CHARLOTTE LAMB: Deadly Rivals

Her father seemed to know a good deal about the family. They must be wealthy, or important, or he wouldn’t be interested in them. The cynical little thought made Olivia bite her lip. Her father wasn’t that obsessed with wealth. It was simply that his mind was one-track, and business was what he lived for—if you weren’t involved in his business he wasn’t interested in you. Even if you were his own daughter.

She looked down at her breakfast and suddenly didn’t want it; she pushed the plate away.

‘Agathios,’ she murmured, for something to say, and the name suddenly rang a bell. ‘Aren’t they in shipping too?’ They would be, of course. What else had she expected?

Gerald Faulton gave her an impatient look. ‘They certainly are.’ His voice had a snap. ‘You should have recognised the name at once. I thought you had.’

She had offended him again; she was expected to know all about his company, and the other companies who were his competitors and rivals, both in the United Kingdom and worldwide.

He was frowning coldly. ‘I thought you did business studies at school? Don’t they teach you the names of the major shipping companies? Even if they don’t, it would be the easiest matter in the world for you to find out for yourself, for heaven’s sake! You might take an interest in my business. After all, one day you’ll inherit my shares in the company! I don’t have anyone else to leave them to!’

Angrily, he flapped his newspaper and went back behind it, instantly removed from her, absorbed once more into his normal world of business and finance.

Olivia wanted to shout at him that of course she knew all about his business! He had made sure of that, badgering her mother to put her through a business studies course at school and ever since sending her company brochures, talking to her endlessly about the company whenever she saw him, even though they spent so little time together. She had grown up with the subject permanently rammed down her throat.

Her father was the managing director of a British shipping line, Grey-Faulton, which had been built up after the Second World War by Gerald’s father, Andrew, who had married the daughter of John Grey, who owned a rather run-down ferry business operating around Scotland. Andrew Faulton had built this into a thriving shipping business, expanding from ferries into freight, and in due course Gerald had inherited it all. Olivia had barely known her grandfather, who had died when she was ten, but she knew from what her mother had told her that Gerald had modelled himself on his father. ‘I sometimes think that that ruthless old man was the only human being your father ever truly loved,’ her mother had once said. Certainly the business was her father’s driving obsession.

She should have guessed that the man she met on the beach was somehow involved in shipping from the fact that, for once, her father had talked so freely.

Sighing, Olivia felt the coffee-pot; it was lukewarm, but before she could ring for more coffee, her father’s housekeeper brought it, smiling at the girl as she put down the heavy silver pot.

‘Oh, fresh coffee…thank you! A lovely morning again, isn’t it, Anna?’ Olivia said, smiling back at her.

‘Beautiful day,’ agreed Anna. ‘I heard you coming downstairs, so I brought more coffee. Do you want toast?’

Her English was very good, but her accent was Corfiot; she had been born here. A woman of nearly forty, she was faintly plump, with long, oiled black hair which she wore wound on top of her head, warm olive skin, big dark eyes and a full, glowing pink mouth. Anna had the beauty of her island—fertile, sun-ripened, inviting. Olivia had met her every year for twelve years, ever since Anna took over managing the villa. Anna’s husband had worked there too, part-time. They had lived in a little annexe at the side of the villa, and Spiro had also been a fisherman. A few winters ago he had died in a storm, when his boat was lost, and there had been sadness in Anna’s big, dark eyes for some years, but today it seemed to Olivia that Anna was more cheerful, almost her old self again.

‘No, no toast, thanks, Anna,’ Olivia carefully said in Greek; she only knew a few words but each year she managed to add a little more to her vocabulary because she liked to help Anna in the kitchen, learning Greek cooking and the Greek language at the same time.

Anna laughed. ‘You’re getting a better accent, Olivia,’ she answered, in Greek.

The phone began to ring in the villa and Anna hurried off to answer it, returning a moment later to say to Gerald, ‘It is for you. A Greek voice—he said to tell you Constantine. From London. Shall I put it through to your study?’

He got up, nodding, and followed Anna back into the house, leaving Olivia to finish her breakfast alone.

Constantine? she thought—hadn’t her father mentioned that name just now? Oh, yes, Max Agathios had a brother called Constantine. Why was her father seeing so much of these Greek brothers? What was going on?

She had just finished her second cup of coffee when Max Agathios walked out on to the terrace. He was in his old jeans and T-shirt, but somehow they did not look shabby and disreputable on him. He managed to invest them with a sort of glamour, thought Olivia, staring at him.

He nodded to her. ‘Where’s your father?’

‘On the phone to your brother,’ she said, before she thought twice, and he gave her a quick, narrowed glance.

‘My brother?’

Uncertainly, Olivia said, ‘Well, I don’t know that, I just assumed…It’s someone called Constantine.’

‘Ringing from Piraeus?’

‘No, London.’ Olivia was worried now. Would her father be angry if he found out that she had told Max Agathios about this phone call?

‘Ah.’ Max turned and stared out towards the misty blue mountains on the horizon, the heat haze between them and the villa making them shimmer as if they were a mirage. A moment later he turned, his face calm. ‘Well, I’ll see him later. I’m going down to Corfu Town to check up on my boat. I needed some work done on the radio and I want to make sure it has been done properly.’

‘I’d love to see your boat!’ Olivia said wistfully.

‘Well, come with me,’ he said, at once. ‘If you don’t mind riding pillion on my motorbike.’

She was taken aback. ‘You ride a motorbike? Did you hire it here?’

‘No, I always have it on my boat. It’s more convenient to have your own transport, wherever you end up!’

‘Yes, it must be.’ Olivia flushed with excitement. ‘I’ve never ridden on a motorbike—I’ve always wanted to though!’ Yet she didn’t dare leave without asking her father’s permission. Gerald was unpredictable; he might not approve of her going off with Max Agathios, and she might return to find him icily angry with her. Olivia found her father far too alarming to risk that. She had never learned how to talk to him, or cope with his moods, except by keeping quiet and out of his way.

Anna came out to clear the table and Max Agathios turned to speak to her in Greek. Olivia watched them both, wondering what he was saying, what Anna was answering. Anna smiled at him and Olivia thought, She likes him! She had never seen Anna smile at her father like that. Anna’s olive-dark eyes had a lustre and a gleam that Olivia recognised, instinctively, as sensual. Anna found Max Agathios attractive; she was responding to him as a woman to a man she wanted, and Max smiled back at her with an unhidden appreciation of Anna’s ripe warmth.

Olivia looked down, feeling excluded, left out, like a child at a grown-up party.

‘OK, we can go—Anna will explain where we’ve gone,’ Max said, startling her by suddenly being closer than she had thought.

She looked up, her skin pink, her eyes bothered, and he gave her a mocking little smile, as if he knew what had disturbed her and was amused by her reaction.