“You have my jacket,” he said sharply. “Or are you in the habit of taking souvenirs?”
She swung towards him and flung a string of curses she’d just learned in Egypt in his face. Demetrios glowered; a horse in a nearby stall gave a soft whinny and looked on with interest.
“What did you say?”
“I said,” Sam replied, smiling brightly, “that I hoped your descendents would all be carrion-eating jackals, and that you’d lose all your teeth and go bald by the time you’re thirty-five. Good night. I’d say it’s been a pleasure, but it hasn’t.”
“You’re right. It hasn’t.”
“As for your precious jacket…” She shrugged the item in question from her shoulders and held it out in a two-fingered grasp. Demetrios looked from her face to the jacket to the horse in its stall…
“No,” he said, but it was too late. The jacket dropped. The horse snorted. And the woman he’d been fool enough to have thought he wanted strode towards the door.
“Good night,” Sam said pleasantly, and batted the door open with her hand.
A single, harsh word floated out into the night. It was Greek, but she didn’t have to be a genius to figure out what it meant. Sam dusted her hands off as she strode towards the house. The jacket had, undoubtedly, found its hoped-for target, something that was the inevitable product of horses and stables.
There was justice in this world after all.
Demetrios glared at the closed door. Then, teeth clenched, he leaned into the stall and carefully retrieved his jacket. He carried it as the woman had, by two fingers, until he reached the door where he dropped it into a trash container.
He had never learned her name, but it wasn’t necessary. As far as he was concerned, it might as well be Circe. She was a sorceress. A tease. Hell, she was a bitch…And yet, as he stepped out into the warm night and thought of the curses she’d uttered, his lips began to twitch.
Descendents that were jackals were bad enough, but that he should be toothless and bald in another two years? He began to chuckle, and then to laugh out loud. She was not the first woman to have cursed him, though it had always been because he was the one heading for the door. Certainly, none had ever done it so creatively.
As for Nick and Rafe…Demetrios sighed. He was going to have to come up with some kind of explanation. He was sure they’d be waiting for him. They’d want details, the name of the woman, why he’d taken her to the stables instead of to his bedroom…
Why he’d had to dump his jacket in the trash.
Well, they were in for a disappointment. He wasn’t going to tell them much of anything. The assignation—the almost assignation—had begun as passion and ended as farce, but he had no wish to share it, not even for the good-natured laughter it would surely bring. It had been far too private.
As for Circe…whoever she was, she was quite a woman.
Whistling softly, even smiling—which, he had to admit, was an odd thing to do, considering the less than satisfactory end to what had begun as a fascinating evening—Demetrios tucked his hands into his pockets and strolled towards the house.
CHAPTER THREE
ALMOST four weeks later, the phone in Sam’s apartment rang just as she was pouring her first cup of morning coffee.
She put down the pot, glanced at the clock and picked up the receiver. “Good morning, Amanda,” she said sweetly.
Her sister gave a dramatic groan. “Please don’t tell me they’ve perfected video calling. Not at this hour of the morning.”
Sam laughed. “This hour of the morning is how I knew it was you. Nobody else would call me at five after seven.”
“Anybody with a four-year-old would. Besides, I wanted to be sure and get you before you left for the day. Didn’t you say you had a job interview on tap?”
“Two of them,” Sam said, tucking the phone against her shoulder so she could open the fridge and get out the cream. “The first one’s in just a couple of hours, so—”
“So, you can’t talk long. Yes, I know. That’s been your excuse ever since we got back from Brazil.”
“It isn’t an excuse,” Sam said quickly. Too quickly, she thought, and told herself to slow down. “I’ve been busy, that’s all.”
“Uh-huh. Well, what’s on that frantic schedule of yours today?”
“A couple of meetings this morning. Which means—”
“Which means,” Amanda said pleasantly, “you and I can get together for lunch. Remember that little place off Madison?”
“Where walking through the door and inhaling puts a thousand calories on your hips?”
“Haven’t you heard the latest scientific facts, sister mine? A blast of sunshine reduces the calorie count. And, in case you haven’t noticed, spring has finally sprung. Take a peep out your window. That big yellow ball hanging over the East River is sun.”
“It’s pollution. And honestly, Mandy, I don’t see how I can make it. I’m seeing somebody at the UN at nine—”
“You’re going to work at the United Nations? I thought you hated being bottled up indoors.”
“It’s a private job. Some letters that need translating. And then, at eleven, there’s a professor at Hunter who stumbled across some poems by a nineteenth century—”
“Fascinating,” Amanda said politely. “But I thought you didn’t do that. Translate poetry and letters, I mean. I thought you preferred on-the-spot things. You know, Mr. Pavarotti, meet Mr. Jagger. That kind of stuff.”
Sam laughed as she stirred a dollop of cream into her coffee. “Well, that’s what I prefer, but my bank account isn’t as finicky as my brain—especially when I haven’t picked up a decent job since—since I got back from that weekend at Carin’s.”
What an idiot! Surely, after all this time, she could trust herself to say “Brazil” without dredging up memories of that humiliating episode with Demetrios Karas.
“Really?”
“Really. Nobody seems to need translations in French or German or Italian or Spanish or—”
“Borneoese?”
Sam laughed again. “You just invented a language. Anyway, what I did in Borneo was translate from Italian to English
and from English to Italian. There was this pair of ethnologists, see, and one spoke…” She sighed. “Trust me. I don’t do what you just dubbed Borneoese.”
“Or Greek,” Amanda said pleasantly.
Every nerve cell in Sam’s body went on alert. “Why would I need to speak Greek?”
“You wouldn’t. I just mentioned it. I mean, you said—”
“I know what I said. And what you said. And you said, Greek.”
“Samantha, honestly, stop being so defensive. Have you had your morning coffee?”
Sam stared down into her rapidly cooling cup. “No.”
“Well, you see? That’s what you get for trying to talk to me before you get your caffeine levels where they should be.”
“Amanda. You are the one who called me.”
“So I did, although I don’t know why you should be such a grump, considering that I’m inviting you to a sinfully scrumptious lunch where I’m going to tell you about your next job.”
Sam stood up straight. “Translating?”
“Of course. What other kind of job would Nick offer you?”
“Your husband needs a translator?”
“A business acquaintance of his needs one. Well, actually, a friend. And it’s your kind of thing, Sam, nothing to do with dusty old letters or poetry.”
“Well, that’s great!” Sam lifted her cup and drank some coffee. “Who’ll I be working with? Where? In what languages?”
“I don’t really know the details. You can get all that from Nick. He said he’d meet us at The Lazy Daisy and fill you in.”
“Okay. Fine.” Sam cleared her throat. “Uh, so, speaking of Nick…Did he, um, did he enjoy the weekend at Rio de Ouro?”
“Doesn’t he always? You know what good friends he and Rafe are.”
“Oh, sure.” Sam ran the tip of her tongue over her lips. “And—and I’m sure he saw other friends that weekend, too. I mean, they all know each other, don’t they? Nick. Rafe. And—and other people.”
“All of a sudden, I have the feeling I’m the one in need of a translator. What are you talking about?”