Page 25

It had been particularly good sex and that was all.
That was all.
He turned round.Theo, but she looked amazing, all the same. Flushed and rumpled and utterly ravished. He wanted to get straight back into bed with her, but something told him he needed to build up his resilience—and he wasn’t thinking about the physical. ‘I thought we could go down to the cove for a swim,’ he said abruptly.
‘A swim?’
‘Why are you looking at me as if I’ve just suggested a walk in a snake pit?’
‘Because I can’t swim,’ she stated baldly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I may be a linguist but surely you don’t need a translation for such a simple phrase?’ A shadow of embarrassment had darkened her eyes. ‘I know it’s shameful to admit, in this day and age, but I can’t. It was an extra-curricular activity at school in Venice and I was usually… Well, I had to help my mum, because it was a big house and there was a lot for her to clean on her own.’
Odysseus’s jaw tightened as he thought of her as a schoolgirl, scrubbing floors for his hateful grandfather. ‘I can teach you,’ he said.
‘First sex, now swimming—whatever next?’ she said, with a stab at humour. ‘But I don’t have a costume with me.’
‘I anticipated this,’ he said. Walking over to a drawer, he produced a package, which he tossed onto the bed. ‘Look on it as a wedding gift.’
He observed the tremble of her hand as she tore open the tissue paper and stared askance at a tiny pair of bikini briefs and an equally minuscule top. ‘I can’t possibly wear these,’ she breathed.
‘Sure you can. Why not?’
‘If you think I’m parading around in public wearing something as revealing as this, then you are mistaken.’
‘I wonder if you have any idea how potent the appeal of all that indignant innocence is,’ he murmured. ‘The beach I am planning to take you to is completely private. Not overlooked at all,’ he added softly.
‘I’m not even going to ask how you knew my size.’
His eyes glinted with unholy humour. ‘Probably best not to,’ he agreed, handing her another expensive-looking package.
Inside Grace found a light robe which matched the bikini and a gorgeous pair of sandals, which managed to be both delicate yet robust. ‘What else are you going to produce, like a rabbit out of a hat?’ she questioned, thinking that Christmas morning had never been likethis.
‘How about this?’ he said, handing her a tiny box, and Grace’s heart missed a beat because it looked like…
Flipping open the lid, she saw a giant yellow stone set in a band of glittering white diamonds, reposing against a backdrop of indigo velvet and her heart skipped another beat. ‘Oh, Odysseus, it’s…’
‘An engagement ring,’ he said. ‘Go on. Put it on.’
With shaking hands, Grace complied, staring in disbelief as it sparkled like a rectangle of sunlight against her finger. ‘It’s so beautiful,’ she breathed, holding it up to the light.
A forty-carat yellow diamond, cushion-cut, with VS2 clarity,’ he informed her, his prosaic words cutting through her delighted response.
She blinked at him, not really understanding him. ‘And is that relevant?’
‘It will be.’ His words were careful. ‘When you’re thinking about resale value.’
Which was a diplomatic way of putting it, Grace supposed, trying to ward off the crazy crash of disappointment that he was talking about the end of the marriage before it had even started!
But despite this brief swamp of self-doubt, Grace soon cheered up as they made their way towards the sea. A flight of stairs cut into the rock led straight from the villa’s gardens to the sheltered cove, and she was startled to discover all manner of things had been put there, ready for their arrival. A small table and chairs. A cool box containing bottles of water, lemonade, and champagne. Chilled cherries, chocolates and grapes. There were even neat piles of soft towels and two comfortable loungers, lying in the shade of the overhanging cliff. She wondered which unseen servants had placed them there and who would give them the signal that it was safe to remove them again.
Most distracting of all was seeing Odysseus in this startlingly new guise, looking more relaxed than she’d ever seen him. She watched hungrily from behind her dark shades—also new—feasting her eyes on the pair of black bathers which clung so definitively to his powerful buttocks and rocky thighs. She couldn’t seem tostopstaring at him and the mocking smile he threw her as he handed her a glass of sweet-sharp lemonade made her realise that he was perfectly aware of being her new obsession. Was that why he walked into sea, letting the transparent water gradually submerge him, before diving beneath the surface and executing a powerful crawl?
Eventually he rose to the surface, shaking droplets of water from his black hair. ‘Come on in,’ he lured.
‘I’m quite happy here,’ she said self-consciously, aware that the teeny bikini left more of her body exposed than it covered.