by Annie West
So they were alone. She and Costas Palamidis. Why did the idea send a skitter of anxiety through her?
He strode across the room to stand near the end of the sofa where Sophie sat. He seemed to invade her personal space and she had to make a conscious effort not to tuck her feet back away from his.
She knew from the glint in his eyes that he recognised her discomfort. There was a slightly mocking arch to his black brows as he returned her look. Then he frowned and settled himself on the long leather sofa opposite her.
‘I apologise,’ he said, ‘that your arrival should be so…difficult. If I’d guessed how Eleni would react to the sight of you I would have warned my mother, asked her to explain to Eleni before you arrived.’
His expression was deeply brooding, his regret obviously genuine. And she felt her indignation drain away, despite the appalling situation he’d put her in.
The joy that had lit his face as he’d held his daughter in his arms was a faded memory. Back instead was the dour stranger burdened by care.
It disturbed Sophie to realise how much she wanted another glimpse of that other Costas.
‘It’s all right,’ she murmured. ‘There’s no harm done. It was just a surprise.’
‘More than that, I’m sure. You looked white as a sheet when Eleni called out to you. I should have—’
‘It’s over,’ she interrupted, then paused as a horrible thought penetrated her weary brain. ‘You did explain to her, didn’t you? She doesn’t think—?’
‘No. I explained that your resemblance to her mother is because you are cousins. Eleni understands now that you are a very special visitor, who has travelled around the world to see her. She was so excited I’m surprised she went to sleep. She can’t wait to play with her long-lost cousin.’
‘But surely—’ Sophie began.
‘You’re not scared of spending a little time with her, are you?’ he challenged, his frown deepening. ‘She’s only a child, and a very lonely one. She hasn’t been able to mix with other children as she normally would, because of her treatment. And now, for obvious reasons, she’s curious about you. Is it too much to ask?’
‘I was just going to say that I may not be here long, so it might be better not to interfere with her routine.’
But it was more than that, Sophie admitted to herself. There was something that made her want to hold back from this family, from Eleni and her father. Perhaps the superstitious desire not to tempt fate by believing she really could help the child, despite the odds. Or maybe it was a primitive fear of taking a dead woman’s place, even if only for a short time. And that instantly made her think of Costas, not Eleni.
She shot him a glance under her lashes and found him watching her intently. There it was again. That sense of compelling force, drawing her towards him, as if she had no will of her own when he was around. It scared the living daylights out of her, this awareness, this attraction. And she wasn’t ready to cope with it.
‘I’m sure a little change in routine won’t harm Eleni in the least. We must make the most of you while you’re here with us.’
Sophie’s breath jammed in her chest as his gaze dropped to her lips, lingering there for a moment too long before flicking back to her eyes. It felt as if her ribs were constricting in against her, making it hard to breathe. Her heart drummed to an increasing tempo that echoed in her ears.
The room seemed full of the heavy awareness strung like a tangible weight between them.
Sophie leaned forward abruptly and put her cup on the coffee table between them with a click. Her hand was trembling. And the way he looked at her only exacerbated the tremor. She shot to her feet.
‘You have a magnificent home,’ she said, determined to steer the conversation to a subject that was simple and impersonal. Something to break the uneasy connection building between them.
‘I’m glad you approve, Sophie.’ Even his voice was different: a rich, caressing burr that vibrated through her, drew her skin tight and shivery.
Late-afternoon sunlight slanted through the huge panoramic windows, highlighting what she could have sworn was a trace of grim amusement on his features. Surely not. There was no way he could guess at the unholy mix of trepidation and excitement she felt, knowing she was alone with him.
She spun on her foot and walked towards the enormous curving line of full-length glass that comprised one wall. She guessed it was an expensive, architectural masterpiece. But she barely registered it. Her mind was fully occupied with the man she felt watching her.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it,’ she said at last, cursing the way her voice emerged: light and breathless. ‘It’s so modern, so unique, yet somehow it fits its surroundings.’
Brilliant, Sophie. I bet he really wanted that incisive commentary on his home. The place had probably featured in prestigious architectural digests.
‘A friend designed it,’ he answered. ‘Someone I went to school with. He knows me and what I wanted so that made the job simpler.’
Below her stretched a silver-green vista: an ancient olive grove surrounded by a dry packed stone wall, sloping down towards the sea. Beyond it glinted the dark water of a cove, enclosed on two sides by headlands. It was peaceful. Enticing.
She guessed the place had looked like this for hundreds of years. Possibly thousands. And there was no other sign of habitation in sight. But then if you had Costas Palamidis’ fortune you wouldn’t want to share this slice of paradise with neighbours.
‘That’s a big sigh.’ His voice came from just behind her and she froze. ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’
‘Yes.’ She made herself turn towards him, but didn’t meet his gaze. ‘I’m just tired.’
‘Of course. It’s been a long journey. If you come with me I’ll show you your room.’
There was nothing in his voice now to alarm her. Nothing at all. His tone was bland, as if the searing look he’d sent her before had been the product of her imagination.
Sophie chanced a peep at his face. It was set in the harsh lines of control she recognised from their first encounter. He looked as hard as flint and just as unfeeling.
The speed of his change from feverish intensity to chilly reserve threw her completely off balance. She would never be comfortable with this man.
The silence as they made their way through the luxurious reception rooms was almost oppressive. Taut with the strain of undercurrents that set her nerves on edge. Tinged with the unsettling awareness that they were alone except for the child sleeping upstairs.
‘Why didn’t you tell me I looked like my cousin?’ she blurted out as they ascended a sweeping marble staircase.
It was a relief to break the humming silence.
His wide shoulders shrugged beside her, but he continued up the steps without breaking his stride. ‘It wasn’t important.’
Not important? Sophie stopped, clutching the banister with one hand. Not important that she looked enough like his dead wife to convince the woman’s own daughter?
Ahead of her he halted, turned and looked down at her. His eyes had that awful blank look she remembered from their first meeting. As if he was clamping down on every vestige of emotion.
‘I should have told you. But, as I explained, it didn’t occur to me that Eleni would react as she did. I can only apologise again.’
Sophie read his tightly compressed lips, the rigid tilt of his jaw, and suddenly wondered how he’d reacted when he’d first seen her. Had he immediately thought of his dead wife?
He must have, of course. And perhaps that accounted for some of his searing anger that first day. To be confronted by someone who so closely resembled the woman he’d loved and lost must have been a terrible shock.
‘It’s all right,’ she lied. Eleni’s reaction had rocked her. She released her stiff fingers from the metal railing and started forward again.
She reached the stair where he waited for her with his unreadable eyes, his closed expression.
‘Are we so ali
ke, then? Fotini and I?’
There was no mistaking the flare of emotion in his eyes at her question. The spasm of quickly controlled movement through his big body.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have asked, should have respected his obvious grief for his wife. But she had to know.
His night-dark eyes held hers as he shook his head. ‘No,’ he said brusquely. ‘At first glance there’s a superficial similarity, but the differences are much stronger.’
Oddly, instead of reassuring her, the knowledge that she was unique, not a mirror image of Fotini, didn’t comfort as it should have. Or perhaps it was the dismissive way he brushed aside the resemblance. She supposed in his eyes no one could compare to the woman he’d loved.
Sophie drew a slow breath and started up the stairs beside him. What did she want? For him to look at her and see his wife? For him to respond to her as he had to Fotini? As if she were the woman he loved?
No! Of course not.
‘I hadn’t realised Eleni would remember what her mother looked like so well,’ she said. ‘But then I don’t know much about small children. If it’s been a year since—’
‘Ten months,’ he said as they reached the top of the stairs. ‘Ten months almost exactly since the accident.’
Sophie cursed her tongue as she heard the pent up anger, the fierce emotion in his tone. She wanted to reach out to him and…
And what? Soothe his pain?
Who was she to ease another’s grief? She could barely contain her own. Couldn’t begin to understand what it would be like to lose a spouse, a partner you thought would be yours for life.
‘Eleni has a photo of her mother in her room,’ he said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘I put it there when Fotini died. It seemed to help Eleni when she missed her mother.’
Sophie wondered if photos had helped Costas deal with his own loss. Looking at the rigid set of his shoulders, she thought not. He was obviously a man still very much in love with his wife.
‘Here we are,’ he said briskly, standing aside and gesturing to a pair of doors. ‘This is your suite. Your bags have been unpacked for you.’ His smile was perfunctory as he added, ‘I’ll leave you to rest and settle in.’
He turned then and walked away, his whole frame rigid. With disapproval or pain?
Sophie wondered why it mattered so much to her. Why she wanted to run after him and try to comfort him.
Just as well she had too much sense for that.
The rest of the evening passed in a blur that Sophie hoped was due to jet lag. By the time she’d showered and changed and eaten the meal Costas insisted she have on a tray in her room, she was exhausted.
A maid bustled out, wishing her a good night. And Sophie even managed to laugh at her earlier sense of claustrophobia, at the idea of being alone here with Costas. She hadn’t been thinking clearly enough to realise that a house this size must have a full-time staff on the premises.
Her room alone would have swallowed up at least half of her home in Sydney. And the bathroom! A cleaner’s nightmare with all that gleaming marble and the massive mirrors on two walls.
She shrugged into her old cotton wrap and padded across the thick carpet to the glass doors. Just one more look at that magnificent view and then she’d sleep. She stepped outside into the darkness, letting her eyes adjust to the silvery light of a half moon and the jewelled panoply of stars. They were away from the city here and it was quiet. So quiet she could hear the soft shushing of the waves in the cove.
Sophie drew a deep breath of fresh night air, registering the unfamiliar scents. Salt of course, from the sea, but something else too. Herbs? It smelt like oregano and thyme, rosemary and something else, spicy and sweet.
She approached the corner of the long curving balcony, only to pull up abruptly as a darker shadow detached itself from the gloom and blocked her way.
‘Can’t you sleep, Sophie?’ His voice slid like heavy silk against her skin, right down her spine. And heat flared in the secret, feminine core of her.
Costas thrust his hands deep into his pockets, feeling them curl into tight fists as he caught her delicate scent on the night breeze.
He’d come out here to think, to gather the tatters of his control in preparation for another day of desperate hope and unspeakable fear. He’d begun to find solace in the still darkness.
And then she’d appeared, ripping at the shreds of his self-possession like a blade.
It was torture being so close to such temptation. Craving the numbing, mindless ecstasy that he knew he could find in her body. Yet knowing he couldn’t afford to act on his primitive instinct to take, to hold, to tame.
She was off-limits for all sorts of reasons. Not least that she was his guest. He had a duty to protect her, even from himself.
‘I just thought I’d get a breath of fresh air,’ she explained, her voice so high and light he knew with a deep, visceral certainty that she felt it too, this force that drew them inexorably together.
She half turned, as if to leave, and the light behind her silhouetted the luscious upthrust curve of her breasts.
His indrawn breath hissed between his clenched teeth and her head swung round.
For a frozen instant neither moved, his galloping pulse the only animation. Then he forced himself to speak. ‘Don’t leave on my account.’ His throat was raw with the effort of control, making his voice a grumbling murmur. ‘I was just going in.’
In the darkness he felt her eyes on him. It was a touch that heated his skin to fever pitch.
‘No! Don’t go. I didn’t mean to intrude on your privacy.’ She sounded breathless, distressed.
His mother’s warning this afternoon came back to him again. She could be so easily hurt, Costa. Treat her well.
Caution didn’t come easily to him. But he wasn’t reckless enough to give in to this beckoning temptation and cross the demarcation line that kept them apart. Anyone could see that disaster lay that way. For both of them.
‘It’s all right, Sophie. I was going in to check on Eleni anyway.’
He forced himself to move forward, passed her so close that her body heat warmed his side. Her enticing fragrance filled his nostrils and his fists clenched so tight that they throbbed. Tension gripped his neck and shoulders in a vice.
He kept his eyes fixed on the door to Eleni’s room further along the balcony and made himself keep walking. ‘Enjoy the peace for a little longer. Then get a good night’s sleep.’
She’d need it for tomorrow.
Yes, that was what he needed to concentrate on—the blood test, the options for Eleni’s treatment. The long discussion he’d have with the medics tomorrow. Anything but Sophie’s lithe body, warm and inviting, just metres away.
‘Goodnight.’ Her voice was a light whisper that made him falter. Then he hunched his shoulders and strode on.
CHAPTER SIX
IT WAS LATE IN THE MORNING when Sophie woke and her head felt thick and heavy. She’d slept through the night but disturbing dreams had plagued her. Fortunately for her peace of mind, she couldn’t remember them. But she suspected they’d featured a pair of probing black eyes.
She ate her solitary breakfast in a sunny parlour while another maid explained that the kyrios, the master, was busy conferring with his daughter’s doctor. Her meal finished, Sophie took the opportunity to explore.
The French windows on this side of the house led to a wide flagged terrace, then down to an immaculate lawn. She strolled across it, feeling the warmth of the sun on her face, hearing the unfamiliar birdsong and, in the distance, a dog barking. There were scents here too, from the border of bright flowers that edged the lawn, from fruit blossom somewhere near, and inevitably from the waves that she could just hear rolling in to shore in gentle rhythm.
Sophie closed her eyes and breathed it in. The sounds and warmth and smell of the place.
A sense of peace settled on her. Perhaps because she was so far from home and her real life. From the pain and drudgery of the everyday. She
felt that, just for now, she could relax and enjoy the moment.
A gurgle of laughter caught her attention and her eyes snapped open. There, rounding a path at the end of the garden, was Eleni, pedalling unsteadily on a bright orange tricycle. Behind her followed a young woman, close enough to ensure she kept her balance.
Sophie watched as, inevitably, Eleni looked up and saw her. She didn’t understand it, but she felt almost guilty. As if she shouldn’t be here, strong and healthy, when such a tiny child was battling the odds for survival. As if somehow it would be her fault if the transplant couldn’t take place.
But it was too late to slink away.
The laughter died away as Eleni saw her, her eyes widening. She stopped pedalling and planted her feet on either side of the tricycle.
Her face was grave as she said, ‘Kalimera sas.’ Good morning to you.
‘Kalimera, Eleni.’
Immediately the little girl’s eyes brightened and she tilted her head to one side as if to get a better view of her new cousin. Then she launched into a hurried spate of Greek that Sophie had no hope of following.
‘Siga, parakalo,’ Sophie said, smiling. Slow, please. ‘Then katalaveno.’ I don’t understand.
Eleni’s mouth rounded in astonishment and the girl with her bent to explain that Sophie didn’t understand Greek.
‘I speak a little,’ Sophie said. ‘But it’s been a long time since I used it.’ They’d spoken English at home.
‘Unfortunately Eleni doesn’t speak English,’ said the girl, who introduced herself as Eleni’s nanny.
But the language barrier didn’t deter Eleni. She climbed off her trike and headed straight over to Sophie, barely pausing before she reached up for her hand.
Sophie felt the tiny, warm fingers close round hers. She looked down at Eleni’s pale, serious face, at her dark eyes, old beyond their years, and something, a hard, cold knot deep inside her, shifted suddenly and began to thaw.
No wonder Costas had been so adamant that she come to Greece. Life was too precious to waste. And, looking down into that pinched little face, Sophie had an inkling of the protective love he must feel for his daughter. The desperation to find a way to save her.
