No Mistress But Love

Lindy walked towards the two men standing at the reception desk.

‘I’m afraid Tim—Mr Russell—isn’t here,’ she apologised.

One of the men immediately began addressing her in rapid Greek.

‘I’m very sorry, but I don’t speak Greek,’ she said, while the second of the men rounded on the Greek girl.

Though she couldn’t understand a single word of what was being said, she could tell by their tone and demeanour that neither man was in the least happy, something they were conveying to the startled receptionist in no uncertain terms.

‘Maria, what on earth was all that about?’ she asked, her heart thudding with alarm as one of the two men now walking towards the door gave her a grim-faced backward glance.

The dark-haired girl glanced quickly around her before leaning discreetly towards Lindy, her eyes eloquent with shocked sympathy.

‘Mr Russell owes them money,’ she whispered. ‘And also to a friend of theirs.’

Lindy leaned weakly against the marbled desk, the thought scurrying through her mind that she couldn’t take much more of this.

‘Gambling?’ she asked in a tight, strained voice.

Maria nodded. ‘Those men are from the mainland—and they’re the sort who will keep coming back until they’ve been paid.’ Again she glanced around her before leaning even closer towards Lindy. ‘This morning the security men came from the bank to collect the receipts.’

‘Oh, heck!’ groaned Lindy. With Tim away yesterday, none of the necessary cashing up would have been done! ‘I’d better go and see to it.’

The Greek girl placed a gently restraining hand on Lindy’s arm, shaking her head vigorously as she did so.

‘The money has all gone,’ she whispered urgently. ‘I overheard Mr Niko talking to the head barman…I know they weren’t aware I could hear them.’

Dazed and ghostly pale from shock, Lindy tried desperately to assimilate what her mind was equally desperately attempting to reject.

‘I…I…’ She shook her head in a reflex attempt to clear it. ‘Don’t worry, I promise I shan’t say a word about your having told me,’ she vowed hoarsely, patting the girl’s hand to give emphasis to her promise before turning and walking, as though in a trance, towards the lift.

Her movements like those of an automaton, she went to her room, changed into a brief black bikini and then belted her beach robe securely around her. On her way back down in the lift the thought occurred to her that it might have been wiser to slip out by a back entrance, but she had dismissed the thought with a small shrug of indifference by the time the lift had deposited her once more in the foyer. Her need for time on her own, time away from people and complete isolation from their sounds, was one no one on this earth was going to deprive her of. Marching straight through the foyer in total oblivion of Maria and the startled glance the girl gave her, Lindy headed for the sea.

She made her way through the tranquil order of the gardens and down the winding, gently sloping steps to the beach. She had discovered the beach on the day of her arrival and had visited it almost daily ever since. Because it was an area rarely used by the guests—the younger ones usually taking off to the more remote islands in the motor launches provided and their elders content to meander through the extensive grounds or play bridge in the peaceful coolness of one of the hotel’s many recreation-rooms—this small, idyllic stretch of golden sand had become her own private haven.

Kicking off her mules and slipping out of her robe, she made her way to the water’s edge, the soothing sensation of the jewel-like waters of the Aegean Sea lapping around her slim, tanned legs lulling her into almost believing that this was a day no different from any other. And, despite everything, she had been inexplicably happy here. It was hardly a job and it would lead her nowhere from a career point of view—but then, neither had the temping she had been doing in London while optimistically waiting for her dream job to present itself. Yet, in spite of her rude awakening to Tim’s true nature and the cringing embarrassment that realisation of her own blind stubbornness had brought her, being here had, more often than not, been like an interlude of almost cleansing peacefulness in her life and one she would never have imagined herself appreciating until she had begun experiencing it.