The Passionate Greek (14 page)

His obvious distress deflated her anger. She
reached for his hand and gripped it with her own. He looked
gratefully at her.

‘It’s difficult to know where to start.’ His
frown deepened. ‘Let’s put it this way, I didn’t have the Boys Own
childhood you might think.’ His flippancy failed to disguise hurt
in his eyes. His voice devoid of emotion, he began to talk, only
the pressure of his hand in hers betraying the underlying
stress.

‘My mother was the daughter of one of the
richest man in Greece,’ he told her. ‘The only child and heir to my
Grandfather are vast shipping empire... At 16 she eloped with a 42
year old playboy polo player from Argentina. So I am half
Argentinean.’ His smile was wry. ‘Predictably the marriage didn’t
last, but unfortunately for the family I did.’ His smile turned
bitter.

‘They didn’t really know what to do with me.
I was boarded out at schools in England at first, later in
Switzerland. My Grandfather never forgave my mother. He made his
brother’s son his successor. He didn’t cut my Mother off without
the proverbial penny but almost. He gave her an allowance, which
enabled her to lead a rackety life around Europe’s hotspots, taking
up with one unsuitable man after another.

‘I learned not to trust any of the promises
she made to me. It was just one lying excuse after another. “Yes,
darling. Of course I will come to school and see you in the
swimming gala” and “of course, we will spend the summer holidays
together”. But she never turned up at for the gala and when the
summer holidays came she was off somewhere else with the new man in
her life. Once she completely forgot to make any arrangements for
me and I was left to spend the first week of the Easter holidays
alone in the school dormitory until Grandfather made arrangements
for me to be brought to the Skiapolos.

‘But you were happy on the island, weren’t
you?’ said Melanie.

‘Yes, I was,’ he said. The islanders became
my substitute family. But I always had a fantasy that one day my
mother would claim me and we would live together happily ever
after. A childish dream. It never had a chance of coming true

‘When I was 14 I think my mother must have
had a rush of conscience because she collected me from my Swiss
school and drove me breakneck speed into France and down to the
Riviera to her rented villa. Looking back she was probably on some
drug or other. But I was excited and hopeful. At last we were going
to have the family holiday I had dreamed off and she had so often
promised. But it didn’t work out like that.’ His voice was low and
pain filled. ‘A teenage son was something of an encumbrance to her
social life. She would get up around noon, make vague promises of
what we were going to do that day, none of which ever materialised.
I was left to make my own amusements most of the time.’

As Melanie listened the anger she felt
towards him was draining away. Her heart went out to him. ‘You make
your childhood sound very sad,’ she said.

‘Only Anna and my visits to this island make
it bearable. Anna took care of me like my mother never did. But
everything changed when I was 16.’

‘Was it something that happened to your
mother,’ asked Melanie, softly.

‘No. But you might say it was a true Greek
tragedy. My Grandfather died. On the way to his funeral the private
plane carrying his heir – my 22-year-old cousin and his father –
crashed and both were killed. My mother had been excluded by the
small trust fund set up for her. The only one left to inherit was
me.’

Nicos gave an ironic grimace. ‘Suddenly I
became very popular with Mummy dearest. She’d turn up to my Swiss
school with her latest boyfriend in tow. Where once I longed for
her to come I now began to find her visits acutely embarrassing.
She was either drunk or on drugs. Her make-up was garish, her
clothes entirely unsuitable, skirts too short, tops too low cut.
The trustees were in charge of the Chalambrous Shipping Line
fortune, but I guess she knew that in five short years I would have
control of the money.’

His story shocked Melanie and her heart
contracted. ‘But she was your mother,’ she said, ‘She must have
loved you.’

‘I don’t know if she did,’ he said sadly.
‘Mothers are not always the saints they are made out to be.’

‘So on the boat you really weren’t talking
about me, were you?’ she said. ‘You were talking about yourself. I
thought you were saying I was a bad mother to Electra.’

‘No, I don’t think that about you,’ he said.
‘Nobody who has seen you with her could think that.’ Melanie felt a
rush of complex emotions. If he believed she was a good mother why
wouldn’t he let her into Electra’s life for always?

. ‘I’m not your mother,’ she said. ‘I’m me;
I’m Melanie, mother of your daughter. Given the choice I would stay
with her forever. Don’t punish me for what your mother did to
you.’

But there was no anger left in her. She
longed to comfort him, to erase the scars of his wounded childhood,
and above all to prove to him that she was a woman he could trust
with their daughter’s life. ‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this
before,’ she asked him gently. ‘It would have helped me understand
a lot of things.’

‘I don’t like to remember it,’ he said.
‘It’s why I am determined to give Electra the most stable childhood
it is in my power to give her. I will put that before all other
considerations.’ Melanie looked searchingly at him. ‘And you
thought that I was not a stable enough person to be the mother of
your child. You thought I would turn out like your own mother.’

For the first time he looked uncertain. ‘The
more I see you with Electra the more I realise you would never be
like her. I was wrong to think that.’

‘If you were wrong about that could it be
that you are wrong about other things?’

‘What other things?’ he asked, suddenly
wary. His tone was a warning, Melanie knew. He wasn’t ready to hear
what she wanted to tell him. Perhaps not now, but you will, she
told herself. You have opened the curtain a crack and I will make
you listen. Suddenly happy, she leaned over and kissed his cheek.
‘Thank you for telling me,’ she whispered.

After lunch they wandered hand in hand
around the picturesque small port, at ease with each other the way
they used to be. Opening the door of his childhood to Melanie
seemed to have given them a new intimacy. Everyone seemed to know
Nicos and Melanie lost count of the times they were beckoned in
from the open doors of the small white houses ringing the bay. But
Nicos refused all invitations with an easy grace. ‘If we go into
one and not all the others it will cause a war,’ he grinned.

He draped an arm affectionately round her
shoulders as they traversed the winding alleyways behind the port
and Melanie was acutely conscious of the warmth of his hip against
her own.

‘The port is ringed by mountains,’ he told
her. ‘They’re very beautiful. I’d like to show them to you.’

Melanie raised her eyes to the majestic
peaks towering above the bay. ‘’Too far today,’ she said, ‘Not at
all,’ replied Nicos. ‘We’ll travel like everyone here does.’ She
looked at him inquiringly. ‘Bike,’ he announced. Grabbing her hand
and laughing he pulled her back down to the portside and up a side
street where a single petrol pump stood outside a ramshackle
workshop.

His enthusiasm was infectious and Melanie
found herself laughing along with him. The proprietor hugged Nicos
warmly and Melanie did her best to follow the rapid Greek exchange.
‘He’s lending you a motorbike. Is that what he’s saying?’ she
queried. ‘I’m impressed,’ said Nicos. ‘You’re Greek is really
improving.’

Melanie feeling a surge of warmth at his
praise quickly doused it with the thought that she wouldn’t need
the language after the summer was over. She pushed it deliberately
from her mind. She was having a wonderful afternoon – why spoil
it?

Two helmets were produced and before she
knew it she was seated behind Nicos, arms clamped tightly round his
waist. He manoeuvred the bike carefully through the narrow lanes
but once out of the town he opened up. The rushing cool air after
the heat of the day was wonderful. She wanted to lean her head
against Nicos’s strong back, but the helmet impeded her.

They flew up the mountain road meeting no
other traffic. Nicos slowed and turned up a small track. At the top
he cut the engine and Melanie took off her helmet and shook out her
long hair. The silence was magical; the view of the bay below, the
sun dancing off the glittering sea and the white walled houses even
more so. Melanie gasped. ‘It’s absolutely beautiful,’ she
signed.

‘So are you,’ said Nicos taking her in his
arms, ‘but I didn’t just bring you up here to look at the view.’ He
held her close in a long embrace, not kissing her but just stroking
her hair and moving his body against her. Desire flamed up in her.
He bent his head and she felt his tongue moved softly and slowly
over her parted lips. Everything seemed to be happening in slow
motion. He picked her up and carried her into the shade of a
stunted tree. He laid her down and undressed her slowly and
sensuously, taking infinite time and stroking each part of her as
he revealed it. The ground beneath her body was hard and as if
sensing it he rolled her over on top of him. She took his male
hardness and guided him into herself. He groaned softly and she
moved slowly at first, then faster and faster till she climaxed. He
rolled her back under him and with his hands beneath her filled her
with slow, sure strokes till she felt passion mounting again within
her to match his own lifting them both as if on a tidal wave and
crashing them back down to earth. He held her tightly afterwards as
if he never wanted to let her go.

‘We should go,’ she said finally. ‘I need to
tidy you up first,’ he said smiling lovingly at her and picking
bits of twigs from her hair. He lifted the bike upright and helped
her mount, fastening the strap of her helmet for her and kissing
her lightly on the nose. He drove slowly back down the mountain as
if he didn’t want the afternoon to end, thought Melanie.

They returned the bike to its owner who
peered inside the helmet Melanie had worn and slapped Nicos on the
back. There followed rapid and bantering Greek between them that
Melanie couldn’t follow.

‘What was he saying?’ she asked Nicos, as
they walked back down to the harbor. ‘Did you understand any of
it?’ he asked. ‘I heard the word for trees, I think,’ she said.
Nicos looked at her mischievously. ‘I didn’t get all the twigs out
of your hair,’ he said. ‘Quite a bit was left inside your helmet.
‘

Melanie gasped and felt herself blushing.
‘It will be all round the town. Everyone will know.’

‘Yep,’ agreed Nicos serenely. ‘I’ll be the
envy of the whole male population.’

‘I’ll never be able to come back here
again,’ she said indignantly. Nicos laughed delightedly and steered
her to a harbor side bar. The sun was beginning to sink when he
said, ‘Better head back. ‘I’ve got an early start tomorrow morning;
a business meeting in London. You will have no company for a
while’. A thought chilled Melanie. ‘Is Katerina going with
you?’

‘Good Lord, no,’ he snorted. ‘Whatever
for?’

‘I thought…’

‘You thought wrong. I’ve told you before.
She’s not a girl friend. Why won’t you believe me?’

‘I heard you on the terrace, talking about
her father coming,’ she confessed. Nicos threw back his head and
laughed. ‘What! So I could ask for her hand?’ Melanie was loath to
tell him that was exactly what her fevered imagine had conjured up.
He took her hand in his. ‘I’m sorry I teased you a bit about
Katerina. I quite liked the fact that you were jealous. The truth
is her father is a business associate of mine. He thought she was
going off the rails on the Riviera and asked me to bring her to
Skiapolos and keep her out of trouble. It’s true her father is
coming, but only to take a cruise on the Athena with me.’ He looked
mischievously at her. ‘Of course, since you were party to the
conversation you will know that I expect you to come, too.’

Melanie felt a great surge of happiness. He
may not be her Nicos, but he wasn’t Katerina’s either.

‘When I come back we’ll make arrangements,’
he was saying. Melanie’s heart stilled. She didn’t want him to go
away. She wanted this new receptive Nicos to stay with her. The
vision she had was of them wandering the island together hand in
hand. She would start to tell him and he would listen. Now he was
going away.

‘How long will you be gone,’ she asked,
dreading his answer.

‘Only a week,’ he said, and her heart
lifted. In a week’s time everything would come right between them.
She didn’t know why she had such certainty, she only knew she
did.

They cruised at a leisurely speed back to
Skiapolos. Nicos let her steer the launch only taking the helm as
the sun was setting and they neared the home harbor. Ashore they
strolled arm in arm up the hill. At the villa steps he took her
head in his hands and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘Thank you for
listening to me,’ he said. ‘When I get back from London we will
talk.’

Melanie’s heart soared. Maybe, just maybe,
it would all come right for them.

At the top of the steps he turned to her and
said suddenly, ‘Come with me to London.’ Melanie started with
surprise. ‘I can’t leave Electra,’ she protested. ‘I have so little
time left with her.’ He brushed her words aside. ‘We’ll take her
with us. Maria can come to help.’ A million practical reasons why
she couldn’t go with him flashed through her mind. I can’t get
Electra ready in time. I don’t know what to pack. Maria might not
have a passport. He dismissed all her worries.

‘Maria most certainly has a passport. My
office arranged it for her. As for packing, don’t bother. If
there’s one thing London’s not short of it’s shops. Anything you
need we can buy when we get there. No excuses. You’re coming.’