Page 13 of Vows of Revenge

It was exactly the intel Damos had wanted.

And now he, too, as it happened, was also headed for that very city...

It had been nearly three weeks since their dinner on his yacht, and he needed to make his next move. Yorgos Andrakis, so his information on that front was indicating, was definitely softening up Cosmo Palandrou, spending time with him and paying him attention.

For a moment Damos frowned. Yorgos Andrakis might want to marry his daughter off to Cosmo, but why would Kassia co-operate? After all, she had her own career, and she didn’t seem interested in being a fashionable socialite, so why would she do what her father wanted and marry a man almost as repellent as her own father?

His frown deepened. Not many people stood up to Yorgos Andrakis—maybe he would simply bully and browbeat Kassia until giving in was easier than opposing him? In which case...

In which case, having an affair with me that puts Cosmo Palandrou off her totally will actually be to her benefit. As well as mine.

It was a reassuring thought.

The flight attendant pausing by his seat to enquire what he might like to drink distracted him. He glanced up at her. She was blonde, good-looking, and it was obvious to him that she liked what she was seeing too. He smiled, but it was a perfunctory smile only as he gave his order.

For now there was only one female who was the focus of his thoughts and his attentions.

Kassia Andrakis.

And it was time to get to second base with her.

Kassia gazed up at the plaster replica statue of the two-metre-highkouroslooming over her in the Ashmolean Museum. She always liked to look in at the Ashmolean whenever she was in Oxford, and it was a pleasant way to while away the afternoon before the opening dinner of the conference that started on the morrow.

She was glad to be in England—not just for a conference, where her old professor would be giving a presentation, or because she’d spent a few days seeing her mother, but because it was a welcome change of scene for her.

For all her determination, putting that evening on Damos Kallinikos’s yacht out of her head was proving more difficult than it should. Of course it was pointless to dwell on it—she kept telling herself that robustly—but for all that it would replay in her mind at odd moments, bringing it vividly into her thoughts again. Bringinghimvividly into her thoughts again...

Which was ridiculous, as well as pointless. It was nearly three weeks ago, and Damos Kallinikos had been and gone from her life.

A voice behind her spoke.

‘This must be my lucky day—the perfect person to expound to me on this monumental youth.’

Kassia froze. Disbelievingly, she turned. As if she had conjured him from her very thoughts, Damos Kallinikos was standing there.

‘What on earth...?’ she heard herself say. Incredulity was spearing in her—and also something quite different from incredulity...something that made her breath catch in her throat. ‘What are you doing here?’

Damos Kallinikos smiled. ‘The same as you, it seems. Admiring this very handsome chap.’

‘But what are you doing in Oxford at all?’

There was still incomprehension in her voice, she knew. And incomprehension might be uppermost in her, but it was not her only reaction to what she was seeing. Her pulse had given a hectic kick, and not just from surprise. She felt suddenly breathless.

‘Oh, I’ve got some business here,’ he said, his voice casual. ‘What about you?’

‘A conference,’ she said mechanically. ‘It gets going this evening—at a pre-conference dinner—then runs tomorrow and the day after.’

She was still fighting down surprise—and that other, completely irrelevant reaction to seeing him again. Fighting down the urge to just gaze at him...helplessly and gormlessly.

‘More Bronze Age, I take it?’ Damos Kallinikos was asking conversationally.

She nodded abstractedly. ‘My old professor is giving a presentation on Mycenaean battle tactics.’

She got Damos Kallinikos’s wry smile. ‘Yet more I haven’t a clue about,’ he said. His glance went past her to the gigantickourosbehind her. ‘Just like this guy. So, tell me about him. Why’s he smiling like that?’

She turned sideways, between Damos and thekouros. ‘Oh, that’s the famous Archaic smile. It’s on loads of statues from that era—between the Dark Ages that followed on from the collapse of the Bronze Age, to just before the Classical Era proper in the fifth century. Statuary in the Archaic period was very static—probably deriving from Egyptian styles. Just the left foot forward... Greek sculpture only really took off in the fifth century—’

She was gabbling, she knew she was, but shock—and so much more—was still overpowering her.

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