The Enigmatic Greek (5 page)

In silence so thick it seemed to drain the oxygen from the air, Alex led Eleanor along the hall to his own bedroom, his reluctance to leave his parents alone together coming off him like gamma rays.

‘I hope you’ll be comfortable in here,’ he said stiffly as
he ushered her into a starkly masculine bedroom so unlike Talia’s it could have been in a different building.

‘I’m sorry to turn you out of your room,’ she said, equally stiff.

He shrugged. ‘In the circumstances, the least I can do. But I must collect some belongings before I leave you to the rest you must be desperate for by now.’ He looked back along the hall, his jaw clenched. ‘I apologise. I should have introduced you back there.’

‘I recognised your father from his photograph.’

‘Of course you did. You’re a reporter.’

‘Yes. I am.’ Eleanor sighed wearily. ‘And, before you ask, I won’t mention Milo Drakis in my article either.’

‘Thank you.’ To her surprise, Alex actually smiled. ‘Keeping the lid on all this drama must be hellish frustrating for you.’

‘True. But to avoid any hurt to your mother I’ll make do with a colourful account of the festival and say nothing about the rest.’

‘Even though someone tried to drown you?’ For the first time his eyes held a touch of warmth. ‘I hope this paper you work for pays you well. You earned danger money today.’

Her lips twitched. ‘According to my editor, I get money for old rope. He calls this kind of assignment a paid holiday.’

‘Not quite the way it went down today!’ He crossed to a wardrobe and looked over his shoulder. ‘Help yourself to a T-shirt, or whatever, to sleep in.’

The intimacy of the situation put Eleanor on edge as Alex went into the bathroom.

‘Tomorrow night,’ he said when he emerged, ‘You can sleep in my mother’s room.’

She stared at him in surprise. ‘I thought you were hustling me back to the UK tomorrow.’

He shrugged irritably. ‘I was, but while you were getting
cleaned up earlier my mother pointed out that you should be allowed to enjoy the rest of your holiday as planned. I can’t guarantee your safety on Karpyros, but I can if you stay on here. You’d have Sofia to look after you and give you meals, and Theo Lazarides for security. You can have the run of the place, other than my office, and if you find the Kastro too intimidating to sleep in alone I can ask Sofia to move up here until you leave.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ she asked, astonished.

A flash of respect lit the dark eyes. ‘I owe you, Ms Markham. You risked your own safety, even your life, to help my mother today. I pride myself on paying my debts. Or do you have a different reward in mind?’

She nodded. ‘Actually, I do, but I’ll let your mother fill you in on that. Right now, I’m so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open.’

He hesitated, and then surprised her by shaking her hand briefly. ‘Thank you again, Eleanor Markham. Goodnight.’

‘Goodnight.’ She watched the door close behind him, wishing she could be a fly on the wall when he re-joined his parents.

Instead of doing so immediately, Alexei Drakos went into the tower room to stare out at the night sky, his mind more occupied with Eleanor than his parents who, much as he hated to admit it, were probably both pleased to be left alone together for a while. Besides, they were not his immediate problem—unlike the woman occupying his bedroom tonight.

He shook his head impatiently. He’d obviously gone too long without the pleasure of a woman to warm his bed. Since the degrading business with Christina, he’d avoided all women, which meant that part of Eleanor Markham’s appeal was her appearance in his life at a time of sexual
drought. But the bright eyes in that narrow face had caught his eye this afternoon, otherwise he wouldn’t have offered his help. The discovery that she was a journalist had been like a punch to the ribs.

He winced. It was she who had taken that kind of blow tonight, in her fight to save his mother. No getting away from it, damn it. He owed her. He turned away abruptly, squaring his shoulders. Time to knock on his mother’s bedroom door and politely request that his father leave. God, what a night!

E
LEANOR
woke next morning to a knock on the door, and for a moment stared blankly at her surroundings. She heaved herself up in Alexei Drakos’ vast bed, wincing as her various bruises came to life.

Sofia backed in with a tray, smiling. ‘
Kalimera, kyria.’

Eleanor returned the greeting, and asked after Talia.

‘
Kyria
Talia has gone, but she left you this.’ Sofia took a letter from her apron pocket. ‘She told me to see you rest. Eat well,’ she added as she went out.

Eleanor tore open the envelope quickly.

Eleanor folded the letter very thoughtfully and turned her attention to the tray. She was hungry, and not even the thought of Alexei Drakos returning to play hell about an interview spoiled her enjoyment of orange juice, rolls warm from the oven and all the coffee in the pot. When Sofia returned she escorted Eleanor to the immaculate guest bedroom, where Eleanor’s clothes, including canvas deck shoes, were now dry and ready to wear.

Eleanor thanked the woman warmly, and asked when
kyrie
Alexei was returning.

Sofia looked puzzled. ‘He is not returning here from Crete,
kyria.
But you are to stay as long as you wish.’

Eleanor washed her bitter disappointment away in the shower. So there would be no interview with Alexei Drakos after all. Get over it, she told herself irritably. Comfortable again in her own clothes—other than the canvas flats, which seemed to have shrunk a size after their dunking—she made for the lift and took it down to ground level. Voices led her along the hall to a vast kitchen where Sofia was drinking coffee with two other women.

‘
Kalimera
,’ Eleanor said in general greeting, and received warm smiles in response. She was introduced to buxom Irene and thin Chloe, both of whom, as far as she could make out, praised her for her bravery of the night before.

‘You saved
kyria
Talia,’ stated Sofia, and scowled venomously. ‘The dog has gone with the police. Did he hurt you?’

Eleanor patted her ribs. ‘His foot,’ she explained, illustrating with a kick. ‘When he pushed me in the water.’

‘You could have died!’ exclaimed Irene with drama.

Eleanor shook her head. ‘
Kyrie
Drakos saved me.’ Not that it had been necessary. She could swim well enough. She smiled hopefully. ‘Could someone take me over to Karpyros now, please?’ If Alexei Drakos wasn’t coming back here was no point in hanging around. Besides, her belongings were back in the
taverna,
and she needed her laptop to get some work done.

‘Yannis will take you after you eat,’ Sofia said firmly. ‘I will bring lunch to the tower room.’

Taking this as her cue, Eleanor left the kitchen and went up in the lift to spend a long time gazing at the spectacularly beautiful view of vine-clad slopes rising from cobalt-blue sea before she settled down to make notes about the day before. She sighed in frustration as she wrote, wishing she could spice the account up with details of the bungled kidnap. But even without it the article on Kyrkiros would be the most interesting one of the series, partly because of the photographs she’d taken of the bull dance and partly because the island was owned by Alexei Drakos. He could hardly object if
his
name was mentioned. It would have been common knowledge to everyone at the festival. She was hard at work when Sofia arrived with a tempting asparagus salad.

‘Eat well,
kyria
,’ said Sofia. ‘When you have finished, Yannis will take you over to Karpyros and wait as long as you wish until you are ready to return.’

Eleanor explained, as well as she could with her limited vocabulary, that she was not returning, that she would stay at the
taverna
there until she flew home to England.

This news brought heated protests but in the end the woman left her to her meal and departed, making it plain she disapproved of the change of plan. The
kyrie
would not be pleased.

Pleasing Alexei Drakos was pretty low on Eleanor’s list
of priorities now there was no chance of an interview. She finished her lunch, collected her bag and went down in the lift to the kitchen, where she delighted the women by asking to take photographs of them, both in the kitchen and outside in the sun with the Kastro as a backdrop. And, when Yannis came to transport the
kyria
, Eleanor took shots of the youth with his beaming mother.

‘I shall send the photographs to you when I get home,’ she promised, and followed Yannis down to the main jetty, feeling regret at leaving Kyrkiros, if only for failing to get her interview.

Eleanor was touched by her reception back at the
taverna
, where Takis and Petros informed her that until receiving her message they had been very anxious about her the night before. She explained as well as she could about her lack of mobile phone, and when she reached her small, blessedly private apartment she sat in the sun for a while on the veranda and looked out over the harbour towards Kyrkiros. So much had happened since leaving the room to go over to the island, it was amazing to realise that only a day had elapsed. Suddenly Eleanor thought of her camera. She went inside to check it, and heaved a sigh of relief to find it was still in full working order as she transferred the photographs of the festival to her laptop.

Her first shots of the Kastro and the village houses were good, but the true colour and animation of the day came through with her capture of the festival mood as laughing, chattering tourists toured the stalls for souvenirs. She lingered when she came to the shots she’d taken of Alexei and his mother. In one he was looking down at Talia with a tenderness which gave Eleanor a pang of emotion hard to identify as she went on with the rest of her slideshow. She crowed in jubilation over shots of the torch-lit stage and the bull dancers, who looked even more unreal on the screen,
as though she’d flung open a window on the prehistoric past and captured the moment on film.

The money shots were those of the Minotaur when he first burst onto the stage, and Theseus with golden double-axe held aloft. There was also something very special about the sight of the Minotaur borne off the stage on the shoulders of his conquerors. Perhaps her efforts would console Ross McLean for her failure to get an interview with Alexei Drakos. And pigs might fly! Eleanor shrugged philosophically and settled down to write the article that would round off her series.

Due to his mother’s inevitable refusal to make the journey in his helicopter, Alexei had been obliged to take the ferry to Crete to see her onto the plane, and spent most of the trip promising her he would take more time in future to relax and enjoy life. It was a wrench, as always, to part with her; and on the way back he occupied himself with calls to Athens and London. For the remainder of the trip he leaned against the rail, calling himself all kinds of fool for letting his mother cajole him into returning to Kyrkiros to babysit a journalist. And, not only a journalist, but one he had fleetingly suspected of involvement in his mother’s kidnap. And because Talia rarely asked anything of him—not even more of his company, which he well knew she wanted most of all—he would do as she wanted. It would do him good, he was assured, to get away from it all for a while, in the company of an intelligent, attractive woman who, she pointedly reminded him, he was indebted to for his mother’s safety. All Eleanor wanted by way of appreciation was an in-depth interview, Talia had informed him, which had to be a refreshing change from the usual women in his life, who probably demanded very different rewards for their company at his dinner table and or bed …

Alex frowned, wondering exactly what Ms Markham meant by ‘in-depth’ for the interview. If she imagined he would lay his soul bare, she was mistaken. Only a fool would do that with anyone, least of all a journalist—even one as appealing as Eleanor. He might be many things, and not all of them admirable, but a fool wasn’t one of them. Christina Mavros’ malicious spin on their brief affair had been merely a fleeting embarrassment. His hostility towards reporters had begun long before then. From the day he’d found the online accounts of his parents’ divorce, the press had been irrevocably linked in his mind with the shattering discovery that his father, his hero, had hurt his mother badly enough to make her divorce him. The hero had crashed from his pedestal and from that day on Milo Drakos’ efforts to maintain a normal relationship with his son had met with little success.

When Alex had questioned his mother about the reasons for the divorce, he was told it was something private between her and his father. Talia had refused to say another word, but his grandfather, Cyrus Kazan, had been more forthcoming. If Alex was old enough to ask the question, he was old enough to cope with the answer, had been his grandfather’s justification for telling the boy that Milo, though madly in love with his wife, was so insanely jealous he had refused to believe that the child was actually his.

‘The problem,’ Talia had explained years later when Alex demanded the truth, ‘Was the inconvenient fact that I grew large very early on in the pregnancy, which aroused Milo’s suspicions. When you were born exactly ten months from our wedding day, Milo was desperately repentant and begged my forgiveness. I’ll spare you the details, but it was a long, difficult labour and, because I was exhausted and at the mercy of my hormones, and so furious and heartbroken at his lack of trust, I refused to listen to him. My father,
of course, had been ready to kill Milo, but my mother persuaded him to calm down. She pointed out that the best revenge would be to collect Milo’s wife and son from the hospital to drive them to the Kazan family home, which would then be barred against him.’

Alex’s face was grim as he watched the water streaming past. In the clash between his father and mother it had been a classic case of Greek meeting Greek, which probably explained Talia’s vengeance. But, although she was a fiercely protective mother, she was also a practical one determined for the best for her son. Because Milo could provide the best, she had given him the right to have the child baptised Alexei Drakos, rather than Kazan, her original intention.

Milo had also demanded the right to provide for his son’s expensive education, with the stipulation that Alex made regular visits to him in Athens and his holiday home on Corfu. When the boy was young these were experiences eagerly anticipated by both father and son. After the shock of his grandfather’s revelations, teenage Alex still kept to the agreed visits to his father because his mother was adamant that he should, but he spent most of his time there either swimming in the pool in Corfu, or in Athens glued to the latest thing in computers Milo had bought his son in an effort to win the hostile boy’s approval.

Thus began Alex’s early passion for technology, which in time led to his development of innovative software which made him a fortune. He had still been at the famous British school his father had insisted on mainly, Alex knew, to prevent him from becoming a ‘mother’s boy’ as Milo feared would happen if his son was left to grow up with only female supervision once old Cyrus died. But Alexei had a parting gift ready for his father during their final holiday together. Due to a stomach bug he left Corfu after only a few days, and at the airport handed Milo a cheque which
covered the full amount expended on his education over the years. ‘Now I owe you nothing,’ he told his father, and left Milo standing stricken as his son boarded the plane. These days Alex felt more regret than satisfaction at the memory, and quickly shut it out by contacting Theo Lazarides to say he was about to dock.

Eleanor was so deeply immersed in her article she almost jumped out of her skin when someone hammered on her door. She flung it open and stared in shock into the dark and angry eyes of Alexei Drakos.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ he demanded, his accent more pronounced than usual.

‘I might ask the same of you,’ she retorted. ‘You frightened the life out of me.’

‘I damn well hope I did. You threw open the door without even checking to see who it was. After what happened last night are you mad, woman?’ He glared at her. ‘I rang Theo Lazarides when I was on the ferry and he said you’d gone. Why the devil didn’t you stay on Kyrkiros as arranged?’

‘Once the intruder was in custody it was unnecessary.’ Eleanor’s chin lifted. ‘In any case, why are
you
here? Sofia told me you weren’t coming back to Kyrkiros.’

He shrugged impatiently. ‘That was the original plan before all the melodrama yesterday. But after sorting everything with the police, and the rush to get my mother over to the ferry on time this morning, I forgot to tell Sofia I was returning to the island for a while after all. Look,’ he added more reasonably, ‘Must we discuss this outside? Let me in.’

Eleanor shook her head. ‘I think not.’

He made a visible effort to control his temper. ‘
Why
not?’

Her chin lifted. ‘Because you’re angry with me.’

Alexei closed his eyes for a moment, as though praying for patience. When he opened them again he stepped back
a fraction and raised his hands. ‘Ms Markham—Eleanor—I come in peace. I have no intention of harming you in any way. I’m here to take you back to Kyrkiros to make sure you come to no further harm than you’ve already suffered. There I can keep you safe. Here it is impossible. My mother would never forgive me if anything happened to you that I could have prevented.’