Because she had been besotted with love, that was why. That Leon, thirty, worldly, and experienced, to her naïve twenty-one, should actually love her had seemed so close to a miracle that she had not been able to question anything, least of all this lordly, almost god-like man whose cool lips teased her own into heated submission, whose lean fingers against her breast aroused such a turmoil of emotions that she was almost sick with wanting him. She who had never known passion was suddenly caught in its turbulent maelstrom.
Their honeymoon had been all she had dreamed of and more. Leon had taken her to the heights, had taught her unskilled body to recognise a deeply sensual core she had never known it possessed. The very texture of his skin beneath her fingers had been sufficient to turn her bones to water, her senses to mindless, feverish pleasure. Never once in the month they spent together on the Riviera had she doubted Leon’s love. Never once had she questioned that as his wife hers was the most important place in his life. And how bitterly she had paid for those mistakes!
‘Kyria!’ Chloe was jolted out of the past by the breathless voice of one of the waiters who had obviously come looking for her. ‘If you will please return to the hotel, the manager would speak with you,’ the boy began respectfully as Chloe uncurled her slender limbs and got to her feet. Although her features were not regular enough for perfect classical beauty the fragility of her bone structure combined with the deep amethyst colour of her eyes and the pale fairness of her hair made people stop and take notice of her, and nowhere more so than in Greece, where her fair colouring drew constant glances of admiration from the Greek men.
‘A sea nymph’, was how Leon had once described her, with skin as translucent as the most perfect pearl and hair the colour of moonwashed sand, and she, like the gullible fool that she was, had been taken in by his meaningless flattery, never dreaming that it was all merely a façade to blind her to the truth—a truth so ugly that even now she could not bear to face up to it. Not even her parents knew the real reason she had left Leon. No one did. It was a bitter secret which would remain locked away in her heart until the day she died.
As she followed the waiter back to the hotel she tried to push aside her preoccupation with the past and concentrate instead on the situation she now found herself in. The manager greeted her with a smile which did much to banish the worst of her fears, and once again she was ushered into the luxurious office and invited to sit down.
‘By the greatest of good fortune one of our most influential directors was at the Athens office when I telephoned there this morning,’ he told Chloe. ‘I explained to him the unfortunate circumstances you find yourself in and he has promised to do all he can to put matters right.’
Smiling gratefully, Chloe stood up. She could only hope that the manager’s faith in his superior was not ill founded.
‘For now you must just enjoy your holiday. As soon as I have more news you will be informed of it,’ the manager told her with another smile.
Which was comforting, but in actual fact told her very little, Chloe reflected a little later alone in her room. Her hotel expenses had been paid before she left England, fortunately, and Thos was not large enough to merit the need for large amounts of ‘spending money’. Still, it was an uncomfortable feeling to be alone in a foreign country with nothing more than ten pounds in small change.
She was a little late going down for dinner and found that most of the tables in the elegant dining room were already occupied. A smiling waiter found her a chair at a table with a pleasant middle-aged couple from Surrey who were spending their second holiday on Thos. Neither of them seemed to find anything unusual in the fact that Chloe was apparently alone.
‘Thos isn’t large enough to warrant the hiring of a car,’ Richard Evans told Chloe over coffee, ‘and like most of these small islands it isn’t really geared for them—thank goodness. I sometimes envy these Greek millionaires who buy themselves one of these tiny islands. There’s something about owning one’s own island that’s very dear to the heart of most men—especially Britons. It comes from being an island race, I suppose.’
Chloe agreed with him. She could still remember her own girlhood envy of Enid Blyton’s tomboy heroine with her own small island domain.
One reminiscence led to another, and when the manager suddenly appeared at her elbow Chloe was astonished to realise how quickly the evening had flown. She had been enjoying herself so much that she had actually almost forgotten about her stolen passport and travellers’ cheques.
‘Have you any news for me?’ she asked the manager, hoping against hope that Derek had come to his senses and perhaps left her passport at the airport.
‘You are to go to Athens,’ he told her in reply. ‘Everything is arranged. A helicopter is here to take you, and when you get there you will be met….’
‘Athens?’ Chloe began to protest, remembering the lengthy sea journey from the port of Piraeus to Thos. ‘But….’
‘It is necessary, kyria,’ the manager assured her quickly. ‘The loss of a passport is not to be treated lightly. There are documents to be completed, officials to see….’
He was quite right, Chloe accepted resignedly, and her passport was not simply lost, but stolen. She gnawed at her lip, trying to estimate how long she would be in Athens and what she would need to take with her. Surely one change of clothes would be sufficient?
‘You will spend the night at our sister hotel in Athens,’ she was told, ‘and then in the morning you will be taken to see the officials who deal with such matters.’
They were going to a lot of trouble on her behalf, Chloe thought, starting to thank him for his assistance. It was nothing, she was told with a beaming smile. If she would just pack whatever she needed for the brief stay in Athens, he would escort her to where the helicopter waited.
Chloe had never travelled in such a machine before, and said as much when, fifteen minutes later, she and the manager were walking across the tarmac-enclosed space at the rear of the hotel which she had not realised existed until this moment.
It was an enjoyable method of travelling, she was assured, especially when time was short. ‘The consortium which owns this hotel also owns others, and its executives frequently use company helicopters to travel from hotel to hotel.’
It would certainly save her a good deal of time, Chloe reflected. If she was lucky she could be back on Thos within twenty-four hours with all the tangles of her missing passport satisfactorily sorted out. While she was in Athens it might not be a bad idea to visit the British Embassy there, she decided, just to inform them of the position, although she would have to be careful what she said. She was furious with Derek, but she had no desire to brand him as a criminal.
The pilot of the helicopter gave her a cursory glance as she climbed into the machine. The noise of the rotating blades prevented conversation even if Chloe had wanted to talk, and within seconds they were airborne, rising above the hotel and out across the small bay where fishing boats were preparing to put out to sea, the lights from their mastheads reflected in the water like so many drowned stars.
Chloe had no clear idea of how long it would take to get to Athens. She knew they were passing over other islands by the glitter of lights far below them, but she could see nothing on the horizon remotely resembling the mainland of Greece itself.
When the helicopter suddenly started to lose height she was taken off guard, looking instinctively downward expecting to see the lights of Athens International Airport, but instead all she could see was one single solitary searchlight casting a blinding glare up into the purple-black night sky.
This was not Athens, she thought seconds later as the helicopter bumped down to earth. It couldn’t possibly be. She glanced instinctively at the pilot, but he was already opening his door, turning away from her and into the darkness. A soft breeze blew in through the half open door, carrying with it the faint scent of thyme. In the distance Chloe could hear male voices speaking in Greek. Panic