PAGAN ADVERSARY (7 page)

Marcos. I'm sure she'll forgive you.'

A faint smile touched the corners of his mouth. 'Now what makes you

think my appointment was with a woman? You should not believe

everything you read in the papers.'

'I don't,'.she denied with more haste than dignity. 'Read the papers, I

mean—or at least read about you in them.'

'You surprise me. Judging by some of your remarks to Philippides, I

imagined you had made a lifelong study of my way of life through

their columns.' Narrowing his eyes, he held up his glass, studying

with apparent fascination the bubbles rising to its rim.

'Eavesdroppers,' Harriet said sedately, taking another smoked salmon

sandwich, 'rarely hear any good of themselves. How did you know

my telephone number anyway?'

He sighed. 'I made a note of it as I was leaving yesterday—in case of

just such an emergency as this.'

'Well, I hardly imagined it would be for any other reason,' Harriet

snapped.

'Have some more champagne.' He refilled her glass. 'Perhaps it will

sweeten your disposition.'

'I don't .think so,' she said. 'Nicky gets his temper from my side of the

family.'

'You alarm me. The Marcos temper is also supposed to be

formidable.'

'Poor Nicky. He may never smile again,' Harriet said cheerfully.

'That is what I am afraid of,' he murmured. 'Will he sleep now until

morning, do you suppose?'

'I think he will.' She looked round for her bag. 'I—I really ought to be

going.'

'I think not,' said Alex. 'In my opinion it would be far better if you

were here when the child awakes.'

Harriet didn't meet his gaze. 'You mean—you'd like me to come back

first thing in the morning.'

'I mean nothing of the kind,' he said irritably. 'I am suggesting that

you stay the night here.'

Harriet continued to stare at the carpet. 'I really think it would be

better if I went home.'

'And I cannot formulate one good reason why you should do so.' The

dark eyes glittered wickedly. 'Why so reluctant, Harriet
mou!
Are you

perhaps afraid that the bed I'm offering you is my own?'

She decided prudently that she had had enough champagne and put

the glass down.

She said, 'No, I'm not, but I admit that remarks like that aren't very

reassuring.'

His mouth twisted. 'Is that what you want— reassurance?'

She said wearily, 'I don't want anything from you, Mr Marcos. I came

here tonight because Nicky needs me, not to indulge in verbal or any

other kind of battles with you. I think I'd better go home.'

'No, stay,' he said, and there was the authentic note of the autocrat in

his voice. 'I admit it amuses me to make you blush, but I have no

designs on your virtue. And if I was in the mood for a woman tonight,

I would choose a willing partner, and not a frightened virgin,' he

added, the dark eyes flicking cruelly over her.

Harriet hadn't the slightest wish to afford him any -more amusement,

but she could do nothing to prevent the betraying colour rising in her

face. He made being a virgin sound like an insult, she thought

fiercely, and knew a momentary impulse to categorically deny she

was any such thing which she hastily subdued. He was in a strange

mood tonight, and she already knew to her cost how unpredictable he

could be.

Trying to sound composed, she said, 'Thank you. Do I share Nicky's

room? I saw there was a bed in there and.

'No,' he said. 'Yannina sleeps there. Your room is there.' He nodded at

a door on the opposite side of the room.

Harriet was taken aback. 'But if Nicky wakes up. ...' she began.

'Then Yannina will no doubt call you,' he said impatiently. 'Why

make difficulties where there are none? Everything has been prepared

for you in there.'

Harriet suppressed a sigh. 'Very well. Goodnight, Mr Marcos.'

He gave her a sardonic look. 'As we shall be sharing a bathroom,

perhaps you had better call me Alex.' He laughed at her startled

expression. 'Don't look so stricken,' he mocked. 'There is a bolt on the

inside of the door which you may use. Do you make all this fuss at

your house where every day you share a bathroom with half a dozen

other people or more?'

That, Harriet thought, was a different matter entirely, and he knew it.

She said calmly, 'My only concern, Mr Marcos, is that I seem to be

putting you to a great deal of inconvenience.'

'I am becoming accustomed to that.' As Harriet rose to her feet, he got

up too. 'And I told you to call me Alex.'

'I see no need for that,' Harriet said quietly. 'After all, we—we are

strangers—or comparatively so,' she added as she began to laugh

again.

'Strangers?' he queried. 'You have a short memory, little one.

Adversaries, perhaps, but hardly strangers.' For a moment the dark

eyes rested almost speculatively on her mouth, and Harriet felt herself

quiver inwardly.

'Yes, well,' she said idiotically, 'I think I'll go to bed.'

He grinned and moved forward, and Harriet made herself stand her

ground. She was thankful she had done so, and not jumped away like

a fool, because he was only reaching for more champagne, and not for

her at all.

She gave him a meaningless smile and walked across to the door he

had indicated, aware that he was watching her every step of the way.

It was a relief to close the door between them.

It was a large room, luxuriously and efficiently furnished in shades of

beige and chocolate, but anonymous just the same in the way that so

many hotels rooms are. The bathroom wasn't much smaller, with a

shower cubicle and a sunken bath hidden behind smoked glass doors,

and basins sunk in a vanitory unit which ran the length of one wall,

with mirrors above lit like a film star's dressing room. There was an

abundance of towels, and in one of the cupboards of the unit, Harriet

found tissues, shampoos, heated rollers and a hair-dryer.

She caught a glimpse of herself in one of the mirrors as she

straightened, and bit her lip. She wasn't just slim, she was thin, and

her face looked pale and strained. Her navy shirtwaister was clean

and reasonably becoming, but it wouldn't knock anyone's eye out

either.

There was a towelling bathrobe hanging on the door which

presumably led to Alex's room, and a leather toilet case spilling its

contents across one of the surfaces of the unit. There was a faint scent

of cologne in the air which Harriet recognised instantly, as it

assaulted her nostrils with an unbearable familiarity.

One kiss, she told herself with a kind of despair. That's all it was. No

big deal, and certainly nothing to build the rest of your life around.

But for the first time she wished she was someone entirely different,

someone worldly and experienced, who regarded sex as one of the

many pleasures life had to bestow. Someone who would attract Alex

Marcos, and who could signal without words that she was the kind of

willing partner he desired.

But that's not me, she told herself forlornly. All I ever signal are my

hang-ups.

As she went back into the bedroom, she suddenly found she was

thinking of Kostas and Becca. It was incredible that Alex and Kostas

were actually brothers. Apart from a passing physical likeness, there

was hardly a point of resemblance between them.

Harriet remembered wistfully how much in love they had been. How

strong Kostas had always been with her sister, how tender and

protective. And when Nicky had been born, he had been hardly able

to contain his pride in them both.

It was impossible to imagine Alex in similar circumstances. The role

of besotted husband and father would sit oddly on his cynical

shoulders. He took women, used them and let them go. She could

remember Kostas saying so with a rueful shrug.

'I pity his wife, when he marries,' he had said. 'But no doubt Mama

will find him a discreet Greek girl who will pretend not to mind that

he is not faithful to her.'

'I'd mind,' Harriet thought violently. 'If he so much as looked at

another woman, I'd mind like hell.' She paused, horrified at the tenor

of her own thoughts.

She sat down on the edge of one of the beds, lacing her fingers tightly

together in her lap. All this could so easily have been avoided, she

thought. If only she hadn't lost her temper and sounded off to Mr

Philippides, she might never have met Alex, or at least if she had it

would simply have been for very formal discussions in lawyers'

offices. Never alone, she thought painfully.

She gave herself a mental shake. She was depressed because she was

tired after wandering round London all day long, and then the

unexpected nervous hassle of coping with Nicky. And she wasn't

used to champagne. That was why her thoughts were flying wildly in

all sorts of unexpected and unwanted directions. Sleep, she decided,

was what she needed.

She was momentarily diverted by finding a vast tentlike nightgown

folded on the other bed. It was made of white cotton with insertions of

lace, like something from another century, and had a high neck and

long sleeves. For a moment, Harriet thought furiously it was a

malicious gesture from Alex, and then she realised shamedly that it

must belong to Yannina, whose well- meaning kindness was beyond

reproach.

She wasn't sure whether she could cope with being swathed in so

many yards of material in bed, but as a dressing gown, it would be

superb. She undressed and put it on, smiling at the voluminous ripples

of white falling round her bare feet. And then she remembered that

she had left her bag with her toothbrush in it on the sofa in the sitting

room. For a moment she contemplated getting dressed again, then she

went over to the bedroom door and opened it a cautious crack.

The trolley and the champagne bucket had disappeared, and the room

was empty, lit only by one lamp burning in the corner. There were no

lights showing under any doors but her own, and Harriet guessed that

Alex had gone off to keep his appointment, albeit belatedly.

She gathered up the folds of nightdress so that she wouldn't trip, and

walked across to the sofa. As she picked up her bag, she heard the

sound of a key in the main door of the suite, and turned frantically to

run for cover. But even as she did so an escaping fold of nightgown

caught on a small occasional table standing by the sofa and

overturned it, together with the ashtray it supported.

Harriet muttered, 'Oh, hell!' and knelt resignedly to retrieve it. As she

did so, she heard the door open and close and Alex's voice say, 'Holy

Saints!'

She straightened slowly, and turned to face him. She was prepared for

amusement, but he wasn't laughing. There was an odd, arrested

startled look on his face which slowly gave way to a kind of anger,

but he certainly wasn't laughing.

'I'm sorry.' For no reason she could fathom, Harriet felt she had to

apologise. She held up her bag. 'I—I was looking for a toothbrush.'

He,said nothing. His swift, impatient stride took him past her,

through her room and into the bathroom beyond. As Harriet trailed

awkwardly after him, he opened a cupboard and produced a handful

of new toothbrushes in cellophane wrappers which lie tossed on to the

unit.

He looked at her with a kind of weary resignation, 'Is there anything

else you need—Miss Masters?'

She said huskily, 'No—yes, I mean—could you show me how the

shower operates?'

'It would be a pleasure,' he said with icy formality.

The floor tiles felt cold under her bare feet as she stood and watched

him demonstrate the various dials and levers. At last he switched on

the water and adjusted the temperature.

'Are you going to use this thing?' he asked. 'Or would you find the

bath easier?'

'The shower will be fine,' she said hastily. 'Thank you very much.' She

put her bag down on the vanitory unit and waited for him to go.

He stood watching her, his dark eyes cool and, speculative. She was

totally covered from throat to feet—Yannina's nightdress was

probably the most totally opaque garment in the history of the

world—but she felt as if she was naked. Her throat began to close up

nervously.

Alex said softly, 'Why do you not take your shower? Do you need

more help?'

She wasn't capable of moving. She stood quite still as he walked

towards her. Almost detachedly he reached out a hand and began to

undo the long row of buttons down the front of the nightdress. There

seemed to be no sound in the room other than the gentle splash of

water on to the tiles in the shower cubicle, and her own ragged,