Page 12 of Vows of Revenge

But that was a good way off yet. For now, it was just a question of continuing as he was doing—getting her to relax in his company, rounding off dinner with coffee, and then escorting her off the yacht to return her to herpensionand her colleagues.

A good evening’s work and a good base to build on. And time for him to consider his next move. And when he had he would act on it decisively, effectively. The way he always did in life.

She will be in my bed, and my plan will have succeeded.

It was a satisfying prospect.

He let his half-lidded contemplation of her sensuous enjoyment of the luxurious dessert linger a moment longer than it needed to, as into his head came again the thought that seducing Kassia Andrakis, so totally unlike any female of his considerable experience, and so completely oblivious of what he intended for her, would provide a distinct and novel challenge to pursue and achieve.

Not only because it would open the way to the lucrative business acquisition he wanted to make.

But for my own enjoyment...

A glint came into his veiled gaze. A glint of anticipation...and promise.

Yes, a satisfying prospect ahead indeed.

All that was required now was to plan his next move.

Kassia lay in her bed in her room but could not sleep. The evening she’d just spent kept playing inside her head. It shouldn’t—but it did.

It shouldn’t for one obvious reason. She’d had dinner with Damos Kallinikos solely to encourage him to sponsor the excavation—nothing else.

And yet it was hard—impossible—to put it out of her mind and go to sleep. Even though there was obviously no point in dwelling on it.

Because what would be the point of remembering how it had been to sit out on that foredeck with Damos Kallinikos, feeling the low swell of the sheltered harbour water beneath the hull, with the stars high above, the warmth of the night air, the scent of the flower arrangement on the table and the glint of light on the glasses filled with chilled white wine? And what would be the point of remembering talking with him, hearing the timbre of his voice, responding to his questions, feeling that half-lidded glance on her, knowing that if she let her own eyes settle on him they would simply want to gaze and gaze...?

No point at all. No point, she told herself sternly, in doing anything but reminding herself that a man with looks like his—looks that had reduced her to flustered silence when she’d first set eyes on him that afternoon at the dig—was way out of her league—stratospherically out of her league. Oh, he’d been polite, and civil, and he’d conversed easily with her. But she had to face it squarely on. A man like him was not going to think anything more of her beyond the reason he’d invited her to his yacht.

She’d been wary about going in the first place, but as the evening had progressed she’d relaxed more. The fact that he was so totally out of her league had made it easier, in a strange way. The kind of women he would take a personal interest in would be as fabulous-looking as he was...ritzy and glitzy and gorgeous.

Not like me.

For a second, fleeting and painful, she felt a sudden longing in her. Oh, she knew she was nothing much to look at, and she accepted that undeniable truth about herself—had even said it straight to Damos Kallinikos’s face. And yet for a few searing moments protest rose in her.

Oh, to be possessed of the kind of full-on glamorous beauty that would make Damos Kallinikos look twice at her...

More than look at her...

She crushed the longing down. There was no point wishing for what was impossible. No point at all.

And no point replaying in her head the evening that had just passed.

Damos Kallinikos had briefly entered her life, and tomorrow he was sailing on to Istanbul.

And she would be going back to digging in a hot, dusty trench.

She’d done what Dr Michaelis had asked of her—made a successful pitch for sponsorship, as Damos Kallinikos himself had told her. All she could do was hope it was enough to make him follow through with it. As for the man himself—there was no reason for their paths to cross again.

None whatsoever.

So what he looked like, and what she looked like, and what she might long for or not long for, or even think about him, remembering the evening that had been and was now gone was, she told herself yet again, completely pointless.

With that final adjuration to herself, she turned on her side, closed her eyes, and determined to sleep.

CHAPTER THREE

DAMOSRELAXEDBACKinto his first-class airline seat. His mood was good. His generosity in making it known to Dr Michaelis that, yes, he would indeed sponsor next year’s season, had been rewarded when, after he’d made a carefully casual enquiry after Kassia Andrakis, the excavation’s director had told him she was currently in England, visiting her mother. Damos had noted with decided interest that she was going on to Oxford afterwards, for a conference.

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