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Her face was open. Honest. Without a hint of artifice, her blue eyes sparkling bright, her lips turned into a wide smile. And it struck him that maybe he’d been too hard on her. Maybe he’d been wrong.
Mehmet had believed her and he might be blind but he was nobody’s fool.
No. He shook his thoughts free of that uncomfortable thought as she stepped up onto the gangplank. She’d been caught in the act. He’d witnessed it, not Mehmet. And he’d seen the way her eyes were drawn to Turkey’s treasures. Just because she was beautiful it did not equate with innocent, in anyone’s language.
‘Where are we going next?’ she asked as he handed her off the boat, and onto the dock. ‘Or have you had enough of playing tour guide?’
There were so many more places Kadar could have shown her, but the way the loose ends of her hair played about her face in the breeze reminded her of the one place he knew he had to take her. A place of mystery and atmosphere that she should not miss.
‘Come,’ he said, mysteriously. ‘I will show you.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT WAS ONLY a short walk to the small, unassuming building that sat atop one of Istanbul’s ancient wonders.
‘The Basilica Cistern,’ she said as he bought tickets. ‘I read something about this, but I didn’t realise it was right here. We walked past it on the way from the polis station and I had no idea.’
‘So what did you read?’
‘That it was some kind of ancient water storage.’
He nodded and they went inside, and what Amber saw took her breath away. ‘Oh, my God,’ she whispered. ‘It’s enormous.’ And it was. As impressive as a cathedral, with its soaring arched roof and row upon row of columns, softly lit from below with spotlights that turned the interior of the vast space golden.
It was cool down here, and quiet, the sounds of the city so close above muted by thick brickwork, the only sounds the murmur of tourists, the sound of piped music and the constant drip drip of water from the ceiling into the pool below.
They climbed down the steps to the timber walkway built between the columns, huge carp and goldfish swimming in the water below.
She had a pamphlet to tell her the details, but it was Kadar who filled in the history, his rich deep voice adding to the hypnotic quality of the atmosphere. He told her of its construction back in the sixth century, the columns recycled from other sites, one column turned green with algae from the constant slide of water and decorated in the peacock eyes and tears, said to represent tears for the many slaves who died in the cistern’s construction.
And if she’d thought Kadar’s aura would be dwarfed by such a magnificent construction, she’d have been wrong. He seemed to charge the air with his presence, turning an eerie space electric with excitement and mystery and danger.
He didn’t touch her, but she was more aware of him than ever. She could feel him through the damp air at the back of her neck. Feel his dark eyes watching her from behind. Her skin prickled, and she had never been more grateful for the presence of other tourists. It was winter and there were only a few, mostly couples spread around the walkways, their voices hushed or silent as they listened to audio tours and took photo after photo, but if she’d been alone down here with just this man...she would not trust him. She would not trust herself.
They would make love after this.
She knew it. She felt it in the pull between their bodies and the vibrations in the air between them.
And maybe this time it would be different.
Maybe this time he might let her take the lead.
No, not maybe.
She would make it so.
They followed the walkway and made their way deeper into the cistern, the fish darting this way and that in the waters beneath. ‘Here,’ he said. ‘This is what I want you to see.’
She blinked. Another column, with a walkway all around, and she could understand why, because the heavy base rested on a stone face, set sideways against the floor.
‘Is it a woman?’ she asked him.
‘Medusa,’ he said, and Amber realised it was not braids around her face, but snakes. ‘Who could turn a man to stone with one look. She and her twin were taken from a building somewhere and transplanted here.’
‘Her twin?’
Of course, there was another, this time the head set upside down beneath the column.
‘Why?’ she asked.
‘Nobody knows for sure. Some say to negate the power of the gorgon’s gaze. Some say to protect the building by warding off evil spirits.’
