The World's Most Notorious Greek (Mills & Boon Modern)

by Jackie Ashenden

  There was amusement in her voice, but he didn’t find it funny. He didn’t like the sound of her as a bright, sparky little girl being locked out of the house for being ‘difficult’. Because she was curious and passionate and fiery, yes, but he liked those things about her very much. In fact, he shared some of those qualities himself. She was also quick to laugh, quick to apologise, and had a huge amount of empathy. He suspected that she was a woman of deep emotions and perhaps her father hadn’t appreciated exactly how deep.

  And he knew himself what it felt like to be unappreciated. To be dismissed and rejected. His entire childhood had been that.

  ‘You find that funny?’ he asked quietly. ‘That your father never wanted you around?’

  Her eyes opened and she gazed at him, an expression he couldn’t read in her eyes. ‘No, it’s not funny. But I wasn’t what my father wanted. It was my mother who wanted a baby, but she died in a car accident a couple of months after I was born. Dad had to bring me up himself. He was a surgeon and, though he hired lots of nannies to look after me, they all left one after the other because I was a ‘handful.’ Anyway, Dad had to look after me himself in the end, and his career was severely impacted. I...’ She hesitated. ‘I ruined his career in a lot of ways.’

  There was a note of pain in her voice and he could feel the muscles of her back tensing up. This was distressing for her clearly and no wonder. She’d been told her father hadn’t wanted her.

  Theos, he knew how that felt. He knew how that felt all too well.

  Anger smouldered in his chest, but he fought it down, because this wasn’t about him. Instead he followed his instinct and got up to sit on the lounger next to her, put his hands on her beautiful back and stroke her, massage away that tension.

  He could feel her resist a second and then she let out a soft breath and relaxed beneath his touch.

  ‘I was a quiet, studious boy,’ he said, wanting to give her something more, something to make her feel good about herself rather than bad. ‘I know it’s hard to believe, but I was all about study and getting good marks. I didn’t have many friends, because I didn’t really like doing all the stuff other boys did. But I was curious and asked questions too, though I found a lot of answers in my father’s library. I think I would have liked you, though.’ He massaged out the hard knots he could feel in her upper back. ‘I could have answered some of your questions, and you could have dragged me away from my studies to play games in the woods.’

  Slowly she turned her head to the side, her muscles now relaxed completely under his hands. ‘Quiet and studious? You?’

  He smiled. ‘I told you it was hard to believe.’

  Her lashes drifted closed and her lovely, almost shy smile turned one corner of her mouth. ‘When I played in the woods, those friends I made up, they weren’t girls. I don’t know why, but I always imagined my best friend as a boy. Sometimes he would save me from certain death. And sometimes...sometimes I would save him.’

  He’d never thought he needed saving. He didn’t think it now. But he could imagine that if there came a time where he did, she would be the woman to do it.

  ‘And did this boy ever become real?’ he asked softly. ‘Or was he only ever imaginary?’

  ‘No, he was never real.’ She sighed. ‘Probably a good thing. Dad didn’t like having other kids around. Said they were too loud.’

  ‘You and I should have swapped fathers. Mine didn’t care about marks or studying. He always wanted me to go shooting and hunting. And fishing. Playing rugby. All the things a proper English boy should like.’ All the things that Ulysses had been good at.

  She opened her eyes again, flicking him a look. ‘And you didn’t?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t a proper English boy. I was half Greek. Not that Greek boys prefer reading books any more than English boys do, but certainly I did. Things in books always seemed more exciting.’

  She turned her head a little. ‘You never went out and explored the woods at Thornhaven?’

  Something inside him hardened. He didn’t want to talk about his childhood. He didn’t want to feel like a ghost here, on his island, with her.

  ‘Not often,’ he said, running his fingers down her back again, lightly. ‘So what happened with your father? He had a stroke and you became his caregiver, I take it?’ He knew that already, because, after all, he’d done his research. But he wanted to hear the story from her.

  A shadow passed over her vivid, expressive face. ‘Yes. I had to stay with him after I left school, because we had no one else. I took a job in the village cafe, sometimes cleaned people’s houses. I couldn’t afford to get a job anywhere else, because that would have left Dad without anyone to look after him.’

  It sounded like a miserable existence for someone like her. All her bright passion subsumed into looking after one old man, who from the sounds of it hadn’t appreciated what he had. Had she had dreams of more? And if so, why had she stayed with a man who didn’t deserve her care?

  He certainly wouldn’t have done the same with his own father.

  ‘Forgive me, Diana,’ he said, unable to help being angry on her behalf, ‘but your father sounds like he didn’t deserve you limiting your life just to look after him.’

  Willow looked abruptly away from him, her muscles tightening once more. ‘He’s my father.’

  He shouldn’t push her, shouldn’t make this personal. But he was angry for her. He didn’t like how she’d locked such a vital, beautiful part of herself away and he wanted to know why.

  Calmly, he began to knead her muscles, easing her tension again. ‘Fathers have to earn respect just like anyone else. They’re not automatically entitled to it. What did your father do to earn yours?’

  She was silent. He could feel her tension, could sense her gathering herself to move away from him. But he pressed down a little harder, adding some more pressure, because she seemed to like being touched and being held.

  Gradually, very gradually, she began to relax again.

  ‘He didn’t do anything to earn it,’ she said after a long moment. ‘But the stroke was my fault. Or rather, I feel it’s my fault.’

  That sounded like her.

  He kept up the gentle massage. ‘Tell me about it.’

  ‘It’s nothing.’

  ‘It’s something. Tell me.’ He didn’t pretend it wasn’t an order, because sometimes she liked him being authoritative. It gave her something to rebel against, which he knew she liked also.

  But apparently not today, because she let out a breath then said, ‘He was a surgeon, like I said, and I wanted very much to do something that would make him proud of me. So I spent the whole of my sixteenth year paying attention to my studies. I...wasn’t the best at school, but I tried very hard that year, because he liked me to. I got a B plus for Biology in the end, and I was very pleased. And I expected him to be impressed, but...he wasn’t.’ She turned her head slightly away, as if she didn’t want him to see her face. ‘He was disappointed I hadn’t got an A, told me I needed to work harder and not to bother him for any less than an A minus. I was...furious. I don’t know why it hit me so hard that night, it just did. I’d tried so hard for him—I always tried hard for him—but he just wasn’t interested.’ Her voice had become scratchy. ‘I lost my temper. I wanted to hurt him the way he’d hurt me and so I grabbed my mother’s picture off his desk and took it out of the frame. And then I ripped it up into pieces.’ She didn’t look at him, the setting sun gilding her lashes. ‘It was very precious to him because it was the only photo he had of her and he’d loved her so much. He’d never got over her death and I knew that. It was my mother who’d wanted a child, not him, but then she died and he ended up with me, and I... I guess I ended up being a reminder of that.’ She paused. ‘He was so upset about the photo. I’d never seen him get so emotional about anything. And then he...just collapsed. I had to call an ambulance and they took him
to hospital. He’d had a fairly serious stroke and, although they told me it wasn’t my fault, I...’

  ‘You still blamed yourself,’ he finished gently.

  Her lashes lowered again, the tension receding from her muscles as he kneaded her shoulder. ‘Dad was always telling me I needed to control myself and he was right. I wanted to hurt him and I did.’

  But no, he couldn’t have her thinking that. Because it wasn’t true. The only thing she was guilty of was loving deeply a father who couldn’t love her in return. A father who was too busy grieving someone who was gone.

  Like you.

  No, not like him. Because it was apparent that Willow still cared, while his own heart remained empty. All his caring was gone. He’d used up the final dregs of it the day he’d left Thornhaven.

  Achilles gripped her gently and turned her over on her back, so her pain-filled gaze looked straight up into his. She protested a little, trying to turn away, but he put one hand on the side of the lounger, leaning on it as he took her determined chin in his other hand, holding her still.

  ‘Listen to me,’ he said flatly. ‘Yes, you were angry and yes, you lost your temper. Yes, you wanted to hurt him. But you were only sixteen and you can’t take responsibility for his failings. You were his daughter. He should have loved you and accepted you for what you were, not blamed you for what you weren’t.’

  ‘But I—’

  ‘No. You’re not difficult and you’re not a “handful.” You’re not demanding. And your temper is a beautiful storm. You are a beautiful storm, do you understand?’ He said the words calmly, clearly, and with all the conviction in him, because they were true and he wanted her to know it. ‘You’re passionate and curious and you feel things deeply.’ He leaned down, holding her chin firmly, and nipped at her bottom lip, making her breath catch. ‘You’re a goddess, my Diana. A bonfire.’ Another nip. ‘A solar flare.’ He kissed her, taking his time, taking it deep, hot. ‘You’re stubborn and challenging and I like it.’ Another nip, a little harder. ‘I like you angry. I like you passionate. I like you wild. I like you the way you are and you don’t ever have to be anything else for me.’

  She was trembling, her gaze wide and smoky and dark. She didn’t say a word, only reaching for him, bringing his mouth down on hers.

  But that was all the response he needed, because he could taste her answer in the desperate, hungry kiss that she gave him, as bright and as passionate and as demanding as she was.

  And there in the sunset he took the flame that she was and stoked it higher, turned her into a bonfire, a goddess blazing in her glory.

  Then he let those flames of hers burn him to the ground too.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WILLOW SAT CURLED UP in the soft leather seat of the jet on the way back to England, reading a book Achilles had bought her on the flora and fauna of the Greek islands. She found it fascinating, but it was getting harder and harder to concentrate because Achilles was lounging in the seat opposite her, long legs outstretched, gazing at her very intently from underneath his long black lashes.

  He was planning something, she could tell.

  Anticipation coiled inside her, along with a certain heated excitement. She loved it when he looked at her like that, like a very hungry panther looking at his prey.

  He’d done that a lot over the previous week in the white villa beside the sea. He’d done a lot of other things too, showing her all about how taking one’s time could lead to the most delicious pleasure. Talking with her about any topic she wanted to discuss, his mind a storehouse of seemingly irrelevant yet fascinating facts that he was more than happy to share. Arguing with her—she especially loved that—about inconsequential things which always ended up with them in bed, who was right and who was wrong forgotten. Walking with her over the island and clearly reluctant to do so, yet willing to go along all the same, before taking her back to the villa’s small library and going over some of the things they’d seen out on their walk in the pages of the books there.

  Sometimes he was quiet, reading or working on his laptop, and then she’d like to sit and watch him, his stillness somehow calming and relaxing.

  There was something steady about him in general that she liked, an anchor that kept her from floating away in the worst of the storms. Not that there had been many storms. Passion burned in her—she could feel it—and yet gradually she’d started to realise that it wasn’t anything to be afraid of. Not when there was Achilles around to take it, channel it, and make it bloom like a firework in the night.

  All the things she’d been afraid of in herself, he liked and actively encouraged.

  ‘I like you wild,’ he’d told her that day by the pool, when she’d confessed to him the terrible truth about herself and her temper. And she’d seen nothing but fierce acceptance in his blue eyes. He’d shown her then, with his hands and his mouth, exactly how accepting he was by stoking that wildness in her and letting it rage out of control. Showing her that there was nothing to be scared of, not with him.

  You can’t go thinking things like that. He might be your lover but he only married you because of a will. This marriage will be over as soon as you have his child, remember?

  Oh, yes, she remembered. But that was fine. That was what she’d wanted after all.

  ‘We haven’t talked about what’s going to happen when we get back to England,’ Achilles said suddenly.

  Slowly, she lowered her book. ‘What do you mean? Aren’t we going back to separate lives?’

  ‘That’s what we agreed, yes.’ He leaned his head on his hand, his elbow resting on the arm of his chair, his long, powerful legs stretched out before him. He looked relaxed and yet the intensity in his eyes made a lie out of it. ‘And my child is to be conceived via medical assistance. Though, to be fair, you could already be pregnant.’

  A little electric shock pulsed through her. It was true, she could be. They hadn’t used anything in the way of protection and to say they’d been having a lot of sex was an understatement.

  She looked down at the book in her lap, feeling suddenly self-conscious. She hadn’t been thinking about the child he’d wanted, not once while they’d been on Heiros. She hadn’t thought about the future at all. She’d been too consumed with him and how he made her feel every time he touched her, smiled at her, laughed with her.

  It’s just a business arrangement, remember?

  No, she hadn’t remembered. She’d fulfilled one of his requests and now it was time to fulfil the other. Bear him a son. A little boy with blue eyes just like his...

  Something in her chest gave a pulsing ache, an unexpected longing tugging at her deep inside.

  She’d always thought children weren’t for her, that she wouldn’t make a good mother. Her temper was too wild, too volatile. And after what she’d put her father through, the thought that she might lash out at her own child in the same way made that decision a simple one.

  And yet, Achilles had told her that she wasn’t difficult or demanding. That her temper was a beautiful storm and that he liked it, so perhaps... Perhaps she wouldn’t make such a bad mother after all.

  But he’d said that their marriage wouldn’t be a real one and that their child would stay with him, though she could have access to it.

  You really didn’t think that one through, did you?

  That ache in her chest sank deeper and she found herself clutching the edges of the book. ‘So what are you saying?’

  He didn’t answer for a long moment. Then abruptly he shifted, leaning forward, his hands clasped, his elbows on his knees, the intensity in his face shocking the breath from her. ‘I don’t want us to have separate lives when we get back to Thornhaven. And I don’t want to use medical assistance to conceive. I want us to live together, have a proper marriage.’

  Shock pulsed through her. ‘A...proper marriage?’

  ‘Yes.’ His gaze was like a
laser beam boring into her. ‘Living together as husband and wife. The same house, the same bed. Shared lives. At least until our child is born. Then we can reassess it.’

  Long fingers folded around her heart and squeezed. ‘But...that’s not what you said earlier.’

  ‘I know. But I’ve changed my mind. We’re good together, my Diana, and I think you know it. And I don’t want to give up what we had on Heiros when we get to England.’

  It was strange, all the emotion tangled up inside her. Bright threads of joy and excitement wound around darker threads of uncertainty and doubt.

  Because being on honeymoon was one thing but living together was quite another. And then there was the issue of the child...

  ‘You said this was a business arrangement.’ She tried to keep her voice level, to not let any of her doubt show in her voice. ‘That doesn’t sound very...businesslike to me.’

  His intent gaze narrowed. ‘What are you afraid of?’

  That he’d bypassed her uncertainty and gone straight to the fear that lay underneath it wasn’t surprising. She should have expected it really, because he was extremely observant. And so it was a pity she didn’t have an answer.

  You know why. You just don’t want to admit it.

  Willow ignored both the thought and his question. ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘The honeymoon. You. I don’t want this to end.’

  ‘A honeymoon always ends.’

  ‘But the passion doesn’t. Sleeping together doesn’t.’

  ‘What makes you think it will be the same once we’re back in England?’ She wasn’t even sure why she was protesting. ‘And once we have a child?’

  He didn’t answer immediately, simply staring at her. Then, slowly, he got to his feet and came over to where she sat, putting his hands on the arms of her seat on either side of her, leaning in, caging her with all his powerful, muscular heat.