Dark Enigma, page 16
'Maybe a little of both,' Carey whispered, and turned her head slightly to brush her lips on the dark skin in the opening of his shirt.
His fingers grasped a handful of her hair and he held back her head while he looked down into her face with a faint, half-mocking smile. 'You fear me?' he demanded softly, as if he knew very well that it wasn't fear she felt. 'I do not believe it, oreos mouV
He touched her lips with his, lightly at first, and then, with that hard, demanding fierceness she could never forget. Every nerve in her body tingled with a desire she could do nothing to subdue, nor did she want to, no matter what common sense decreed. Pressing close, she yielded up her mouth and the soft coolness of her body to a passion that was like nothing she had known before, and those big, gentle hands stroked and persuaded her towards complete surrender.
The thudding beat of her own heart and the soft murmured words that breathed against her ear seemed part of a separate existence, and it was as if nothing mattered but the two of them in a small scented world that was bounded by the sheltering mass of the oleander. One hand slipped down to the front of his shirt and she found it wet, gazing at it curiously for a moment before she realised the cause.
'You're very wet,' she whispered huskily, and Dimitri looked at her with his eyes heavy-lidded and gleaming blackly.
'Much less so than you are,' he reminded her with a faint smile, and raised one arm slightly to consult the watch on his wrist. 'And if you are not to appear at lunch looking like a water nymph you will have to dry and get dressed, mikros ena.'
He brushed a hand over her damp hair, but still held her close with one arm, and he started just as jerkily as she did when the sound of a metal gong being beaten shattered the stillness of the garden, and sent the birds fluttering upwards in shrill protest. Her heart beating wildly, Carey-looked up at him while her fingers dug hard into his arms, then she glanced briefly over her shoulder in the direction of the house where it seemed to have come from.
'What—what was that?' she whispered.
Dimitri seemed to have recovered remarkably quickly after that initial start, and she caught a faint hint of amusement in his eyes when she looked at him again.
Easing her away from him slightly, he nevertheless still kept his hands on her arms. 'I suspect it was Mitso,' he said, and Carey looked at him in startled disbelief.
'Mitso?'
'There is an old brass gong in the small salon, y Dimitri explained, 'and when Andoni and Rhoda were betrothed it was a favourite trick of his to wait until they were walking in the garden and then startle them by taking the gong to the open window and banging on it. Of course he was then no more than nine years old, but it seems his sense of timing has not deserted him!'
Flushing warmly, Carey drew back. She found that hint of amusement too discomfiting in the present situation and once again rued her own willingness to be enticed by Dimitri's skilful seduction. Mitso would have passed Dimitri on his way out when he went back to the house, and he would resent it as bitterly as he always did, that Dimitri was stepping into a situation where he had been rebuffed. Knowing that Dimitri was on his way out to her would be provocation enough for Mitso.
4 How childish!'
She pulled herself free of him and quite instinctively clasped her arms with her hands, for she had never felt more exposed and vulnerable in her life before. Dimitri found it amusing, or so his manner suggested, while she felt as if something wonderful had been reduced to a light hearted incident to be laughed over by the two brothers.
She would have been happier if she could have had her jacket to cover her, but that was floating on the surface of the pool still, and her sandals were still alongside the lounger she had been using. She had only the skimpy protection of the dark blue swimsuit that clung to her like a second skin, and she had never been more conscious of her own body as she was when she turned swiftly away from him and half ran, back to the house, leaving a small pool at his feet where she had been standing.
'Carey!'
She ignored the call and ran for the privacy of her own room. One day, she vowed, she would learn not to be so easily persuaded, but in the meantime she couldn't find it in her heart to be thankful the day was rapidly approaching when she wouldn't need her powers of resistance.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was a very important day for Niki and at the moment he seemed rather overawed by the prospect. Not that he any less enthusiastic about the adoption, but it was something completely outside his experience and he was, naturally enough, a little apprehensive about what was going to happen to him.
Carry herself felt a kind of sickening sensation as she took even greater pains with his appearance than usual, for Dimitri would expect him to be especially spick and span today of all days. In a smart blue gaberdine suit with a white shirt and a blue tie, he looked rather younger than his six years, and somehow touchingly vulnerable, so that she felt a lump in her throat for a moment.
So much seemed to be happening so quickly lately. First Mitso's wedding and all the attendant fuss and confusion over Minerva's elopement, and now Niki's adoption, only a few days later, and very soon now her own departure would cause another upheaval. In her life at least, though what effect it would have on others she couldn't guess.
Because she dreaded the task herself Carey kept hoping that Dimitri would help by breaking the news of her going to Niki, but so far he'd made no move in that direction or she would have known. Niki should have been told by now, she knew, but she found the task no easier than she had at the beginning, although now she had to admit it
was for a slightly different reason.
Niki had become so closely involved with Dimitri that there was just the chance he wouldn't mind her going quite so much as he would once have done, and it was something she felt would be hard to take. Not only because it would mean Niki was less attached to her, but because he might in the circumstances not raise so many objections to her going as he had in the past. She had only recently faced the fact that while Niki had been her reason for coming there, it was becoming increasingly obvious that Dimitri had just as much to do with her wanting to remain.
Ever since that day by the pool she had taken pains to avoid being alone with him, but the fact remained that he attracted her in a way no one else ever had. Common sense told her that leaving was by far her best move, but her feelings for Dimitri had little to do with common sense; she could only think about strong arms and gentle hands, and a mouth that ravished her senses.
She was so preoccupied with her own situation that it was a moment or two before she realised how very quiet and subdued Niki was for him. Putting down the hairbrush; she looked at him enquiringly and smiled. 'O.K.?' she asked.
He nodded, but met her eyes for only a moment, then looked down at his feet instead, and there was a suggestion of a frown between his brows. 'Is it time?' he asked, and he looked so solemn and unsmiling that she took both his hands and smiled at him encouragingly.
'There's no reason to look so worried about it, darling,' she told him. 'All that happens is that you talk to one or two people for a moment or two and then Thios—your papd signs some papers and it's all over. It's what you both want, isn't it?'
Niki nodded, but he was brushing a hand back and forth over his black curls in a way he always did whenever he was uncertain or troubled about something. 'Carey—Thia
Rhoda says I won't really be Thios Dimitri's son even when he's 'dopted me. She said I'm Aliki's—I can't remember the name she called me, but Thios Andoni was very cross and scolded her about it.'
It needed no great effort on Carey's part to guess what name Rhoda had called him, and for a moment she hated Andoni's spiteful wife with a ferocity that surprised her. Thank heaven she would soon be on her way to London and no longer around to make Niki's life a misery; for whatever precautions Dimitri took to prevent it, he couldn't always be around to protect him from Rhoda and Damon's spite. It was some consolation, she told herself, that Andoni had been angry.
Trying to reassure him, she smiled as she brushed the hair back from his forehead where it had already flopped from its tidy brushing. 'But of course you'll be your papd's son,' she told him. 'You mustn't listen to Thia Rhoda, Niki. She's cross because she doesn't want your uncle to adopt you, that's all.'
'Why?' Niki asked, inevitably, and Carey realised what a rod she had made for her own back when she let slip that casual observation.
'Oh, it's a long story, darling,' she told him, 'and one you'll understand better when you're older. There's a great deal of money involved, and money always causes trouble, especially a lot of money. Because your uncle is adopting you, you'll get a share one day. But your new papa will tell you all about it one day when you're bigger.'
But Niki was frowning and when he frowned he looked quite alarmingly like Dimitri. 'You mean I shall get Thia Rhoda's share?' he asked. 'Is that why she doesn't want me to be 'dopted?'
.'It simply means that there won't be quite so much to go around,' Carey told him, and brought the subject firmly to an end by consulting her wristwatch. 'And I think we'd better go, in case Thios Dimi—your papa is waiting for you, don't you?' He nodded, still solemn-faced. 'And
couldn't you manage a smile, Niki? This is your big day, remember?'
As always he responded quickly to encouragement and turned impulsively to hug her for a moment, heedless of possible damage to his smart suit. 'Yaya Karamalis is coming with us,' he said. 'I wish you were too, Carey.'
Carey wished she could too, but she didn't say so because she knew Niki well enough to guess that he would ask Dimitri to take her with them, and as she was so soon to leave them, she didn't really have any place in his new life. Instead she smiled and straightened his tie before taking his hand firmly in hers.
'You can tell me all about it when you come home,' she told him. 'Now I think we'd better go. All ready?'
Which was more or less what Dimitri asked him when he met them in the hall a few minutes later. But it seemed to Carey that Dimitri was giving more of his attention to her than to Niki, so that she began to wonder if he was going to suggest she went with them after all. 'What will you do this morning, Carey?* he asked. 'Have you anything special in mind?'
'Nothing very much.' She shrugged off any suggestion that her plans involved anything important in the hope of encouraging him. 'I thought I might go into Athens and do some shopping, that's all. I haven't anything special to get but just one or two things to—to take back.'
He ignored the reminder completely, and Niki appeared not to have noticed anything untoward. 'Good,' Dimitri said. 'Then I suggest you get Roussos to drive you in my mother's car and meet Nikolas and me for lunch afterwards. Mama will not wish to lunch out, she never enjoys it, so if you send Roussos to fetch her when he leaves you, she can drive home in her own car and we can enjoy a celebration lunch.'
He had it all neatly cut and dried, Carey noted dryly, but she was more than willing to comply with what he had planned, and she nodded. Her cheeks were faintly
flushed and her heart was already thudding hard and fast in anticipation of lunching with him. Td like that/ she said unhesitatingly, and he smiled.
'I thought perhaps you might! This business will take some time, but we should be free by about one-thirty; can you keep yourself amused until then?'
'Quite easily!'
'One-thirty, then, at the Grande Bretagne.' He was still watching her in that curiously speculative way she had noticed a few minutes earlier. 'You seem a little—anxious/ he said quietly. 'Is there any reason why you should? 5
She had been anxious, Carey recognised, but without any specific reason for it, and she shrugged, laughing it off because Niki was watching her too now. 'No reason at all/ she denied. Tm just naturally a bit on tenterhooks, that's all, hoping there won't be any last-minute snags.'
'There will not be,' Dimitri promised with a confidence she could not help but envy. He took Niki's hand and looked at his watch. 'My mother should be here by now; if
you will go and see where she is, Carey, I ' He broke
off when Madame Karamalis appeared, glancing again at his watch. 'Ah, Mama, ine 6ra ndfighoomeV
The old lady nodded. She was well aware that it was time they left, she prided herself on her punctuality, but she was obviously feeling rather emotional. Stooping to bring herself nearer to Niki's level, she stroked a light hand over his thick black curls, looking at him with suspiciously bright eyes. She murmured something in Greek which Niki seemed to have difficulty understanding, although he nodded, and she looked at him with a tolerant smile.
'Ah, you do not always understand yet, eh, litde one? Mikros ena —little one, yes?'
Obviously rather overwhelmed by the unaccustomed emotion, Niki looked up at Dimitri, clinging tightly to his hand meanwhile, and the fact that he turned to Dimitri and not to her, gave Carey a curious sense of loss suddenly.
It brought home to her the fact that some important part of her life was coming to an end and, no matter how delighted she was for Niki, for her own part she felt sad and vaguely tearful. Niki would never be quite so close to her again as he had been during those four years when she had been the most important person in his life, and she acknowledged that it was time for her to go.
'We will see you at one-thirty/ Dimitri was saying, and she hastily brought herself back to earth. A certain look in his eyes suggested that he realised something of what she was feeling, and just briefly he reached and took her hand, his long fingers enfolding hers and squeezing gently for a moment before he let go. 'Herete, Carey,' he said softly, and she smiled.
'Herete/ she said, automatically responding in Greek, and wondered why his goodbye sounded so alarmingly final this time.
The chance of seeing someone she knew in the teeming streets of Athens was pretty remote in her case, Carey thought. Which was why she turned swiftly when she 3potted a familiar face leaving the store she was about to enter, and followed Minerva back into the street. Pushing her way along the crowded pavement, trying to catch up, it wasn't until she was within touching distance that she stopped to consider what she was going to say.
It wasn't at all certain that Minerva would welcome her sudden appearance, but it had been irresistible to follow her, and as she came up alongside she placed a light hand on Minerva's arm. The moment she turned it was obvious that she was expecting someone else, and from the warm, soft look in her eyes it had to be the man who was by now probably her husband.
'Thespinis Gordon!' The eyes changed their expression to one of wariness, but years of inbred courtesy came to her aid and she proffered a hand. 'How do you do?'
'Very well, thank you, Kyria Petrakis.' Carey smiled,
taking a chance on using the name, a successful one judging by the faint flush that coloured Minerva's cheeks.
*You have learned my name,' she said, and Carey nodded.
'Dimitri told me.' There was an awkward pause, but Carey was not about to let the opportunity slip past her, and she was still smiling. 'I didn't expect to see you here in Athens, Kyria Petrakis, but I'm glad I did.'
'Dimitri had my letter?' Minerva asked, and already, Carey thought, she seemed just a little less wary, as if she remembered her sympathetic judgment of Aliki's situation and her own.
'Yes, he had it,' said Carey, then indicated a little cafe just beyond where they stood. 'Will you have coffee with me, Kyria Petrakis? I'm seeing Dimitri and Nikolas for lunch at one-thirty, but I've plenty of time before then. Will you join me?'
Minerva gave a deep sigh and shook her head, so that initially Carey thought she was refusing. Instead she was obviously condemning her own forgetfulness. 'But of course, it is today that Dimitri officially becomes Nikolas's father, is it not? I do not know how I could have forgotten such a thing.'
'We could drink to both happy occasions,' Carey suggested with a smile. 'Niki's future and your own happier one.'
'It will be happier,' Minerva insisted, and Carey was willing enough to believe her.
'I'm sure of it,' she said. 'So shall we drink to it, kyria? 1
'I do not have much time,' Minerva told her with a quick glance at her wrist, 'but I will have coffee with you, Thespinis Gordon; efkaristo."
The cafe was fairly busy, but not overcrowded, and* despite her initial check on the time, Minerva seemed in no special hurry once they were seated at one of the little tables. After two cups of coffee each and a couple of pastries thick with nuts and honey, she seemed much more
relaxed; It was all the more unexpected, therefore, when it was Minerva who eventually raised the subject that both of them had been carefully avoiding ever since they came in.
'I hope that my letter to Dimitri made everything clear,' she said. 'I did not mention you by name, Thespinis Gordon, but it has troubled me a little since that Dimitri may have blamed you. That he may have realised who encouraged me and gave me the courage I needed. I do hope you were not involved, thespinis.'
While she licked honey from her fingers, Carey took a moment to decide just how frank she should be. It wasn't an easy subject to discuss, and yet it was what had been in the back of her mind when she caught up with Minerva. 'Actually he read part of your letter out to me,' she said. 'He was angry because he guessed I must have been the one who talked to you about Aliki; no one else would have the knowledge, he said, which of course was right. But he thought I'd deliberately influenced you knowing what you had in mind; fortunately I managed to convince him he was wrong.'
Minerva looked very contrite, shaking her head as she looked across at her. 'I am so sorry, thespinis , I would not have had that happen, I did not think.'
Anxious to reassure her, Carey smiled. 'Oh, please don't worry about it, Kyria Petrakis, it was soon cleared up.'
Minerva said nothing for a moment then she moistened her lips before she spoke, her eyes looking from below heavy lids. 'I know they will have been angry,' she said with unexpected confidence. 'Dimitri was, was he not?'
