The Greek Tycoon's Achilles Heel (14 page)

‘Let her go,’ Lysandros said. ‘I’m the one you want.’

‘But she’s also the one I want. She always has been. And now I’m tired of waiting. If not one way, then another. Isn’t that so?’

‘Then you can have me,’ Petra said. ‘Let Lysandros go and I’m all yours, Nikki.’

‘No!’
Lysandros’s howl of rage and despair seemed to hit the ceiling, causing some dust and wood flakes to float down.

‘It makes no difference to you,’ she told him, smiling. ‘We’d decided to part anyway. I never stay with any man for long. What do you say, Nikki?’

She was still on the stairs and he reached up to take her hand and draw her down beside him.

‘You mean you’d stay with me—?’

‘If you let Lysandros go.’

Nikator laughed softly, horribly.

‘Oh, darling, I so much want to believe you, but you’re lying. You’re still in love with him. After all the things I’ve heard you say to him—’

‘You mean—?’

‘Yes, I heard it all. It’s not just the gardens that are bugged. Everywhere. I bugged it years ago. Years and years I’ve been waiting. I’ve been with the two of you all the time.’

Lysandros’s roar filled the air. The next moment he’d launched himself onto Nikator. There was an explosion as the pistol went off and the next moment the whole place was shaking as the bullet hit the old ceiling, which began to disintegrate.

‘It’s coming down,’ Lysandros said hoarsely. ‘Get out fast.’

But the wooden stairs were collapsing and the next moment the ceiling began to descend on them. She saw it getting closer, then it was blocked out by Lysandros’s head, and then there was darkness.

He was in the place that had always been waiting for him. Before him stretched the Styx, the river that ran between the living and the dead. He’d known in his heart that the final choice was out of his hands, and now that he was here he would go wherever the river took him.

Had there ever been a choice? He’d seen the roof coming down on the woman he loved, and he’d lunged forward to put himself between her and danger. There had been no time to think, only the knowledge that without her life was unbearable. He would die with her, or instead of her. Either way, he was content.

He ached all over from the weight of the ceiling on his
back, pinning him against her as she lay beneath him, so frighteningly still that he feared the worst.

‘Not yet,’ he whispered. ‘Wait for me, and we’ll cross the river together.’

Incredibly, he sensed a tremor beneath him. Then a soft breath broke from her.

‘Petra, Petra,’ he said urgently. ‘Are you alive? Speak to me.’

‘Aaaah—’ The word was so soft he hardly heard it.

‘Can you hear me?’

Her eyes opened a little way, fixed on him. ‘What happened?’

‘The roof fell on us. We’re trapped here. There’s no way out unless someone up there sees what’s happened.’

And nobody would, they both realised. They were underground, in a part of the house not visible from the road. They could stay here, undiscovered, for days, perhaps longer.

‘You saved me,’ she murmured.

‘I only wish I had.’

‘You took the weight of the rafters to protect me. You could have got out—’

‘And live without you? Do you think I want that? It’s together or nothing.’

She managed to turn her head. There were tears in her eyes. ‘Darling, are you very much hurt?’

‘No, but I can’t move, and I can’t get you out.’

They both knew that if he tried to move he would bring the rest of the place down on them both.

‘Together or nothing,’ she murmured.

‘There’s just one thing I could try,’ he said.

Taking a deep breath, he gave a shout, but immediately there was an ominous sound overhead and plaster began to pour down. They clung together, seeking refuge in each other.

‘Dear God!’ he said. ‘I neglected this place and let it get in such bad condition. This is my fault.’

‘Or maybe it’s my fault,’ she said softly. ‘I came excavating here without thinking of safety. Who knows what damage I might have done?’

‘Don’t try to spare me,’ he said savagely. ‘
I
did this.
I
harmed you.
I killed you.
’

‘Darling, it doesn’t matter now. Just hold me.’

‘For ever,’ he said fiercely, managing to get his arms about her. ‘And perhaps help will come in time. We must hold on to that, Petra—Petra?’

Her eyes had closed and her breathing had become faint.

‘Petra! Listen to me. For pity’s sake, wake up.’

But she didn’t open her eyes, and he knew that the boat was waiting for her; she was embarking on the last journey, leaving him behind.

‘Not yet,’ he begged. ‘Not until you’ve heard me—forgiven me. I shouldn’t have doubted you—say that you understand—that it won’t part us for ever—’

Once before he’d implored forgiveness from a woman as she’d begun the journey across the river, but she hadn’t heard him. Her face had been implacable as she’d climbed into the boat with her child in her arms, not seeing or hearing him, never knowing of his grief and contrition.

Now it was happening a second time, unless he could find a way to prevent it.

‘Forgive me,’ he whispered. ‘Make some sign that you forgive me—’

For he knew that without her forgiveness they could not make the final journey together. He’d betrayed their love with his mistrust; a crime that would keep them apart for all eternity and only her blessing could wipe that out.

But she was drifting beyond him, to a place he couldn’t follow.

Now he understood the face of the statue, raised in despair,
calling on the gods of Olympus to grant his last request, helpless, hopeless.

‘Wake up,’ he begged. ‘Just for a moment,
please
.’

But there was only stillness and the sound of her breathing, growing fainter.

As he saw her slipping away Achilles lifted his face to the heavens, silently imploring,

‘Take me, not her! Let her live! Take me!’

She was in another world. There was the Styx, the river that led to the underworld and from which there was no return, save as a spirit. She looked back at the earth from which she’d come, but it was too late. She had left it for ever.

Then, coming towards her across the water, she saw a boat, with a man standing in the prow. He was tall and magnificent and all the lesser creatures fell away before him, but he had no eyes for them. He was searching for something, and when he saw her his eyes brightened and his hands reached out, imploring.

Now she knew him. He was the man who had chosen to die for her, and was asking if she was ready to follow him.

‘I wasn’t sure you’d come,’ he said. ‘It could only happen if you were willing.’

‘How could I be unwilling to spend my eternity with you?’ she asked.

She went towards him and he lifted her into the boat.

‘Eternity,’ he whispered.

The boat turned and began to make its way back across the water, until it vanished.

‘My darling, wake up, please!’

Slowly she opened her eyes, frowning a little. The underworld didn’t look as she’d expected. It looked more like a hospital room.

‘How did I get here?’

‘They came in time,’ Lysandros said from where he was seated beside her bed. ‘Somebody heard the gun go off and raised the alarm. Rescuers got us out.’

Now she could see him more clearly. His head was bandaged and his arm was in a sling.

‘How badly are you hurt?’ she asked.

‘Not much; it looks worse than it is. The doctor says we’re both badly bruised, but no worse.’

‘What about Nikator?’

‘He’s alive. I got a message to Homer, and he’s taking him away to a special hospital where I think he’ll need to stay for some time. I’ve told everyone it was an accident. Nobody else needs to know the truth. Never mind him. I was afraid you weren’t going to come round.’

Now she remembered. He had thrown himself between her and the descending roof.

‘You saved my life,’ she murmured. ‘You could have been killed.’

‘And so could you. Do you think I’d let you go on alone? I’d have followed, wherever you went, whether you wanted me or not.’

‘Of course I’d have wanted you,’ she murmured. ‘How could I be unwilling to spend my eternity with you?’

‘Do you mean that?’ he asked anxiously. ‘You spoke as though it was all over between us, and I don’t blame you, but then—’

But then he had chosen to die rather than live without her. It was the sign she had longed for, his offering on the sacrificial altar. Now she belonged to him in every way, in his way, and in her own.

She had no illusions about their life together. He would
always be a troubled man, but his very troubles called on something in her that yearned to be vitally necessary to him. It would never be easy, but they belonged together.

‘I’ll never let you go again,’ he said, ‘not after that time I spent holding you down there, wondering if you were ever going to wake, whether you were going to live or die, whether you’d allow me to go with you.’

‘Allow?’

‘It was always up to you. You could have gone on ahead without me, or sent me on without you. I could only beg you to show me mercy. While you were unconscious I listened to the things you said, longing to hear something that gave me hope. But your words were strange and confusing.’

‘Tell me about them.’

‘Once you said, “The story is wrong.” What did you mean?’

‘The story about Achilles forcing Polyxena to die. He didn’t force her. He only asked her to follow him if she was willing. And she was.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Never mind. I know.’

‘Is this another triumphant “find” that will boost your reputation?’ he asked tenderly.

‘No, I’ll never tell anyone else but you. This is our secret.’

He reached out a hand to touch her face with tentative fingers.

‘Never leave me,’ he said. ‘You are my life. I can have no other and I want no other.’

‘I’m yours for as long as you need me,’ she vowed.

It was a few days before they were both well enough to leave the hospital. They paid a final visit to the villa and wandered through the grounds.

‘I’m having it demolished,’ he said. ‘I could never come here again. We’ll make our home somewhere else.’

‘What about Brigitta, and your child? We can’t leave them here. Let’s take them back to Athens and let them rest in the grounds there.’

‘You wouldn’t mind that?’ he asked.

She shook her head. ‘She’s part of your life, and but for her we might never have met.’

‘And if we hadn’t met my life would have gone on in the old dead, hopeless way. I have so much to be grateful for. I feared love as a weakness, but I was wrong. Love is strength, and the true weakling is the man who can’t love, or the one who fears to let himself love.

‘For years I’ve held myself behind doors that were bolted and barred, refusing to allow anyone through. I thought I was safe from invasion, but in truth I was destroying myself from within. Now I know that there’s no true strength except what you give me in your arms, and in your heart.’

She took his face between her hands.

‘You’re right,’ she said. ‘It’s not a weakness to need people. It’s only a weakness if you don’t know that you need them, so you don’t reach out to them, and you’re left floundering alone. But if you reach out, and they reach back, then your strength can defeat worlds.’

‘And you did reach back, didn’t you?’ he asked. ‘It wasn’t just chance that we met again after so many years.’

‘True. I think the ancient gods gave their orders from Mount Olympus.’

‘And that’s why it’s been inevitable between us from the start—if you really feel you can put up with me.’

‘How could I disobey the orders of the gods?’ she asked him tenderly.

And what the gods ordered, they would protect. Their life together had been ordained, and so it must be. It would be a life of passion and pain, quarrels, reconciliations,
heartbreak and joy. But never for one moment would they doubt that they were treading the path that had been preordained for them.

One day the River Styx would be waiting to carry them on, to Eternity.

But that day was not yet.