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CHAPTER 12
He drove up to the shrubby lower slopes, where the road narrowed to a track and rose steeply upward. He changed gears and the car noisily ascended the hill. He drove her around what appeared to be a vertical mountain wall and flicked a remote. Walls slid aside like something out of James Bond, and they entered a cave. But it was no longer a cave. It had been transformed into a modern garage, complete with automatic lights and sensors.
“What on earth?” she asked as he cut the engine and she jumped out and looked around.
“My father’s secret hideaway. I hated it for a long time for the money which it consumed but it’s here now and there’s nothing that can be done, so I have started to use it as a retreat. I thought you’d be interested in seeing something a little different.”
He flicked a button and the lift doors opened. “After you,” he said.
The glass and steel elevator passed through solid rock for long minutes before emerging to be greeted by more security doors. After passing through them, they entered a vast open space, more modern than anything she’d seen in Sirun, or anywhere else come to that. Wide, expansive views of thesurrounding country greeted them. She looked around at the minimal, expensive furnishings, leather, some Bedouin rugs, paintings whose artists she could immediately identify, but was drawn to the window.
“This place is completely hidden,” said Kadar. “No one knows it’s here, or that we’re here.”
A shiver tracked down her spine. To cover it, she turned her focus to the furniture and fittings. “This is so unusual in your country. It looks…”
“Italian?” he asked. “It should because it was designed by an Italian. My mother’s influence.”
“You don’t sound as if you like your mother much.”
“I don’t. She had no love for my father or her children. Her only genuine love was money, and she tried to swindle us out of as much of that as possible. She’s no longer welcome in this country.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is. But it’s fact.” He looked around. “This place was my father’s folly, which my mother spent too much money on, trying to pretend she wasn’t in Sirun. I can only assume she’s happy now that she truly is in a foreign country.”
Sarah walked around, sweeping her hand over the fine furnishings. “It all looks pristine. And yet you say no one comes here?”
He shrugged. “Staff. Occasionally, I presume. But, otherwise, no. I thought you would be interested. And it suits my needs at the moment.”
She grinned and looked at him. “And they are?”
“To be alone. With you.”
She swallowed. Knowing what she wanted and what he wanted and yet, after all the talk of her grandfather, she felt more cautious than before.
“Will you show me around?”
He tilted his head to one side. “Sure. Ancient spa baths are part of the complex. One thing that my mother didn’t get her hands on, thank goodness. Let’s go there first.” He opened the door. “After you.”
They walked through winding passageways until they reached a surprisingly modest staircase carved out of rock. At the bottom of this she found herself in a cavern, enclosed on three sides, in which baths had been carved. Steam rose in lazy swirls above them. The smell of thermal activity was unmistakable.
“Wow. I hadn’t imagined this.”
“No. Few know about it. No one knows for sure when they were created. We believe they were here pre-Roman, but, of course, the Romans knew how to create luxury and beauty and adorned it accordingly.”
He pointed to the frescoes of men and women enjoying sex in a variety of poses.
“Oh, goodness,” she said.
“I don’t think ‘goodness’ was something which went on here,” he said wryly. “Enjoyment, pleasure and indulgence maybe.”
Obviously sensing her discomfort, Kadar looked around. “There are fresh-water pools fed by springs higher up the mountain and the hot pools warmed by thermal heat, far under the ground. I’m sure my ancestors would have used them for the same purpose, with or without the decorations.”
She sat on the edge of the main pool, which overlooked the open view out into the evening sky, and dabbled her feet into the water.
“Um, this feels sublime.” With her arms outstretched behind her, she rested on the palms of her hands and looked up at the sky, its colors streaked with remnants of sunset and the spreading indigo of night. Stars were beginning to appear. “No moon to eclipse the light of the stars,” she murmured. “So highup here in the mountains, and so far from anyone, I feel I’m a part of the universe.”
“You look as if you are.”
