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Tory&039;s dignity was still stinging two days later as she knocked on the office door of Dr Julian Alexander He was supposed to be the leading expert in the world on ancient Greece She&039;d been told that if anyone in the world could read her journal, he was the man

She prayed it was so

A deep masculine voice told her to enter

She pushed the door open to find an exceptionally handso behind a beat-up wooden desk He had short blond hair and beautiful blue eyes that seeht His office was littered with ancient Greek artifacts, including a Bronze Age sword hanging on the wall behind hi with additional artifacts and textbooks

Man, she could easily call this place hoh she didn&039;t know hi up, he frowned at her as he closed his leatherbound agenda "You&039;re not one ofone ofshe looked at tirad student, but stillshe had a hard enough time with her credibility that she didn&039;t need that strike, too "No I&039;m Dr Kafieri We spoke over the phone"

He stood up immediately and offered her his hand "Sorry for the confusion," he said graciously as she shook it "I&039;lad to finally meet you I&039;ve heard a lot of"

"Mixed things I&039;ood-naturedly "Well, you kno our circles go"

"Not broad enough ain "True Do you have the book with you?"

She set her briefcase down on the small chair in front of his desk and opened it She&039;d very carefully wrapped the book in acid free paper to protect its delicate condition "It&039;s extremely brittle"

"I&039;ll be careful"

She watched as he unwrapped it and frowned "Is so?"

"No," he said with a note of awed reverence in his voice, "it&039;s just a I&039;ve never seen a bound book this old"

By his face she&039;d say it also brought back some kind of painful memories for him "Can you read it?"

He opened the cover carefully before he studied the brittle pages "It looks Greek"

"Yes, but can you read it?" she repeated, hoping that he could at least recognize sohed "Honestly? I can s, but this particular dialect is so I&039;ve never seen before It definitely predates my area of expertiseprobably by several hundred years or more"

She wanted to curse in frustration She was so tired of hearing that "Do you know of anyone who ht be able to translate it?"

"Yeah, actually, I do"

It took a full minute for that unexpected answer to seep in Dare she even hope so? "Are you serious?"

He nodded "He&039;s the historian I always go to whenever I need information There&039;s no one in the universe who knows more about ancient civilizations than he does In fact, he knows so h them"

This was even better than she&039;d hoped for

"Where does he teach?"

Julian closed the book and wrapped it back up "Ironically, he doesn&039;t But you&039;re in luck, he&039;s here in town for a feeeks helping with Project Ho with the prospect of having someone corroborate that the book was as old as Atlantis-to have them verify it was Atlantean in nature

It would be a dream come true if he could actually read some of it

"Is there any chance we could meet with him?" she asked breathlessly

"Hold on a second and let me see" He pulled a cell phone out of his pocket and dialed it

Tory chewed her thumbnail and silently prayed to talk to the oneto meet him

Julian smiled at her "Hi Acheron, it&039;s Julian Alexander How you doing?"

She could faintly hear the voice at the other end of the phone

Julian laughed at so the man said "Leave it to youlook the reason I&039;ue here inwe need you to take a look at-I personally have never seen anything like it, and I think from a historic point of view you&039;d be very interested in it, too Any chance we can stop by?" He shook his head "Yeah, it&039;s soy, by the way" He paused as he listened "Yeah, okay"

Julian looked at her "Can you leave right now to see hilass to meet the man!

He returned to his call "She can do it We&039;ll see you in a few" He hung up and smiled "He&039;s a little busy at present, but he&039;s more than happy to look at it"

"Oh bless you both!"

Julian returned the book to her "Would you like to follow ?"

He picked his jacket up off the back of his chair and shrugged it on "Acheron&039;s doing volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity He&039;s over on Esplanade on a rooftop"

Tory frowned at the iy classics professor on top of a roof "So his nahed "Good grief, I never thought I&039;d meet someone more Greek than me" With a name like that, he had to be old No e twinkle in his eye, Julian grinned "Yeah, he&039;s a when it comes to historical facts Like I said he knows ancient Greece better than anyone I&039;ve ever known or heard of" He led her out of his office