The air was very still, and the cloudless sky had a faintly misty look that promised soaring temperatures to come.
She was wearing a thin, floating sundress, sleeveless and scoop-necked, in gentian-blue, over a matching bikini, and her hair was piled up in a loose knot on top of her head.
She rounded a steep bend in the track, and saw, beyond the shelter of the olive grove, the more vivid green of grass and colourful splashes of flowers. Not the desolate wilderness she’d half expected. And a little further on, set like a jewel in the encircling garden, was the house, all immaculate white walls and terracotta roof.
Zoe paused, her hand tightening unconsciously round the strap of her bag. Immediately in front of her was the turquoise gleam of a swimming pool, from which a flight of broad, shallow steps led up to sliding glass doors. Behind these was a low, pillared room like an atrium, cool with marble and towering green plants, and furnished with comfortable white chairs and loungers.
Trying not to feel too much like an intruder, Zoe skirted the pool, climbed the steps and tried the doors, but they were securely locked.
It’s like looking into a showcase, she thought as she walked on. You can admire, but not touch.
And halted abruptly, her heart jolting as she reached the foot of another flight of steps, so immediately familiar she could have climbed them in her sleep. Pale steps, she recognised breathlessly, dusty with the faded blossoms of the bougainvillea that cascaded down the side of the house. Steps that led up to a terrace, its balustrade supporting a large stone urn, heavy with clustering flowers. As she’d known there would be. And beyond that the dreamy azure of the sea.
She steadied herself, then, quietly and cautiously, she climbed up to the terrace. She found herself standing on a broad sweep of creamy marble that ran the entire length of the house. Stone troughs massed with more flowers marked the length of the waist-high balustrade, while below it, from a gated opening, another curved flight of steps led down through cypress trees standing like sentries to a perfect horseshoe of pale sand, and the vivid blue ripple of the sea.
Behind her, shuttered glass doors masked the ground floor rooms completely. But what had she expected? The place laid open for her inspection, and a welcome mat waiting?
I should have gone to see a lawyer, she told herself restively, walking along the terrace. Had the whole legal situation checked out. Approaches made.
She found the main entrance round the corner, a solid wooden door, heavily carved, and growing beside it, in festoons of blooms that softened the dark wood and white walls, an exquisite climbing rose, its petals shading from creamy yellow to deep gold.
Zoe found herself thinking of the shower of radiance in which Zeus had come to Danaë in the legend, then told herself she was being fanciful. Whoever had planted the garden had simply loved roses, that was all. The troughs and urns along the terrace had been fragrant with them, and she could see even more in the beds that bordered the lawn. And sexual predators in Greek mythology had nothing to do with it.
Without knowing why, she stretched out a hand and touched one of the heavy golden heads, almost as if it were a lucky charm. Then she reached for the heavy iron door handle and tried it.
To her amazement, it yielded, and the door opened silently on well-oiled hinges. The Villa Danaë was welcoming her, after all.
She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, standing for a moment, listening intently for a footfall, a door closing, a cough. The sound of a human presence to explain the unlocked door. But there was nothing.
She found herself in a wide hall, confronted by a sweep of staircase leading up to a galleried landing. On one side of it was the glass wall of the atrium. On the other were more conventional doors leading to a long living room, where chairs and sofas were grouped round an empty fireplace. A deep alcove at the far end of the room contained a dining table and chairs.
Everything was in pristine condition. No one had ever lounged on those cushions, she thought, or lit a fire in that hearth, or eaten a meal at the table.
On the atrium side, she found a tiled and fully fitted kitchen, with a walk-in food store, and a laundry room leading off it, all of them bare as if they’d been somehow frozen in time, and were waiting for the spell to be broken.
Taking a deep breath, Zoe went upstairs, annoyed to find she was tiptoeing.
The first room she came to was the master bedroom, dim and cool behind its shutters. She trod across the floor, unlatched the heavy wooden slats and pulled them open, then turned, catching her breath.
It was a vast and luxurious room, with apricot walls and an ivory tiled floor. The silk bed covering was ivory, too, as were the voile drapes that hung at the windows.
There was a bathroom with a screened-off shower cubicle, and a sunken bath with taps like smiling dolphins, and a dressing room as well. There were toiletries on the tiled surfaces, and fluffy towels on the rails. Everything in its place—an enchanted palace waiting for its princess. But for how long?
Zoe walked slowly back to the window, and slid it open with care, then stepped out onto the balcony, lifting her face to the slight breeze. Before her were the misty shapes of other islands rising out of the unruffled blue of the Ionian sea.
More roses here, too, she saw, spilling over the balcony rail from their pottery tubs in a cascade of cream and gold. Their scent reached her softly, and she breathed it in, feeling herself become part of the enchantment.
She thought, Can this really be mine?
And in the same heartbeat, realised she was not alone after all. That there was someone below her on the terrace.
She froze, then peered with infinite caution over the balcony rail.
A man, she registered, with his back to her, moving unhurriedly along the terrace, removing the dead heads from the blossoms in the stone troughs.
The gardener, she thought with relief. Only the gardener. One of the support team employed to keep Villa Danaëin this immaculate condition.
He was tall, with a mane of curling black hair that gleamed like silk in the sunlight, his skin like burnished bronze against the brief pair of elderly white shorts that were all he was wearing. She saw broad shoulders, and a muscular back, narrowing to lean hips, and long, sinewy legs.
The kind of Adonis, she thought, with a faint catch of the breath, that Adele had warned her about.
Of course, she could only see his back view, so he might well have a squint, a crooked nose, and dribble. But somehow she didn’t think so.
And anyway, his looks were not her concern. What she needed to do was get out of here before he looked up and saw her.
With infinite caution, she backed away into the room. She dragged at the windows, tugging them together. They came with a whisper, but, to Zoe’s overwrought imagination, it seemed like a rumble of thunder in the stillness of the morning. She waited for a shout from below. The sound of an alarm being given, but there was nothing, and, biting her lip, she closed the shutters, too. So far, so good, she thought with a tiny sigh of relief.
His work seemed to be taking him to the far end of the terrace, away from the main door, so if she was quick she could be out of the villa and back into the shelter of the olive grove before she ran any real risk of discovery.
And she would content herself with just this one visit, she promised herself silently as she let herself out of the bedroom and closed the door quietly behind her. After all, she had seen everything she needed to see.
From now on she would stick firmly to the town beach, and let her lawyer investigate whether or not the Villa Danaë was her inheritance.
Well, she thought, smiling. I can dream, I suppose.
She had taken three steps down the stairs before she realised she was not alone. And just who was standing at the bottom of the flight, leaning casually on the polished rail, watching her—waiting for her, a faint grim smile playing round his mouth.
She