Bride by Day. Rebecca Winters

exiting the private elevator, a mustached man from the garage had parked a black Mercedes sedan in the alley in front of the doors. He stepped forward and helped Sam into the passenger seat of the car while Mr. Kostopoulos walked around and got behind the wheel.

      The two men conversed in what was undoubtedly Greek. It all sounded foreign and mysterious. Sam had taken Spanish in high school and French in college, but anything outside the Romance languages was anathema to her.

      When the other man laughed, Sam cringed. She feared that her abductor was regaling his employee about the wild story she’d concocted.

      Clearly Mr. Kostopoulos wouldn’t believe her until he had the note back in hand. Thank heaven she’d been honest with him and could prove it. Still, she didn’t like being talked about behind her back.

      Once they’d cleared the drive and merged with the horrific city traffic, a deep voice murmured, “Relax, thespinis. George was confiding his little son’s latest antics. Your guilty secrets are still safe.”

      Good grief. He knew everything she was thinking. Was her face that transparent?

      “For the time being,” he continued in the same vein, “all I require is that you be my navigator. Keep in mind that I have an appointment at four-thirty.”

      She fiddled with the hem of her denim shirt. “I’ll keep it in mind, but I can’t do anything about heavy traffic, or the possibility that the art department may be closed. You’ll need to go left at the next corner.”

      He lounged back in the seat, negotiating lane changes with the expertise of a New York City cabdriver. “If you’re leading me on a wild-goose chase, be assured that you will find yourself out of work before evening.”

      Sam bristled. “Since I’ m down to the last hundred dollars in my checking account, it hardly stands to reason that I would do anything to jeopardize my job at Manhattan Cleaners.

      “Of course, that’s something you would never understand,” she complained to herself, but he heard her. Mocking laughter unexpectedly rumbled out of him, making her body tingle.

      “You think I don’t remember what it was like for a destitute, barefooted boy on Serifos who was forced to scrounge for jobs no one else would do, only to be given a few pitiful drachma a day?”

      There was such a wealth of emotion underlying his revelation, it took her a moment to realize he’d just given her a glimpse of the man behind his wealthy, sophisticated veneer. Unless of course he was trying to arouse her compassion. He was doing a wonderful job of it, but she wasn’t about to let him get to her any more.

      “I recall reading the very same thing about Aristotle Onassis,” she taunted.

      “Our beginnings are not so dissimilar,” was all he deigned to say.

      Like most foolish people, Sam had made assumptions that Mr. Kostopoulos had been born to wealth, and had learned how to play with his inheritance, aggrandizing his unearned fortune in astronomical ways.

      The fact that a dirt-poor young Greek boy had risen to Olympian heights on sheer grit and determination made him a much more devastating adversary, one she couldn’t help but admire despite his autocratic manner.

      Sam found herself wanting to know more about him, but was in no position to be asking him questions. What little she’d heard about him had been gleaned from gossip in newspapers and magazines, and the people who worked in the building.

      After meeting him in person, he was even more enigmatic than the journalists made him out to be. He was also more attractive, and he drove too fast for her peace of mind.

      She had the strongest suspicion that his business headquarters in Athens—where the traffic was purported to be the worst—had everything to do with the fact that they’d arrived at the university in half the time it would have taken her, if she’d had a car.

      He turned into a section reserved for faculty parking and pulled to a stop in the first available space.

      “They tow away cars without permits,” she warned him.

      “George can always come for us in the limo. Right now the only thing of importance is that note. Let’s go.”

      Sam almost had to run to keep up with him. The second they entered the building, she breathed a sigh of relief to discover that Dr. Giddings’s secretary hadn’t gone home yet.

      “Lois?”

      The older woman lifted her head. “Hi, Sam. What are you doing back here?”

      Lois was trying hard, but she couldn’t keep her eyes from straying to the imposing dark figure dominating the cubbyhole which served as the art department’s office. Who could blame her?

      Under other less precarious circumstances, Sam would have introduced them. Finding out he was the Kostopoulos of Kostopoulos Shipping would have made Lois’s year. But because Sam hated the limelight, and sensed instinctively that her abductor hated it, too, she decided against divulging his identity.

      “I need to get my collage back.”

      “You’ve got to be kidding! There must be over a hundred of them propped around the gallery. I’ve already locked it and am ready to go home. This has been a killer day.”

      “You can say that again. Lois,” Sam whispered, “this is an emergency. I don’t have time to explain the details right now, but I can’t leave here without it.”

      “Dr. Giddings won’t accept late work, Sam.”

      “It wasn’t late. You logged it in yourself! It’s just that I’m in terrible trouble and have to fix something on it. I’ll bring it back first thing Monday morning. He’ll never know. If you’ll do this favor for me, I’ll give you that tablecloth I made last semester.”

      Lois’s eyes rounded. “You told me you’d never part with it.”

      Sam darted Mr. Kostopoulos a covert glance. “I—I I changed my mind.”

      Lois followed Sam’s gaze. Lowering her voice she said, “Holy moly. You’ve been holding out on me. He’s incredible. I mean downright, knock-me-dead fantastic. Where on this overcrowded planet did you find him?”

      “At my night job. Lois, please help me.”

      “You really want your collage back that badly?”

      “Yes. It’s a matter of life and death.” Which wasn’t exactly a lie. In fact, Sam had the distinct feeling her life wouldn’t be worth the sum total of the scraps of paper stuck to her canvas if she couldn’t produce the desired note.

      The bemused secretary sighed aloud and pulled a key out of the drawer. “All right. Go on in and get it.”

      “Thank you!” Sam leaned over the counter and gave her a hug. “He’s going to help me look for it, so it shouldn’t take too long.”

      With key in hand, Sam hurried down the hall, beckoning Mr. Kostopoulos to follow.

      “What exactly are we looking for?” His deep voice reverberated in the darkness. She felt for the light switch on the wall, her heart thudding painfully. His nearness was starting to affect her that way, and the fear that she wouldn’t be able to pry the note loose without tearing it and the phone number to shreds.

      “I-if I’ve done a halfway decent job, you shouldn’t have any trouble spotting it.”

      “Is this a riddle of some kind?”

      “Not exactly. It’s just that I’m hoping it will leap out at you.”

      On that note, she found the switch which illuminated the gallery. Collages of every design and color, from white to psychedelic, filled the room, leaving little space to maneuver. Each one had to be three feet by four feet, therefore the unity of shape didn’t make their task any easier.

      While she took in the enormity of the project facing them, a pair