He took a deep breath and hung one arm over the back of the chair. Dang, the man moved like water. Slow, graceful and yet he gave the impression that at any minute he could explode into action to take down anyone who threatened him.
Yeah . . .
"Dr. Kafieri?"
It wasn't until the third time her name was repeated that she realized the docent had returned. "I'm sorry. I was having a bit of stage fright." And a long minute of lust-filled fantasies about wrapping herself around Mr. Goth.
"Oh you'll be fine." The woman handed her the water.
Tory wasn't so sure. Crowds terrified her and unlike the Goth man outside, she hated to stand out. She would try picturing him in his underwear, but that was even more disturbing since all it did was make her hot and even more nervous . . .
He had to be the only man alive who could pull off intimidating in his tighty-whities.
God, what if all that massive hotness was commando?
Forcing herself to stop those thoughts, she checked her watch and saw that it was almost time to begin.
Tory gulped.
She glanced back at the crowd to see a tall, extremely voluptuous red-headed woman approach the Goth man. The woman was as beautiful as the man was gorgeous, but she didn't look like the type who would normally associate with his. Where he was dressed in black, FU clothes, she wore an all-white suit, right down to the dainty Jimmy Choo shoes. Immaculately coifed, the woman reminded her of a runway model. And when she sat down by the Goth man, he actually grimaced at her even though she was smiling and offering him some of the drink she'd brought with her.
The woman spoke to him and he turned his head to respond with a very harsh, "Fuck off."
She looked completely stricken by his coldness. Tory clenched her teeth. It was obvious they knew each other and while the woman was enamored of the man, he couldn't care less about her.
Typical jerk. Tory hated to judge people, but she'd seen his type over and over again in the classes she'd taught and had made the mistake of thinking herself in love with someone just like him once upon a time. Users who took advantage of the women who loved them. No doubt the redhead had bought every piece of the expensive clothes he so proudly wore.
But their relationship was none of her business. She just hoped the woman came to her senses soon and dumped the asshole.
"I'll go introduce you."
Tory jumped at the sound of Dr. Allen's voice as he moved past her. Just over fifty, he was fit and trim with gray hair and a small moustache. He'd been the professor who invited her to speak about Atlantis as part of the Parthenon's classic civilization series. Now if she could only use this as a way to help finance her next excavation, she'd kill two birds with one presentation.
Just don't let me fall down and stutter . . .
She crossed herself three times, spit and quickly prayed.
"I know many of you are familiar with the Kafieri name and the dubiousness of Soteria's father's and uncle's research and their claims. But in all fairness, Dr. Kafieri has taken her scholarship extremely seriously and I have to say that her findings have impressed me enough that I wanted to bring her here. Not to mention, being one of the few people who received a doctorate by age twenty shows exactly her level of commitment. I've yet to meet anyone who can flaw her theories or her dedication to the field of ancient study. Now if you'll all help welcome Dr. Kafieri."
Ash withheld his applause as he waited to see the professor he was about to roast.
"Shoot!"
The embarrassed word wouldn't be audible to anyone other than Artemis and him, but the stress in her voice evoked a wave of pity in him. He arched a brow as he heard papers being pushed together as if the presenter had dropped them.
An instant later, she popped out of the door behind the podium. Very tall and slender to the point of waifishness, she was pretty with plain brown hair she'd pulled back into a severe bun. A pair of small round bronze-rimmed glasses covered her deep, intriguing brown eyes. The beige box-cut suit did little to compliment her body and it was obvious she wasn't comfortable wearing it. In fact, she looked really itchy.
She set her papers down on the podium and cleared her throat before she offered all of them a sheepishly charming grin he was sure had gotten her out of much trouble growing up. "I know we're not supposed to open a speech with an apology, but I dropped my pages on the way out here so if you can bear with me for a moment as I realign them I'd appreciate it."
Ash hid his smile.
Dr. Allen looked perturbed, but graciously nodded. "Take your time."
And she did.
People around him were getting agitated by her delay as she tried to put the speech together again.
Dr. Allen leaned forward. "Aren't they numbered?"
Her face turned bright red. "No. I forgot to do that."
Several people in the audience laughed while a couple more cursed.
"Sorry," she said, looking up hastily as she patted the pages together. "Really. I'm very sorry. Let me just go ahead and get started."
With one last wistful look at her abandoned speech, she clicked a photo onto the overhead projector that showed an image of the Parthenon in Greece. "Many of you know that it was my father's and uncle's lifelong obsession to find Atlantis-they both gave up their lives to that quest, as did my mother. And like them, I've made it my mission in life to solve this mystery. Since I was in diapers, my family and I've been excavating in Greece, trying to find Atlantis's true location. In 1995, my cousin Dr. Megeara Kafieri found what I believe to be the correct site and though she abandoned her quest, I never did. This past summer I was finally able to find definitive proof that Atlantis is real and that Megeara's research finally uncovered it."
Ash rolled his eyes at the claim so many had made. If he had a nickel, he'd be even richer than he already was.
Soteria pressed the button and switched the photo to one that made him sit up straight in his chair as he recognized it. It was the broken bust of his mother, Apollymi. And there was only one place the good doctor could have found it.
Atlantis.
She pushed her glasses up on her nose with her knuckle. "This is one of many artifacts my team and I have brought up from the bottom of the Aegean." She used a red laser pointer to show the Atlantean writing on the bottom that spelled his mother's name. "I've been looking for someone who can translate what appears to be a form of early Greek writing. Yet no one has been able to decipher the words or even all the letters. It's as if this alphabet has characters that are missing from the traditional Greek."
Artemis hit him on the arm. "Looks like you're broken, Acheron."
"Busted," he corrected under his breath.
"Whatever," Artemis huffed.
Soteria looked out at the audience and then centered her attention on Dr. Allen. "Because no one can read this or even identify all the ancient letters, I'm convinced it's Atlantean. After all, if Atlantis was in the Aegean Sea, as my family and I believe, it's possible their language had a Greek basis or maybe it was their language that shaped what we know as Greek. The island's location would have firmly put it in the center of where Greek sailors traded, making it a power to be reckoned with and allowing it to shape the culture, traditions and language of ancient Greece."
She clicked to the next photo which showed a fragment of wall from the royal Atlantean palace. "This is from a building I uncovered . . ."
"Aren't you going to say something?" Artemis whispered.
Ash couldn't. He was too stunned as he stared at images he hadn't seen in over eleven thousand years. How could this one young woman have found it?
How could he have not known?
Then again, there was an easy answer. Damn his mother. She would have known they were pilfering the island's site, but rather than let him in on it, she'd be sitting back hoping one of the archaeologists released her from her captivity.
"My partner thinks it's from a temple," Soteria continued, "but given its location I'm convinced it was a government building. You can see here where there's more of the writing we saw on the bust, but again I can't decipher it." She flipped to another photo of underwater columns. "Now here is a sister site we found that we believe to be a Greek island which traded frequently with Atlantis. I found a piece of stone with the name Didymos etched into it."
Ash couldn't breathe. She'd found it. Dear gods, the woman had found Didymos . . .
She went to another picture that literally made him break into a cold sweat. "This is a journal we uncovered in the Didymos ruins of what appeared to be a royal palace. A bound journal," she repeated excitedly. "I know what all of you are thinking-they didn't bind books at this period in time. They shouldn't even have had paper. But again, we have the same writing and the dating on it shows it to predate anything we've ever found in Greece. What we have here is the Holy Grail of Atlantis. I know it with every part of me. These two sites are integral to each other and the main site is in fact Atlantis."
"Acheron?" Artemis snapped again.
He couldn't speak as he stared at one of Ryssa's carefully made journals-at her handwriting that was as clear as if it'd been written yesterday. That page documented nothing in particular, but what scared him most was what else it might contain and, unlike the other writings, it was Greek. There weren't many people in the world who could translate it. But there were enough that it could ruin his life if they did and it held something incriminating.