Kitabı oxu: «Deadly Rivals»

CHAPTER ONE

THE little beach below her father’s villa was private and lay at the end of a long, narrow, winding, rocky road which could only be reached through the villa gardens. In the early mornings, the beach was always empty, a stretch of white sand and rocks, with a thin belt of pine trees fringing it, and Olivia went down each day before breakfast to swim in the warm blue sea, feeling like Eve in the Garden of Eden, but without the serpent or Adam. She never had company. Her father didn’t get up until much later, and any guests he had seemed to sleep late too.

Olivia loved the feel of the cool morning air on her skin as she wandered down the stony path, in her ropesoled sandals and sleek-fitting black swimsuit, hearing the murmur of the sea and the cry of gulls.

This morning a wave of such happiness broke over her that as she reached the beach she began cartwheeling over the sand, her smooth-skinned body supple in flowing movement.

A moment later she heard a harsh Greek voice shouting somewhere nearby, then the sound of running feet on the sand. Olivia was about to stand up when another body hit her violently.

The breath knocked out of her, she collapsed on the sand on her back with a man on top of her. A totally naked man.

Olivia screamed.

A hand hit her mouth, pressed down to silence her, muffling her cries. Olivia struggled against the bare male flesh, panic inside her.

Her golden-brown eyes huge, she threw a scared look up at him. He was big and powerful—that was her first impression. Wide, tanned shoulders, a muscled chest, flat stomach: it was an athlete’s body. His colouring was Greek to match that deep voice: he had black hair, dusted with powdery sand at the moment, an olive-skinned face, glittering black eyes.

He stared back, those eyes narrowing, his winged black brows arching in sardonic comment.

‘Blonde hair,’ he said in English. ‘A peaches-andcream complexion…you have to be Faulton’s daughter!’

Then his strong-featured face tightened in a grimace. ‘Sorry if I startled you. Now don’t scream again, there is no need to be alarmed. I’m not going to hurt you.’ He took his hand away from her mouth and rolled off her at the same time, getting to his feet.

Olivia scrambled up too, sick with relief, shaking slightly, and beginning to get angry because she had been so frightened.

‘Why did you do that?’ she almost shouted at him.

He had his back to her. For all her anger, she couldn’t help noticing how smooth and golden that back was: long, muscled, with a deep indentation running down the centre. He was winding a big white towel around his waist. Against the whiteness his skin was an even deeper tan, small dark hairs roughening his forearms and calves.

She looked away, swallowing on a sudden physical awareness, a pulse beginning to beat in her throat as she remembered that body lying on top of her, the forced intimacy of the brief contact. He turned and looked at her coolly. ‘You were about to crash into those rocks.’

Crossly she snapped, ‘Nothing of the kind! I knew they were there! I was just going to change course to avoid them.’

His brows rose again. ‘It didn’t look to me as if you were.’

‘Well, I was! I know every inch of this beach. If you hadn’t interfered I would have veered to the right and gone on down into the sea.’

Just behind him she saw a pile of clothes on the rocks: crumpled, well-washed jeans, a cheap cotton T-shirt.

She looked back at him, frowning. ‘Who are you? What are you doing on this beach anyway? It’s private. Have you got permission to be here?’

‘I’m staying at your father’s villa. I arrived late last night, after you had gone to bed. Your father told me you were staying here too.’

She had gone to bed early; she always did, so that she could be up at first light. Olivia hated missing a moment of the morning here. It was the best time of day; each dawn was like the birth of the world—radiant, clear, breathtaking.

‘My father didn’t tell me anyone else was arriving,’ she slowly said, running a still shaky hand through her short hair, which was cut in a bell shape, soft and silky like the petals of a yellow chrysanthemum, around her small, oval face. Olivia was only five feet four, and proportioned accordingly, with tiny hands and feet, a slender, fine-boned body. Her eyes were big, however, and wide-spaced, and her mouth was soft and generous, with something passionate in the warm curves of it.

The stranger’s mouth was wide, too, but hard, the line of it uncompromising, forceful. ‘I dropped in unexpectedly,’ he said, and suddenly smiled, if you could call the twist of that mouth a smile. Something was amusing him, but that smile made a shiver run down her back.

‘Where from? Do you live on Corfu?’ Her father’s guests were usually rich businessmen and their wivespeople she tried to avoid as much as possible, and who were often openly surprised, and curious, about her presence, because few people knew that Gerald Faulton had a child.

His marriage to her mother had ended in divorce when Olivia was six and she had remained in her mother’s custody afterwards, growing up in a small town in Cumbria, in the north-west of England. Gerald Faulton had remarried once the divorce was final, only to divorce again some years later, without having another child. He had been married four times now, but Olivia was still his only child, although they were hardly close; he didn’t keep in touch with her, except to send her a birthday and Christmas present each year, usually some expensive yet impersonal gift she suspected was chosen by his secretary. The only time they spent together was this fortnight every year in his Corfu villa, and even then he often had other guests to stay and saw very little of Olivia.

The dark Greek eyes were watching her small mobile face intently and she felt the skin on the back of her neck prickle. Surely her thoughts didn’t show in her face? It always made her sad to think of her father; she did not want this stranger guessing at her feelings.

But his voice was calm when he answered her. ‘No, I don’t live here. I sailed here. My boat is down in the harbour at Corfu Town.’

‘You sail?’ Olivia’s golden eyes glowed with interest at that. ‘I sail too. What size is your boat? Did you sail her single-handed, or do you have a crew?’

‘I sailed single-handed—the boat’s designed to be easy for one person to handle,’ he said, giving her a shrewd look. ‘Do you sail?’

‘Not here, back home. I live in the Lake District, in England.’

He smiled, teeth very white against that deeply tanned skin. ‘A lovely part of the country.’

‘Oh, yes,’ she said with fervour. ‘Do you know it?’

He nodded, then, before she could ask him any more questions, he turned away, picked up his clothes and began to walk up the beach towards the pines behind which lay the white-walled villa.

Over his shoulder he said, ‘Have your swim. See you later.’

Olivia watched him walk away, a tall, swift-moving man, the white towel flapping against his naked brown legs. Who was he? He hadn’t told her his name or anything about himself, and she was consumed with curiosity, but it would have to wait until she met him again later back at the villa.

She turned and ran down into the sea, her body graceful as it dived through the blue water. Olivia swam like a fish. Her Cumbrian home was on the shores of one of the lakes which were the major tourist attraction in that part of England. She spent most of her leisure time on the water, sailing her small yacht, White Bird, and she had learned to swim at around the time she learned to walk. Her mother was a sports teacher at a local school and very keen on children learning to swim early, especially if they lived near water.

Olivia cut short her usual time on the beach that morning, but it was an hour later when she walked out on to the marble-tiled terrace where breakfast was eaten every morning in the shadow of the vines growing overhead. She had showered after her swim, her layered blonde hair was faintly damp, and she was wearing blue and white striped shorts which left most of her long, golden-brown legs bare, and a sleeveless yellow cotton top with a scalloped neckline.

Her father was at the table, reading yesterday’s English newspapers, drinking coffee, having eaten his usual slice of toast and English marmalade, no doubt. Gerald Faulton was a man of ingrained habit, and disliked any changes to his routine.

He looked round the paper and gave her his abstracted smile, which always made her wonder if he really knew quite who she was and what she was doing in his house.

‘Ah…good morning! Sleep well?’ A well-preserved fifty-five-year-old, her father’s once fair hair was now a silvery shade but his features were still as clear-cut and firm as ever because he dieted rigorously and exercised every day. His eyes were a piercing blue, a little cold, very sharp.

‘Very well. Did you?’

‘Yes. Been down to the beach, have you?’ Gerald approved of his daughter’s early rising and swimming, as he did of her glowing health and physical fitness.

‘Yes. You should come down, Father. It’s wonderful first thing in the morning.’

‘I swam in the pool, as usual.’ He didn’t quite trust the sea. The water in his swimming pool was treated and ‘safe’; there were no crashing waves to overwhelm you either.

Olivia never kissed her father; their relationship was far too distant for that. She smiled at him though, as she sat down opposite him, her golden eyes glowing with leonine warmth, but only got back that blank stare, as if Gerald Faulton found it hard to believe she was really his child.

Sighing a little, Olivia took one of the crisp, homebaked rolls put out in a silver basket in the centre of the table by the housekeeper, Anna Speralides, who looked after the villa whenever Gerald Faulton wasn’t using it. Spreading the roll with home-made black cherry jam, she said casually, ‘I met someone on the beach this morning. He said he was staying here, but he didn’t tell me his name.’

Her father looked up, eyes alert. ‘A Greek?’

‘He spoke English fluently, but with a Greek accent.’

Gerald Faulton nodded. ‘Max Agathios. Yes, he arrived late last night, unexpectedly.’ He spoke in a clipped tone, his lips barely parting, and was frowning; she got the impression he was annoyed about the unannounced arrival.

Yet he had invited the man to stay. Olivia wondered why, but knew better than to ask. Her father did not like her to ask questions.

Max, she thought, remembering the hard, dark face. It suited him. She had wondered what his name would be, thought of all the Greek names she could remember…Achilles, Agamemnon, Odysseus…but had to giggle at the idea of him being called anything like that.

‘Max doesn’t sound Greek,’ she thought aloud, tentatively watching her father.

For once Gerald Faulton seemed to be in a conversational mood. He shrugged. ‘He was given his father’s name—Basil, I believe—one of the major Greek saints, St Basil—but while old Agathios lived, to avoid confusion, they called the boy Max, which was his second name. I think he got that from his mother’s father.’ Gerald paused, frowning. ‘I did once hear that his mother’s family were Austrian. I must ask him. Max’s mother was a second wife. The first one died. She was Greek; she had a son, Constantine, then a few years later I gather she died in childbirth and old Agathios married again—a very beautiful woman, Maria Agathios—and Max was born.’

Her father seemed to know a good deal about the family. They must be wealthy, or important, or he wouldn’t be interested in them. The cynical little thought made Olivia bite her lip. Her father wasn’t that obsessed with wealth. It was simply that his mind was one-track, and business was what he lived for—if you weren’t involved in his business he wasn’t interested in you. Even if you were his own daughter.

She looked down at her breakfast and suddenly didn’t want it; she pushed the plate away.

‘Agathios,’ she murmured, for something to say, and the name suddenly rang a bell. ‘Aren’t they in shipping too?’ They would be, of course. What else had she expected?

Gerald Faulton gave her an impatient look. ‘They certainly are.’ His voice had a snap. ‘You should have recognised the name at once. I thought you had.’

She had offended him again; she was expected to know all about his company, and the other companies who were his competitors and rivals, both in the United Kingdom and worldwide.

He was frowning coldly. ‘I thought you did business studies at school? Don’t they teach you the names of the major shipping companies? Even if they don’t, it would be the easiest matter in the world for you to find out for yourself, for heaven’s sake! You might take an interest in my business. After all, one day you’ll inherit my shares in the company! I don’t have anyone else to leave them to!’

Angrily, he flapped his newspaper and went back behind it, instantly removed from her, absorbed once more into his normal world of business and finance.

Olivia wanted to shout at him that of course she knew all about his business! He had made sure of that, badgering her mother to put her through a business studies course at school and ever since sending her company brochures, talking to her endlessly about the company whenever she saw him, even though they spent so little time together. She had grown up with the subject permanently rammed down her throat.

Her father was the managing director of a British shipping line, Grey-Faulton, which had been built up after the Second World War by Gerald’s father, Andrew, who had married the daughter of John Grey, who owned a rather run-down ferry business operating around Scotland. Andrew Faulton had built this into a thriving shipping business, expanding from ferries into freight, and in due course Gerald had inherited it all. Olivia had barely known her grandfather, who had died when she was ten, but she knew from what her mother had told her that Gerald had modelled himself on his father. ‘I sometimes think that that ruthless old man was the only human being your father ever truly loved,’ her mother had once said. Certainly the business was her father’s driving obsession.

She should have guessed that the man she met on the beach was somehow involved in shipping from the fact that, for once, her father had talked so freely.

Sighing, Olivia felt the coffee-pot; it was lukewarm, but before she could ring for more coffee, her father’s housekeeper brought it, smiling at the girl as she put down the heavy silver pot.

‘Oh, fresh coffee…thank you! A lovely morning again, isn’t it, Anna?’ Olivia said, smiling back at her.

‘Beautiful day,’ agreed Anna. ‘I heard you coming downstairs, so I brought more coffee. Do you want toast?’

Her English was very good, but her accent was Corfiot; she had been born here. A woman of nearly forty, she was faintly plump, with long, oiled black hair which she wore wound on top of her head, warm olive skin, big dark eyes and a full, glowing pink mouth. Anna had the beauty of her island—fertile, sun-ripened, inviting. Olivia had met her every year for twelve years, ever since Anna took over managing the villa. Anna’s husband had worked there too, part-time. They had lived in a little annexe at the side of the villa, and Spiro had also been a fisherman. A few winters ago he had died in a storm, when his boat was lost, and there had been sadness in Anna’s big, dark eyes for some years, but today it seemed to Olivia that Anna was more cheerful, almost her old self again.

‘No, no toast, thanks, Anna,’ Olivia carefully said in Greek; she only knew a few words but each year she managed to add a little more to her vocabulary because she liked to help Anna in the kitchen, learning Greek cooking and the Greek language at the same time.

Anna laughed. ‘You’re getting a better accent, Olivia,’ she answered, in Greek.

The phone began to ring in the villa and Anna hurried off to answer it, returning a moment later to say to Gerald, ‘It is for you. A Greek voice—he said to tell you Constantine. From London. Shall I put it through to your study?’

He got up, nodding, and followed Anna back into the house, leaving Olivia to finish her breakfast alone.

Constantine? she thought—hadn’t her father mentioned that name just now? Oh, yes, Max Agathios had a brother called Constantine. Why was her father seeing so much of these Greek brothers? What was going on?

She had just finished her second cup of coffee when Max Agathios walked out on to the terrace. He was in his old jeans and T-shirt, but somehow they did not look shabby and disreputable on him. He managed to invest them with a sort of glamour, thought Olivia, staring at him.

He nodded to her. ‘Where’s your father?’

‘On the phone to your brother,’ she said, before she thought twice, and he gave her a quick, narrowed glance.

‘My brother?’

Uncertainly, Olivia said, ‘Well, I don’t know that, I just assumed…It’s someone called Constantine.’

‘Ringing from Piraeus?’

‘No, London.’ Olivia was worried now. Would her father be angry if he found out that she had told Max Agathios about this phone call?

‘Ah.’ Max turned and stared out towards the misty blue mountains on the horizon, the heat haze between them and the villa making them shimmer as if they were a mirage. A moment later he turned, his face calm. ‘Well, I’ll see him later. I’m going down to Corfu Town to check up on my boat. I needed some work done on the radio and I want to make sure it has been done properly.’

‘I’d love to see your boat!’ Olivia said wistfully.

‘Well, come with me,’ he said, at once. ‘If you don’t mind riding pillion on my motorbike.’

She was taken aback. ‘You ride a motorbike? Did you hire it here?’

‘No, I always have it on my boat. It’s more convenient to have your own transport, wherever you end up!’

‘Yes, it must be.’ Olivia flushed with excitement. ‘I’ve never ridden on a motorbike—I’ve always wanted to though!’ Yet she didn’t dare leave without asking her father’s permission. Gerald was unpredictable; he might not approve of her going off with Max Agathios, and she might return to find him icily angry with her. Olivia found her father far too alarming to risk that. She had never learned how to talk to him, or cope with his moods, except by keeping quiet and out of his way.

Anna came out to clear the table and Max Agathios turned to speak to her in Greek. Olivia watched them both, wondering what he was saying, what Anna was answering. Anna smiled at him and Olivia thought, She likes him! She had never seen Anna smile at her father like that. Anna’s olive-dark eyes had a lustre and a gleam that Olivia recognised, instinctively, as sensual. Anna found Max Agathios attractive; she was responding to him as a woman to a man she wanted, and Max smiled back at her with an unhidden appreciation of Anna’s ripe warmth.

Olivia looked down, feeling excluded, left out, like a child at a grown-up party.

‘OK, we can go—Anna will explain where we’ve gone,’ Max said, startling her by suddenly being closer than she had thought.

She looked up, her skin pink, her eyes bothered, and he gave her a mocking little smile, as if he knew what had disturbed her and was amused by her reaction.

Anna had gone. They were alone on the terrace. Olivia hesitated, biting her lower lip, but why should her father object? He took very little interest in what she did while she was staying here, and if he disapproved of Max surely he wouldn’t let him stay at the villa?

‘Will I be OK dressed like this?’ she uncertainly asked, and Max ran his eyes down over her slender figure in the brief striped shorts, the thin yellow top. That look made her breathless suddenly.

His brows lifted.

‘Don’t wear much, do you?’

‘I didn’t notice you wearing much on the beach this morning, either!’ retorted Olivia, and he grinned at her wickedly.

‘I wasn’t expecting company. Well, come on! My motorbike is in the garage.’

They walked round to the front of the villa and went into the spacious garage, which usually just contained the bright red sports car her father had hired at the start of his holiday, as he did every year. Today it held a motorbike too; Max wheeled out the gleaming black machine, which was obviously new, streamlined and light, for easy transport on the boat, no doubt. Max picked up the black and yellow crash helmet which had been left on the leather saddle and held it out to her.

‘Put this on.’

She hesitated. ‘What about you?’

‘I’m borrowing a spare one from the gardener,’ he said with amusement, shouldering into a black leather jacket.

She had seen the gardener coming to work on his old bike, wearing a scratched and battered helmet, and laughed at the idea of Max wearing it.

As she began fumbling with the straps of his helmet he pushed her hands aside and adjusted them for her, his long, deft fingers cool on her flushed skin. The black leather jacket made him look bigger, more formidable than ever.

‘Now put on this jacket,’ he commanded, helping her into a leather jacket which was much too big for her.

‘I feel ridiculous in it!’ she protested, the cuffs coming down over her hands.

‘It will be some protection for you though, supposing that we had a crash—not that that is likely; I’m a very experienced rider, but I’d be happier if you wore this,’ he said, zipping it up, and standing so close that she was reminded of that moment on the beach when he had lain on top of her, naked, his body pressing her down. The memory sent heated blood rushing round her body; she couldn’t look at him.

It was a deep relief when he helped her on to the pillion and swung in front of her. ‘Hold on to my waist!’ he ordered over his shoulder, and she tentatively slid her arms round him as he kick-started the powerful machine. His waist was slim, in spite of the leather jacket. Her fingers met on the other side.

A moment later they were riding up the stony private road to the public road running past the villa. It was only when they were out on the highway that Max let the throttle out and the motorbike really put on speed.

The ride was exhilarating. Olivia clung to Max’s strong body, feeling as if they were moulded together, letting herself move with him, leaning this way and then that as he took the corners, the wind blowing her short hair up into golden filaments, her thighs forced against his, his blue jeans rubbing against her bare skin.

They drove past the lush olive groves which grew all over the island, past whitewashed houses set back from the road among orange and lemon trees, the dark tongues of cypress trees curling up against the blue sky. The air was full of the scent of flowers. The heat of the day was beginning to intensify now that the sun was riding higher in the sky, and Olivia felt perspiration trickling down her back, her thin yellow top sticking to her hot skin under the over-large leather jacket.

Corfu was a fascinating town, the architecture an international muddle of styles: a Byzantine church here, an elegant French ironwork balcony there, a Venetian subtlety down near the harbour, and elsewhere neoclassical Greek columns to be glimpsed beside plain modern villas. They even passed a flat green space where you could see English cricket being played, with men in white clothes running between the two wickets and people in straw hats sitting in deckchairs to watch, lazily clapping.

Corfu’s history was complex; many races had come here over the centuries and left their mark behind them without making much impression on the Corfiots themselves, who continued to live as they always had, in the sun, growing their olives, looking after their sheep and goats on the herb-scented hills, where thyme and rosemary and basil grew wild, fishing in the rich blue sea, cooking in the tavernas and hotels, cheerfully accepting the tourists who flocked there.

As they rode down towards the harbour they passed a horse-drawn carriage slowly plodding along, under the fluttering awning a dreamy couple gazing out at the shops and tavernas they passed. The noise of Max’s motorbike made the horse start in alarm, tossing its head, and plunging sideways across the road. The driver swore in Greek and reined his horse back tightly, soothing it with clicking tongue and murmured reassurance, then, as Max roared past, shouted angrily at him in Greek.

Max shouted back in the same language, grinning at him.

The driver waved a fist at him, but was laughing now.

‘What did you say to him?’ Olivia asked.

‘You don’t want to know!’ Max turned his head to look at her, his dark eyes teasing. ‘You must learn to speak Greek.’

‘I am learning,’ she said, then admitted, smiling, ‘Slowly.’

‘Well, I shouldn’t learn what he just said!’ Max said and laughed, slowing as they arrived down at the harbour.

His yacht was bigger than she had expected, and very impressive: white, sleek, fast and amazingly compact both in the two cabins and in the engine-room. It had been designed to be sailed by one person, but obviously it could hold several comfortably. It had sails too, which meant that Max could choose the form of power he preferred in whatever weather he found.

‘She’s wonderful,’ Olivia said after the short tour of the vessel. ‘I envy you. I’ve only got a dinghy.’

‘Have you ever sailed around here?’

She shook her head.

‘Would you like to?’

Her golden eyes glowed eagerly. ‘I’d love to!’

He smiled at her, charm in the curl of his mouth. ‘OK, give me a chance to check my radio, then we’ll get under sail. There’s enough wind today. Why don’t you go and buy some food? Just bread, some cheese, a little salad— tomatoes and onions, a lettuce—and some fruit for a dessert. We’ll fish on our way, catch our lunch and cook it in the frying-pan. How does that sound?’

‘Blissful,’ she breathed, and his dark eyes glimmered.

‘I can see you and I have the same tastes. Do you know Paki? Why don’t we head that way? Have you been there?’

She turned her head out to sea, remembering the little islet which wasn’t far from the coast of Corfu. ‘Once, some years ago, by motorboat from the harbour here. I have a vague memory of a very green place, very peaceful.’

‘When I was a boy we spent our holidays on Corfu— we had relatives here—and we always sailed over to Paki, every time we came. There are underwater caves therefascinating places. If we have time I’ll show you. I stayed on Paki for weeks a few years back, did nothing but catch lobsters and fish for mullet and snapper all day. When I wasn’t fishing, I sunbathed and slept.’

‘It sounds wonderful.’ It sounded like the perfect holiday—she could imagine how it must have been. Paki was a tiny island covered in olive trees and vines and the maquis, that tangle of grass, herbs and spiky shrubs which in the sun gave out such an astounding scent, a scent which travelled for miles and met you long before you reached the island and which was the very essence of the Mediterranean coasts.

He watched her sensitive, revealing face intently, then said in a gentle voice, ‘Off you go and do the shopping— have you got any money on you?’

She shook her head anxiously.

He laughed and produced some notes from a pocket in the leather jacket. ‘This should be enough. Don’t go too far, and don’t be long. I won’t take more than ten minutes to check out my radio. Oh, yes…wait a second…’ He dived out of sight and came back a moment later with a red string bag. ‘Take this, you’ll need it.’