Cheyney Fox (19 page)

“He divided them into three categories. Then he had all the bars sprayed with a half-inch-thick, clear resin. That made the chocolate bars airtight.”

Cheyney’s ears perked up. She just knew what was coming
next. She did, after all, know Barry Sole and his quirky, Dada mind. She wanted to burst out laughing right then and there, put her hand to her mouth, and bit hard onto the side of her index finger to hold back her laughter.

“Now he is selling them all over the world. Hundreds of dinky little art galleries are passing them off as fine works of art. A bar with a stamped signature of Barry Sole is priced at ten dollars. There’s a batch with a stenciled signature of Barry Sole: that costs twenty dollars and fifty cents a bar. The third price is fifty dollars. For that you get a bar signed with a Magic Marker ‘Barry Sole’ and dated.”

At this point Cheyney did burst out laughing. The more she laughed, the funnier it seemed to get. So far, the others at the table had not seen the funny side of the candy bars. But Cheyney’s laughter caught on. Even Ben, who was annoyed by it, succumbed to a twinge of a smile; then continued.

“Okay, now may I go on? The collector behind this investigation claims that this is an art scam. Sole handiwork of one Barry Sole. Motive: pure profit. That it has nothing whatever to do with art. Surprise. That it’s no more than an exploitation of his name. And the said works of art, the candy bars …”

Cheyney had heard enough, and brought herself under control, intending to leave the table as soon as the “prosecutor” paused for breath and she could decently make her exit. No call to look rude.

She didn’t have to wait for a pause. Cheyney was saved by a waiter, Basili. He handed her a bunch of violets and a note written on a folded white paper napkin. A quick tilt of his head and a raised eyebrow showed her the man who had sent them. She could only just see him across the crowded tables. A shock of white hair, part of a profile. She unfolded the napkin and read his note:

Cheyney looked up from the note. The group at the table was looking at Cheyney. A note, for the moment, was more intriguing than Barry Sole and his art scam.

“Something more interesting than my art scandal, Cheyney?”
asked the lawyer, unable to keep the note of bitchiness out of his voice. He had just lost his audience.

“It is to me,” she answered, her face still radiant with laughter.

Alex, an English travel writer sitting next to her, of whom Cheyney was very fond, reached out. He placed an arm around her shoulder and teased: “Another admirer, Cheyney? This one can’t be Greek. Your Greek fans never spoil flowers with a note.”

“True,” she answered, holding the violets under his nose to share their scent.

“If he were Greek, by now there would be meaningful looks aimed at your heart, every one an arrow, courtesy of Aphrodite.” That was Nancy getting her tease in.

“Drinks would have been sent over for us all. And you would have asked him to join us — hoping that way he wouldn’t follow you home,” said Karen.

“We all know the routine. We’ve all been there, Cheyney,” added Nancy.

When Cheyney rose from her chair, she had still not been able to remember the last time she had laughed with such abandon. She laid money on the table to cover her share of the bill and it was not until she found herself winding her way around and between the small marble tables of chattering Athenians that she realized she did not want to walk away from this stranger without at least thanking him for the flowers. A first clear view of the man, and she was again deeply amused. She recognized him at once.

He rose from his chair at her approach. Smiles. She felt happy, as if she were being drawn toward him by fine, silken threads, invisible to the eye. She liked his power, sensed perfection, mystery, a promise of magic.

The years had been good to him. He was no less handsome, perhaps more sexy. Her surprise gave him an advantage. He spoke.

“Hello. You remembered.”

“No, actually I didn’t. Not until I saw you.”

“Ah.”

Kurt Walbrook said nothing more. He walked around the small table and withdrew a chair, offering it to Cheyney. The
glance into each other’s eyes. It took only a second, that glance that passed between them. A moment of exquisite togetherness. An intensity that goaded their senses and made their everyday worlds stand still. An instant that was suddenly gone. Both would from then on treasure it. No need to register in words that fleeting moment of oneness between them. Enough that they understood what had happened. Two personalities with the strength to grasp such moments in life; they controlled themselves. The momentary gift did not pass unsavored.

From behind her, his hand under her elbow, as if guiding her into the chair, he stepped close up against her. He moved his hand cautiously, held her now with his hands on her upper arms and eased her that few inches back up against him. Kurt felt her give in to his embrace. He brushed his lips against her long, shining black hair just at the nape of her neck. It wasn’t enough. He pressed his hands deeper into her flesh and pulled her a fraction closer. Then let her go and stepped gingerly away. Cheyney sat down.

It had all happened quickly, a sensuous coming together under the eyes of laughing, gossiping, politicizing Athenians at the tables at Zonar’s. Cheyney hadn’t even the time to be surprised or overwhelmed by it.

She watched Kurt take command.

“What may I offer you?” he asked her.

“I have a penchant for pastries, cream cakes. My small Grecian vice.”

He ordered a selection, and two Greek coffees for them. Then he turned back to Cheyney and gave her all his attention, “Well that’s one wicked thing we have in common. Vienna. The capital city of that pardonable vice. Pastries and whipped cream, our chocolate cake, Sacher Torte, in Austria. Delicious to the point of decadence. One day I will ruin you with cream cakes in Vienna.”

His voice, that soft, sensuous undertone to his faint Austrian accent. It charmed, it warmed and embraced her. Delight, there was no other word for it. An air of luxurious delight elevated their gourmandizing chat.

“You remember me?”

“As vividly as you remembered my laughter. You asked me to marry you. And then promptly walked off with another
woman, and never looked back. I am not likely to forget a proposal like that.”

He smiled and his eyes teased. “Reach back,” he asked. “Do you remember anything else?” She hesitated, concentrating on that night so long ago when she had in fact been smitten with the gallant, mature man who flattered her with his attentions.

“Oh yes, I do. You said, ‘One more time, we’ll meet one more time, and then I will marry you.’ ”

“Very good. I have often wondered what you thought about that.”

“Presumptuous, how presumptuous, that was my first thought. My next was that you had the best line I had ever heard a man throw a woman. It was terrific.”

“Presumptuous? A line? Certainly not.”

“What, then?”

“Exactly what I said.”

He was looking at her matter-of-factly. “You do mean to marry me,” she said, stunned by the realization, surprised at how much his intentions fascinated her.

“Yes,” he answered, looking very happy.

“Do you always get what you want?”

“Yes.”

“I like my freedom, living without any serious commitments,” That was more an automatic reflex than a statement.

“And I like mine. But one day …”

What could have been a tense moment, intruding upon their delightful flirtation, was avoided by the arrival of Nesselrode and Florence and Frangipane, cream-cake slices, puffs of
choux
pastry bursting with whipped cream and dripping with dark sweet chocolate, slices of
millefeuilles
, tartlets of custard, tiny, bite-size eclairs oozing mocha chantilly, and puffballs of meringue draped in maraschino
crème fraiche
.

“Oh my Lord, what a parade!” Cheyney exclaimed playfully, covering her eyes with her hands for a second. “It looks as if I don’t have to go to Vienna to have you ruin me.”

Kurt was delighted. Cheyney seemed to be toying with the erotic connotations of his earlier words.

The waiter hovered with the two cups of Greek coffee and two glasses of cold water on a tray. Where to put them? He
turned to the two men sitting at the table next to Cheyney and Kurt, and asked “
Sus para calo
. Do you mind?” And, before the men could answer, he plunked the small tray down on their table and flounced off.

No amount of apologies or insistence that they could manage without disturbing the two men could retrieve their coffee cups. The two elderly Greeks didn’t mind at all. In fact, they would be insulted if they were removed. Cheyney couldn’t stop smiling; if this sexy old smoothie opposite her thought he would get another chance to practice his charm on her, he was wrong. She knew what was about to happen.

Cheyney and Kurt reached for the cups only twice before the Greeks began rearranging things. The tables were pushed together. They suggested which order the cakes should be eaten in. They looked so good they ordered some for themselves. They interrupted Cheyney and Kurt’s conversation to give their opinion on whatever was being said. Now they were a party of four, everyone plunging a fork in everyone else’s pastry. A well-known painter walked by and joined the two men, then an out-of-favor politician, and their party grew larger.

At last they made their escape. He said he would walk her home. “Is it always like that?”

“Almost always.” She slipped her arm through his and said, “You should have seen your face. You were wonderful the way you just surrendered and enjoyed it all. That’s Athens sidewalk café society for you.”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re laughing at me?” he asked good-naturedly.

She whispered in his ear as they walked. “Because I am.”

Chapter 19

T
heir walk, arm in arm, was leisurely, while everyone else was rushing home for the siesta. Up Voucarestiou Street, then Kanaris, through Kolonaki Square, up toward Lycavatos. They watched the streets emptying and relative quiet descend. They stopped, balanced on a curb, to let the dwindling traffic pass before they attempted a crossing.

“Why do you want to marry me?” she asked.

“Because you’re beautiful, very beautiful. You are exquisitely sensual, erotic even. I like your soul, your passion for life, art. I admire your courage. Let me say, the courage of a lioness. I like your independent spirit, your own special kind of love and loyalty, and you’re intelligent. How’s that?”

“Is that all?” she teased, eyes a-sparkle. They braved the street. Once across, he grabbed her hard by the elbow and pulled her sharply up against him.

“No, one more reason. I like your body. And especially in a dress like the one you wore the first night I met you. It was the perfect covering for it. Your body spoke to me that night. It told me everything I might want to know about you. I actually crave your body.”

His look was intense, his voice tight. Then he relaxed, let go of her arm, and the teasing twinkle she had seen earlier in his eyes was suddenly there again. He laughed at her, “With me you will have to expect to get as good as you give.” He slipped his arm through hers and they walked on. Now she was confused. Had it all been mere teasing? She made no
attempt to find out. He was a seasoned player of the game of seduction.

“And why will
I
marry you?” Her Freudian slip? She had meant to say; Why would I marry you? He turned his head to look at her. She kept her eyes straight ahead, not daring to take in the expression of delight she knew must be there. He noted her mistake and the advantage it might one day give him. He answered her.

“You suit me. And you will marry me when you realize that. So, for that reason, and because we can have a wonderful life together.”

“And love?”

“We already love each other. And every day we know each other, we will love that little bit more.”

“You
are
a presumptuous man. You take my breath away.”

“So I see.”

“I know nothing at all about you.”

“Yes, you do, you just haven’t put the pieces together.” That perplexed her.

“Not even your name.”

“Don’t you like a mystery?”

“Yes, I do like a mystery. I’d better, I have one here,” she quipped.

“Adventure?”

“Of course. Without an adventure, what would life be?”

“Then think of me as an adventure and forget about names, at least for now.”

They stopped at the bottom of a street a hundred worn, white marble steps high. It was flanked on one side by neoclassical houses, each one more finely detailed than the last, and on the other by a garden of luscious green pine and juniper, springing from hard, dry earth. Toward the top of the stone-banked tiers of trees, a scattering of empty wooden taverna chairs, and the odd wooden table, white cloths flapping in the breeze. Very quiet, just a few birds twittering, and the muffled hum of city noise borne in from the distance.

“That’s where I live. Top of the steps and around the corner. A penthouse apartment on top of a
polykatoia
. There’s no need for you to make the climb. I’ll say good-bye and thank you — for all that evil whipped cream.”

She held her hand out, intending to shake his. He took it in both of his. Suddenly the idea of his leaving her hurt. She didn’t want him to go. Yet again, those invisible silken threads seemed to draw her to him. She wanted him terribly. It rather shocked her how carnal she felt about this stranger, who suddenly didn’t seem at all like a stranger, but more, as he suggested, an adventure. A grand adventure.

He kissed her hand, and something within her dissolved. She felt giddy, almost missing what he was saying. She made an effort to concentrate on his words.

“Dine with me this evening.”

He knew that she would. He saw her say yes with her eyes. He placed a finger to her lips, as if asking her to keep her silence, and then traced their outline. He pressed the soft sensual lips, a caress. “Good. I know just the place.”

“Where shall I meet you, and at what time?” asked Cheyney.

He took her by the arm. She liked being touched by him. They started the climb up the steep flight of steps. She wanted to say, There’s no need, it’s such a tiring haul to the top. But what was the point? She knew he had no intention of leaving her.

In the hall of her apartment building she wanted again to suggest to him that they meet later. The words were not forthcoming. Crammed so close together in the tiny elevator as it slowly creaked up to the penthouse, she felt his magnetism so strongly she had to fight her instinct to succumb to him. His own special, sensual male scent was intoxicating. Attractive, dominating, a strong sexual charisma. It felt good to be close to him. More than good. But, beyond those things, there was the pleasure she derived from knowing he wanted her. At the door to her apartment he took the key from her and unlocked it. She gave up.

Inside he showed no reaction to the sparsely furnished rooms. The vast terrace with a spectacular view of the city and the Acropolis way off in the distance, a ribbon of blue, the sea. Zazou took to him instantly, and he to her. She kept rolling on her back for him, shamelessly appealing for him to rub her tummy.

Cheyney watched them. He was much older than she was,
twenty years older, maybe. But he moved like a young man. The handsome, older-man good looks and the courtly manner, so smooth, oh-so-smooth and charming. The accent, the voice. Such blue, blue eyes that held you in his spell. The straight nose and strong chin, the sensuous lips, and the way he looked at Cheyney and the other women at Zonar’s, and in the streets. He didn’t woo them with his eyes, he penetrated them. It was only now as she watched him that she thought he was most probably more than just a womanizer. A sensualist, for certain, a libertine, possibly. She felt quite nervous at the thought of where he could take her sexually. Nervous, but filled with desire to be taken there by him. This is ridiculous. And the whole afternoon has been bizarre, she told herself, trying to steady her thoughts.

“Why don’t we take Zazou with us?” he asked.

“Yes, she’d love that. We both would.”

“Good, then it won’t matter how late we are getting back. We’ll leave as soon as you are ready, we need some time to get there.”

“I must have at least a short siesta. At least an hour.”

“Fine, an hour then, we’ll go after that.”

Before she realized what was happening, he was leading her to the bedroom. It was too late for protest, and much too exciting. The hot October day, an interesting sexy man who professes love and offers marriage, an adventure — what was there to protest about?

She felt embarrassed about the bedroom: stark white walls, and on the floor, in the middle of the room, an oversized mattress covered with black goatskins. A bowl of yellow dahlias, set on a four-inch-high, black lacquer box. And nothing else. She waited for a reaction. He displayed none. He said nothing.

He opened the French doors to the balcony and pulled the shutters closed and then the glass doors behind them. Light banished, the room turned sensuously dim. He removed the dark-gray-and-beige Harris-tweed jacket he was wearing and walked past her to the wardrobe. He found an empty wire hanger for the jacket. The hanger buckled but held. He removed the red wool tie and then the Turnbull and Asser, Delft-blue cotton shirt and handed them to her. No chair in the room to
drape them over. With the last available hanger in the cupboard now gone, he had little choice but to hand his clothes over to her. Cheyney made no apology for the sparseness of her life, but found room for his clothes in her closet.

His body surprised her. No longer young, not particularly muscular or in any way dynamic, it was nevertheless without fault. Naked he was earthily male, frighteningly sexual. It was a strong body, the wide shoulders tapering to a narrow waist, the hair on his chest still dark. This body held the promise of a masterful eroticism.

He was so sure of himself standing naked in front of her. It was unnerving for Cheyney that he felt no need to float seduction upon a flow of banal words. He obviously sensed there was no ice to break. He slipped the red silk scarf she had loosely tied from around her neck and placed it in her hand. Then he undid the three buttons on the mocha-colored fitted suede jacket she was wearing, turned, and walked to the bathroom.

She heard the shower. He would be back soon. Her imagination shifted into high gear. Her body tingled with anticipation. Hurriedly she undressed. Yet, a drowsiness suddenly took command of her. She held a dressing gown in her hand ready to slip into. He reappeared and, taking it from her hands, he stood back and looked at her in the half-light. He tilted her chin up, wanting better to see her face, before kissing her on the lips with an infinite tenderness. Nothing more.

Unnerved by the seduction, she slipped away from him and into the shower. The damp heat and hot water cleansed and soothed and did its work. All she wanted was to sleep.

She slid between the cool, white linen sheets. He turned on his side to face her.

“An hour, we can only sleep for an hour. Be happy, I am going to give you everything you have ever wanted. You are going to have a better life than ever you dreamed of,” he whispered. The voice was sexy and smooth, the accent mesmerizing.

He stroked her hair. Her eyelids, heavy with sleep, kept closing. She was fighting to stay awake. He liked the straight, slender nose and traced it with his finger. “Sleep, sleep deeply, my love,” he whispered in his honeyed, sensuous voice.

She was so drowsy. It was like swimming through gossamer, trying not to founder. But she wanted him, wanted him to take her. She was his.

He put his lips to hers and kissed her. He tantalized her with his kisses, sensitized her body with them. They were hungry for her breasts, all her hidden erogenous places. His lips, his mouth, his tongue, velvet explorers fired with passion. Weighed down by drowsiness, and her own private lust, she was unable to resist his exquisite seduction of her. With every gentle caress, every lick of his tongue across her flesh, she dissolved a little bit more. He drew from her a stream of light, sweet orgasms. She whimpered with the pain of such ravishing pleasure.

She wanted to reach out and touch him, to feel the weight of his own sex in her hands, to feel the taste of him in her mouth. Impossible. In her half-dreaming state she was beyond an active role in their lust for each other. Instead she absorbed his luxuriously slow, loving thrusts. Reveled in that most exquisite feeling of being filled to bursting with a raging penis. She could only give him pleasure by coming again and again and again. She was mesmerized by his desire to please her, and she glided away into a dreamless sleep.

When she opened her eyes to see him lying next to her, he was dressed. Shirt opened to the waist, trousers, bare feet. She ran her fingers through his hair.

“Was I dreaming?” she asked.

“I don’t know. Were you dreaming?”

She flushed with embarrassment, remembering the blissful sensations she achieved in her orgasms. How he had satiated her. But had it been a waking bliss or had she been dreaming? She hardly knew, yet felt that he did.

“You’re not going to tell me, are you?” she asked.

“No, not now. Not ever.”

She knew he was playing with her, but she also felt that he meant what he said. She might never know whether they had experienced such a fiercely erotic coming together or not. Cheyney made up her mind to resist asking again.

Gathering some of her hair in his hands, he kissed it and then touched her cheek with his lips. A moment of tenderness and then it was gone, and he was up on his feet straddling her
still-prone body. He held his hands out to her. She took them, confused that that was all he wanted. Surely he must have known she was his sexually for the asking. He couldn’t have missed her signals; he was much too clever and quick; he knew women too well for that. He had her puzzled. Women generally know when a man fancies them sexually, and she knew down to the marrow of her bones that this man wanted a sexual scene with her that had been smoldering for years, ever since that first time he approached her in New York. Or had he had it? There had to be, at the very least, a little of the sexual devil in him to leave her tortured by that question.

He pulled her up, she tried to pull him down. He set her on her feet. She still wanted sex with him and was disappointed that it wasn’t going to happen. Or had it? Again the torture of not knowing. How had he mesmerized her into that half dream state, so he could play with her like this? The way he fucked her with his gaze, and caressed her nakedness with his hands as he helped her into her dressing gown, proved one thing to her: whatever had happened in the last hour, whatever reason they were not having sex now, he still wanted her, and more than ever. Of course she was right.

For him to subside into sleep after he had made love to her had been impossible. He had still wanted her long after he had fucked her to sleep. Kurt had done it deliberately, seduced her in every possible sexual way to lull her into dreamland rather than to excite her into wild, passionate sex. That would come later, when she wanted more with him than that. When she wanted marriage.

He was boundlessly happy to know how much her own lust suited his, no matter how sure he had been that it would. What keen joy he had had with her. But it was nothing to what they would have together once they were married, and then for the rest of their lives. Having at last had sex with her, Kurt confirmed what he had always suspected: part of the joy of marrying Cheyney Fox would be teaching her the ways of the erotic libertine and the great sexual game they would practice together. The seduction of Cheyney Fox had only just begun.

Of course she knew very well that they had had intercourse, that they had both come and reveled in their comings. He understood her need to have it confirmed to her. That was no
insult to his lovemaking, but a compliment. He had learned long ago from an accomplished mistress of his father, a Eurasian beauty, what a rare pleasure it was for a woman to have sex with a man in that way. She had taught him well. He was more than accomplished at it. There was a trail of women strewn across the world who could attest to that. Women who still yearned for him, as he knew Cheyney would from that day on. Only in Cheyney’s case, it was only their beginning. There would always be more for them. Here was the one woman he would never abandon.