The Passionate Greek (11 page)

‘But it did,’ she thought. ‘And it will
again. I’m going to get this man so hot for me he’ll never want me
to leave.’ She couldn’t afford to fail. Unless she made him fall in
love with her all over again she would leave Skiapolos s at the end
of the summer and never see her daughter again.

They were approaching the small island.
Nicos anchored in the bay and cut the engine. In the sudden silence
the only sound was the waves lapping the shore and the call of sea
birds. ‘The island’s uninhabited,’ Nicos told her. ‘It’s not much
more than a rock in the middle of the ocean. I didn’t have a chance
to show you the other day, but there’s a cave at the back of the
beach. We could go there.’ His emphasis on the word “there” held an
unmistakeable meaning. He looked searchingly at her. ‘Unless you
would prefer to stay here.

Melanie’s heart raced. She had set out to
seduce him all over again and now he was playing into her hands. So
why was she hesitating? She didn’t want to cheat on this man. She
didn’t want to be play-acting with him. She wanted to walk into his
arms with love, like it had been before. But she couldn’t unravel
the past, and Nicos wouldn’t let her. She came to a decision. She
had set out to get him and get him she would.

‘The cave,’ she said and smiling a seductive
smile over her shoulder she dived off the boat and into the clear
blue water. She heard a soft splash behind her and Nicos came
alongside her. They swam slowly together, their eyes meeting from
time to time signalled sexual promise. He took her hand as they
waded ashore and pulled her to him as they walked up the beach. The
entrance to the cave was low and they had to duck underneath the
arch of rock to gain entrance. It was dark inside and Melanie’s
head almost brushed the roof. ‘You can’t stand up in here,’ she
said shakily.

He made no answer, just dropped to his knees
in front of her, his hands at her hips. She felt him tug down her
bikini and he pulled her close to him as her hands found his
shoulders. His tongue began to lick softy and she heard herself
moan ‘Don’t stop, don’t stop.’ He brought her near to crescendo and
sensing it pulled her down under him on the soft sandy bottom of
the cave. He entered her savagely the way she wanted him to and she
heard him cry out as he scaled the height of his passion, taking
her with him on a rising surge of sensation.

‘Don’t cry,’ he said afterwards, rocking her
close to him. ‘I’m not,’ she said, her face muffled into his body.
But tears ran unchecked down her cheeks.

‘You told me once that beautiful things
often make you cry.’ His voice was tender. ‘Was it beautiful for
you? Are you crying because it was?’ She nodded her head against
his chest, not trusting herself to speak. She had set out to seduce
him, but it was he who had seduced her. She was as much in love
with him as ever.

In the dimness of the cave she could just
make out his face as she raised her head to look at him. He smiled
down at her and smoothed the hair back from her brow with an
infinitely sweet gesture. ‘I never could keep my hands off you,’ he
said and there was a touch of wonder in his voice.

She wriggled from his embrace and felt about
her on the cave’s floor to find her abandoned bikini. ‘Don’t
dress,’ he said. ‘There’s no one here but us. We can swim naked.’
He crawled out of the cave and pulled her out after him, laughing
joyfully. It was crazy to feel shy in front of him after what they
had just done, but she did. He circled her within his arm and
nestled her close to his hip. ‘Come on, I’ll show you the island.
Well, what there is of it . It will take all of five minutes, and
then we can swim back to the boat and have lunch.’

He talked easily as they walked along the
sand their bodies gently touching and before long her shyness eased
and she found she was beginning to revel in the freedom of their
nakedness. As he had promised the tour took no more than five
minutes and in no time they were back at the cave. She wanted to
retrieve her bikini then but he held her back saying, ‘No, swim
back to the boat without it.’

They entered the sea together and Melanie
delighted in the feel of the water on her naked body. Seeing her
rapture, Nicos, swimming alongside her, said, ‘See. I knew you
would like it. It’s very sensuous, isn’t it?’ Melanie had to admit
that it was. The feel of the water caressing her body where Nicos’s
hands and lips had so recently raised her to ecstasy elated her. ‘I
feel like a mermaid,’ she called to Nicos, who had swum ahead. He
laughed and called back, ‘I don’t want to find you’ve grown a tail.
I’m very fond of those legs of yours.’

He reached the boat before her and waited at
the boarding ladder for her to catch up, gesturing for her to climb
aboard before him. Suddenly conscious of her nakedness she demurred
and said, ‘you first.’ ‘Okay, if you want to spoil my treat,’ he
complained. ‘I was rather looking forward to you going up the
ladder in front of me.’ ‘Well, you go first and the treat will be
all mind,’ joked Melanie. They were having fun, she realised, just
the way they used to.

Once on the yacht Melanie looked around for
something to cover her nakedness. ‘I am absolutely not eating with
no clothes on,’ she said firmly. ‘If you really are determined to
spoil my fun I’ll rummage around for something,’ said Nicos, who
had pulled on his own shorts.

He emerged from the cabin clutching a
sun-faded scrap of material. Melanie eyed it suspiciously. ‘Whose
is that?’ she asked.

‘Believe it or not I don’t have women on
this boat, present company excepted,’ he rebuked mockingly. ‘It’s
mine. I wear it when there’s nobody aboard but me. It’s very
comfortable. It’s a sort of sarong.’

‘Not much of one,’ said Melanie. ‘It’s
postage stamp size.’

‘I don’t want you covered up at all,’ he
said wickedly. ‘This is a compromise.’

He draped it around her body, trying it this
way and that till finally satisfied he stood back to admire his
handiwork. ‘It doesn’t cover much of me,’ complained Melanie.

‘Mmmm, perhaps a little tweak here or
there,’ he mused, leaning forward and stroking her breasts through
the thin cotton material. A small flicker of desire flamed in
Melanie discomforting her and leading her to say more briskly than
she intended, ‘Let’s eat.’

Nicos gave a mock disappointed sigh and
said, ‘Well if you’d rather have lunch than me,’ and disappeared
below to emerge with a large cool box. The heavy thump Melanie had
heard from her hiding place in the cabin when Nicos had boarded was
the picnic she now saw. He pulled out the collapsible cockpit table
and began to spread out the lunch. This time the fare was more
grown up than the food he had brought to the beach for Electra.
Chilled white wine, plump dark green olives, slivers of smoked
salmon, tzatziki, houmous and pitta bread.

They ate hungrily. ‘There’s nothing like
swimming and fresh air to give you an appetite,’ said Melanie.
‘Yes, swimming, fresh air and great sex,’ Nicos enthused, earning
himself a sharp kick on the ankle. Nicos looked at her
mischievously. ‘Well, it was great sex, wasn’t it? It always was
with us.’

For a moment he looked downcast. It seemed
to Melanie that he made a visible effort to shake off whatever it
was that had invaded his mood. Leaping to his feet he started the
engine and the throb of the heavy diesel silenced the sound of the
birds and the waves.

‘Are we heading for home now,’ she asked, as
he navigated the yacht out of the cove. ‘Not unless you want to,’
he said.

Melanie sighed happily. She felt suspended
in time and didn’t want the day to end. She had the strangest
sensation that as long as they stayed at sea everything would be as
it was between them. She watched Nicos, his hands sure on the
wheel, the breeze shifting his dark hair, his eyes fixed on the
horizon. From time to time he turned to look at her, his expression
loving.

He held out his arm to her and she went to
him. He pulled her close and she nestled into his body, loving the
hard masculine feel of him. He kept one hand on the wheel and one
round her. She put her own arm round his waist and slipped the
other hand inside his shorts curling her fingers into the hair of
his body.

‘If you keep that up you’re going to join
the mile low club.’

What’s that?’ she asked, puzzled. ‘The same
as the mile high club, only at sea.’

‘You made that up,’ she laughed up at him,
and continued her exploration. She felt so at ease with him there
was nothing she couldn’t do.

‘Get me a cold drink before I explode,’ he
laughed. She fished in the cold box and produced a cold beer for
him. Watching him throw back his head and tip the cool liquid down
his throat she felt a great surge of contentment. She was having a
wonderful day.

Later she couldn’t say what changed, what
dark cloud descended on them and left a trail of wreckage in its
wake. The sky remained mockingly blue, the wind soft and the sun
warm, but Nicos had turned cold as ice. They had been talking
aimlessly and Melanie strove hard to remember what she had said
that had caused his mood to darken so suddenly. She had been
recalling how her late father had loved the sea.

’I was only two when my mother died and he
brought me up alone for the first six years,’ she had been telling
him. ‘I was a motherless child till he married again,’ she had
spoken lightly but did the words “motherless child” make him think
of Electra and what had happened to them? Had she stirred up
memories their perfect day had looked set to bury?

She stole a glance at him. His face was
set.

‘Mothers!’ he said bitterly. ‘Everyone think
they’re wonderful. Well, I don’t buy into that.’

Melanie blanched at his tone. Was he saying
she wouldn’t make a good mother to Electra? She felt her anger
rising.

‘I would try to be a perfect mother to
Electra if only you would let me. I would cherish her, guard her
and give her the best upbringing I could,’ she said hotly. ‘I would
do anything, anything at all for my daughter.’

In her frustration all she abandoned all
caution. ‘Why won’t you let me be a mother to her?’ Why are you so
set on banishing me from her life?’

He looked round at her, and to her distress
she saw the old familiar tightening of his jaw, the stubborn set of
his face. ‘Remember it was you who gave up Electra. It was your
choice. I am merely standing by it.’ He was as resolute as ever.
Melanie cursed herself. Her outburst would do nothing to help her
cause. She had set out to win him over and all she had done was
alienate him again.

‘At the time I was in no position to keep
her.’ Melanie hadn’t meant to but found herself pleading with him
once again. ‘Try to think what it was like for me. I had just given
birth. I was facing a jail term. All my instincts were to protect
her, to give her a safe haven and you were that. I couldn’t think
beyond the next few months. But I didn’t know how heartsick I was
going to be. I know I gave you full custody and I have never gone
back on that and I won’t now. All I want is to see her from time to
time, spend time with her, watch her grow.’

He didn’t respond to her, but simply said,
‘It wasn’t my intention to bring a child into this world to bring
up alone. That’s just the way it has worked out.’ His anger seemed
to have dissipates as quickly as it had come. She risked a look at
his face and found he looked sad. ‘Together we could have given her
everything.

‘I had never considered a child till I met
you, you know,’ he said reflectively. ‘I thought together we would
create a perfect family. The house in the English countryside, our
summers spent here on Skiapolos, perhaps skiing in the winter when
the children were old enough.’ He sounded infinitely regretful.

Melanie felt her heart beat. She had fought
him for the right to bring up her daughter, but she had never
fought for his love. She had accepted it was over. Perhaps she had
been wrong? Maybe, just maybe, this was the time to try again to
make him love her again, to make him understand.

But where to start? She began tentatively.
‘You loved me then, didn’t you, Nicos?’ He didn’t reply and she
went on, ‘You loved me enough to want a child with me. Can’t we
find our way back? You can’t deny what’s between us still. We are
drawn to each other, we were meant to be. Can’t you understand
that?’

‘It’s you who can’t understand,’ he said,
and he sounded as implacable as ever. ‘There are qualities that I
demand in a life partner. I thought you had those qualities. I was
wrong. If I sound harsh then so be it.’

The finality of his tone was clearly meant
to close the conversation, but Melanie persisted. ‘You said you
dreamed of family life. I had the same dreams. When I found I was
carrying your baby I had never been happier. I wanted a family just
as much as you did Family is very important to me. It always has
been. ’She tried to explain. ‘Losing my mother at such an early age
it was always my dream to be part of a unit, to share all the love
and loyalty that families….’

‘Loyalty,’ he interrupted her, his face
hardening. ‘The most important thing. I give my loyalty without
stinting and .I demand it in return. I demand it of those who work
for me, I demand it of my dependants and I demand it of those I
love and I would certainly demand it of a wife.’

‘I thought you knew me well enough to know
that I had that quality.’

‘Oh, yes, I found out how loyal you could
be,’ he said bitterly. ‘So loyal you would do anything for a man
you love, even go to prison for them.’

Now was the time. She had to tell him, make
him see. ‘I went to prison because I lied,’ she began. ‘I did so
because I made a promise.’

Again he interrupted. ‘A promise you refused
to break, even if it meant ruining our life together.’ His savage
tone angered her. ‘When I make a promise I keep it.’ she said
heatedly. ‘It’s you who do not.’