by Robyn Donald
So this leftover emotion had to be mastered. And as he’d never yet felt a passion he couldn’t control, he shouldn’t fail now.
Coldly he continued, ‘Get used to it. You’ve already accepted the position—I hope you’re not thinking of reneging.’
Her lashes fell, hiding those changeable eyes.
‘I have power.’ Simple words, spoken dispassionately. Interested, he waited for her reaction.
She stepped back, her gaze wide and clear and turbulent—but not with fear. ‘Are you by any chance threatening me again?’ she demanded incredulously.
‘I did not threaten you before, and I am not doing so now.’
Iona’s stomach performed a complicated manoeuvre. His nearness reached something deep inside her, scrambling her thoughts and churning her emotions. But there was a lot more to Luke Michelakis than a stunning face and a body as honed and strong as an Olympic athlete’s.
This man, she thought warily, was dangerous. Dangerous in a way she couldn’t put a name to, but that some instinct in her recognised.
‘It sounded too close to a threat to ignore,’ she said stubbornly.
He turned away and looked out across the harbour, unwittingly giving her an excellent view of a profile that could have been taken from an ancient statue.
Indignation at his dismissive action made her lose caution. ‘How dare you?’
Luke held up a lean, tanned hand. ‘Spare me the histrionics,’ he said in a bored tone. ‘If you’re so prone to jumping to conclusions you’re not the right person for Chloe.’
Iona stopped her first impetuous response. Angie needed the money, but that wasn’t everything. Luke had influence. A word from him might put more work Angie’s way.
Or remove it…
Slowly she said, ‘And that remark skates very close to blackmail.’
‘Are you always this blunt?’ He sounded amused.
Chagrined, she darted a glance his way. Darn it, he was laughing at her! And she was being foolish. If she’d thought about it she’d have realised that he’d have security people; she hadn’t thought about it because she’d been too overwhelmed by meeting Luke again.
She said, ‘I like to know exactly where I am.’
‘So do I. I am not threatening you or blackmailing you, so make up your mind. Now.’
She took a deep breath, feeling oddly unsafe, as though she were venturing into thick fog. ‘I’m not planning to walk away from our agreement. I’ll take care of Chloe while you’re in New Zealand, bodyguards or no bodyguards.’
‘Good.’ Clearly tired of the discussion, he changed the subject. ‘I understand this cold spell will go on for several days yet, so after I’ve finished what I intend to do here we’ll go down to the Volcanic Plateau. I’m told the skiing is excellent there still, and Chloe wants to play in the snow. Do you have suitable gear?’
‘No, but—’
‘Buy some,’ Luke said, adding, ‘I will of course pay.’
‘You don’t need to,’ she said shortly. ‘I’ll borrow from my cousin.’
He lifted an eyebrow and inspected her—a look that sent little sizzles of highly suspect anticipation through her.
Luke asked, ‘Will they fit? Your cousin has a more voluptuous figure than yours.’
‘She calls it matronly,’ Iona said staidly. ‘I can wear her clothes.’ She certainly wasn’t going to buy gear Luke would paid for, stuff she might never wear again.
He gave a short nod. ‘Check Chloe’s wardrobe, please. Neelie knew a trip to the mountains was possible, so there should be suitable garb for Chloe, but make sure. We’ll be coming back here, so she won’t need to take everything.’
That night, after she’d put Chloe to bed, Iona closed the door quietly behind her. She was going to miss the little girl when it came time to say goodbye.
Walking outside onto the terrace, she looked around. No sign of Luke, who’d retired to his room. Stomach tightening, she rang Angie.
‘Of course you can borrow my skiing clothes, although you’ll look a bit of a trick in them—I’m a size bigger than you are,’ Angie confirmed.
‘That doesn’t matter,’ Iona said before asking her bluntly, ‘Angie, would it be easier for you if I found another job?’
The slight pause before her cousin responded gave her the answer. ‘Why are you asking?’ Angie asked cautiously. ‘Has Lukas offered you a permanent job?’
‘No.’ She didn’t say she wouldn’t take the job even if Luke did offer it. His kisses had warned her it would be altogether too risky. ‘I don’t want to be a drag on you.’
Angie’s protest was immediate. ‘You could never be that.’
‘I can hear the but,’ Iona told her. ‘Tell me now.’
Another pause, as meaningful as the first one. ‘Well, last night Felton rang me to say he’s not paying support for the boys any more. He’s in Australia, so I have no way of forcing him to cough up.’
‘The rat,’ Iona said with venom. ‘Look, as soon as this interlude with Chloe and Luke is over I’ll start applying for situations. I won’t have any problems getting kindergarten relief work. And while I’m doing that I could relieve at crèches and daycare centres too.’
‘You’ll take a big drop in income,’ Angie said bluntly, but she didn’t protest.
‘I’ll manage.’
Her cousin said, ‘I won’t deny that it would be—easier. But I feel a heel.’
‘Rubbish!’
Her cousin’s voice altered, became brisk. ‘Don’t worry about us—just have fun living the life of the rich while you can. I’ll bet this recession hasn’t affected Luke Michelakis’s net worth by a cent.’
Frowning, Iona set her telephone down, jumping when Luke said from behind her, ‘Who is the rat?’
‘How do you do that?’ she demanded, whirling around to stare at him. He’d discarded his jacket and tie, and the trousers of his business suit hugged his hips and long, heavily muscled thighs like a lover.
His brows shot up. ‘Do what?’
‘Sneak up on people without a sound.’
‘It’s not deliberate; it’s just my natural gait. Who is this rat you hate so much?’
Unwilling to tell him more about Angie’s situation, Iona said glibly, ‘An unfaithful husband, that’s all.’
It was the truth, but she felt uncomfortable under his steady glaze, and was almost glad when Chloe began to cry in her bedroom.
She’d been sick, and during that night and the next day she endured a virus that kept her in bed and stretched Iona’s skills at keeping a fretful child entertained and happy. However, with the miraculous recuperative powers of children, Chloe bounced back late in the afternoon. She was sitting on the terrace under Iona’s eye, intent on a picture of the lion she’d seen at the zoo, when Luke strolled out into the sun. He’d taken off his jacket and tie and rolled up his sleeves, and he looked blatantly, sensually male, the hard angles of his face softening when he saw his daughter.
Something very strange melted Iona’s spine and swirled in the pit of her stomach. And her foolish brain seized up under an urgent onrush of need, sharp and penetrating, that filled her with precarious pleasure.
The decision to stay on as Chloe’s nanny had been a reckless mistake; each day that passed put her heart in more danger.
‘So, you are up,’ he said to Chloe, catching her in his arms when she came running towards him, little face radiant.
‘I’m better,’ she told him earnestly after she’d kissed him. ‘I’m not sick now. When can we go to the snow?’
He set her down. ‘When the doctor says you are well enough.’
She nodded and dragged him across to see her drawing. Telling her unruly pulse to calm down, Iona stood up.
After a swift glance her way, Luke asked, ‘How has she been?’
‘For the last two hours, as you see. No sign of a temperature, no aches, no pains, and an appetite that would do credit to a shearer.’ When his brows climbed, she enlarged, ‘They sh
ear sheep, starting at dawn, and they eat six meals a day. Large meals.’
‘We have sheep in Greece,’ he said mildly. ‘The doctor can check her over tomorrow morning to see if she’s fit to travel.’
‘I want to go to the snow,’ Chloe said eagerly.
He frowned. ‘Little one, you will go wherever the good doctor says is best for you.’ Chloe looked pleadingly up at him, but he turned his attention back to Iona. ‘I will be out tonight. However, tomorrow I’ll be at home in good time, so you can take the afternoon and the evening off. You have been in constant attendance on this small tyrant here, and no doubt you have things to do.’
‘Thank you,’ she said automatically.
She did have things to do, and she also wanted to talk to her cousin. Angie’s ex-husband’s refusal to pay maintenance was upsetting but not unexpected; it had reinforced Iona’s decision to find another job—a decision she spent the next evening discussing with Angie, who reluctantly accepted it.
Feeling wrung out, Iona said, ‘Angie, before I go can I use your computer?’
‘Of course.’
An hour later Iona closed the computer and looked up as Angie came into the small bedroom she’d converted into an office. ‘You look a bit green around the gills,’ her cousin said, frowning. ‘What have you been doing?’
‘Researching Luke.’
Angie’s concern deepened into active worry. ‘What have you found? Something nasty?’
‘Yes. Oh, not Luke.’ Angie gave her a concerned look. Hastily she explained, ‘The reason for his family bust-up.’ She hesitated, then said reluctantly, ‘His father is Aristo Michelakis, the shipping magnate. Apparently he claims descent from Hippolytus.’
Angie looked surprised. ‘Who?’
Iona shivered. ‘It’s a Greek myth. Or perhaps ancient history. Anyway, Hippolytus was the son of the king of Athens. His stepmother fell in love with him, but when he spurned her she claimed he raped her, and then hung herself. The king killed his son.’
‘Charming,’ Angie said with emphasis. ‘I hope fervently this has nothing to do with Luke’s departure from the family home.’
‘Unfortunately it has.’ Iona swallowed. ‘Luke’s mother died when he was seventeen, and Aristo almost immediately married his much-younger secretary—a blonde with a very hard face, judging by the photos. A year or so later she apparently told her husband that Luke had either seduced or raped her—the reports skirt around that aspect, but it was easy enough to read between the lines. The stepmother took an overdose. She didn’t die, but Aristo divorced her immediately.’
‘Ugh. And uncanny.’
‘Horrible.’ Iona still felt sick. She switched off the computer and stood up.
Angie said, ‘At least Luke’s father didn’t kill him.’
‘No, he just booted Luke out of the family—cast him adrift with no money except a legacy from his maternal grandfather.’
‘Very nasty indeed,’ Angie agreed.
Iona got to her feet and said abruptly, ‘I rather wish I hadn’t decided to pry. How could Luke’s father do that?’
Angie looked at her with an equivocal expression. ‘Perhaps it was the old bull being tossed out of the herd by the younger one syndrome.’
‘Syndrome or not, nothing can excuse him. No wonder Luke’s so—so tough,’ Iona said forthrightly.
‘You sound quite convinced that he didn’t do whatever he was supposed to have done.’
Iona stared at her cousin, her expression stunned. ‘Of course I am,’ she said numbly. But why?
Angie asked curiously, ‘I thought—you let me think—you didn’t know him very well. What makes you so sure he’s incapable of committing adultery with his stepmother? Or raping her, come to that.’
‘I know he wouldn’t,’ Iona said, shocked by her cousin’s bluntness. ‘I know it sounds silly, but he’s just not the sort.’ She glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go now. We’re off tomorrow morning. I’ll keep in touch.’
‘Be careful, all right?’
‘I’m always careful.’ But she needed to be much more than careful now.
Chapter Six
LUKE opened the door to her when she arrived back. He’d changed into a short-sleeved shirt striped the same tawny colour as his eyes, and he looked slightly rumpled, an informality increased by the darkish shadow of a beard around his lean jaw. Sensation sizzled deep in the pit of Iona’s stomach—desire made even more intense by what she’d just discovered.
How could his father have thrown him out? It beggared belief.
Although Aristo Michelakis did seem to make a habit of rejecting his children. Now she understood why Luke had adopted his baby half-sister, and she honoured him for it.
What was wrong with his father? Couldn’t he see what he’d done to his children?
Luke stepped aside to let her in, then examined her so intently she shifted uncomfortably. Her research now seemed an intolerable intrusion into his life.
He asked, ‘Have you had a good evening?’
‘Yes, thank you.’ And was that ever a lie!
‘Good.’ He waited until they had almost reached the door of her room before saying, ‘I am about to make myself a drink. Would you like to join me?’
Just beyond her door stood another table, not as opulent as the one in the foyer. During the day someone had come in to change the flowers, replacing them with a great bowl of roses. A large mirror reflected their elegant blooms and their scent charged the air with a seductively heavy perfume. Several petals had fallen from one, the matt golden forms trailing so artistically across the polished wood it looked as though it had been deliberately done.
Temptation warred with caution. Caution won, but only by a whisker. Iona said, ‘Actually, I’m tired. I’ll go straight to my room, thank you.’
‘Perhaps that is wise,’ Luke said negligently, clearly not in the least put out.
She turned to go, then asked, ‘What time do we leave in the morning?’
‘About nine.’ He stooped to pick up several petals from the floor.
Iona tore her eyes away from the slow flex and coil of powerful muscles beneath the linen of his shirt. Her heart was pumping blood feverishly through her, so loudly she could hear it beating in her ears.
Luke said, ‘Do you ski?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then you will enjoy the next few days. We’ll hire boots for you when we get there.’
She said, ‘Surely I’ll be looking after Chloe?’
A subtle current of communication vibrated between them—a kind of subliminal exchange both desperately exciting and immediate. He kept his distance, but she felt the impact of his gaze in every cell.
‘I thought the doctor told you she was perfectly all right to holiday on the mountain?’ he said.
‘Yes. Yes, he did.’
He didn’t even have to touch her, she thought in confusion, to set her alight. She was so aware of him she felt adrenalin surge through her veins, a drugging anticipation preparing her for him.
‘Then, although you will spend quite a bit of time with her, there will be occasions when you can ski if you want to.’
Sex with Luke had taught her that until she’d met him she’d only dabbled in love. With Gavin it had begun as friendship, deepening slowly and inevitably, sweetly and surely, into something deeper. Her only lover before Luke, he’d been gentle and patient, tenderly initiating her.
Luke had demanded a sensual energy to match his own. And she’d found it, surrendering to a sexuality that summoned something wild and unrestrained from her, a passionate yielding to the moment. He’d encouraged her to follow her impulses, to take control sometimes, to explore his body and her own with elemental, tantalising appetite until she lost all sense of self.
His generosity was part of the reason she didn’t believe he’d wrecked his family. And her sweetly desperate expectation was one impulse she was not going to follow. If she did, she risked so much more—her heart and her happiness.
/> After dragging a sharp breath into starving lungs, she said, ‘I’ll go and pack now.’
She went past him, only to be stopped by a lazy hand that just grazed her forearm. Rills of sensation tightened her skin.
He dropped his hand and said lazily, ‘The drink I intended to have is to celebrate a very good deal I signed today with your Prime Minister and his attendant army of civil servants and advisors. Good for me, good for New Zealand. I don’t drink alone, so I’d like you to share it with me.’
‘Is that an order?’ she asked, because temptation had come roaring back.
He shrugged and said indifferently, ‘Of course not.’
Say no. Say no right now…
But what harm could there be in sharing a drink with him? It seemed mean to deny him the pleasure of celebrating. ‘In that case, and because this deal is going to be good for New Zealand, I’ll join you,’ she said sedately.
In the sitting room he poured champagne, and handed a flute of the scintillating wine to her, saying with a gleam of amusement in his lion eyes, ‘If you were always as blunt as you are now, you must have been an interesting child.’
Iona smiled ruefully. ‘Tact and discretion did come hard. I probably embarrassed my parents until I learned the boundaries.’
‘Childhood is a time for exploring life, and one for learning boundaries too.’ He gave a sudden wry smile. ‘And a parent both explores and learns too. It came as a considerable shock to me to find that children have a definite personality right from birth.’
Of course, he’d been an only child. ‘She’s a credit to you.’
‘She is a credit to herself,’ he corrected. ‘I made every mistake possible in her first year, when I cared for her myself, yet she managed to thrive in spite of my ineptitude.’
Startled, Iona looked up. ‘You looked after her yourself?’ At his nod she asked, ‘Why?’
He gave that slight, very Mediterranean shrug. ‘I read several books, and found that it is important for a child to bond with someone in their first year. I wanted it to be me, not a nanny who might leave in the future, so I took her to the island—my real home. Thanks to modern communications conducting business was simple enough from there.’ He gave a reminiscent smile. ‘Looking after a baby was not so easy, but between us—and with the help of several very experienced island grandmothers and mothers—Chloe and I managed.’
