He smiled lazily at her. 'Your wish, my most lovely bride, is my command!'
For five, wonderful, unforgettable days Andrea toured the island with Nikos. For five searing, incandescent nights she flamed with passion in his arms. All cares were left behind. This was a special time, she thought—all she would have. She must make the most of it. Make the most of Nikos.
She knew, with a terrible clenching of her heart, that it would be all she would have of him. The realisation struck like a cold knife at her.
She heard his words at Knossos echo in her heart— 'We must live while we can, Andrea. We have no other choice except to make the most of what is given to us. Our minds, our hearts-— our bodies and our passions.'
And she would make the most of it—draw every bead of happiness, every pulse of pleasure and desire, every moment of calm, quiet bliss.
And make it last her all her life.
But I want it to last for ever!
That was impossible, she knew. This time with Nikos was nothing more than a brief, magical sliver of time. It shimmered prifh radiance, but it could not last.
Reality had to return, and she must accept that. Not will-fagly, but with a heavy, heavy heart. She knew, more than any, just how brief a portion of happiness life could hold. Her mother was testament to that And yet she knew, for she had asked her once, that her mother would never have forgone the brief, fleeting bliss she had had with the man she loved, however long the empty years since then.
And I will be the same...
As they drove into Soula on their last evening on Crete, the setting sun turning the sea to gold, and saw the yatch moored there, Andrea’s spirits became heavy. Her happiness was coming to an end and would never come again.
She looked across at Nikos, etching every line of his face into her memory.
I love him, she thought. I love him.
As the words formed in her mind she knew them for a truth she could never deny. Never abandon.
And never tell.
Andrea paced the deck of the yatch as it headed steadily, remorselessly, north in the starlight towards Piraeus. To the east the sky was beginning to lighten. It must be near dawn, she thought. Inside, Nikos lay asleep, exhausted by passion.
Our last time together, she thought in anguish.
She had slipped noiselessly away, needing - oh, needing solitude to think. To agonise.
This wasn’t supposed to happen! This was never in the plan! I never meant to fall in love with him!
She stared blindly out over the sea, feeling the deck swell with the waves beneath the hull. The hull of a luxury Greek yatch.
This wasn’t real - none of it was real! It was nothing more than a dream, a chimera. Reality was at home, in that drab council flat where she lived all her life, bowed down by the debts that hung around Kim’s neck - the money she had borrowed at ruinous interest, unsecured as it had to be, since they owned nothing of value, to pay for the treatment Andrea needed to make her walk again.
That’s what I came to Greece for - to free her from that burden at last. To set her free from the cage and let her have some happiness in life at last, some comfort and ease.
And there was nothing stopping her - the money her grandfather had paid her to marry Nikos Vassilis was in her bank account. All she had to do was go home and spend it.
Leaving Nikos behind.
You’ll never see him again! Never made love with him! Never hold him in your arms!
A cold wind gusted over her, and she shivered in the fine silk negligee.
So what? So what if you’ve fallen in love with Nikos Vassilis? He doesn’t love you. He married you to get your grandfather’s company. And if he seduced you, took you to his bed, made you his wife in deed as well as name, well, that is what a Greek husband would do with his bride - even one with your fears and made a woman of you! But he doesn’t love you - and he doesn’t want your love.
That was not in his plan. Don’t think it was.
She hugged the negligee to her, but it could not keep out the cold that was seeping into her heart.
And how thrilled do you think he’ll be when he discovers, as he must, that you are no more the precious Coustakis heiress than the Queen of Sheba? That you’re nothing but the spurned, unwanted bastard granddaughter of Yiorgos Coustakis, who’s used you because he’s got no one else to use to make a final stab at his own posterity! Do you think a man as rich as Nikos Vassilis wants a wife from a council flat?