Read Online The Passionate Greek by Catherine Dane - Free Book Online Page A

world’s pleasure spots from the French Riviera and the Greek
isles in summer, to the Caribbean in winter. This was a sloop
rigged sailing boat fast under wind and bare of anything that
impeded its swift progress through the waves.
    He would teach her to sail it, he had
promised in their happy days, warning her not to expect luxury
below. ‘It’s very basic,’ he explained. ‘Built for ocean racing. I
usually don’t take people sailing with me. They expect carpets and
power showers,’ he had said dismissively. ‘You will not be like
that.’ Melanie had wondered if by “people” he meant other women and
had to suppress her jealousy. He was a man in his thirties. Of
course, there had been other women before her.
    But here was Anna telling her that Nicos had
intended to take her sailing with him when he was back on the
island again.
    ‘Well,’ she sighed to herself, ‘we certainly
sailed into rough waters last night.’
    Electra, her mother distracted, had upturned
the yoghurt pot on the table of her high chair and was drawing
patterns in the mess with her spoon. Melanie mentally chastised
herself for allowing thoughts of Nicos to take her mind away from
her baby.
    She determined to put the enigma of Nicos
out of her mind. The most important thing in her life now was
Electra. Whatever he thought about her now after last night’s
outburst she knew one thing for certain. Nicos had said she could
stay with Electra and she knew him well enough to know that he
would not go back on his word.
    Two weeks passed and Nicos did not return to
the island. For Melanie, immersed in the delight of caring for her
daughter, the time flew by. She could not imagine that she would
have any use for a baby sitter but Maria proved to be a sweet girl
and Melanie, to give her something to do, took to leaving her to
watch Electra during the baby’s afternoon nap. While Electra slept
Melanie swam in the cool, clear waters around the island or
sunbathed on the island’s many remote beaches.
    It seemed to her that every day Electra
showed some new grasp of the world around her. She was growing fast
and when sometimes Melanie found herself wishing she could share
these moments with her baby’s father she quickly put it out of her
mind.
    Nicos had been very clear that once her job
for the summer was over she was never to see Electra again. The
thought overwhelmed her and sickened her heart. At her lowest ebb
she even thought she hated him for it. She could not help it.
‘There are times when I want to kill him,’ she thought savagely,
telling herself that with any luck Gabby would be back, broken arm
mended, and she , Melanie, could be off the island and never set
eyes on Nicos again.
    But she had these few precious weeks with
her daughter and she meant to make the most of them. Together she
and her daughter explored the island. Electra loved to go down to
the small harbor where the gaily-colored fishing boats clustered.
The brown skinned fishermen waved and called out to her in Greek
and delightedly she would wave her chubby little hand in
return.
    On days like this Melanie conceded to
herself that she had been right to give her daughter up even if she
had never fully calculated the pain the loss of her child would
bring her.
    ‘’These are her people, her heritage,’ she
acknowledged to herself. ‘This island will one day belong to her
and its inhabitants will be her family. I have no right to keep her
from that.’
    Melanie tried not to count the days she had
left with Electra. On a bright island morning she strapped her
daughter into her buggy and adjusting the gaily patterned cotton
canopy to shield her from the hot sun, set off down to the harbor.
She was concentrating on easing the buggy over the bumps in the
rutted track and it was not until she reached the smooth tarmac of
the harbor walk that she looked up and out to sea.
    Nicos’s deep keeled sailing boat was moored
out in the bay as usual, its sails furled. But beyond it,