Page 34 of Vows of Revenge

‘Not very,’ Kassia answered with a polite smile, unfazed by the question.

‘What brings you to London?’ Charles Cardman asked conversationally.

‘I was in Oxford for a conference and bumped into Damos there. He very kindly asked me along tonight. It’s quite amazing, this roof garden! I’ve never seen it before, and it certainly takes the breath away.’

‘Conference?’ Valerie Cardman probed.

A good few years younger than her husband, she was nevertheless older than Kassia. She was very good-looking, but Kassia was outshining her hands down. Maybe Valerie Cardman did not like that, thought Damos a touch cynically.

‘Oh...um...yes—Ancient Greece,’ Kassia said politely. ‘I’m an archaeologist.’

Charles Cardman gave a bark of laughter. ‘I thought archaeologists were all fusty, musty and dusty!’

‘Not this one,’ Damos supplied smoothly.

He changed the subject, asking Charles something about the business. Valerie Cardman focussed on Kassia, and as Charles answered his enquiry Damos heard her asking where she had got her retro-style gown.

He heard Kassia name the department store, adding, ‘Damos kindly sorted it all out for me. I hadn’t got anything suitable with me. It’s incredibly slinky, isn’t it? I don’t know how those Hollywood actresses managed to breathe—I barely can! Yours is gorgeous—like that fabulous one with feathers Ginger Rogers wears in that movie when she and Fred Astaire are dancing together out on a terrace by moonlight. And you’ve got her amazing figure too! I’m all up and down—not in and out!’

Covertly, Damos glanced at Valerie as he chatted to her husband. Valerie was preening.

‘That’s exactly the effect I was after!’ she exclaimed, pleased. ‘Tell me, do you dance? There’s going to be dancing later—not modern stuff, but proper ballroom dancing.’

Kassia shook her head. ‘Not in the slightest,’ she said ruefully. ‘What about you?’

‘Oh, I used to be a professional dancer,’ Valerie said airily.

‘How wonderful! No wonder you’re channelling Ginger Rogers tonight!’ said Kassia.

With a start of surprise Damos heard genuine admiration in Kassia’s voice, and he heard Valerie laugh, pleased.

‘How she ever did those amazing routines in high heels I just don’t know,’ Kassia was saying now. ‘I can barely walk in these heels, let alone dance in them! With my beanpole height I’m far more used to flats and being...’ she gave a laugh ‘...just as fusty, musty and dusty as your husband says! This is a real night out for me.’

‘Oh, you get used to heels—and to dancing backwards,’ Valerie was saying airily. ‘It takes core strength, though. And good balance.’

‘I can imagine... And it must need so much training and discipline.’

‘Years,’ agreed Valerie.

‘And talent,’ her husband put in at this point, smiling benignly at her.

His wife laughed, pleased at the compliment.

Conversation became general, and Damos realised that Kassia was getting on with Valerie in a way he had just not envisaged.

Maybe I’m only used to women competing with each other...seeing each other as rivals.

Kassia wasn’t like that—and he could see she had effortlessly disarmed Charles Cardman’s wife just by being natural and friendly. She’d got on just as easily at the college dinner, too, adapting her conversation to whoever she was talking to, male or female. Asking them questions...showing an interest.

Most of the females he was used to going out with were only interested in themselves, he thought mordantly. Kassia was completely different...

It was yet another reason for liking her, and for liking being with her. And he acknowledged that her interest in other people, in subjects he had never bothered to care about, had been steadily broadening his own horizons, too.

In the long slog of the years it had taken him to turn himself from deckhand to wealthy businessman he had been tunnel-visioned. Concentrating on one subject only—making money, and then making more money. It had absorbed his life, and everything had been dedicated to that end—dedicated to improving things for himself. Even his romances, such as they were, were always with women who could play to that purpose, add to his image of success and wealth. Whether he liked them or not had never been relevant to his spending time with them.

His eyes shadowed for a moment. When he had first engineered his encounter with Kassia that had been his attitude towards her, too. She herself had not been important—only whose daughter she was. Thoughts moved within him—thoughts he had never experienced before. He had targeted Kassia Andrakis for a very clear purpose of his own that had had nothing to do with either her looks—or lack of them—or her personality. Had she been the very opposite of natural and friendly he’d still have done what he had—and even if the makeover had not been as amazing as it so dazzlingly was.

For a brief moment a frown creased his forehead, as if things were colliding inside him. Confronting each other. Then he shook his head mentally, clearing them away and clearing his expression. He no longer felt that way about Kassia...as if it was only who she was that was important to him.

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