They met again for dinner that night, and the next night, and the night after. And on the fifth night they went dancing, and when he brought her home, he seemed unusually quiet.
“Is something wrong, Andreas?” She looked at him and saw that the lines around his eyes seemed deeper.
He smiled. “I think you've worn me out. I'm an old man, you know.”
“That's not true.” It was certainly hard to believe looking at him.
“Well, it feels true, and when I look in the mirror …” He made a terrible face.
She invited him into the hotel for a drink, and although he looked tired, he accepted, and as they sat over ouzo and coffee she felt oddly nostalgic. Her days in Greece were the happiest of her life.
“What were you thinking just then?”
She looked at him for a long moment, and without her thinking, the words slipped out. “That I love you.”
He looked as though she had reached deep inside him and touched his heart. He looked startled and gentle and deeply touched. “The nicest part of all that is that I love you too.”
“It's funny.” She looked at him and he took her hand. “I came to see my sister, and in the last few days I've forgotten about her most of the time.” For a moment Vanessa looked embarrassed. “All I think about is you.”
“I've been falling in love with you since you got here, my love, but I didn't think it was right… a beautiful young girl and such an old man.”
“Stop saying that.” She looked hurt. “You're not old.”
He looked at her in an odd way. “I will be very soon.”
“Does that matter?” Her voice was very soft, and she could feel his breath, soft on her face as he sat very close to her. “It doesn't matter to me, Andreas, not at all.”
“Perhaps it should.” His voice was as soft as hers.
“What about the falling stars? Don't we have a right to be falling stars too, for one moment before we fall out of the heavens, never to be seen again?”
“Is that what you want, only a moment instead of a lifetime? My darling, you deserve much more.”
“You told me that I was wrong, that I should search for the moment, and not the lifetime.”
“Ah.” He smiled gently at her. “You see … the foolish things that I say.…” But he was looking at her so profoundly and with such love that she moved gently toward him, and a moment later she was in his arms and he was kissing her as he hadn't kissed a woman in half his lifetime, and all he wanted in what remained of his life was this splendid young girl. “I love you, Vanessa … oh, darling.…”He held her close. He wanted to take her upstairs to her hotel room, but more than that, he wanted to take her home with him. He laid some money on the table, stood up with a gentle smile, and held out his hand to her. She asked no questions. She followed him out of the hotel, got in his car, he drove her home, and ten minutes later they were standing in his palatial home with the fountains and the atrium and the courtyard, the exotic plants and the priceless objects he had collected from around the world. Quietly, holding her hand, he led Vanessa to his room, closed the door and locked it, so none of the servants would surprise them in the morning, and then led her to the small study where he often sat, staring into the fire. He threw a match into it now, and in a moment there was a cozy blaze before them, and he sat beside her and kissed her, and then knelt before her, with her face in his hands. He touched the lines of her face and ran his fingers through her hair, touched her throat and her neck and her breasts and circled her waist with his hands. He touched her and held her and caressed her, until the fire began to grow dim, and then he looked at her gently and asked her permission to take her to his bedroom.
“Will you come with me, Vanessa?” He said it so gently that she would have gone to the ends of the earth with him. She followed him quietly, let him undress her, and a moment later they lay side by side in his bed. Here again he lingered over the graceful curves of her long, supple body, and marveled at how beautifully she was made, and at last, gently at first, and then with ever greater urgency, he took her. She cried out at first and he knew that it hurt her, but he held her close to him, sharing her pain, and when it was over, he held her and caressed her and loved her, and in a little while they made love again.
When she woke up beside him in the morning, there was a smile on her face and a look of peace in her eyes that had never been there before, not so much because she had made love with Andreas but because she had given her heart to him, she had come to trust him, and with that, she had at long last unlocked the long-hidden door she had never, until that moment, been able to find.
55
The next days sped by much too quickly, as Andreas and Vanessa spent all of their time together, going for long walks in Athens, discovering markets, going for drives and once a sail on his yacht. She moved out of the hotel the morning after they had become lovers, and he ensconced her in a handsome guest room just down the hall from his suite. She spent each night in his bedroom, and in the morning, like two children, they ran into her room and tousled the bed so it looked as though she had spent the night there, and then they laughed, and one morning he had insisted on making love to her there, so that the disorder would appear real. She had never been so happy in her life, and it was as though the rest of her life had been forgotten. Teddy and Linda and the baby all seemed part of a distant dream, and whenever she thought of John Henry, she gently pushed the thought away. She didn't want to think of him now. She only wanted to be with Andreas, for as long as they had, however long that was, a moment or a lifetime, to share their hours and their dreams.
She noticed once or twice that he seemed a little vague in the morning, and noticed also that there were vast quantities of pills in his dressing room. But she felt that it was indiscreet to ask him questions about it. Now and then he was still sensitive about the difference in their ages. He wanted to introduce her to his family though and it was Vanessa who suggested that they wait until she met Charlie, and now the day was approaching when her sister would come home.
The last night they spent alone together they went to a quiet restaurant, came home early, and made love, and afterward Andreas fell into a deep sleep. Vanessa wandered slowly around his bedroom, looking out at the view and wondering what the next day would bring. What would she think of this girl who though a total stranger was her closest kin?
From some of what Andreas had said, she suspected that Charlie had been spoiled rotten, and since she was living in the midst of the Greek shipping magnates, it was certainly likely that that was the case. Andreas had already tried to buy two diamond bracelets for Vanessa, and she insisted that that wasn't what she wanted. Instead he bought her some marvelous lenses for her camera and gave her a beautifully cut simple emerald ring.
“But I can't keep that, Andreas, it's so expensive!”
He was amused at her concern. “I promise you, my darling, I can afford it.” He had kissed her passionately and quelled her objections, but after they had made love, she mentioned it again.
“I shouldn't, it's too big a present.”
“Ah, how refreshing, a woman who wants smaller emeralds!” He looked amused. “Believe me, darling, my wife had none of those reservations.” Vanessa had to laugh at him and shook her head. In the end she had agreed to keep it, and now she saw it sparkling darkly on her left hand. It looked, in a way, like an engagement ring, and it meant a great deal to her. It symbolized the love that she had for this man, and all that he had done for her. He had freed her from her lonely tower and brought her down into his arms. Had he asked her to marry him at that moment, she would have, but there was never any talk of the future between them. He seemed to live entirely in the here and now.