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on, let’s go.’
‘In a hurry, are you?’ he murmured, even as Althea rested a hand on his arm, her fingers curling, clinging to his suit jacket.
‘You’re not leaving the party so soon, beautiful?’ Angelos said. He’d undone a further button on his shirt and his hair was slicked back from his narrow face.
He reached out to pull her to him, and Althea let herself go slack, unresisting. She felt her body go numb, and then … nothing.
He didn’t touch her.
Demos had stopped that snaking arm with a quick vice-like grip. ‘She’s leaving,’ he said in a low, pleasant voice. ‘With me.'
‘Says who?’ Angelos snarled, yet Althea saw the uncertainty enter his eyes. Demos was a head taller and a decade older than Angelos, who still had a rime of pimples along his jaw.
‘She says,’ Demos replied. ‘Don’t you?’ he asked, sliding her a quick querying glance. He was, she realised, giving her a choice. She hadn’t expected it. She had expected him to defend her against Angelos as a matter of personal pride. But to let her choose.? It was novel. Maybe he was different.
‘I …’ She cleared her throat, raised her voice. ‘I do. Leave it, Angelos.'
Angelos’s eyes blazed, but he shrugged. ‘Fine. She’s nothing but an easy slut anyway.'
Demos’s hand shot out, wrapped around Angelos’s throat. Althea blinked. Angelos choked.
‘Apologise, please,’ Demos said. His eyes were hard, almost black, even though he kept his voice pleasant.
‘You’ll find out soon enough,’ Angelos gasped, his fingers scrabbling at Demos’s fist. Speculative murmurs rippled around them in an uneasy tide. They were, Althea realised, attracting a crowd.
‘Demos—enough,’ she said. She lifted her shoulder in a dismissive shrug. ‘He’s not worth it.'
Demos waited a few seconds, watched as Angelos’s face began to turn colour. Then he let him go. ‘No, he’s not,’ he agreed with an unpleasant little smile. He stepped away. ‘Let’s go.'
Demos turned his back on Angelos and his arm, heavy, guiding, went around Althea’s shoulders. She tensed as he led her through the curious throng, the crowd parting easily and quickly for a man of Demos’s size and presence.
Within seconds they were on the street outside the club—little more than a narrow alleyway in the city’s Psiri district.
‘I know a place near here,’ Demos said, and with his arm still around her shoulders he began striding down the street.
Although the district was a working class neighbourhood of small shops and factories during the day, at night the tavernas and ouzeries opened up, spilling their tables and patrons out onto the street along with raucous laughter and the twangy strains of old rembetika songs.
High-profile nightclubs had attracted Athens’s A-List, but now Demos was leading her to another part of Psiri altogether; a part, Althea thought with a shiver, that reminded her of the district’s origins in revolutionaries and organised crime.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked, and Demos flashed her a quick smile, his teeth gleaming in the darkness.
The pounding music and pulsing lights of the club were far behind, and somewhere in the darkness a wild cat yowled.
‘Don’t worry,’ Demos said, but Althea jerked away from him.
‘I want to know where we’re going.’ She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly conscious of how skimpy her attire really was. In the crowd of a club it felt appropriate. Here, alone with Demos on an empty darkened street, it felt ridiculous, dangerous. And freezing.
She was also conscious of how little she knew Demos; she’d been intrigued in the club—excited, even—yet now fear, cold and familiar, came rushing back.
Demos regarded her for a moment, and in the yellow wash of a passing car’s headlights Althea could see a considering gleam in his eyes. ‘There’s a little taverna on the next street,’ he said. ‘A quiet place, with good wine.'
Althea took a breath, tried not to think of the implications of his invitation. She made it a policy never to get this far, this close. Yet she’d broken that cardinal rule, and now she didn’t know what to do. How to act.
He’d led her through a maze of twisting alleys and streets and she had no idea how to get back to the club, or even to a thoroughfare that would have reliable taxis. She nodded slowly, and then forced herself to shrug. ‘Fine.'
He held out his hand, and with another shrug and a little smile Althea took it. She shouldn’t like the way his hand felt encasing hers, she knew, warm and dry and safe. She shouldn’t curl her fingers around his as if she wanted him to keep holding her, touching her. Yet she did.
A few minutes later they arrived at the promised taverna, a narrow, quaint place, crammed with tables and rickety chairs, dusty bottles lining the walls. The proprietor, a tall, gangling man in a three-piece suit and apron, welcomed them in.
‘Demos! Long time, eh? What brings you here?’
‘A party,’ Demos said with a shrug, but he clapped the man on the shoulder and smiled. ‘Good to see you, Andreolos.'
Althea was surprised. From the innate grace and arrogance with which he’d strode through the club, not to mention dealt with Angelos, she’d expected him to entertain at five-star hotels on the Plaka, not dusty holes-in-the-wall in Psiri.
Andreolos ushered them to a table tucked in the corner, gave them menus and went to fetch a bottle of wine from under the bar. Althea wrapped her spangled shawl more modestly around herself, conscious yet again of how tarty she must appear.
‘Regretting your choice of attire?’ Demos asked, and she heard a mocking note in his voice that made her flush. Then he surprised her by adding quietly, ‘You look beautiful.'
In the dim intimacy of the taverna, with their knees touching under the tiny table, she took a moment to study the man whose attention and interest she’d captured. And had he captured hers? She considered the question reluctantly; she didn’t like to think that a man—any man—could have a hold over any part of her. Body, mind, heart.
Yet she’d gone with him; she’d been planning to go with him even before Angelos had intercepted their exit. She’d wanted to.
Why?
She thought of that deep shaft of pleasure-pain she’d felt when he looked at her, touched her, and then shoved the memory away with resolute determination.
She couldn’t afford memories like that.
He glanced down at the laminated menu, giving her ample time to study his features.
He was good-looking, undoubtedly, although not in the stylised, almost feminine way most of the young men of her circle were.
His face wasn’t beautiful; it was too rugged and individual for that. His hair was dark, longer than most men’s, touching his collar, raked arrogantly back from his face. His eyes were silvery grey under fierce arching brows. His nose would have been straight and perfect if not for a slight crook in the middle, suggesting it had been broken at some time in the distant past. And his mouth … lips that were sculpted, full. Surprisingly soft in such a hard face.
She tried to remember what the tabloids said about him, but the details escaped her. She tried never to read the gossip rags anyway. She knew all too well how they twisted the truth and lied outright. And she let them.
Andreolos came with the bottle of wine and two glasses, and they were both silent as he poured. Demos smiled his thanks at the man, then lifted his glass in a toast, the ruby-coloured liquid glinting in the lamplight.
‘Yasas,’ he said, in the familiar drinking toast, and Althea murmured it back before