Tempted by Her Greek Tycoon

by Katrina Cudmore

  ‘Your dad would be very proud of what you have achieved here, Georgie.’

  And then he lifted the pasta, the pesto and the wine out of her hands. Placed them on the kitchen counter. He turned back to her and in one easy movement lifted her up and placed her on the counter, between the sink and the temporary two-ring gas burner she was using until her utilities were fully connected.

  ‘I’ll make the lunch.’

  She went to object, but for some insane reason tears blinded her momentarily. She tried to clear her throat silently but it came out as a croak. Loukas glanced at her but said nothing. She couldn’t even manage to tell him where the saucepan was when he went in search of one. He eventually located it, along with all the other utensils he needed. Not once did he speak to her...demand anything of her.

  It was this silent acceptance of what she was feeling that proved to be her undoing.

  Loukas moved beside her to fill the saucepan with water at the sink, and his assured movements, his strength and understanding, sent a fat tear rolling down her cheek. She swiped at it, hoping he hadn’t spotted it.

  What is happening to me? I’ve never cried like this before. This is so embarrassing... But...but I need to talk. I need to tell him...

  ‘My dad was living and working in Croatia when he first visited Talos. He phoned me on his first night here, telling me about how gorgeous it was. He said it was an island of dreams.’

  She swallowed against the croakiness of her voice but there was no stopping the words that fell out of her.

  ‘The second night he rang and told me he had found the perfect farmhouse he could renovate. That he was going to move here and open a cookery school.’

  Loukas placed the pan on the gas burner and drew back to lean against the kitchen counter opposite her. And still the words spilt out of her, his soft gaze cracking something inside her even though her cheeks were hot with the embarrassment of being this emotional in front of him...her boss, and—okay, she’d admit it—the guy she wrongly fancied rotten.

  I must look like a mess, with red eyes and blotchy cheeks...

  ‘He was so excited... But that was my dad all over. He loved travelling, finding new places. It was only when I came here last summer that I realised just how serious he was. For the first time I thought he might actually settle somewhere permanently. Throughout my childhood we moved constantly. He always said that one day we would settle, but it never happened. I stayed with him until I was twenty, then we started living in separate countries because of our work. Last year he went back to Croatia, while the house purchase here was going through, to work out his contract as head chef at a restaurant in Zagreb and also to raise as much money as he could for the renovations. I spoke to him every day before I went to work...and often in the evenings too.’

  She stopped as vicious pain punched a hole in her heart. Memories of the mundaneness of her last conversation with her dad, the fact that she had only absentmindedly told him she loved him as she rushed out to work, without any thought that it would be the last time she would ever speak to him, knocked her sideways.

  Her mouth wobbled and she was unable to form any more words. She tried again...but her lips, her tongue, felt like marshmallow. A large rock was stuck in her throat.

  Her gaze met Loukas’s. I can’t speak. Help me.

  The pain in her chest gave way to astonishment when he instantly answered her call—standing in front of her, gently placing a hand on her knee.

  ‘Take your time.’

  She closed her eyes. His fingers tightened ever so slightly against her knee, and his thumb rubbed against the inside of her leg.

  Her heart calmed. She opened her eyes to him and said, ‘I had just arrived at work when I got a call from his boss in Croatia. She was barely coherent. She told me he had died. I kept saying she had to be wrong...that I had spoken to him only thirty minutes before. I went into total shock... I still can’t believe he’s gone.’

  ‘It’s only been a few months, Georgie.’

  Fresh tears threatened at the back of her eyes at the understanding in his voice, in his eyes. ‘Does it get any easier?’

  For a moment he looked away, and then he ran his free hand against the back of his neck, his other hand on her knee steady and solid and reassuring in the face of the ache that was swirling inside her...in the air between them.

  ‘The pain isn’t as intense...but I’m guessing that the sadness will always be there. I suppose it becomes a part of you, changes the person that you are.’

  Her heart missed a beat at the loneliness in his voice. ‘You still miss your parents?’

  He glanced towards her and then away. He arched his neck. ‘I was with my dad when he died. I wish I had done more to save him.’

  Thrown by his admission, she scrambled for suitable words. ‘I... I’m sure you did everything that you could.’

  He dropped his hand from her knee. ‘If I’d started CPR more quickly...got Nikos to call the emergency services immediately...who knows what difference those things could have made?’ His eyes swept over hers for the briefest moment. ‘What I do know is that three young children were left without a father afterwards.’

  She reached out and touched his arm. His jaw tightened. She didn’t speak until he met her gaze again.

  ‘You can’t blame yourself. What benefit can it bring? It won’t bring your dad back, and I’m sure he wouldn’t want you feeling in any way responsible.’

  He shrugged in response and stepped back, tilting his head. ‘Have you any other family?’

  She could tell that her words had had little impact on him. She hated to see him blame himself unfairly—but then hadn’t she always done the same over her mum’s disappearance from her life? Logic and emotion often didn’t merge when it came to the people you loved.

  All through her childhood Georgie had felt embarrassed, somehow at fault for her mum leaving. It had even got to the stage when—to her horror now—she had begun to tell people that her mum had died. It had been easier than saying, My mum went away on holiday to visit her family and never came back.

  And, stupidly, those feelings still lived inside her. Rationally, she knew that she was wrong to blame herself, but that didn’t stop the giddy panic in her stomach.

  She inhaled deeply and tried to answer Loukas’s question coherently. ‘My mum left us when I was seven. She moved to Costa Rica. Her dad was originally from there, and moved to England where he met my gran. Both of my mum’s parents died when I was young... My mum went to Costa Rica after my granddad died to meet his family for the first time. She fell in love with a guy there and never came home.’

  His eyes wide, Loukas asked, ‘Are you serious? She never came back?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘She left her seven-year-old?’

  The horror in Loukas’s eyes was so great she felt almost compelled to defend her mum. ‘She sent me a letter when I was fourteen, asking me to visit her. Explaining that she hadn’t wanted to take me away from my dad. That she was sorry if she’d hurt me.’

  ‘Did you go?’

  ‘No. I could barely even read the letter. I just wanted to block out any memory of her.’

  Loukas nodded at this, before asking, ‘Have you had any contact since?’

  ‘She contacted me after my dad died. We spoke...but it was awkward and horrible, really.’

  Loukas’s hand moved up and his fingers touched her arm. The gesture was matched by the compassion that filled his soft brown-eyed gaze. ‘How do you feel about her now?’

  It was a good question. Georgie still tried not to think about her mum too much—and was this really a conversation she should be having with her boss?

  But his gentle understanding, his own surprising frankness, his acute perception and the unnerving closeness of him, the size and strength of his body, the heart-stopping effect of his touch, h
ad her admitting, ‘I suppose I feel sad, more than anything else. I’ve accepted that we’ll never be close. I feel sad for my dad, especially... Though he pretended otherwise, and was fun and outgoing on the outside, he was never really happy after she left. Maybe he would have found happiness here on Talos.’

  ‘You don’t sound sure.’

  ‘After moving and travelling for the best part of twenty years it would have been a hard habit to break.’

  His hand dropped from her arm. Something shifted in his eyes. ‘But don’t you agree that, like any habit, it’s possible to break it if it’s something you really want?’

  For a moment she was thrown by the intensity of his stare. Her heart thumped in her chest. Just as it had done last night when he’d asked her why she didn’t plan to stay on Talos permanently. Was he asking her for reasons other than general curiosity? And why did she feel both thrilled and scared at that prospect?

  She jumped down off the counter and pointed to the saucepan on the burner. ‘The saucepan is about to boil dry.’

  With a low curse he lunged for the saucepan, moved it over to the other burner and switched off the gas. He rolled his shoulders before turning to her. ‘Let’s forget about lunch and go swimming instead.’

  Was he serious? ‘Now...? Here?’

  He shrugged. ‘Why not?’

  Georgie knew her mouth had dropped open, but it felt as if her brain was moving in slow motion. Only one thought was slowly filtering through her brain. He got her. This huge Greek god—the most incredibly handsome man she had ever encountered, whose presence alone sent every nerve in her body jangling—this loyal family man, her infuriating and demanding boss, for whom she was supposed to be finding a wife, got her.

  He got her.

  He knew even before she did that what she needed right now, more than anything else in the world, was to lose herself in the soothing coolness of the Mediterranean, where she could wash off all the draining emotion clinging to her skin.

  She eyed him teasingly, her heart dancing in her chest. ‘But you have no swimsuit.’

  His eyes devoured that teasing glint and a slow smile curled on his lips. With another shrug he sauntered to the doorway and out on to the terrace, and with one nonchalant movement whipped off his wine-coloured polo shirt.

  Oh, good God! What’s he doing? That chest...those drum-tight abs... I think I need to sit down.

  He stepped out of his moccasins, lifted his head with a lazy grin and said, ‘I’ll see you in the water.’

  * * *

  Ten minutes later Georgie stood on the terrace steps and watched Loukas swim out from the shore, his front crawl stroke strong and assured. She was going to brazen this out. Pretend that he was just one of her customers.

  She pulled at the leg of her swimsuit and then, unable to stop herself, surreptitiously adjusted the bust of her costume.

  Stop it, Georgie. What does it matter how you look? He’s your boss and your neighbour. No more! Now, go and give him the same attitude you’d give Nikos and Marios.

  She marched down the path and across the fine sand of the beach, trying to channel some cool-girl attitude even when Loukas turned in the water and watched her approach.

  She sucked in her tummy, regretting too late all those galaktoboureko—the custard pies she’d become addicted to since she had come to Talos.

  She waded into the water, tried not to gasp too loudly at the chill and called out to him, ‘I have swimming goggles for you to use.’

  He laughed and waved her offering away. ‘I don’t need them.’

  She raised her hand, holding the goggles up higher and called out, ‘You will after ten minutes in that salty water.’

  With that Loukas dived under the water, his huge body barely making a splash as he sliced through the sea.

  She waited for him to resurface. And waited. And waited. Then she screamed when she spotted a shadow moving through the water close by. And leapt into the air when a hand grabbed her calf.

  With a self-satisfied grin Loukas emerged from the water. ‘Goggles are for wimps.’

  She tried to give him an unimpressed stare, but that was hard to do when her attention was diverted by the sight of slicked-back wet hair, seawater dripping down the hard planes of a man’s chest and the constant question reeling in her mind...

  What is he wearing...? Could he be totally naked?

  She tried not to look, tried at first to meet his gaze, but there was a lazy sexiness there that she wasn’t able to handle. Then she tried to stare at his collarbone, but thoughts of laying her lips there had her eyes fleeing, and before she knew it they were trailing down, down, down, until she saw a dark shadow under the water.

  Her eyes shot back up to his.

  He smirked. ‘My underwear...it can dry while we have lunch later.’

  Georgie shrugged, flung his goggles onto the sand. She pulled on her own, ignoring his bemused look—why did people who’d grown up by the Mediterranean seem universally to find the concept of wearing goggles amusing? Nikos and Marios were the same—and sliced into the water.

  Let’s see how cool and laid-back the boss will be after a hard twenty-minute swim.

  Her initial uneven strokes soon gave way to a familiar rhythm, her earlier upset for her dad and her jitteriness around Loukas easing and eventually disappearing in the hypnotic strokes, the caress of the water...and the reassurance of the constant shadow of Loukas, who stayed by her side, stroke for stroke, throughout her swim.

  They followed the coastline in the direction of Talos Harbour until they came to a cove, where the deep water gave way to a sea floor alive with marine life. She slowed her strokes and Loukas did likewise, and eventually they floated towards the shore with small kicks, pointing out to one another the shoals of darting fish.

  In the shallows they stood and waded their way onto the small beach of the cove.

  Clear of the water, Loukas said, ‘Great beach... I’ve seen it from my boat but never come ashore here.’

  Georgie smiled.

  And then they just looked at one another.

  Drops of seawater trickled down over the hard, tanned lines of his face, over his powerful neck and into the crevices of his collarbone.

  Her heart thump-thump-thumped in her chest.

  His hand moved against her hair, pushing it back off her face. It stayed just above her ear, cradling her head. And then he was easing her towards him, the gentle teasing in his eyes quickly giving way to a darkness that melted every last vestige of sense and reason that she was holding on to.

  Her chest bumped into his. And then her hips landed against his thigh. Hard wet skin, cool to the touch.

  Her eyes locked on the light swirls of dark hair on his chest. Unsteadily, her hand reached out and landed just below his ribs. Her breath hitched.

  What are you doing, Georgie?

  Go away... I don’t know, and frankly right now I don’t care.

  Loukas shifted, his body angling in even closer to hers. ‘Georgie...?’

  She lifted her head to his voice, parting her lips.

  Passionate, searching, intense brown eyes held hers, and then with a low curse his mouth was on hers.

  Oh. Oh. Oh...wow.

  Her bones melted...her heart spluttered and danced and throbbed. And his warm tender mouth teased, caressed, and opened up a whole new world of desire and attraction for her.

  She arched into him, every cell in her body desperate for his embrace. It took her a few seconds to realise that it was she who had moaned. And in response his arm had hooked around her waist and he’d pulled her into him so that she felt every hard edge of him while his tongue explored her mouth.

  She lifted both hands. Placed them on his neck, her fingers moving up to touch the fine bristle on his jawline. She moaned again.

  And she almost cried when he slowly
pulled away. But just his lips. His body and forehead stayed touching against hers.

  With a low groan he muttered, ‘That wasn’t the best of ideas, was it?’

  Chapter Five

  THIS WAS ALL WRONG. He shouldn’t have kissed Georgie. He shouldn’t be wanting to kiss her plump, soft, gorgeous lips again. And again. And again. And he most definitely shouldn’t be wanting to pull her down onto the golden sand of this cove and kiss every gorgeous inch of that incredible body.

  A very male urge to possess barrelled through him. Pleading with him to pull down the straps of her black swimsuit. A swimsuit that had been designed with only functionality in mind. And yet Georgie somehow managed to wear it with an oblivious sexy appeal that made it all the more sexy in his mind—it exposed the soft indents just below her hip bones, made the round fullness of her breasts visible beneath the stretched fabric.

  He should move away, but some invisible pull kept his forehead against hers, his hands resting on the soft flare of her hips, his thumbs touching the edge of the fabric just above that soft indent of her hip where his fingers were itching to stroke.

  Her long eyelashes, beaded with tiny drops of seawater, blinked and blinked and blinked. And those hazel eyes, full of brilliant greens and rusts, like some forgotten treasure at the bottom of the sea, were wide, as though she too was utterly dumbfounded by their kiss.

  How could a kiss be so thrillingly new and yet so familiar? As though it was a kiss you had always known would some day come along and blast away everything you thought you knew and thought you wanted.

  Georgie pulled a few inches away from him, wariness shadowing her eyes.

  No wonder, with what he had just said: ‘That wasn’t the best of ideas, was it?’

  Despite his words he wanted her to stay just for a little while longer. He was liking her closeness too much, liking the tempting promise of what might be. So without much thought he added, ‘But for something that wasn’t the best of ideas... I have to admit it was pretty spectacular.’

  Those dark lashes blinked again, and the wariness was replaced by a slow, teasing glint. ‘I think you’ve broken your newest HR policy.’