Page 11

‘Is it also your “duty” to take her back to her hotel for the night and then screw her?’ She spat the words at him, her voice rising a couple of notches.

‘Keep your voice down,’ he hissed. ‘You’re letting your imagination run away with you. Why must you be so jealous and childish? Always demanding attention and throwing tantrums.’

‘You were seen leaving there this morning at seven a.m.’ Normandie’s voice was ragged with emotion.

Demetrios’s patience seemed to snap. ‘So, you’re having me followed now? What the fuck do you think you are playing at?’ Shauna was surprised by his anger. ‘I don’t answer to you, I’m not one of your horny little tennis players or ageing rock stars who think they need you on their arm to make them look good.’

‘You’re a bastard!’ Normandie sobbed.

‘And you’re an insecure, needy brat.’ His voice was like steel. ‘You can’t control me, and all you’ll get for trying is my contempt.’

‘Demetrios …’

Shauna couldn’t resist taking a peek. She saw Normandie reach out to Demetrios and try to put her arms around his neck, sobbing uncontrollably. Demetrios calmly took her arms, pushing them firmly away and then opened the car door and stepped away.

‘Tidy yourself up,’ he said, ‘you look a mess.’

Normandie didn’t answer but hung her head on the wheel of the car. Shauna could see her shoulders heaving as she cried. She didn’t know anything about Normandie, other than what she had heard, but she felt a tug of sympathy and wondered how Demetrios could treat her this way.

‘I’ll get one of the crew to drive you back to your villa; you aren’t fit to drive in your current state.’

At this the girl threw her head up and said defiantly, ‘I don’t need one of your minions, fuck you to hell.’ With that she reversed the car, the tyres throwing up gravel and smoke as she spun the vehicle around. But Demetrios was already making his way up the gangplank without a backward glance, heading to his quarters no doubt.

Shauna stepped out from the shadows and wondered at this new side to Demetrios. He was certainly a man of many faces.

That evening, after she had finished her day’s work, Shauna made her way to the small deck at the stern. She’d found an old paperback in the staff lounge: Chances, by Jackie Collins. According to the back cover, it told the story of Lucky Santangelo, the daughter of a gangster, and was set in the playgrounds of the rich and famous. It sounded just the thing to take her mind off the incident she’d witnessed earlier – try as she might she couldn’t stop thinking about Demetrios’s cold indifference to Normandie’s tears. How could the sensitive man she’d spent time with the previous day suddenly have turned into this heartless rat?

It was still preying on her mind when she sensed someone approaching along the gangway behind her. She turned to see Demetrios, clean-shaven, dressed in a sharp black Armani suit and bow tie. For a moment, she wondered if she’d conjured him up; he looked like a Greek James Bond, almost dazzling in his handsomeness. It was all Shauna could do to tear her eyes away and the realization made her want to laugh.

‘What are you doing, Beauty, with that secret smile on your face? Don’t you have somewhere exciting to be tonight?’

‘No. Some of the crew were going drinking in the town, but I didn’t want to go with them.’

‘Why not? All work and no play makes Shauna a dull girl, no?’

‘I’m not dull.’ She was piqued by his teasing. ‘It’s not my scene, that’s all.’

‘And what is your scene?’ He nodded at her book, and Shauna felt a little ashamed of her trashy paperback; no doubt the sophisticated girls he mixed with would have better ways of spending the evening. She thought then of Normandie, and wondered if she was still drying her tears after his treatment of her.

‘Anyway, I’m glad you didn’t go,’ he said. ‘I have a favour to ask of you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes, tonight I must attend a reception at the Grimaldi palace. I would like you to be my guest.’

Shauna’s jaw dropped, making the shape of a large O. She didn’t know what to say.

‘But I … I … why me?’

‘Why not you?’

‘I’m just an ordinary girl, I don’t even have a dress.’ Shauna felt completely blindsided; could he really be serious? She felt annoyed at him, why would he want to take one of the ship’s crew to a party at the Grimaldi palace. ‘You’re teasing me, aren’t you? I don’t think this is very nice of you. I know I’m not important but I do have feelings, and making fun of me like this … well, it’s just cruel,’ she said, her voice shaking a little.

Demetrios shook his head and gently took her hand in his. ‘Shauna, the reason I am asking you is precisely because you do have feelings. If I have to spend one more hour in the company of the attention-seeking, insincere little fakes that take up way more of my time than they should, then I think I’d … well …’ He looked around him, trying to find the right words. ‘Well, I’d jump into the Mediterranean and swim back to Ithos.’

Shauna thought the look on his face was so sincere that she couldn’t help bursting into laughter. ‘That bad, is it?’ she asked.

He grinned. ‘You have no idea.’