Island Of The Dawn

Chloe pulled a wry face. Mistress! How old-fashioned it sounded; how full of connotations no longer considered important by sophisticates. But some shibboleths still held as strong a sway on people’s emotions as they had always done, and incest was one of the few remaining taboos. By Greek standards Leon had committed the unforgivable sin. In Greek eyes there was no greater responsibility than that owed by a man to his sisters. By rights Marisa should have been married long before now. She was, after all, twenty-two. But then Marisa would never marry. She had told Chloe that herself, the day she had told her so much, including the fact that she and Leon were lovers and had been for several years.

‘Chloe!’

She hadn’t heard Leon enter the room. In addition to completing his telephone call he had changed his clothes and was now wearing jeans and a thin cotton shirt which clung to the powerful muscles of his shoulders. Pain as sharp as a splinter of ice entering her heart lanced through Chloe. So had he dressed during those all too brief weeks of their honeymoon when she had still believed that she was the one who he loved; when her own fears had been that she, with her innocence and sheltered upbringing, would prove to be an unworthy companion of so sophisticated and experienced a man.

She remembered how, when she had tried to put her doubts into words, Leon had silenced her with drugging kisses. Her innocence only endeared her to him all the more, he had told her in the husky voice that never failed to thrill her. All that she needed to learn she would learn from him. As Marisa had learned!

‘What do you want, Leon?’ The words sounded sharply shrill—defensive, and Chloe regretted them instantly. Anger flared smokily in Leon’s eyes and she knew that she had annoyed him. Even in those early days she had recognised that Leon was a man of strong will. When she had remonstrated with him, saying that they had hardly known one another long enough to talk about marriage, he had simply crushed her objections beneath the warmth of his lips, overriding her fears by arousing her emotions to such a pitch that she could deny him nothing. And he had known it. How he must have laughed at her! Thoughts which she had never allowed herself to examine properly before refused to be banished any longer, and Chloe writhed inwardly in recognition of how easy she had made it for Leon. She hadn’t even had the wit to try and hide from him how she felt. He could have seduced her as easily as he had no doubt seduced Marisa and she wouldn’t have raised the slightest objection. Perhaps it would have better had he done so. An affair was easier to leave behind than a marriage.

‘You know what I want—a son to replace the one you destroyed. And you will give me one, Chloe.’

‘And Marisa—does she know of this sudden compulsive desire? I know how you feel about her, Leon, and how she feels about you. What are you planning to do? Divorce me once I’ve borne this son you want so badly?’

‘I was intending to fly to Athens this morning,’ Leon commented, changing the subject. ‘But my appointment has been cancelled, so I shall show you round the villa instead. My meeting was an important one, but my associate understood that it would not be possible for me to visit his office, having been so recently reunited with my wife.’

The words held a subtle threat, but Chloe refused to acknowledge it, or to look upwards at Leon who she knew was watching her.

‘As my wife you will now have to take up certain responsibilities. We shall be expected to do a certain amount of entertaining, so it is as well that you familiarise yourself with the layout of the villa.’

Entertaining! Now Chloe did look at him. In the tanned harshness of his face, his eyes stood out like sharp pieces of flint.

‘You would take such a risk? I’m not a child to be ordered about any more, Leon—you no longer hold me in thrall. I’ve grown up. You might be able to hold me on this island against my will, but you can’t stop me telling your friends what you’re doing. Once before you used me—you’re not going to do it a second time.’

Chloe could tell by his expression that she had hit home, but the anger she could see burning behind the watchful glitter of his eyes was quickly masked, his voice cool with malice as he drawled softly, ‘Go ahead and tell them—they won’t care. In Greece a man’s wife is his property to do with as he wishes. They will laugh at you, Chloe, if you dare to complain—laugh and praise me for treating you as an errant wife should be treated. Indeed, many of them will think your punishment extremely light. Greek men do not have Western scruples about striking women. Oh, it’s all right,’ he sneered when Chloe flinched back. ‘Physical domination holds no appeal for me.’

His open mockery made Chloe clench her fists at her sides. ‘You dare to say that?’ she stormed bitterly. ‘When not five minutes ago you were telling me that you were going to force your child upon me….’

‘Force?’ His gaze sharpened, narrowing on the betraying rise and fall of her breasts beneath the fine lawn of her blouse. ‘You keep using that word, but I seem to recall that “force” was never necessary between us, Chloe—far from it.’ As he spoke his fingers reached for her wrist, circling it, his thumb lazily stroking the tender inner flesh with sensual expertise. ‘Well?’

Her mouth dry, Chloe tried to find the words to deny his mocking assertion, but Leon was already drawing her close to him, his free hand pulling her cotton blouse from the waistband of the matching patterned skirt she was wearing with it.

Her muscles clenched in protest as his fingers traced the sensitive bones of her spine, reaching upwards to slip under the brief lacy bra she was wearing before she could take evasive action.

‘Leon!’ Her sharp protest was smothered by her own shocked gasp as his hand slid forward to cup the warm fullness of her breast.

‘Is this what you call force, Chloe?’ he demanded softly, his lean, experienced fingers stroking and teasing her nipple until awareness of its burgeoning hardness washed over her body in a heated wave.

‘Stop it. Stop it!’ She lifted her hands to push him away, but all her action did was to lift and tauten her breasts until they were clearly defined beneath the thin cotton—and with them her obvious arousal.

Damn Leon, she thought impotently, not daring to lift her eyes for fear of the open mockery she would see in his. What duplicity men were capable of! Leon loved Marisa, and yet here he was fully intent on and capable of making love to her!

‘I won’t do it, Leon,’ she said in distaste. ‘I won’t be forced into despising myself—into giving you a child to satisfy some primitive paternalistic urge. You might be able to arouse me physically, but….’

‘But you hate yourself for allowing it to happen?’ Leon jeered. ‘What happened to the girl I married, Chloe? The girl who gave herself to me so willingly; who revelled in my possession of her body?’

‘She doesn’t exist any more,’ Chloe said tonelessly, refusing to allow his words to affect her.

‘No?’

She saw the ugly look in his eyes too late to prevent him from ruthlessly plundering her mouth with a force that ground her lips against her teeth, bruising the tender flesh and bringing the taste of blood to her mouth. For the first time in her life Chloe experienced the degradation of a kiss designed to inflict pain instead of pleasure, to enforce and go on enforcing man’s ability to physically dominate woman, and turn what should have been a mutually pleasurable experience into sexual punishment.

‘If it’s force you want then force you shall have,’ Leon ground out as he released her abruptly. ‘Now, shall I show you round the villa, or would you prefer us to remain here—where I can reinforce my intentions of getting from you a replacement for the child you destroyed?’

She destroyed, Chloe thought numbly as she inched past him into the corridor. Was he even now going to go on with that ridiculous charade?

Her lips felt swollen and sore, but she daren’t touch them for fear of drawing Leon’s attention to her. When he reached towards her she flinched away, shrinking beneath the anger she saw blazing in his eyes momentarily before he shrugged with a nonchalance she couldn’t help envying.

‘I’m not about to rape you in the corridor,’ he drawled sardonically. ‘But unless you want the entire household to suspect I’ve just been making love to you, it might be as well if you did something about that.’

Lean fingers flicked disparagingly at the cotton blouse, which she had forgotten was hanging betrayingly over her skirt, as he spoke. Keeping as far away from him as possible, Chloe tucked it back into her waistband, hating the betraying way her fingers trembled, and the knowing gleam in Leon’s eyes as they rested on the soft thrust of her breasts beneath the thin fabric. Overriding every emotion was an intense desire to prove to Leon that she was immune to whatever sexual enticement or harassment he might choose to exert, but at the back of her mind Chloe acknowledged that her feelings mattered little to him. They couldn’t do. If they did he would never have brought her here like this and for such a purpose.

True to his word, Leon insisted on showing her over the villa. It was huge—far larger than she had first imagined, and equipped with every modern appliance and device conceivable, all fuelled by the generator housed away from the main building. An advanced security system protected the island, a necessary precaution in these days, Leon pointed out when she commented on it, especially in view of his known wealth. While acknowledging that he spoke no less than the truth, Chloe couldn’t help feeling that he had a secondary motive in showing her the complex security precautions—it was as though he were subtly reinforcing his earlier claim that there was no way in which she could leave the island without him knowing. Chloe now acknowledged that this was true. Sophisticated technological advances meant that it was possible for an effective guard to be placed over the island while at the same time maintaining its privacy. Electronic eyes could see far more than human ones, and far less obtrusively!

The only form of transport on and off the island was Leon’s own private helicopter, and apart from the occupants of the villa it was completely uninhabited. It was too small to support a population, Leon told her—too small and too barren, but among the rocky cliffs were small sandy beaches which made it a holiday paradise when combined with the heat of the Aegean sun and the silky waters of its sea.

The villa had apparently been built to Leon’s specific design, and as she was shown from room to room Chloe was overwhelmed by a sense of familiarity, and then at last, standing in the huge living room with its elegant Italian furniture, she realised why. It was almost an exact replica of a villa they had visited during their honeymoon. It had belonged to a wealthy recluse and some friends of Leon’s had been renting it. To Chloe it had seemed the epitome of elegance, and although Leon’s villa was larger, she could see now that it was built on very similar lines, even down to the Italian furniture which she had so admired. She touched the pale cream silk settee, stroking the fine fabric, her eyes drawn to the jewel-bright colours of the silk scatter cushions carelessly heaped on to it. Chrome and glass shelving lined one wall, a modern marble fireplace in the same cream as the upholstery dominating another wall. Apart from the brilliant splashes of colour provided by the cushions and several carefully chosen objets d’art the entire room was decorated in the same pale cream as the furniture, the brilliant jades and greens of the cushions now chosen, Chloe realised, to complement the collection of jade housed in one of the chrome wall units.

‘Recognise it?’ Leon mocked. ‘I commissioned the same architect who designed the one in Antibes. It was going to be a present to mark our first anniversary.’

For a moment Chloe felt her defences weakening, but then she remembered how well Leon played his self-appointed role, and she forced herself to raise her eyebrows and say lightly,

‘Really? I’m surprised you kept it. I should have thought it would hold too many unpleasant memories.’

‘You know what they say about revenge,’ Leon said softly. ‘It needs feeding, and living here, always being reminded of why I commissioned it in the first place, helped to feed mine.’

He made it sound as though she were the one at fault; as though she were the one responsible for the break up of their marriage—a marriage which was really no marriage at all.

‘Stop play-acting, Leon,’ she demanded brittlely. ‘There’s no point.’

He turned to make some reply, but before he could speak, Marisa erupted into the room, her eyes blazing in her chalk white face.

‘Leon,’ she demanded, totally ignoring Chloe’s presence, ‘Gina has just told me that you have instructed her to prepare a suite for the Kriticos’. She says they are bringing Nikos with them. I will not have it, do you hear? I will not have him here. I will not be forced into a marriage simply so that you can have an heir. You cannot get rid of me so easily….’ She turned on Chloe. ‘That’s all he wants you for, you know; to provide him with a son, an heir for his business empire. But I will not marry Nikos. I’ll die first!’ She burst into noisy sobs, while Leon looked on impassively.

‘I won’t marry him, Leon,’ she reiterated. ‘I won’t do it. You can’t make me!’

‘You are overwrought. We will discuss this entire matter later—although you already know my views on the subject.’

‘I know that you want to get rid of me so that you can make a baby with her!’ Marisa spat out, glaring at Chloe. ‘Well, I won’t let you! You belong to me, Leon… I won’t let you! I….’

Chloe turned away, filled with sickness and pity, unable to bear to watch Leon scooping the slender body into his arms or to listen to Marisa’s hysterical pleas as he carried her out of the room.

If she had wanted proof of exactly how far Leon was prepared to go in his determination to have a son she had just received it. She knew she ought to feel triumph—now Marisa was experiencing the same pain and despair she had once known—but all she could feel towards the other girl was pity. She knew it was the established rule in Greek households for male relatives to find husbands for their female dependents, especially in the wealthier families where marriage partners had to be chosen with care, but she had never dreamed that Leon would exercise this right over Marisa!

She didn’t wait for him to return to the salon, instead retreating to her bedroom, where once again her eyes were drawn to the enormous double bed. Was Leon really intending to share that bed with her? She looked at the bedroom door, searching in vain for a lock. There had been something implacable in his words which warned her against trying to plead with him, and besides, her pride would not allow her to stoop to such depths. So what was she to do? Endure his lovemaking and hope that she would conceive quickly? Never! There must be some way she could escape from Eos. There had to be!

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