Dark Apollo. Sara Craven
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Название: Dark Apollo
Автор: Sara Craven
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
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Katie was still out for the count. Camilla wrote her a brief note saying she was going to explore, and replaced the simple button-through dress she’d worn for the journey with white shorts and a sleeveless top, with her initial in red and gold embroidery over the left breast. She gathered her thick chestnut hair into a barrette at the nape of her neck for coolness, and slid her feet into comfortable canvas shoes.
She found the rental place easily enough. It was basically a dirt yard, with chickens pecking round between the scooters. Andonis, the owner, wore a grubby singlet and a three-day growth, and had the kind of gleam in his eye which made Camilla regret she hadn’t changed into something less revealing.
She was able to hire a scooter with a disturbing lack of formality, although the actual cost was rather more than she’d bargained for. She enquired about a safety helmet, and Andonis stared at her as if she were mad, then spat on the ground.
‘Karthos roads are good,’ he said flatly. Her request for a map of the island met with more luck, however. A photocopied sheet, dog-eared and much folded, was produced.
Camilla stared at the web of roads, wondering where she would find the spider.
‘I’m looking for a particular house—the Villa Apollo,’ she said. ‘Can you mark it for me?’
He whistled through the gap in his teeth. ‘You want Xandreou?’ He gave her another lascivious look. ‘So do many women. He’s lucky man.’
Well, his luck’s about to change, Camilla thought grimly. Andonis’s remark, and the grin that accompanied it, had only confirmed all her worst fears. Katie’s honourable lover was nothing more than a practised Casanova, she realised with disgust.
Andonis made a laborious pencil cross on the map. ‘Villa Apollo,’ he said. He gave her another openly appraising stare. ‘You should tell me before. Maybe I make special price for Xandreou’s woman.’
Presumably they arrived in convoys, Camilla thought with distaste.
She distanced Andonis, who was disposed to help her on to the scooter, with an icy look.
‘You’re mistaken, kyrie. I’m not—what you say.’
The grin widened, unabashed. He shrugged. ‘Not now, maybe, but who knows?’
‘I do,’ Camilla said curtly, and rode off.
This was obviously what they’d all been trying to warn her about, she thought, as she headed out of town on the road Andonis had indicated.
Innocent Katie had given her heart and her body to a worthless piece of womanising scum. Well, he wasn’t going to get away with it.
‘Xandreou’s woman’, she thought with contempt. What a tag to be branded with.
But I’ll make him pay for it, she vowed under her breath, if it’s the last thing I do.
‘Whatever occur’. The waiter’s words sneaked unexpectedly back into her mind.
An odd thing to say, she thought. Almost like another warning. And, in spite of the intense heat, she felt suddenly, strangely cold.
CAMILLA brought the scooter gingerly to a halt on the stony verge, and wiped the sweat from her forehead.
Much further, and she would run out of road. Already the surface had dwindled to the status of a track, yet there was still no sign of the Villa Apollo. Had Andonis deliberately sent her to a dead end?
She eased the base of her spine with a faint grimace. He’d certainly given her the maverick of his scooter collection. The steering had a mind of its own, and the brakes barely existed. If she had to do an emergency stop…
Not that there seemed much chance of that. So far she hadn’t passed another living thing, except for a donkey, a couple of tethered goats, and a dog on a chain who’d barked at her.
The road, rising steeply, was lined on each side with olive groves, and their silvery canopy had protected her from the worst of the sun. Some of the trees, with their gnarled and twisted trunks, seemed incredibly old, but they were still bearing fruit. The netting spread on the ground beneath to catch the olives bore witness to that.
Camilla turned and looked behind her, as if to remind herself that civilisation did exist. Below her, in the distance, glimpsed in the gaps between the clustering olives, were the multicoloured roofs and white walls of Karthos town, topped by the vivid blue dome of a church. And beyond that again, azure, jade and amethyst, was the sea.
I could be on a beach now, she thought wistfully, if I weren’t riding this two-wheeled deathtrap up the side of a mountain.
She sighed, as she eased the clinging top away from the damp heat of her body, imagining herself sliding down from some convenient rock into cool, deep water, salty and cleansing against her skin.
One more bend in the road, she told herself. Then I go back.
She coaxed the scooter back to life, and set off, trying to correct its ferocious wobble on corners. In doing so, she nearly missed the Villa Apollo altogether.
She came to a halt, dirt and gravel flying under the tyres, and stared at the letters carved into the two stone gateposts ahead of her. And beneath them the emblem of the sun—the sign of the god Apollo himself, who each day, according to legend, drove his fiery chariot through the heavens.
Camilla dismounted with care, propping her machine against the rocky bank. With luck, someone terminally insane with a death wish might just steal it.
Beyond the gateway, more olive trees shadowed a steeply lifting driveway.
Right, she thought, tilting her chin. Let’s see this irresistible Adonis who causes such havoc in people’s lives. Hands in pockets, she set off up the gradient, moving with a brisk, confident stride that totally masked her inner unease. Knowing she had right on her side did little to calm her nerves, she discovered.
And when the man stepped out in front of her, she only just managed to stifle a yell of sheer fright.
One glance told her that he wasn’t the one she’d come to find. He was stocky and grizzled, with a walkie-talkie in his hand, and a gun, she noted, swallowing, in a holster on his hip. His face was unwelcoming, his stance aggressive as he barked a question at her in Greek.
Camilla stood her ground. ‘I don’t understand,’ she said. ‘My name is Dryden, and I have come from England to see Mr Xandreou.’
An armed security man, she thought. What am I getting into here?
The man stared at her for a moment, then spoke into his radio. He listened, then jerked his head at Camilla, indicating that she should follow.
The drive curved away to the right and Camilla saw that the olives gave way to lawns of coarse grass, and flowerbeds bright with colour.
And beyond them was the СКАЧАТЬ