brooding intensity that seemed strange in this background. Young men in Las Vegas hunted in packs, savouring every experience. This one hid away, treasuring his solitude as though the world was an enemy. And something had driven him to take the air in a place full of danger.
‘Demetriou Shipbuilding?’ she asked.
‘That’s the one.’
‘The most powerful firm in Greece.’ She said it as though reciting a lesson. ‘What they don’t want isn’t worth having. What they don’t acquire today they’ll acquire tomorrow. If anyone dares to refuse them, they wait in the shadows until the right moment to pounce.’
He grunted. ‘Something like that.’
‘Or maybe you’ll just turn the Furies onto them?’
She meant the three Greek goddesses of wrath and vengeance, with hair made of snakes and eyes that dripped blood, who hounded their victims without mercy.
‘Do you have to be melodramatic?’ he demanded.
‘In this “pretend” Greek place I can’t help it. Anyway, why aren’t you in Athens grinding your enemies to dust?’
‘I’ve done with all that,’ he said harshly. ‘They can get on without me.’
‘Ah, this is the bit where you sulk.’
‘During the Trojan war Achilles was in love with this girl. She actually came from the other side, and was his prisoner, but they made him give her back, so he withdrew from the battle and sulked in his tent. But in the end he came out and started fighting again. Only he ended up dead. As you could have done on that ledge.’
‘I told you I wasn’t planning to die, although frankly it doesn’t seem important one way or the other. I’ll take what comes.’
‘Did she do something very cruel?’ Petra asked gently.
In the dim light she could barely see the look he turned on her, but she sensed that it was terrible. His eyes were harsh and cold in the gloom, warning her that she’d trespassed on sacred ground.
But that wasn’t her way.
She laid a gentle hand on his arm, whispering, ‘I’m sorry. Shouldn’t I have said that?’
He rose sharply and strode back to the gap in the glass wall and stood gazing out into the night. She followed cautiously.
‘She made me trust her,’ he whispered.
‘But sometimes it’s right to trust.’
‘But that would be terrible, never to believe in anything, never to love or hope, never be really happy-’
‘Never to be wretched,’ he said harshly.
‘Never to be alive,’ she said with gentle urgency. ‘It would be a living death, can’t you see that? You’d escape suffering, but you’d also lose everything that makes life worth living.’
‘Not everything. There’s power. You’d gain that if you did without the other things. They’re only weaknesses.’
‘No,’ she said, almost violently. ‘You mustn’t give in to that way of thinking or you’ll ruin your life.’
‘And what do you know about it?’ he demanded, angry now. ‘You’re a child. Has anyone ever made you want to smash things and keep on smashing until nothing is left alive-including yourself?’
‘But what do you gain by destroying yourself inside?’ she demanded.
‘I’ll tell you what you gain. You don’t become-like this.’ He jabbed a finger at his heart.
She didn’t have to ask what he meant. Young as he was, he lived on the edge of disaster, and it would take very little to push him over. That was why he dared to stand here, defying the fates to do their worst.
Pity and terror almost overwhelmed her. Part of her wanted to run for her life, get far, far away from this creature who might become a monster if something didn’t intervene. But the other part wanted to stay and be the one to rescue him.
Suddenly, without warning, he did the thing that decided her, something terrible and wonderful in the same moment. Lowering his head, he let it fall against her shoulder, raised it, dropped it again, and again and again. It was like watching a man bang his head against a brick wall, hopelessly, robotically.
Appalled, she threw her arms around him and clutched a restraining hand over his head, forcing him to be still. His despair seemed to reach out to her, imploring her comfort, saying that only she could give it to him. To be needed so desperately was a new experience for her and, even in the midst of her dismay, she knew a kind of delight.
Over his shoulder she could see the drop, with nothing to protect him from it. Nothing but herself. She gripped him tight, silently offering him all she could. He didn’t resist, but now his head rested on her shoulder as though the strength had drained out of him.
When she drew back to see his face the bitter anguish had gone, leaving it sad and resigned, as though he’d found a kind of peace, albeit a bleak and despairing peace.
At last Lysandros gave her a faint smile, feeling deep within him a desire to protect her as she had tried to protect him. There was still good in the world. It was here in this girl, too innocent to understand the danger she ran just by being here with him. In the end she would be sullied and spoiled like the rest.
But not tonight. He wouldn’t allow it.
He tapped a number into the code pad and the glass panel closed.
‘Let’s go,’ he said, leading her away from the roof and down into the hotel.
Outside her door he said, ‘Go inside, go to bed, don’t open this door to anyone.’
‘What are you going to do?’
‘I’m going to lose a lot more money. After that-I’m going to do some thinking.’
He hadn’t meant to say the last words.
‘Goodnight, Achilles.’
‘Goodnight.’
He hadn’t intended what he did next either, but on impulse he leaned down and kissed her mouth gently.
‘Go in,’ he said. ‘And lock your door.’
She nodded and slipped inside. After a moment he heard the key turn.
He returned to the tables, resigned to further losses, but mysteriously his luck turned. In an hour he’d recovered every penny. In another hour he’d doubled it.
So that was who she was, a good luck charm, sent to cast her spell and change his fortunes. He only hoped he’d also done something for her, but he would probably never know. They would never meet again.
He was wrong. They did meet again.
But not for fifteen years.
CHAPTER ONE
THE Villa Demetriou stood on the outskirts of Athens on raised ground, from which the family had always been able to survey the domain they considered theirs. Until now the only thing that could rival them had been the Parthenon, the great classical temple built more than two thousand years before, high on the Acropolis, far away across the city and just visible.
Recently a new rival had sprung up, a fake Parthenon, created by Homer Lukas, the one man in Greece who would have ventured to challenge either the Demetriou family or the ancient gods who protected the true temple. But Homer was in love, and naturally wished to impress his bride on their wedding day.
On that spring morning Lysandros Demetriou stood in the doorway of his villa, looking out across Athens,
