The Darkest of Secrets (10 page)

‘A kiss involves a bit of give and take, you know,’ she told him.

He opened his eyes, giving her a wry smile. ‘I didn’t want to scare you off.’

‘I don’t scare quite that easily.’ At least she hoped she didn’t.

‘No?’ His arms came around her, gently, slowly, giving her time to pull away. She didn’t. She’d allow herself this one moment, that was all. In a minute she’d step away. ‘Good,’ Khalis murmured, and Grace slid her hands up along the hard wall of his chest, lacing her fingers around his neck as she pulled his mouth down towards her. And then she kissed him again, deeply this time, a plunging sensation in her stomach as he responded in kind, their tongues tangling in a blaze of exquisite sensation. When had she last kissed like this? Felt like this?

You know when.

A shudder ran through her, a shudder of both longing and loss. It felt so wonderful and it had been so long, and yet just the memory of a man holding her made the memories rise up, the shame rushing through her in a hot, fast river, along with the desire and the hope. She closed her eyes and kissed Khalis more deeply, pressing herself against him, wanting desperately to banish the memories that taunted her even now.

You kissed a man like this. You wanted a man like this. And it cost you your daughter.

She felt Khalis’s hands span her waist, then slide under her T-shirt. The warmth of his palm against her skin made her shudder again and he stilled, waiting. He was so careful, so
caring
, yet she could not halt the relentless encroaching of her memories and that cold hard logic that swamped even her desire, and she knew he felt it, too.

‘Grace …?’

She pulled away from him, her head bowed, her hair falling in front of her face. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘No need to be sorry.’ He took her chin in his hand so he could study her face. See her blush. ‘We don’t need to rush this, do we?’

Yes, she wanted to say,
we do. Because this is all we have.

‘I shouldn’t have kissed you.’

‘It’s a little late for regrets,’ he said wryly and Grace jerked her chin from his hand.

‘I know that.’

‘Why shouldn’t you have kissed me, Grace?’

‘Because—’ Her breath came out in a rush.
Because I’m scared. Of so many things. Of losing myself in you, and losing my daughter as well.
How could she explain all that? She couldn’t, didn’t want to, because to explain was to open herself up to all kinds of vulnerability and pain. She just shook her head.

Khalis let out a slow breath, the sound of controlled impatience. ‘Are you married or something?’

She forced herself to meet his gaze levelly. ‘No. But I was.’

He stilled, his eyes narrowing. ‘You’re divorced?’

‘Yes.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘It’s … complicated.’

‘That much I could guess.’

She turned away, wrapping her arms around herself. Now the wind felt cold. ‘I just can’t be involved with you,’ she said quietly. ‘My marriage wasn’t. It wasn’t happy. And I’m not.’ She let out a little weary sigh. ‘I can’t.’ She stopped again, her throat too tight for any more words.

‘What,’ he asked, ‘would it take for you to trust me?’

Grace turned back to him, and she saw a man who had only been gentle and patient and kind. ‘I don’t know,’ she whispered. ‘But it doesn’t matter, Khalis. I wish it did matter, in a way. But, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t be in a relationship with you.’ Belatedly she realised he’d never actually said that word.
Relationship.
It implied not just intimacy, but commitment. ‘Or anything,’ she added hurriedly. ‘There can’t be anything between us.’ And, before he could answer, she walked quickly down the beach, back towards the door and that high, high wall.

That night she slept terribly. Memories came in fragments, as dreams, bizarre and yet making too much sense. Khalis kissing her. Her kissing Khalis. The sweet yearning of it, suddenly obliterated by the shame and guilt as she stared into Loukas’s face so taut with anger, his lips compressed into an accusing line.

How could you do this to me, Grace? How could you betray me so?

With a cry she sat up in bed, the memory roiling through her mind, racking her body with shudders. Knowing she would not be able to get back to sleep, she rose from the bed and pulled on a pair of jeans and a light cotton jumper. She piled her hair up with a clip and slipped out of her room, along the cool, dark corridors and downstairs.

The basement felt eerily still in the middle of the night, even though Grace knew it should make no difference. The place had no windows. She switched on the lights and gazed down at the panels laid out on a stainless steel table.

She’d spent most of her time so far authenticating the first painting of Leda and the Swan, but now she let her gaze turn to the second painting, the one that caused a fresh shaft of pain to lance through her. Leda and her children.

Over the centuries there had been speculation about this painting; Leonardo had done several studies, a few sketches of Leda sitting, her face downcast, her children by her side. Yet the reality of the actual painting was far more powerful than any sketch. Unlike the other painting, in this one Leda was seated and clothed, the voluptuous temptress hidden or perhaps forgotten. Two children, Castor and Polydeuces, stood behind her, sturdy toddlers, their hands on her shoulders as if they were anchoring themselves, or perhaps protecting their mother. Clytemnestra and Helen were rotund babies, lolling in Leda’s lap, their angelic faces upturned towards their mother.

And Leda. What was the expression on her face? Was it sorrow, or wistfulness, or even a wary joy? Was there knowledge in those lowered eyes, knowledge of the terrible things to come? Helen would start a war. Castor would die in it. And Clytemnestra would lose a daughter.

Abruptly Grace turned away from the painting. If she worked for a few hours, she could present Khalis with a file of her findings tomorrow, enough for him to go on with, and for her to leave Alhaja. Leave Khalis. And they could both get on with their lives.

Khalis watched as a wan and fragile-looking Grace entered the breakfast room the next morning. She looked as if she’d barely slept, although her pale face was composed and as lovely as ever. She was dressed in a slim-fitting black skirt and white silk blouse and carried a file, and Khalis knew exactly what she was about. After last night’s frustrating and half-finished kiss, he’d expected something like this. He sat back in his chair and sipped his coffee, waiting for her to begin.

‘I’ve completed most of the preliminary tests on the Leonardos.’

‘You have?’

She placed the file on the table, her lips pressed together in determination. ‘Yes. The analyses of the pigments and the wood panels are consistent with the time period that he would have completed these paintings. There are also several—’

‘Grace.’

She stopped, startled, and Khalis smiled at her. ‘You don’t need to give me a lecture. I’ll read the file.’

Her lips thinned even more. ‘All right, then.’

Khalis took a sip of his coffee. ‘So you feel you’ve finished?’

‘I’ve done all that I can do on my own. You really need to call a legal authority to—’

‘Yes, I’ll take care of that.’

She stopped, her eyes narrowing, and Khalis felt a sliver of hurt needle his soul. Did she
still
not trust him about the damn art? Then slowly, resolutely, she nodded. Acceptance, and he felt a blaze of gratified triumph.

‘Very well.’ She straightened, pressed her hands down the sides of her skirt. ‘Then my work here is done. If you could arrange—’

‘Done? Good.’ Khalis smiled, saw the flash of hurt in her chocolate eyes that was quickly veiled. Suppressed, but he’d seen it and it gave fire to his purpose. No matter what she’d said last night, no matter how her ex-husband had hurt her so badly she trembled at the thought of a kiss, she still wanted to be with him. ‘Then you can take the day off.’

‘What … what do you mean?’

‘A day of leisure, to enjoy yourself. With me.’

‘I don’t—’

‘Your work was expected to take a week. It’s been three days. I think you can take a day off.’

‘I told you before—’

‘One day. That’s all. Surely you can allow yourself that?’

She hesitated, and he saw the longing in her eyes. What, he wondered yet again, kept her from enjoying herself? From
living
? ‘You want to.’ He leaned forward, not bothering to hide the need he was sure she could see in his eyes. The need he was sure she felt, too. ‘I want to. Please, Grace.’

Still she hesitated. Khalis waited. ‘All right,’ she said at last. She offered him a rather tentative smile. ‘All right.’

Khalis couldn’t keep himself from grinning. ‘Wonderful. You’d better change into something a bit more serviceable, and I’ll meet you in the foyer in five minutes.’

‘That’s rather quick.’

‘I want to take advantage of every moment with you.’

A flush tinted her cheeks rose-pink and she turned away. ‘One day,’ she murmured, and he couldn’t tell if she was warning him—or herself.

Grace hadn’t brought too many serviceable clothes with her, at least not the kind she thought Khalis had in mind. While working she dressed with discreet professionalism, clothes that were flattering without being obvious. After a few moments’ consideration she chose the slim black trousers and white fitted T-shirt she’d worn earlier in the week, and threw a cardigan in charcoal-grey cashmere over her shoulders, in case the breeze from the sea was strong.

Where could he be taking her? Alhaja Island hadn’t looked that large from the air. Besides the enclosed compound, there were only a few stretches of beach and a tangle of trees. Yet Grace knew it didn’t even matter where he might be taking her, because she simply wanted to be with him—for one day. One day that posed no risk to her heart or her time with Katerina. One day out of time and reality, a memory she would carry with her in all the lonely days and nights ahead.

Khalis was already waiting in the foyer when she came down the stairs, wearing jeans and a white button-down shirt, open at the throat, so Grace’s gaze was inexorably drawn to that column of golden-brown skin, the pulse beating strongly. She jerked her gaze upwards and gave him a tentative smile.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Just to the beach,’ he said, but there was a glint in his eye that told her he had something planned. Grace followed him outside to an open-topped Jeep waiting in the drive. She climbed in and fastened her seat belt as Khalis drove through the forbidding-looking gates and then out along a rutted dirt road that looked to circumnavigate the island.

Grace pushed her hair from her face and shaded her eyes as she glanced at the rocky outcrops and the stretch of golden beach, the sea jewel-bright and winking under the sun in every direction. ‘This island’s not very big, is it?’

‘Two miles long and half a mile wide. Not large at all.’

‘Did you ever feel … trapped? Living here?’

Khalis slid her a speculative glance and Grace pretended not to notice. ‘Yes,’ he answered after a moment, his hands tightening reflexively on the steering wheel, ‘but not because of the island’s size.’

‘Why, then?’

His mouth curved grimly. ‘Because of the island’s inhabitants.’

‘Your father?’

‘Mainly. My brother and I didn’t get along very well, either.’

‘Why not?’

He shrugged. ‘Ammar was my father’s heir, and my father poured everything into him. He was tough with him, too tough, and I suppose Ammar needed to take it out on someone.’

‘He was a bully? Your brother?’

Khalis just shrugged again. ‘Boarding school was a bit of a relief.’

‘What about your sister?’

He didn’t answer for a moment, and Grace felt the tension in his body. ‘I missed her,’ he finally said. ‘I’m sure she felt more trapped here than I did. My father didn’t believe in educating daughters. He employed a useless governess for a while, but Jamilah never had the opportunities Ammar and I did. Opportunities she would have had if—’ He stopped suddenly, shaking his head. His expression, Grace saw, had become shuttered. Closed. ‘Old memories,’ he said finally. ‘Pointless.’

‘Do you think,’ she asked after a moment, ‘the helicopter crash was an accident?’

‘It’s not outside the realm of possibility that one of his enemies—or even his allies—tinkered with the engine. I don’t know what they would have hoped to gain. Perhaps it was an act of revenge—my father did business with the dregs of every society. People like that tend not to die in their beds.’

Grace felt a chill of trepidation at how indifferent Khalis sounded, as if the way his father and brother had died was a matter of little concern. His attitude towards his family was so different from the affable man she’d come to know and even to trust. Again she glimpsed a core of hard, unyielding iron underneath all that easygoing friendliness. ‘You sound rather heartless,’ she told him quietly.

‘
I
sound heartless?’ Khalis gave a short laugh. ‘Good thing you never met my father.’

Grace knew she could not explain to Khalis why his opinion of his father disquieted her so much. She had heard rumours of Balkri Tannous, the bribes he took, the kind of shady business he conducted. Why was she, in her own twisted way, trying to defend him?

Because you still feel guilty. In need of forgiveness. Just like him.

‘How did you find out?’ she asked and Khalis did not pretend to misunderstand.

‘I was sixteen,’ he said quietly. ‘Home from school for the summer holidays. I went looking for my father, to tell him I’d won the mathematics prize that year.’ He lapsed into a silence and Grace knew he was remembering, saw the pain of that memory in the tautness of his face. ‘I found him in his study. He was on the telephone, and he waved for me to sit down. I couldn’t help but overhear him—not that he was trying to hide it. At first I didn’t understand. He said something about money, and asking for more, and I thought he was just talking about business. Then he said, “You know what to do if he resists. Make sure he feels it this time.” It sounded like something a school bully would say. I’d certainly heard such talk at school. But coming from my father—I couldn’t credit it. So much so that when he got off the telephone I asked him about it, almost as if it were a joke. “Papa,” I said, “it almost sounded like you were ordering someone to be beaten up!” My father gave me one hard look and then he said, “I was.”’