I think you want that, too.”
She left and Ariadne sat back down on the bench. Was she really becoming her father? And if so, was that what she wanted? And if not, could she be something other than the gentle tyrant she was being groomed to be? What if Alex was right? Had all her ex-partners settled into a subservient position just because of who she was and what she could offer?
What bothered her more than anything was that the one person who had managed to melt Ariadne with her kisses, had taken the time to look close enough to have an opinion, and then had the guts to stand up to her and tell her what she thought was too busy with her own life to want to give Ariadne a chance.
Chapter Twenty
Thessaloniki, Greece
Next day
TQ frowned when her servant drew back the curtains in her room and exposed the vista she’d be subjected to until she recovered the Theotokos. She’d traded her magnificent terrace view of the harbor at the Electra Palace for a brick wall, in a hotel that under ordinary circumstances she’d refuse to even set foot in.
But it was necessary, she kept telling herself. Lykourgos was a very powerful man in Greece, with connections everywhere, including the highest levels of the government and law enforcement, no doubt. Once his daughter went missing, he’d likely use those resources to find her, so she’d had to move to an inferior hotel that wouldn’t demand ID at check-in.
She scanned the room. It wasn’t even a suite, though it was the best the hotel had to offer. Cheap tourist art, inferior linens, an antiquated television. Not even a goddamn minibar or coffeemaker, for Christ’s sake, and forget about room service.
“Go out and get me some sheets I can actually sleep on,” she told her Asian Cyclops. “And a summer comforter,” she added, not wanting to guess how long it had been since the hotel had washed the monstrosity of a bedspread currently on display, or what it had absorbed and been stained by in the interim. “Up to my usual standards.”
The girl looked terrified. “Madam, I do not know the city, or the language, or—”
TQ turned to glare at her, and the servant immediately bowed her head and stopped talking. “Learn fast, or your next trashy romance will be in Braille. You have an hour.”
The girl bowed deeply and ran to get TQ’s purse. She brought it over and TQ gave her several fifty-euro bills.
“Get a decent espresso machine, too, and the kind of coffee I like,” she yelled after the girl as she hurried toward the door.
TQ went to the window and stared out. The white-brick building opposite was shuttered, the electronics store it had once contained long closed because of the struggling economy. Three floors below, the street was crowded with cars, scooters, and pedestrians, and the noise level was an added irritant.
How she wished she were back in the States, surrounded by her treasures in her plush Houston penthouse. And where her significant contacts and resources kept her from ever having to resort to hiding in such a dump.
The Theotokos was worth it. But Lykourgos had better act quickly to meet her demands. Even her patience had its limits, and this place would push her into the red zone in a hurry. She was already feeling the need to take out her frustrations on someone, and it took so damn long to adequately train a new servant.
*
Off Santorini Island, Greece
As Switch made her rounds on the Pegasus, she tried to at least catch a glimpse of Ariadne, but the woman was nowhere to be seen on the yacht. She’d spotted Melina and the other two by the pool but had avoided contact. And besides, the glare of death coming off Melina hadn’t been exactly inviting. It had been made clear to her early that morning that keeping her distance was prudent after the previous night’s events. Switch was supposed to have taken the girls back to the yacht, but they’d summoned Manos instead, at Melina’s insistence. She’d taken the other Zodiac back alone.
In the early afternoon, she broke down and asked Manos if he’d seen Ariadne, and the second bosun’s reply had been cold, albeit helpful. The women had apparently updated him on what had happened and he clearly sided with them, probably out of loyalty.
According to Manos, Ariadne was planning to spend the day in her room, with the exception of the meeting she’d had earlier in the morning with her dad.
Switch’s bittersweet time around Ariadne was ending. After tonight, she’d have no reason to see her again, and although that meant distancing herself from the impossible object of her affection, she’d soon have the space to get over the woman who was fast becoming an obsession.
The rest of the day had been uneventful, so Switch was happy it was almost time for the family and guests to go ashore so she could get down to business and back to her life.
Though the initial schedule she’d been given called for her and Manos to ferry the Lykourgoses and their guests in the Zodiacs for a lavish dinner ashore, she ended up getting a few hours off instead, a fortuitous turn of events that would make getting Allegro onto the Pegasus a bit easier.
Taking guests ashore by dinghy was standard for most luxury yachts, but different arrangements were made once Lykourgos found out that the Ambassador Aegean in Akrotiri had its own private helipad. He’d arranged to host his banquet at the new luxury resort and had booked rooms for all his guests there, so the decision to ferry them by
helicopter instead was a no-brainer.
Switch went up to the helipad to watch the departures, keeping mostly hidden in the recesses of one of the poolside cabanas nearby so she wouldn’t precipitate any protracted scene involving Ariadne or Melina. Tonight’s operation had to proceed without a hitch, and the more people off the boat, the better. Because the family and all guests would be away overnight, many of the stewards had a rare night of liberty and were going ashore as well.
Fortunately, one of them was the chief steward, which lessened the chances she and Allegro would be caught breaking into his safe to get the blue keycard for the master suite. She certainly couldn’t try to get Ariadne’s a second time, or Nikolaos’s, and Lykourgos and his wife would surely keep theirs with them, even off the yacht. So the maid’s card was the only one possible.
She spotted Ariadne emerging from the side stairwell and froze to stare in wonder at how stunning she was tonight. Clad in an elegant turquoise gown, her hair up, gems around her throat, she looked like a modern-day princess. The rest of her friends had dressed formally for the occasion as well, but none could compare.
Lykourgos came next, his wife on his arm. Christine was impeccably groomed, as always, and he was hardly recognizable in his expensive navy suit, pale-blue shirt, and silk tie. He’d even shaved, and his hair, for once, didn’t look as though he’d just rolled out of bed. Smiling and apparently eager to get the party started, he hustled them all with a wave of his arms toward the chopper as its rotors started.
Switch watched them all board, and soon the helicopter was headed toward the island. Two more trips were required to ferry Nikolaos and the rest of the guests to the resort. By the time they were gone, the chief steward and other crewmembers with the night off were in a dinghy also headed ashore. As soon as they were out of sight of the yacht, Switch went below and commandeered one of the Zodiacs for herself, taking along the steward’s uniform she’d lifted earlier from the crew linen closet for Allegro, in case anyone questioned them.
She’d arranged to rendezvous with Allegro at a secluded beach some distance from the resort where Lykourgos was hosting his event and found her waiting impatiently with a small backpack containing her safecracking tools. Allegro changed into the steward’s uniform en route, but by the time they got back to the yacht, it was full dark out, and the transom area was deserted.
