Eros (9 page)

Things did not improve for Skye over the next few days.
She didn’t catch either sight or sound of Mr Kamadeva but he left an increasing number of bizarre notes with ridiculous requests.
She’d scribbled down an apology about the damage she’d unwittingly caused to his car and his response was to ask her to get him a new vehicle.
The trouble was, the new car that he wanted was a 1954 Oldsmobile.
There were only four of those bloody cars in the world and none of their owners were prepared to part with them at any cost.
She’d relayed this back via a letter and received nothing more in return than ‘Try harder’.

Her boss clearly believed that his money could buy him whatever he wanted.
She wanted to scream that the world didn’t always work like that; the trouble was there was nobody to scream to.
Other than a few phone calls to her parents and one to Emma, Skye hadn’t had a conversation with anyone who understood her for days.
She’d always enjoyed her own company and not thought she was the type to feel lonely, but the strange emptiness of the mansion made her feel incredibly isolated.
And there was that
eerie feeling of being watched.
She’d searched her own room for any sign of tiny cameras following her every move, but had found nothing.  She’d done the same thing in the rooms that she frequented the most, and had still found nothing.
But her fruitless search didn’t dispel her sense of disquiet; after all, she was hardly a super spy who’d recognise a secret CCTV system when she saw one.

Taking the bull by the horns, she’d finally left a letter stating that she didn’t feel comfortable living and working with someone whom she hadn’t actually met; she didn’t mention her suspicions about cameras because she didn’t want to come across as ridiculously paranoid.
Skye didn’t like the idea of leaving an ultimatum, and she didn’t want to give up on her new job quite so soon, but things were getting too weird.
All she got in response was a note saying that Kamadeva would be away on business for the next week, and he’d talk to her when he returned.
Balling her fists up in frustration, Skye swore she’d give him another seven days to present himself and then, if he still wouldn’t come out and meet her face to face, she was packing her bags and going: job, crazy stalker and humiliation at home be damned.

She was tempted to try and catch her boss out and had even made a couple of half-hearted efforts at padding quietly along the corridor in the hope of catching him writing one of his little letters.
Her efforts had been fruitless.
If it wasn’t for the fact she was living in rural Greece in the most luxurious house she’d ever seen, she’d think the last week was merely a daydream.
Except there was no way her imagination would run to the level of luxury she was now getting used to.
Through some internet research, she discovered that there was a genuine Picasso on one of the walls.
She hated Picasso but having the real thing in front of her with its brash strokes and bold colours made her appreciate the painter in a way she never had before.

Of course Skye used Google to try to find out more about her employer.
She ran a search on Kamadeva but, frustratingly, all that had popped up was that he was the Hindu God of Love.
Right, she thought sarcastically, I’ve been given a job by Love and Associates to work for the God of Love who likes nothing more than to drive round in a gas-guzzling car, drink lots of wine and hide.
She’d rolled her eyes and given up; clearly if he was as much of a recluse in the virtual world as he was in the real world, she’d never find out who he really was.

For Coop’s part, he was enjoying having her around.
She still dressed ridiculously formally and clicked around on the hard floors all day long in her silly high heels, but he had discovered he rather liked seeing her every day.
Just the previous morning, he’d wandered into the kitchen to get a drink and she was dancing around and singing at the top of her voice at having finally located the cheese she’d been looking for in the market.
She shook out her hair until it was all mussed up and was twirling around on her tiptoes, at one point almost careening straight into him as he leaned against the wall and watched her.
He knew she was only acting with such abandon because she thought she was alone, and somehow that made the moment even sweeter.

She talked to herself all the time as well.
She wandered from room to room murmuring comments, such as, ‘He should be more environmentally friendly,’ and, ‘Maybe he was disfigured in a horrible accident.’
He decided that he’d make her happy when he returned from the ‘business trip’ and tell her to buy a hybrid car instead of the Oldsmobile.
Perhaps he could use the disfigurement story that she’d come up with and talk to her from behind a closed door to set her mind at ease.
But then he wouldn’t have the fun of watching her nose wrinkle and her lips purse when she read his notes to her.

At some point over the last few days he’d stopped thinking of her as ‘Ms Sawyer’;
now she was simply Skye.
He told himself it was because he was getting so used to having her around.
Considering that Zeus’s missive had meant Aria had been summarily kicked out and no-one else was allowed to visit, he needed someone to provide a distraction.

On the fourth night of his supposed trip away, he was woken in the middle of the night by her calling out.
Alarmed, he thrust his bedcovers aside and ran barefoot to her room.
When he opened the door and saw her moaning, twisted up in a sheet on the middle of the bed, he didn’t think twice. He went over and gently tried to shake her awake.
She pulled away from him and thrashed out an arm.
Coop
grabbed her flailing limb and leaned over her body, this time gripping her shoulders and shaking her more vigorously to yank her out of whatever nightmare she was having.

Skye half-opened her eyes to find herself covered in a sheen of sweat and bathed in moonlight from the open window.
Her arm tingled almost painfully and, when she glanced down, she saw that there were faint marks on her skin, which were already starting to fade away.
A note of deep woody earthiness clung to the air.
Part of her brain niggled at her as if in warning but, despite the vestiges of her bad dream, she felt incredibly – and oddly – safe.
She closed her eyes and fell asleep again almost instantly.

The next morning
the entire incident seemed as if it had been nothing more than a dream.  Skye pulled on her black skirt and striped blouse, thrust her feet into her heels and wandered into the kitchen to make breakfast.
Deciding it was simply too beautiful a morning to sit inside, she took it out with a tall glass of ice-filled juice and sat at the small table and chairs beside the swimming pool.
She nibbled at a croissant and gazed out at the blue water, wishing yet again that she’d thought to bring a swimsuit.
But how could she have known she’d have sole access to such a beautiful pool?
She wondered whether she should have taken up the offer of a new wardrobe which Mr Kamadeva had offered.
She doubted he’d have wanted to set her up so she could spend her days swimming, however.
And if he had wanted to buy her a swimming costume or, heaven forbid, a bikini – well, that was just too creepy to consider.

A flash of bright plumage caught her peripheral vision and Skye turned abruptly to see what it was, inadvertently knocking the table and spilling the juice down her blouse.
She yelped as the cold liquid soaked through the material and jumped to her feet, trying to wipe off the stain with the back of her hand.

Great, she thought ruefully, this is pretty much the only decent blouse that I’ve got and I’ve probably ruined it.
Not that it particularly mattered when there was no-one around to ever see it.
She had no idea why she bothered to keep dressing smartly; even when Mr Kamadeva was present, he didn’t see her.
Right now, he probably wasn’t even in the same country and there certainly wasn’t anyone else around to see that she was making an effort with her appearance.
She glanced at the blue of the pool, then at the stain on her shirt and back again.
What would Emma do right now?
Skye smiled to herself.
That was easy.

She unbuttoned her blouse and pulled it off.
Then she unzipped her skirt and wiggled out of it, kicking her shoes to one side.
She took off her underwear and threw the lacy scraps of material onto the pile of clothes, then stepped to the edge of the pool and dived straight in.

The initial shock of the cold water made her gasp but within seconds her body adjusted to the temperature.
The feeling of the silky water against her bare skin had her closing her eyes in pleasure by the time she reached the other side of the pool.
She pushed off with her feet, twisting round till she was on her back and floating, gazing up at the cloudless sky and wondering why she hadn’t done this before.
She stretched her arms out, starfish fashion, enjoying the buoyancy of the cool water, completely relaxed.
An aeroplane was tracing its way across the sky and she remained there, watching its progress while she floated.
Okay, she might be lonelier than she’d ever been in her life, but there was a lot to be said for being able to skinny dip in a private pool without any worry of being interrupted.

Coop, returning from an early morning assignment, walked into the kitchen expecting to see Skye perched where she normally was, perusing the latest list of strange things he’d asked her to do.
Frowning when he realised she wasn’t there, and concerned after the bad dream she’d had, he walked quietly round to her bedroom.
The door was ajar and it was clearly empty.
With an odd sense of disquiet, he went in, taking in the neatly made-up bed and the tidy surroundings.
The sheer white curtain was flapping in the breeze from the open window so, without thinking, he walked over to tie it back.
As he did
so, he caught sight of Skye stretched out in the pool, her fingers gently moving through the water.

His mouth dried.
The sun was glinting off the water as it rippled softly around her and her hair was spread out in a dark halo around her face.
He took in the pale alabaster skin of her body and its curves.
Even from this distance he could make out the full roundness of her breasts and the rosy pink of her nipples half submerged in the water.
She was normally so prim and proper, it had never occurred to him to wonder what was underneath all those clothes.
Now he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to forget.
He watched as she turned over and began to swim with relaxed easy strokes and her lithe body cut through the water.
For him, the swimming pool was usually nothing more than an ornament.
He couldn’t remember the last time he’d actually gone for a dip.
Watching Skye made him want to dive right in alongside her.

His phone vibrated annoyingly in his pocket.
He’d switched it to silent ever since the incident in the kitchen.
He wasn’t about to risk another near miss like that. There were others, apart from Hermes, who might call to see how he was doing with his new status as an invisible being: some out of solicitude and some out of glee.
Without taking his eyes off Skye, he pulled it out and answered.

‘The God of Love at your service,’ he drawled into the speaker.

‘Cupid, I need your help,’ a sharp voice said.

Coop frowned slightly as he realised who it was.
‘My little ray of sunshine.
To what do I owe the pleasure?’

‘You’re good at finding people,’ Apollo said without preamble.
‘All that tracking down future lovers and shooting them thing that you do.’

‘Mmm,’ Coop said, as Skye reached the edge of the pool and twisted round to swim the other way.

‘You will find someone for me.’
It wasn’t phrased as a request.

It was amazing how much her hair colour changed when it was wet, Coop mused.
When it was dry, light bounced off its waves and there were red glints intertwined with darker highlights.
Now it appeared a deep ebony colour, incongruent with the light blue of the water.

‘Cupid!’ Apollo roared.

‘Oh, sorry,’ Coop murmured, although he wasn’t.
‘What is it you want?’

‘To find someone,’ Apollo answered impatiently.
‘An English woman.
She was in London working at a club called Nemesis.
Then last week she disappeared.
I’ve had her traced to a flight to Greece but from Athens her trail vanishes.
You will locate her for me.’

‘Why would I do that?’

‘I’ll put in a good word for you with my father.
Get him to change you back.’

‘When has Zeus ever done what you’ve asked him?’
The King of Heavens was not only notoriously fickle but he rarely took the advice of others, whether they were his own flesh and blood or not.