"It's nothing," Eve assured her. "It's just a little bruise." Eve looked around. "Where's George Mellis?"
"He's out playing tennis. He's one of the top-seeded players. He said to tell you he'd see you at lunch. I think he really likes you, darling."
"Tell me about him," Eve said casually. "What's his background?"
"George? He comes from a long line of wealthy Greeks. He's the oldest son, and he's filthy rich. He works at a New York brokerage firm, Hanson and Hanson."
"He's not in the family business?"
"No. He probably hates olives. Anyway, with the Mellis fortune, he doesn't have to work. I suppose he does it just to occupy his days." She grinned and said, "His nights are full enough."
"Are they?"
"Darling, George Mellis is the most eligible bachelor around. The girls can't wait to pull their little panties down for him. They all see themselves as the future Mrs. Mellis. Frankly, if my husband weren't so damned jealous, I'd go for George myself. Isn't he a gorgeous hunk of animal?"
"Gorgeous," Eve said.
George Mellis walked onto the terrace where Eve was seated alone, and in spite of herself, she felt a stab of fear.
He walked up to her and said, "Good morning, Eve. Are you all right?" His face was filled with genuine concern. He touched her bruised cheek gently. "My darling, you are so beautiful." He pulled up a chair and straddled it, sitting across from her, and gestured toward the sparkling sea. "Have you ever seen anything so lovely?"
It was as though the previous night had never happened. She listened to George Mellis as he went on talking, and she felt once again the powerful magnetism of the man. Even after the nightmare she had experienced, she could still feel that. It was incredible. He looks like a Greek god. He belongs in a museum. He belongs in an insane asylum.
"I have to return to New York tonight," George Mellis was saying. "Where can I call you?"
"I just moved," Eve said quickly. "I don't have a telephone yet. Let me call you."
"All right, my darling." He grinned. "You really enjoyed last night, didn't you?"
Eve could not believe her ears.
"I have many things to teach you, Eve," he whispered.
And I have something to teach you, Mr. Mellis, Eve promised herself.
The moment she returned home, Eve telephoned Dorothy Hollister. In New York, where an insatiable segment of the media covered the comings and goings of the so-called beautiful people, Dorothy was the fountainhead of information. She had been married to a socialite, and when he divorced her for his twenty-one-year-old secretary, Dorothy Hollister was forced to go to work. She took a job that suited her talents well: She became a gossip columnist. Because she knew everyone in the milieu she was writing about, and because they believed she could be trusted, few people kept any secrets from her.
If anyone could tell Eve about George Mellis, it would be Dorothy Hollister. Eve invited her to lunch at La Pyramide. Hollister was a heavyset woman with a fleshy face, dyed red hair, a loud, raucous voice and a braying laugh. She was loaded down with jewelry - all fake.
When they had ordered, Eve said casually, "I was in the Bahamas last week. It was lovely there."
"I know you were," Dorothy Hollister said. "I have Nita Ludwig's guest list. Was it a fun party?"
Eve shrugged. "I saw a lot of old friends. I met an interesting man named" - she paused, her brow wrinkled in thought - "George somebody. Miller, I think. A Greek."
Dorothy Hollister laughed, a loud, booming laugh that could be heard across the room. "Mellis, dear. George Mellis."
"That's right. Mellis. Do you know him?"
"I've seen him. I thought I was going to turn into a pillar of salt. My God, he's fantastic looking."
"What's his background, Dorothy?"
Dorothy Hollister looked around, then leaned forward confidentially. "No one knows this, but you'll keep it to yourself, won't you? George is the black sheep of the family. His family is in the wholesale food business, and they're too rich for words, my dear. George was supposed to take over the business, but he got in so many scrapes over there with girls and boys and goats, for all I know, that his father and his brothers finally got fed up and shipped him out of the country."
Eve was absorbing every word.
"They cut the poor boy off without a drachma, so he had to go to work to support himself."
So that explained the necklace!
"Of course, he doesn't have to worry. One of these days George will marry rich." She looked over at Eve and asked, "Are you interested, sweetie?"
"Not really."
Eve was more than interested. George Mellis might be the key she had been looking for. The key to her fortune.
Early the next morning, she telephoned him at the brokerage firm where he worked. He recognized her voice immediately.
"I've been going mad waiting for your call, Eve. We'll have dinner tonight and - "
"No. Lunch, tomorrow."
He hesitated, surprised. "All right. I was supposed to have lunch with a customer, but I'll put him off."
Eve did not believe it was a him. "Come to my apartment," Eve said. She gave him the address. "I'll see you at twelve-thirty."
"I'll be there." She could hear the smug satisfaction in his voice.
George Mellis was due for a surprise.
He arrived thirty minutes late, and Eve realized it was a pattern with him. It was not a deliberate rudeness, it was an indifference, the knowledge that people would always wait for him. His pleasures would be there for him whenever he bothered to reach out and take them. With his incredible looks and charm, the world belonged to him. Except for one thing: He was poor. That was his vulnerable point.