by -Julia James
'I've never been to Greece before,' she explained.
Was there something strange about her voice? he wondered. If so, he could not imagine why there should be.
Then she was speaking again. 'It's not really my end of the Med.'
'Spain?'
She shook her head, negotiating a tricky step.
'The South of France, more.'
Nikos's mouth thinned fractionally. The Cote d'Azur— the glittering French Riviera—oozing money and wealth and rich living. The traditional stamping ground of the adventuress. He was not surprised she was familiar with it.
She had paused by the broken base of a column, gazing around. It was, conceded Nikos, a beautiful place for a temple. He'd spotted the brown archaeological site notice along the road back from the northern extremity of the island, where they'd headed after lunch, and suggested a brief diversion. There wasn't a great deal left of the temple—much of the stone had been taken away over the centuries to build houses—but the views down to the sea were still spectacular. It was a high and lonely place. Just right for communing with the gods.
He'd been surprised at her interest. The site had been open, with no entrance ticket required, but the tourist authorities had set up explanatory noticeboards describing the site and mapping it out as it must once have stood. Janine had pored over them.
She must have spent a good twenty minutes trawling over the site. She seemed excessively taken with it. Nikos had left her to it. There were no other visitors at that time of day, and they were well off the beaten track. He'd watched her wandering around. She had an extraordinary natural grace, he'd found himself thinking—there was great pleasure in watching her.
She didn't look in the least what she was, he realised. He had called her a foxy piece last night, to remind himself just what kind of female she was. He frowned. But the description didn't fit. She was simply beautiful; that was all. With a natural, unforced loveliness in every line of her body, every turn of her head. And her behaviour was not that of a gold-digging mistress either. She'd cast out no lures to him—other than her own natural beauty!—made no attempt to flirt with him or attract him. Oh, she was highly self-conscious of him, that much was obvious, but there had been no deliberate come-on from her—nor any deliberate invitation.
His frown deepened. He should not be surprised that it had taken an exceptional woman to snare Stephanos away from his wife. As a rich man, Stephanos had all his life been pursued by women, just as he was himself. As Nikos was doing now, so Stephanos had enjoyed a good selection of them when he was younger. Then, of course, he had fallen in love with Demetria, and from then on no other woman had existed for him. He'd laid siege to her, determined to wait it out until she found the courage to divorce her first husband.
Nikos's eyes flickered. Love was a quite alien concept to him. He could not imagine falling in love with a woman. Desiring her, yes. But not loving her. As for going to any lengths to win her—well, that was beyond him as well. Yet not Stephanos, apparently. Stephanos had endured the wrath of his beloved's father, who hadn't wanted his daughter's marriage overturned, had stood by her when she did finally find the courage to end her marriage, and had married her the moment she was legally free to do so.
That was devotion indeed!
Nikos's mouth tightened. And yet it looked as if he was risking all that for a hole-and-corner adulterous affair with a twenty-five-year-old girl!
He watched her now, as she took a careful step down the ancient stairs. As her weight shifted, suddenly the cracked paving wobbled precariously. He was there in an instant, hands closing around her slender waist, steadying her.
For a moment, timeless and motionless, he felt her soft body pliant in his arms, her breasts crushed against his chest. Then, slowly, he lowered her to the ground and eased back from her, still touching her waist with his hands.
'OK?' he asked.
Janine caught her breath. Her heart was skidding away.
'Fine. Yes. Thanks.' Her answer was totally distracted. She could do nothing except gaze helplessly up at him.
His hands fell away from her waist. Immediately she felt bereft.
He smiled down at her.
'Time to go?'
She followed meekly after him, back to the little car park down an unmade track from the road. She fought hard to regain her composure.
Nikos, however, she realised, was totally relaxed. Had it meant nothing to him, then, that unintentional embrace? Her eyes flickered to him as he drove off. Sexy as those dark glasses were, they were very frustrating. She could not see his eyes, or tell their expression.
His thoughts were veiled from her.
Hers, however, were all too transparent.
CHAPTER FOUR
THE silky water of the swimming pool slid over Janine's body, soothing the ragged edges of her mind. Her thoughts were going round and round in her head. Had been doing so ever since that moment in the temple.
Now, as she glided slowly up and down the pool in the early evening, she tried to confront them.
She was in danger, serious danger, of falling for a man it would be madness to fall for under any circumstances. Let alone these. She was here in Greece for Stephanos, that was all! For no other reason. There was no room in her life for falling for a man like Nikos. Outside Greece her life was so completely different from what Stephanos had given her—and here in Greece her focus had to be Stephanos. It had to be! Nikos Kiriakis was a complication she could do without.
A dangerous complication.
She did a sudden dive, as if she could escape her thoughts.
She surfaced in a shower of water drops and took a lungful of air, reaching with her toes for the bottom of the pool, which was just in her depth still.
Across on the other side, she saw that one of the male hotel guests was playing with his children in the pool, while his wife sunned herself. He punched an inflatable ball through the air and his children plunged after it like a school of baby dolphins, squealing delightedly. He looked after them, smiling broadly.
Something gave Janine a pang. One of the children, a little girl about ten years old, she thought, came paddling triumphantly back to her father, pushing the ball in front of her and calling out in a soft, piping Greek voice, 'Vava, Vava!'—Papa! Papa!
The man held out his arms to his daughter.
'Ela!
It was a word Janine had become familiar with. She wasn't sure what it meant, but the parents here often used it to respond to their children's calls. She watched the little girl swim up to her father, present him with the ball, and wrap him in a big hug. He laughed, and kissed her wet hair affectionately before tossing the ball to his other children.
Lucky little girl.
The words were in Janine's mind before she could stop them.
Lucky little girl to have a father to play with her, dote on her...
She had not been so fortunate.
She'd sometimes wondered if her mother even knew who had fathered her. She'd been so evasive, so completely indifferent all Janine's childhood, that she'd given up trying to find out. When she was a teenager she'd realised just how impossible it was for a woman to tell who had fathered her child if she slept with more than one man during a menstrual cycle. So perhaps her mother simply didn't know, she'd concluded chillingly.
She hadn't even had any clues from her own appearance. She was blonde, just like her mother, and apart from her chestnut-coloured eyes, physically very similar. So much so that as her mother had gotten older it had become obvious that she found it increasingly painful to have a grown up daughter hanging around, like a younger version of herself. The self that her mother's unforgiving mirror no longer showed.
It had been a kindness to her mother when Janine had taken herself off—and a relief to herself to be away from the world her mother adored, making a new life for herself. She hadn't missed the world she'd grown up in—the endless partying, the obsession with appearance, her mother's constant need to have
men around her. It was all so superficial, so pointless, so purposeless. That was why she'd made her own life so different.
But it had still been a shock when she'd heard of her mother's death three years ago, even if she had died the way she'd lived. In a smashed-up sports car with another woman's husband in the driving seat. The post-mortems had shown that both of them were well over the limit for alcohol.
With her mother gone she'd had no other relatives in the world, so far as she knew. No one to whom she meant anything more than friendship.
Her face shadowed. Then Stephanos had come, like a gift from heaven, into her life. Her gratitude to him was boundless. She would make the very most of him she could, however little that could be.
As for Nikos Kiriakis, she wouldn't think about him.
He was dangerous. And he was unnecessary.
And she was better off without him.
Nikos strolled out onto his balcony. The setting sun streamed over the gardens, silhouetting the slender pointed cypress trees that framed the vista. Stephanos had chosen well, he thought. The site was superb. And his architects had done him proud. He had selected the best.
A frown furrowed between his eyes. Down in the pool he could see Janine, swimming slowly up and down.
He'd selected the best for his mistress, too. The day he'd just spend with Janine Fareham had made him realise just what it was about her that so beguiled his brother-in-law. It wasn't just her beauty, outstanding though that was. It was the way she moved, the way she smiled and laughed, the way she brushed her hair back off her face—every gesture caught at him. Captivated him.
He stilled. That was a dangerous word—captivated.
He put it aside. It had no place in what he wanted of the girl who was causing his sister so much anguish.
All I have to do is take her to bed. Nothing else.
That, surely, he thought with cynical self-mockery, would not be too hard a task! He only had to think of Janine to want her.
Deliberately he recalled the way she'd felt in his arms as he'd caught her in that ruined temple. Her body had felt so soft, so rounded, so enticing. He'd been hardening against her when he'd put her away from him.
And so had she. He had felt her breasts swelling against him.
It had been intoxicating.
Captivating...
His mouth thinned. What was wrong with him? Janine Fareham was a beauty, and he enjoyed taking beautiful women to bed. They enjoyed it too. He saw to that. He didn't have to be captivated by them to bed them!
And he certainly wasn't about to be captivated by the likes of Stephanos's young mistress. On the contrary, it was she who was going to be captivated by him. And he was making good progress on that score, he knew. Throughout the day her response to him had been growing—he'd seen to that, cultivated it carefully, step by step—and that final episode in the temple, when she'd pressed against him, had been the most expressive yet.
The way she'd gazed up at him as he'd held her in his arms. Her lips had been parted, her eyes wide...
Captivating. Quite captivating...
With a jerk of impatience with himself he pulled away from the balcony, striding indoors.
He headed for the phone. Time for stage two in his programme of seduction.
Stage one had been to cultivate Janine Fareham, make her responsive to him. Arouse her appetite.
Stage two was to starve it.
Janine sat at her breakfast table and crumbled tiny pieces of bread for the sparrows that hopped around on the paved terrace, eager for their breakfast too. She fed them in a desultory fashion, but her real attention was focused on looking out for Nikos Kiriakis.
She knew she was, and knew she should not be, but she couldn't help it. She wanted to see him.
She hadn't seen him since he'd dropped her off in the hotel portico the day before and told her he had some phone calls to make. She'd told herself she was glad he hadn't joined her in the pool, that she had no intention of spending any more time with him—no intention of letting him come anywhere near her again—but if that was so then why had she waited in her room until the last possible moment before the buffet stopped serving, just in case he might phone through to her and suggest they dine together again?
And why was she now watching everyone who came and went, longing for each one to be Nikos Kiriakis?
And why was there a dull churning in her stomach as she waited and watched for him though he never came?
A thought struck her like a knife. Had he gone? Left the hotel?
Dismay plunged through her. Dismay at the thought of never seeing Nikos Kiriakis again.
She scraped her chair back abruptly and stood up.
This was bad. She had to stop this. Now. She had to put a lid on this ridiculous reaction she was having. She had to get a grip. Control herself.
Determinedly, she picked up her book and her bag and headed indoors, up to her room. She would keep herself busy today. Take her mind off Nikos Kiriakis. Stop herself recalling in Technicolor detail every last minute of yesterday, and the night before over dinner.
I'll do the windsurfing course, she thought decisively.
Trying to stop myself falling in the water should take my mind off Nikos Kiriakis!
Immediately, like a traitor, came a vivid memory of how he'd moved the salt cellar and cutlery into position with those beautiful long fingers of his, to show her the effects of wind direction on board direction...
She pushed it aside and walked up to Reception to book herself on the course.
She saw him at once, her eyes flying to him, heart leaping like a traitor. He was standing, his back to her, talking to one of the reception desk staff, and he was wearing a hand- tailored business suit again. He looked tall, and dark, and devastating. Her heart leapt again, and then plunged. He ; had a black leather briefcase on the floor beside him, and she could see car keys in his hand. He said something to the receptionist, who smiled and nodded, and then picked up his briefcase.
He saw her the moment he turned. She was poised, immobile, just past the double doors that opened onto the reception area. He walked towards her with his lithe, rapid stride.
'Good morning. You look ready for the sun.' His voice was pleasant, his manner amiable. And there was nothing in it, nothing at all, to indicate that to him she was anything more than a woman he had babysat yesterday for the sake of his business associate and friend Stephanos Ephandrou.
She gave an uncertain smile in return, hiding the con-striction in her throat that had suddenly tightened. 'You look ready for work,' she countered.
He gave a wry smile back. 'As you can see. I have several business appointments today, one of which is in Patra, on the mainland. And what have you planned for today?'
There was no suggestion that she might accompany him. She took her cue, fighting the wave of desolation that was sweeping through her.
'Oh,' she answered brightly—too brightly, 'I've decided
I'm going to give the windsurfing a go. I'm just going to see if there are any lessons free this morning.' She nodded towards the reception desk.
He smiled. 'Very energetic' He shot the cuff back on his sleeve and glanced at his watch. 'Well, do please excuse me. I must set off.'
'Yes. Of course. Please don't let me keep you.' She kept her composure with iron nerve. Then suddenly, as his body language told her he was about to turn away, she said, 'Thank you so much for taking me out and about yesterday, Mr Kiriakis—'
He stilled. Then, with the slightest pull of his mouth, he replied, 'Nikos.' His voice dropped. 'Nikos,' he repeated. His voice was low, his lashes sweeping down over his cheeks. Briefly, so briefly she thought she must have imagined it, he touched the backs of his fingertips to her cheek.
'Enjoy your windsurfing...'
He smiled, and walked away.
Her eyes followed him all the way out of the hotel, her heart beating like a hammer.
Despite her windsurfing lesson, the day seemed to last for ev
er. So did the evening. A restlessness filled her, making every minute seem an hour, every hour a tedious eternity. And the windsurfing had left her with muscles aching in unaccustomed places and a severe loss of dignity—she had, as she had known she would, fallen a depressing number of times.
For the rest of the over-long day, the rest of the lonely, tedious evening, she idled the time away fretfully. Whereas she had once revelled in the laziness of being pampered at a five star hotel, now she was discontented. Restless.
Would she ever see Nikos again?
Stop it! she told herself fiercely, over and over again. Be glad he's gone. Grateful. He was the last thing you needed.
But Nikos had done something to her, and it could not be undone. He had woken something in her that had never been woken before. And it was alive in her—and hungry.
Hungry for him.
She couldn't get Nikos Kiriakis out of her mind. Her thoughts. Her skin. She knew she was being a fool, an idiot—but she co uldn't help herself. Endless arguments went round and round in her head as she paraded every reason, every good reason, why she should put Nikos Kiriakis out ( of her mind. And not one of them had the slightest effect on her.
She wanted him.
It was so very, very simple. She wanted him. Wanted to see him, hear him, be near him, feast her eyes on him. Wanted to be in his company, wanted to feel that wonder-fill, heady sense of intoxication that fired through her whenever she thought of him, remembered him. Remembered those beautiful, dark gold-flecked eyes, that sculpted mouth, the way his silky black hair made her yearn to play her fingers through it, smooth along those high-planed cheek-bones, edge along the line of his jaw...
And above all—above all she wanted him to want her— to desire her, to make love to her.
Nikos. Nikos Kiriakis...
His name sang in her head, in her blood. Heating it like a fever. Filling her with a wanting that left her weak, sick.
Please let me see him again—please!
The litany sounded in her head. Relentless. Hopeless.
The next day was even worse. She couldn't face breakfast downstairs, couldn't face another windsurfing lesson. Couldn't face anything. She wanted to be brave and ask Reception if Nikos Kiriakis had checked out, but she didn't dare. Didn't dare admit to herself that if he had she would be desolate.
