by Nora Roberts
“So,” Alex mused, “you think a man and woman must fight to be . . . healthy?”
Shaking back her hair, Morgan laughed. “I have to fight to be healthy.”
“Morgan, you haven’t mentioned Jack at all. Is there a problem?”
“Liz.” Alex’s disapproval was clear in the single syllable.
“No, it’s all right, Alex.” Taking her glass, Morgan rose and moved to the rail. “It’s not a problem,” she said slowly. “At least I hope it’s not.” She stared into her drink, frowning, as if she wasn’t quite sure what the glass contained. “I’ve been running on this path—this very straight, very defined path. I could run it blindfolded.” With a quick laugh, Morgan leaned out on the rail to let the wind grab at her hair. “Suddenly, I discovered it wasn’t a path, but a rut and it kept getting deeper. I decided to change course before it became a pit.”
“You always did prefer an obstacle course,” Liz murmured. But she was pleased with Jack’s disposal, and took little trouble to hide it.
The sea churned in a white froth behind the boat. Morgan turned from her study of it. “I don’t intend to fall at Dorian’s feet, Liz—or anyone else you might have in mind—just because Jack and I are no longer involved.”
“I should hope not,” Liz returned with some spirit. “That would take all the fun out of it.”
With a sigh of exasperated affection, Morgan turned back to the rail.
The stark mountains of Lesbos rose from the sea. Jagged, harsh, timeless. Morgan could make out the pure white lines of Alex’s villa. She thought it looked like a virgin offering to the gods—cool, classic, certainly feminine. Higher still was a rambling gray structure that seemed hewn from the rock itself. It faced the sea; indeed, it loomed over it. As if challenging Poseidon to claim it, it clung to the cliff. Morgan saw it as arrogant, rough, masculine. The flowering vines that grew all around it didn’t soften the appearance, but added a haunted kind of beauty.
There were other buildings—a white-washed village, snuggled cottages, one or two other houses on more sophisticated lines, but the two larger structures hovered over the rest. One was elegant; one was savage.
“Who does that belong to?” Morgan called over her shoulder. “It’s incredible.”
Following her gaze, Liz grinned and rose to join her. “I should have known that would appeal to you. Sometimes I’d swear it’s alive. Nicholas Gregoras, olive oil, and more recently, import-export.” She glanced at her friend’s profile. “Maybe I’ll include him for dinner tomorrow if he’s free, though I don’t think he’s your type.”
Morgan gave her a dry look. “Oh? And what is my type?”
“Someone who’ll give you plenty to fight about. Who’ll give you that obstacle course.”
“Hmm. You know me too well.”
“As for Nick, he’s rather smooth and certainly a charmer.” Liz tapped a fingernail against the rail as she considered. “Not as blatantly handsome as Dorian, but he has a rather basic sort of sex appeal. Earthier, and yet . . .” She trailed off, narrowing her eyes as she tried to pigeonhole him. “Well, he’s an odd one. I suppose he’d have to be to live in a house like that. He’s in his early thirties, inherited the olive oil empire almost ten years ago. Then he branched into import-export. He seems to have a flair for it. Alex is very fond of him because they go back to short pants together.”
“Liz, I only wanted to know who owned the house. I didn’t ask for a biography.”
“These facts are part of the service.” She cupped her hands around her lighter and lit a cigarette. “I want to give you a clear picture of your options.”
“Haven’t you got a goatherd up your sleeve?” Morgan demanded. “I rather like the idea of a small, white-washed cottage and baking black bread.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I don’t suppose it occurs to you or Alex that I’m content to be single—the modern, capable woman on her own? I know how to use a screwdriver, how to change a flat tire . . .”
“ ‘Methinks she doth protest too much,’” Liz quoted mildly.
“Liz—”
“I love you, Morgan.”
On a frustrated sigh, Morgan lifted her drink again. “Damn it, Liz,” she murmured.
“Come on, let me have my fun,” she coaxed, giving Morgan a friendly pat on the cheek. “As you said yourself, it’s all up to fate anyway.”
“Hoist by my own petard. All right, bring on your Dorians and your Nicks and your Lysanders.”
“Lysander?”
“It’s a good name for a goatherd.”
With a chuckle, Liz flicked her cigarette into the churning water. “Just wait and see if I don’t find one.”
“Liz . . .” Morgan hesitated for a moment, then asked casually, “do many people use the beach where we swam yesterday?”
“Hmm? Oh.” She tucked a pale blond strand behind her ear. “Not really. It’s used by us and the Gregoras villa for the most part. I’d have to ask Alex who owns it; I’ve never given it any thought. The bay’s secluded and only easily accessible by the beach steps that run between the properties. Oh, yes, there’s a cottage Nick owns which he rents out occasionally,” she remembered. “It’s occupied now by an American. Stevens . . . no,” she corrected herself. “Stevenson. Andrew Stevenson, a poet or a painter or something. I haven’t met him yet.” She gave Morgan a frank stare. “Why? Did you plan for an all-over tan?”
“Just curious.” Morgan rearranged her thoughts. If she was going to file it and forget it, she had to stop letting the incident play back in her mind. “I’d love to get a close look at that place.” She gestured toward the gray villa. “I think the architect must have been just a little mad. It’s fabulous.”
“Use some charm on Nick and get yourself an invitation,” Liz suggested.
“I might just do that.” Morgan studied the villa consideringly. She wondered if Nick Gregoras was the man whose footsteps she had heard when she had been held in the bushes. “Yes, I might just.”
***
That evening, Morgan left the balcony doors wide. She wanted the warmth and scents of the night. The house was quiet but for the single stroke of a clock that signaled the hour. For the second night in a row she was wide awake. Did people really sleep on vacations? she wondered. What a waste of time.
She sat at the small rosewood desk in her room, writing a letter. From somewhere between the house and the sea, an owl cried out twice. She paused to listen, hoping it would call again, but there was only silence. How could she describe how it felt to see Mount Olympus rising from the sea? Was it possible to describe the timelessness, the strength, the almost frightening beauty?
She shrugged, and did what she could to explain the sensation to her father on paper. He’d understand, she mused as she folded the stationery. Who understood better her sometimes whimsical streaks of fancy than the man she’d inherited them from? And, she thought with a lurking smile, he’d get a good chuckle at Liz’s determination to marry her off and keep her in Greece.
She rose, stretched once, then turned and collided with a hard chest. The hand that covered her mouth used more gentleness this time, and the jet eyes laughed into hers. Her heart rose, then fell like an elevator with its cable clipped.
“Kalespera, Aphrodite. Your word that you won’t scream, and you have your freedom.”
Instinctively she tried to jerk away, but he held her still without effort, only lifting an ironic brow. He was a man who knew whose word to accept and whose word to doubt.
Morgan struggled for another moment, then finding herself outmatched, reluctantly nodded. He released her immediately.
She drew in the breath to shout, then let it out in a frustrated huff. A promise was a promise, even if it was to a devil. “How did you get in here?” she demanded.
“The vines to your balcony are sturdy.”
“You climbed?” Her incredulity was laced with helpless admiration. The walls were sheer, the height was dizzying. “You m
ust be mad.”
“That’s a possibility,” he said with a careless smile.
He seemed none the worse for wear after the climb. His hair was disheveled, but then she’d never seen it otherwise. There was a shadow of beard on his chin. His eyes held no strain or fatigue, but rather a light of adventure that drew her no matter how hard she tried to resist. In the lamplight she could see him more clearly than she had the night before. His features weren’t as harsh as she had thought and his mouth wasn’t grim. It was really quite beautiful, she realized with a flood of annoyance.
“What do you want?”
He smiled again, letting his gaze roam down her leisurely with an insolence she knew wasn’t contrived but inherent. She wore only a brief cinnamon-colored teddy that dipped low at the breast and rose high at the thighs. Morgan noted the look, and that he stood squarely between her and the closet where she had left her robe. Rather than acknowledge the disadvantage, she tilted her chin.
“How did you know where to find me?”
“It’s my business to find things out,” he answered. Silently, he approved more than her form, but her courage as well. “Morgan James,” he began. “Visiting friend of Elizabeth Theoharis. American, living in New York. Unmarried. Employed at the U.N. as interpreter. You speak Greek, English, French, Italian and Russian.”
She tried not to let her mouth fall open at his careless rundown on her life. “That’s a very tidy summary,” she said tightly.
“Thank you. I try to be succinct.”
“What does any of that have to do with you?”
“That’s yet to be decided.” He studied her, thinking again. It might be that he could employ her talents and position for his own uses. The package was good, very good. And so, more important at the moment, was the mind.
“You’re enjoying your stay on Lesbos?”
Morgan stared at him, then slowly shook her head. No, he wasn’t a ruffian or a rapist. That much she was sure of. If he were a thief, which she still reserved judgment on, he was no ordinary one. He spoke too well, moved too well. What he had was a certain amount of odd charm, a flair that was hard to resist, and an amazing amount of arrogance. Under different circumstances, she might even have liked him.
“You have incredible gall,” she decided.
“You continue to flatter me.”
“All right.” Tight-lipped, Morgan strode over to the open balcony doors and gestured meaningfully. “I gave you my word I wouldn’t scream, and I didn’t. But I have no intention of standing here making idle conversation with a lunatic. Out!”
With his lips still curved in a smile, he sat on the edge of the bed and studied her. “I admire a woman of her word.” He stretched out jean-clad legs and crossed his feet. “I find a great deal to admire about you, Morgan. Last night you showed good sense and courage—rare traits to find together.”
“Forgive me if I’m not overwhelmed.”
He caught the sarcasm, but more important, noted the change in her eyes. She wasn’t as angry as she tried to be. “I did apologize,” he reminded her and smiled.
Her breath came out in a long-suffering sigh. She could detest him for making her want to laugh when she should be furious. Just who the devil was he? He wasn’t the mad rapist she had first thought—he wasn’t a common thief. So just what was he? Morgan stopped herself before she asked—she was better off in ignorance.
“It didn’t seem like much of an apology to me.”
“If I make a more . . . honest attempt,” he began with a bland sincerity that made her lips twitch, “would you accept?”
Firmly, she banked down on the urge to return his smile. “If I accept it, will you go away?”
“But I find your company so pleasant.”
An irrepressible light of humor flickered in her eyes. “The hell you do.”
“Aphrodite, you wound me.”
“I’d like to draw and quarter you. Are you going to go away?”
“Soon.” Smiling, he rose again. What was that scent that drifted from her? he wondered. It was not quite sweet, not quite tame. Jasmine—wild jasmine. It suited her. He moved to the dresser to toy with her hand mirror. “You’ll meet Dorian Zoulas and Iona Theoharis tomorrow,” he said casually. This time Morgan’s mouth did drop. “There’s little on the island I’m not aware of,” he said mildly.
“Apparently,” she agreed.
Now he noted a hint of curiosity in her tone. It was what he had hoped for. “Perhaps, another time, you’ll give me your impression of them.”
Morgan shook her head more from bafflement than offense. “I have no intention of there being another time, or of gossiping with you. I hardly see why—”
“Why not?” he countered.
“I don’t know you,” she said in frustration. “I don’t know this Dorian or Iona either. And I don’t understand how you could possibly—”
“True,” he agreed with a slight nod. “How well do you know Alex?”
Morgan ran a hand through her hair. Here I am, wearing little more than my dignity, exchanging small talk with a maniac who climbed in the third-story window. “Look, I’m not discussing Alex with you. I’m not discussing anyone or anything with you. Go away.”
“We’ll leave that for later too, then,” he said mildly as he crossed back to her. “I have something for you.” He reached into his pocket, then opened his hand and dangled a small silver medal by its chain.
“Oh, you did have it!” Morgan grabbed, only to have him whip it out of her reach. His eyes hardened with fury.
“I told you once, I’m no thief.” The change in his voice and face had been swift and potent. Involuntarily, she took a step away. His mouth tightened at the movement before he went on in a more controlled tone. “I went back and found it in the grove. The chain had to be repaired, I’m afraid.”
With his eyes on hers, he held it out again. Taking it, Morgan began to fasten it around her neck. “You’re a very considerate assailant.”
“Do you think I enjoyed hurting you?”
Her hands froze at the nape of her neck. There was no teasing banter in his tone now, no insolent light of amusement in his eyes. This was the man she recognized from the shadows. Waves of temper came from him, hardening his voice, burning in his jet eyes. With her hands still lifted, Morgan stared at him.
“Do you think I enjoyed frightening you into fainting, having you think I would murder you? Do you think it gives me pleasure to see there are bruises on you and know that I put them there?” He whirled away, stalking the room. “I’m not a man who makes a habit of misusing women.”
“I wouldn’t know about that,” she said steadily.
He stopped, and his eyes came back to hers. Damn, she was cool, he thought. And beautiful. Beautiful enough to be a distraction when he couldn’t afford one.
“I don’t know who you are or what you’re mixed up in,” she continued. Her fingers trembled a bit as she finished fastening the chain, but her voice was calm and unhurried. “Frankly, I don’t care as long as you leave me alone. Under different circumstances, I’d thank you for the return of my property, but I don’t feel it applies in this case. You can leave the same way you came in.”
He had to bank down on an urge to throttle her. It wasn’t often he was in the position of having a half-naked woman order him from her bedroom three times in one evening. He might have found it amusing if he hadn’t been fighting an overwhelming flood of pure and simple desire.
The hell with fighting it, he thought. A woman who kept her chin lifted in challenge deserved to be taken up on it.
“Courage becomes you, Morgan,” he said coolly. “We might do very well together.” Reaching out, he fingered the medal at her throat and frowned at it. With a silent oath, he tightened his grip on the chain and brought his eyes back to hers.
There was no fear in those clear blue pools now, but a light, maddening disdain. A woman like this, he thought, could make a man mad, make him suffer and ache. And by God, a woman l
ike this would be worth it.
“I told you to go,” she said icily, ignoring the sudden quick thud of her pulse. It wasn’t fear—Morgan told herself she was through with fear. But neither was it the anger she falsely named it.
“And so I will,” he murmured and let the chain drop. “In the meantime, since you don’t offer, I take.”
Once again she found herself in his arms. It wasn’t the teasing, seductive kiss of the night before. Now he devoured her. No one had kissed her like this before—as if he knew every secret she hoarded. He would know, somehow, where she needed to be touched.
The hot, insistent flow of desire that ran through her left her too stunned to struggle, too hungry to reason. How could she want him? her mind demanded. How could she want a man like this to touch her? But her mouth was moving under his, she couldn’t deny it. Her tongue met his. Her hands gripped his shoulders, but didn’t push him away.
“There’s honey on your lips, Morgan,” he murmured. “Enough to drive a man mad for another taste.”
He took his hand on a slow journey down her back, pressing silk against her skin before he came to the hem. His fingers were strong, callused, and as clever as a musician’s. Without knowing,
