by Jane Porter
After fifteen minutes Elizabeth gave up the vigil. Kristian wasn’t coming. Finally she ate, concentrating on savoring the excellent meal and doing her best to avoid thinking about the next confrontation with her mulish patient.
Lunch finished, Elizabeth wiped her mouth on her serviette and pushed away from the table. Time to check on Kristian.
In the darkened library, Kristian lifted his head as she entered the room. “Have a nice lunch?” he asked in terse Greek.
She winced at the bitterness in his voice. “Yes, thank you. You have an excellent cook.”
“Did you enjoy the view?”
“It is spectacular,” she agreed, although she’d actually spent most of the time thinking about him instead of the view. She hadn’t felt this involved with any case in years. But then, she hadn’t nursed anyone directly in years, either.
After her stint in nursing school, and then three years working at a regional hospital, she’d gone back to school and earned her Masters in Business Administration, with an emphasis on Hospital and Medical Administration. After graduating she had immediately found work. So much work she had realized she’d be better off working for herself than anyone else—which was how her small, exclusive First Class Rehab had been born.
But Kristian Koumantaros’s case was special. Kristian Koumantaros hadn’t improved in her company’s care. He’d worsened.
And to Elizabeth it was completely unacceptable.
Locating her notebook on the side-table, where she’d left it earlier, she took a seat on the couch. “Mr. Koumantaros, I know you don’t want a nurse, but you still need one. In fact, you need several.”
“Why not prescribe a fleet?” he asked sarcastically.
“I think I shall.” She flipped open her brown leather portfolio and, scanning her previous notes, began to scribble again. “A live-in nursing assistant to help with bathing, personal hygiene. Male, preferably. Someone strong to lift you in and out of your chair since you’re not disposed to walk.”
“I can’t walk, Mrs.—”
“Ms. Hatchet,” she supplied, before crisply continuing, “And you could walk if you had worked with your last four physical therapists. They all tried, Mr. Koumantaros, but you were more interested in terrifying them than in making progress.”
Elizabeth wrote another couple of notes, then clicked her pen closed. “You also require an occupational therapist, as you desperately need someone to adapt your lifestyle. If you’ve no intention of getting better, your house and habits will need to change. Ramps, a second lift, a properly outfitted bathroom, rails and grabs in the pool—”
“No,” he thundered, face darkening. “No bars, no rails, and no goddamn grabs in this house.”
She clicked her pen open again. “Perhaps it’s time we called in a psychiatrist—someone to evaluate your depression and recommend a course of therapy. Pills, perhaps, or sessions of counseling.”
“I will never talk—”
“You are now,” she said cheerfully, scribbling yet another note to herself, glancing at Kristian Koumantaros from beneath her lashes. His jaw was thick, and rage was stiffening his spine, improving his posture, curling his hands into fists.
Good, she thought, with a defiant tap of her pen. He hadn’t given up on living, just given up on healing. There was something she—and her agency—could still do.
She watched him for a long, dispassionate moment. “Talking—counseling—will help alleviate your depression, and it’s depression that’s keeping you from recovering.”
“I’m not depressed.”
“Then someone to treat your rage. You are raging, Mr. Koumantaros. Are you aware of your tone?”
“My tone?” He threw himself back in his chair, hands flailing against the rims of the wheels, furious skin against steel. “My tone? You come into my house and lecture me about my tone? Who the hell do you think you are?”
The raw savagery in his voice cut her more than his words, and for a moment the library spun. Elizabeth held her breath, silent, stunned.
“You think you’re so good.” Kristian’s voice sounded from behind her, mocking her. “So righteous, so sure of everything. But would you be so sure of yourself if the rug was pulled from beneath your feet? Would you be so callous then?”
Of course he didn’t know the rug had been pulled from beneath her feet. No one got through life unscathed. But her personal tragedies had toughened her, and she thought of the old wounds as scar tissue…something that was just part of her.
Even so, Elizabeth felt a moment of gratitude that Kristian couldn’t see her, or the conflicting emotions flickering over her face. Hers wasn’t a recent loss, hers was seven years ago, and yet if she wasn’t careful to keep up the defenses the loss still felt as though it had happened yesterday.
As the silence stretched Kristian laughed low, harshly. “I got you on that one.” His laughter deepened, and then abruptly ended. “Hard to sit in judgment until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes.”
Through the open doors Elizabeth could hear the warble of a bird, and she wondered if it was the dark green bird, the one with the lemon-yellow breast, she’d seen while eating on the patio terrace.
“I’m not as callous as you think,” she said, her voice cool enough to contradict her words. “But I’m here to help you, and I’ll do whatever I must to see you move into the next step of recovery.”
“And why should I want to recover?” His head angled, and his expression was ferocious. “And don’t give me some sickly-sweet answer about finding my true love and having a family and all that nonsense.”
Elizabeth’s lips curved in a faint, hard smile. No, she’d never dangle love as a motivational tool, because even that could be taken away. “I wasn’t. You should know by now that’s not my style.”
“So tell me. Give it to me straight. Why should I bother to get better?”
Why bother? Why bother, indeed? Elizabeth felt her heart race—part anger, part sympathy. “Because you’re still alive, that’s why.”
“That’s it?” Kristian laughed bitterly. “Sorry, that’s not much incentive.”
“Too bad,” she answered, thinking she was sorry about his accident, but he wasn’t dead.
Maybe he couldn’t walk easily or see clearly, but he was still intact and he had his life, his heart, his body, his mind. Maybe he wasn’t exactly as he had been before the injury, but that didn’t make him less of a man…not unless he let it. And he was allowing it.
Pressing the tip of her finger against her mouth, she fought to hold back all the angry things she longed to say, knowing she wasn’t here to judge. He was just a patient, and her job was to provide medical care, not morality lessons. But, even acknowledging that it wasn’t her place to criticize, she felt her tension grow.
Despite her best efforts, she resented his poor-me attitude, was irritated that he was so busy looking at the small picture he was missing the big one. Life was so precious. Life was a gift, not a right, and he still possessed the gift.
He could love and be loved. Fall in love, make love, shower someone with affection—hugs, kisses, tender touches. There was no reason he couldn’t make someone feel cherished, important, unforgettable. No reason other than that he didn’t want to, that he’d rather feel sorry for himself than reach out to another.
“Because, for whatever reason, Mr. Koumantaros, you’re still here with us, still alive. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Live. Live fully, wisely. And if you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for those who didn’t escape the avalanche that day with you.” She took a deep breath. “Do it for Cosima. Do it for Andreas.”
CHAPTER THREE
COSIMA AND ANDREAS. Kristian was surprised his English Nurse Cratchett knew their names, as it was Cosima and Andreas who haunted him. And for very different reasons.
Kristian shifted restlessly in bed. His legs ached at the moment. Sometimes the pain was worse than others, and it was intense tonight. Nothing made him comfor
table.
The accident. A winter holiday with friends and family in the French Alps.
He’d been in a coma for weeks after the accident, and when he’d come out of it he’d been immobilized for another couple weeks to give his spine a chance to heal. He’d been told he was lucky there was no lasting paralysis, told he was lucky to have survived such a horrific accident.
But for Kristian the horror continued. And it wasn’t even his eyes he missed, or his strength. It was Andreas, Andreas—not just his big brother, but his best friend.
And while he and Andreas had always been about the extreme—extreme skiing, extreme diving, extreme parasailing—Andreas, the eldest, had been the straight arrow, as good as the sun, while Kristian had played the bad boy and rebel.
Put them together—fair-haired Andreas and devilish Kristian—and they’d been unstoppable. They’d had too much damn fun. Not that they hadn’t worked—they’d worked hard—but they had played even harder.
It had helped that they were both tall, strong, physical. They’d practically grown up on skis, and Kristian couldn’t even remember a time when he and Andreas hadn’t participated in some ridiculous, reckless thrill-seeking adventure. Their father, Stavros, had been an avid sportsman, and their stunning French mother hadn’t been just beautiful, she’d once represented France in the Winter Olympics. Sport had been the family passion.
Of course there had been dangers, but their father had taught them to read mountains, study weather reports, discuss snow conditions with avalanche experts. They’d coupled their love of adventure with intelligent risk-taking. And, so armed, they had embraced life.
And why shouldn’t they have? They’d been part of a famous, wealthy, powerful family. Money and opportunity had never been an issue.
But money and opportunity didn’t protect one from tragedy. It didn’t insure against heartbreak or loss.
Andreas was the reason Kristian needed the pills. Andreas was the reason he couldn’t sleep.
Why hadn’t he saved his brother first? Why had he waited?
Kristian stirred yet again, his legs alive and on fire. The doctors said it was nerves and tissue healing, but the pain was maddening. Felt like licks of lightning everywhere.
Kristian searched the top of his bedside table for medicine but found nothing. His nurse must have taken the pain meds he always kept there.
If only he could sleep.
If he could just relax maybe the pain would go away. But he wasn’t relaxing, and he needed something—anything—to take his mind off the accident and what had happened that day on Le Meije.
There had been ten of them who had set off together for a final run. They’d been heli-skiing all week, and it had been their next to last day. Conditions had looked good, the ski guides had given the okay, and the helicopter had taken off. Less than two hours later, only three of their group survived.
Cosima had lived, but not Andreas.
Kristian had saved Cosima instead of his brother, and that was the decision that tormented him.
Kristian had never even liked Cosima—not even at their first meeting. From the very beginning she’d struck him as a shallow party girl who lived for the social scene, and nothing she’d said or done during the next two years had convinced him otherwise. Of course Andreas had never seen that side in her. He’d only seen her beauty, her style, and her fun—and maybe she was beautiful, stylish, but Andreas could have done better.
Driven to find relief, Kristian searched the table-top again, before painfully rolling over onto his stomach to reach into the small drawers, in case the bottles had been put there. Nothing.
Then he remembered the bottle tucked between the mattresses, and was just reaching for it when his bedroom door opened and he heard the click of a light switch on the wall.
“You’re still awake.” It was dear old Cratchett, on her night rounds.
“Missing the hospital routine?” he drawled, slowly rolling onto his back and dragging himself into a sitting position.
Elizabeth approached the bed. “I haven’t worked in a hospital in years. My company specializes in private home healthcare.”
He listened to her footsteps, trying to imagine her age. He’d played this game with all the nurses. Since he couldn’t see, he created his own visual images. And, listening to Elizabeth Hatchet’s voice and footsteps, he began to create a mental picture of her.
Age? Thirty-something. Maybe close to forty.
Brunette, redhead, black-haired or blonde?
She leaned over the bed and he felt her warmth even as he caught a whiff of a light fresh scent—the same crisp, slightly sweet fragrance he’d smelled earlier. Not exactly citrus, and not hay—possibly grass? Fresh green grass. With sunshine. But also rain.
“Can’t sleep?” she asked, and her voice sounded tantalizingly near.
“I never sleep.”
“In pain?”
“My legs are on fire.”
“You need to use them, exercise them. It’d improve circulation and eventually alleviate most of the pain symptoms you’re experiencing.”
For a woman with such a brusque bedside manner she had a lovely voice. The tone and pitch reminded him of the string section of the orchestra. Not a cello or bass, but a violin. Warm, sweet, evocative.
“You sound so sure of yourself,” he said, hearing her move again, sensing her closeness.
“This is my job. It’s what I do,” she said. “And tell me, Mr. Koumantaros, what do you do—besides throw yourself down impossibly vertical slopes?”
“You don’t approve of extreme skiing?”
Elizabeth felt her chest grow tight. Extreme skiing. Jumping off mountains. Dodging avalanches. It was ridiculous—ridiculous to tempt fate like that.
Impatiently she tugged the sheets and coverlet straight at the foot of the bed, before smoothing the covers with a jerk on the sheet at its edge.
“I don’t approve of risking life for sport,” she answered. “No.”
“But sport is exercise—and isn’t that what you’re telling me I must do?”
She looked down at him, knowing he was attempting to bait her once again. He wasn’t wearing a shirt, and his chest was big, his shoulders immense. She realized that this was all just a game to him, like his love of sport.
He wanted to push her—had pushed her nurses, pushed all of them. Trying to distract them from doing their job was a form of entertainment for him, a diversion to keep him from facing the consequences of his horrific accident.
“Mr. Koumantaros, there are plenty of exercises that don’t risk life or limb—or cost an exorbitant amount of money.”
“Is it the sport or the money you object to, Nurse?”
“Both,” she answered firmly.
“How refreshing. An Englishwoman with an opinion on everything.”
Once again she didn’t rise to the bait. She knew he must be disappointed, too. Maybe he’d been able to torment his other nurses, but he wouldn’t succeed in torturing her.
She had a job to do, and she’d do it, and then she’d go home and life would continue—far more smoothly once she had Kristian Koumantaros out of it.
“Your pillows,” she said, her voice as starchy as the white blouse tucked into cream slacks. Her only bit of ornamentation was the slender gold belt at her waist.
She’d thought she’d given him ample warning that she was about to lean over and adjust his pillows, but as she reached across him he suddenly reached up toward her and his hand became entangled in her hair.
She quickly stepped back, flustered. She’d heard all about Kristian’s playboy antics, knew his reputation was that of a lady’s man, but she was dumbfounded that he’d still try to pull that on her. “Without being able to see, you didn’t realize I was there,” she said coolly, wanting to avoid all allegations of improper conduct. “In the future I will ask you to move before I adjust your pillows or covers.”
“It was just your hair,” he said mildly. “It brushed my face.
I was merely moving it out of the way.”
“I’ll make sure to wear it pulled back tomorrow.”
“Your hair is very long.”
She didn’t want to get into the personal arena. She already felt exceedingly uncomfortable being back in Greece, and so isolated here on Taygetos, at a former monastery. Kristian Koumantaros couldn’t have found a more remote place to live if he’d tried.
“I would have thought your hair was all short and frizzy,” he continued, “or up tight in a bun. You sound like a woman who’d wear her hair scraped back and tightly pinned up.”
He was still trying to goad her, still trying to get a reaction. “I do like buns, yes. They’re professional.”
“And you’re so very professional,” he mocked.
She stiffened, her face paling. An icy lump hit her stomach.
Her former husband, another Greek playboy, had put her through two years of hell before they were finally legally separated, and it had taken her nearly five years to recover. One Greek playboy had already broken her heart. She refused to let another break her spirit.
Elizabeth squared her shoulders, lifted her head. “Since there’s nothing else, Mr. Koumantaros, I’ll say goodnight.” And before he could speak she’d exited the room and firmly shut the door behind her.
But Elizabeth’s control snapped the moment she reached the hall. Swiftly, she put a hand out to brace herself against the wall.
She couldn’t do this.
Couldn’t stay here, live like this, be tormented like this.
She despised spoiled, pampered Greeks—particularly wealthy tycoons with far too much time on their hands.
After her divorce she’d vowed she’d never return to Greece, but here she was. Not just in Greece, but trapped on a mountain peak in a medieval monastery with Kristian Koumantaros, a man so rich, so powerful, he made Arab sheikhs look poor.
Elizabeth exhaled hard, breathing out in a desperate, painful rush.
She couldn’t let tomorrow be a repeat of today, either. She was losing control of Koumantaros and the situation already.
