Tempted by Her Greek Tycoon

by Katrina Cudmore

  * * *

  Later that night, arriving home, Loukas found Georgie and Angeliki standing side by side at his kitchen island, both carefully lifting eggs out of a catering size saucepan and dropping them down onto wire cooling racks to join what looked like a legion of red-coloured eggs—at least two hundred, if not more.

  The eggs had been coloured red with a dye created by boiling the skins of onions in water and white vinegar—a tradition for families on Megali Pempti, Holy Thursday—with both the egg and the red dye symbolising life and the resurrection.

  On Easter Sunday—Kyriaki tou Paska—the eggs would be used in a tapping game called Tsougrisma, which had two players tapping the ends of their egg lightly against each other. The player whose egg remained uncracked won and, it was said, would have good luck during the year.

  It was a game Loukas had played throughout his childhood with his family; he had been eighteen before he’d become the overall winner—much to the annoyance of his father, who had won every year up until then.

  As though sensing his presence, Angeliki glanced up, her mouth tightening when she spotted him standing at the kitchen door. They had argued earlier over her room allocations. Angeliki had proclaimed that she had everything under control and that he didn’t need to interfere. But he had refused to listen to her and had insisted on going to the guest’s room to speak to him and his wife personally.

  Angeliki had fought with him all the way up to the room, and given him a triumphant look when the guest had assured him that he was in fact now much happier with the room Angeliki had allocated to them—especially as it had a much larger terrace in comparison to his usual room.

  Now, he stepped into the kitchen and nodded to both women, who silently followed his movements. He poured himself some water from the fridge before turning back to face their displeased gazes. He stared back, refusing to feel guilty for doing his job and frustrated that, despite his asking Georgie to keep her distance from Angeliki, she was not doing so.

  He was frustrated with the endless crises they’d faced earlier. Frustrated by how much Georgie was getting under his skin.

  He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about that kiss. Even when he had met Katia and Nina for dinner.

  Neither woman was what he was looking for—Katia was sweet but much too quiet, whereas Nina was even more of a workaholic than he was and had yawned when he’d spoken about his siblings.

  Okay, so he’d admit it: he hadn’t tried very hard with Katia and Nina. And Georgie and that kiss were to blame. Today, as Georgie had rushed around the hotel, full of smiles and welcoming chat for their guests, intervening and sorting out problems so cheerfully, he had been torn by the desire to pull her towards him and kiss her again and irritation because her calmness had mocked the seriousness of the problems they were facing—mocked his own exasperation.

  Angeliki dropped her slotted spoon down onto a ceramic platter he hadn’t seen in years and said, ‘I’d better get home.’

  Wasn’t that the plate his mother had used every year on Megali Pempti, when she’d dyed the eggs with Angeliki? Where on earth had Angeliki found it?

  Georgie, her slotted spoon hovering over the saucepan filled with red dye, looked at Angeliki in surprise, and then at him, her mouth twisting unhappily before she leant closer to Angeliki, her free hand touching against Angeliki’s arm.

  ‘But we’re not finished with the eggs.’

  Angeliki gave Georgie an apologetic smile before looking back in Loukas’s direction. There was nothing apologetic in the glare she gave him. ‘I’m tired...it’s been a long and very trying day.’

  Georgie tried to persuade Angeliki to stay but she refused. After she had left, he and Georgie eyed each other warily for a few moments. Then, waving her spoon at the legion of eggs sitting on the countertop, she picked up a cloth and a large bottle of olive oil and thrust them in his direction.

  ‘Help me finish these—they all still need to be rubbed with oil.’ Her eyes narrowed dangerously when he didn’t move and she added, ‘It’s the least you can do, considering Angeliki left because of you.’

  He wasn’t in the mood for rubbing olive oil into eggs. Not after the day he’d had.

  But, given the determined glint in Georgie’s eye, he relented and took the cloth and the oil and stood opposite her.

  He considered the endless amount of eggs before them. ‘Why so many?’

  ‘Angeliki said that your mum used to personally dye one for each of the guests. She wants to do the same this year, to celebrate the reopening.’

  Loukas stared at the eggs, feeling a wave of tiredness and guilt sweep over him. He reached for an egg and began to oil it with quick rubs, cursing silently when he discovered the egg he had chosen was still hot to the touch.

  He glanced over to Georgie and caught her eye. Was that a smirk on her mouth? He worked his jaw and flicked his gaze back to the egg.

  ‘The guests are loving the hotel. The feedback on social media is incredible,’ Georgie said.

  He shrugged, his annoyance over all the calamities of the day overshadowing any positive feedback they might be receiving.

  He looked up at the loud sigh Georgie gave.

  ‘Why are you so hard on yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘You’ve just reopened a five-star hotel that people are raving about. A picture posted online of one of the maisonette’s private pools has got over a hundred thousand “likes” already.’

  ‘Yes, but we’ve had one disaster after another all day. Clapping ourselves on the back when we got so many things wrong is both ridiculous and shortsighted.’

  Georgie walked to the sink and poured the dye from the saucepan down the drain, her movements quick and sharp, before turning back to him. ‘But you coped. You coped as a family. You worked together. Isn’t that what’s important?’

  He dropped the egg he was oiling and stared at her. She was right. His siblings had been proactive all day. But it had come too late.

  He blew out an irritated breath and said, ‘A lazy tailor finds his thread too long.’

  Georgie’s brows slammed together in confusion.

  He picked up another egg and explained. ‘Yes, the others were proactive today...as all three of them have been keen to point out to me. But they are not prepared to admit how their actions prior to today caused all the problems in the first place. If Nikos had delivered the renovation of the hotel on schedule we would have had time to test the systems. Marios should have ensured that all the water taxis were available from early morning. And I should have anticipated all the other problems that occurred.’

  She shook her head and went to the warming drawer beneath the oven. From it she lifted a baking tray, and then walked back to the kitchen island, where she laid it down. She unwrapped the cling film that covered the tray to reveal a circular plaited tsoureki—the traditional rich and yeasty Easter bread flavoured with orange and mahlab, a spice made from ground cherry stones.

  He stared at it incredulously. ‘When did you make that?’

  ‘Angeliki and I made it together this evening.’

  He dropped the egg he was oiling, and the cloth. ‘I asked you not to grow too close to Angeliki.’ He swept his hand across the counter, over the dyed eggs, the tsoureki. ‘This is the first Easter since my mum died that she has done any of this.’

  ‘Well, maybe it’s time that she did. And anyway, Loukas, she’s eighteen. You can’t say on one hand that you want her to be independent and on the other hand that you want to protect her from me... For crying out loud, what’s that even about? You’d think I was a bad influence! I’m baking bread with her—not leading her astray with drink and drugs.’

  ‘And what happens when you leave Talos?’

  ‘Angeliki will know that she has my friendship wherever I go. Anyway, I’ll be back every summer.’ She tu
rned and grabbed a bowl from a cupboard and cracked two undyed eggs into it. She picked up a fork, then paused, her eyes holding his, ‘I’d like to think that you and I can remain friends too, when I leave at the end of the summer.’

  He swallowed against the gentleness in her voice and nodded. Could they remain friends? Were they even friends now? Or was the awkward attraction between them always going to be a barrier against the truthfulness that any friendship demanded?

  She stared at him for a moment, as though waiting for him to speak, but when he didn’t she shrugged one shoulder, looked down at the bowl in her hands and began to whisk the eggs furiously.

  ‘For what it’s worth, I think today went pretty well, all things considered, and I think you should give yourself and everyone around you a break.’

  ‘We can’t become complacent.’

  Georgie began to dab the beaten egg onto the top of the tsoureki with a pastry brush. ‘I get that, Loukas—I do. But I hate seeing you being so tough on yourself. I get that you were made responsible for your siblings at a young age. And I know how tough it must have been—not only being guardian to three teenagers but also growing a business in the midst of a recession. But you have to stop some time and say to yourself, I’ve done my best.’

  ‘But we’re barely functioning as a family.’

  ‘You’re probably no worse than most families—especially those who are in business together. The architectural firm where I worked in Malaga was owned by two brothers. They fought. But the difference was that they trusted one another.’

  ‘I do trust—’

  Georgie interrupted him. ‘You need to let the others breathe...to make mistakes and learn by them. Learn by sorting out their problems by themselves, not having you swoop in and take over. They need to know that you have their backs when they do mess up. You can’t function as a family if there’s no trust there.’

  He watched her place the tsoureki in the oven, his irritation growing. He was feeling under attack, hating to hear the truth of her words. ‘I’d trust them if they stepped up to the mark.’

  She closed the oven door and turned and regarded him sadly. ‘But you constantly undermine their confidence by second-guessing everything they do. You have paralysed them in their decision-making because they’re so scared of upsetting you.’

  Was she being serious? ‘They’re not scared of upsetting me.’

  Georgie placed the bowl and fork into the sink. Then, walking back to the counter, she held his gaze and said softly, ‘They love you...you’re their big brother...and they’re terrified of disappointing you.’

  He gritted his teeth. Why was she insisting on interfering?

  Then he dipped his head, taken aback by how good it felt to hear someone say that despite everything—despite all the arguments over the past few years—there was a possibility that his siblings loved him.

  But then he lifted his head again, feeling righteousness taking over—a righteousness to fight the guilt of being a brother who scared his siblings.

  ‘I have to keep us—this business—together. The only time they perform is when I keep them under tight control. This is what my parents wanted. For us to work together.’ He paused and gritted his teeth again. ‘My parents gave everything to this business... My father—’

  A pulse was pounding in his ears, adrenaline was coursing through him, and words he had never uttered before, had refused even to think about, tumbled out of him.

  ‘My father...his heart attack...he probably paid with his life to make this business a success. He worked relentlessly to give us this business—it was his legacy to us. And I’m not going to stand by and watch it crumble.’

  For long seconds she stared at him. Then, not saying a word, she came and stood by him. Picking up a kitchen towel, she began to polish the eggs he had oiled. She polished one, and then another.

  His heart slowly began to back down to its normal beat. And then she picked up another egg and met his gaze.

  ‘Maybe this business isn’t for everyone... Maybe Marios would be happier running his scuba-diving business.’

  ‘As I already said, my parents wanted us all involved in the business.’

  She shrugged slowly, her eyes gentle. ‘Maybe they were wrong. Some people need to forge their own paths.’

  He looked away. Then down at those damn eggs.

  He dropped his cloth. ‘I need to go back and check on everything at the hotel.’

  Without missing a beat, with her eyes fixed firmly on the egg she was polishing, Georgie asked, ‘Why isn’t Nikos general manager of The Korinna? Don’t you have enough on your plate in your role as CEO?’

  ‘He’s not ready for that position yet.’

  Georgie glanced at him, and then down at the egg she was holding. She grimaced and ran a finger along a crack on the egg before gently placing it in the kitchen bin.

  Straightening, she ran her hands over her hips, over the denim material of her jeans, and said, ‘It’s amazing what people can achieve if they know that other people believe in them. It’s the same with Angeliki... She needs to know that your love for her isn’t conditional on her doing what you want her to do.’

  His hand shot out to grab the side of the counter. Suddenly he felt off-balance. Was he just like his father? Only showing love and approval when things were done his way?

  He wanted to walk away, but the softness and understanding in Georgie’s expression and voice had him saying wearily, ‘I’m getting this all wrong, aren’t I?’

  She came back and stood beside him. Her hand went to reach for an egg but then slowly diverted and moved against his arm instead. ‘You need to start trusting them. Accepting that they will make mistakes...and that you will too.’

  Her hand was like a soothing weight on the fabric of his shirt. ‘My father never allowed mistakes. His family motto was that the Christous never fail.’

  She shook her head vehemently, the fine wisps of hair that had escaped from her ponytail bouncing with the movement. ‘But that’s not humanly possible!’

  Georgie’s outrage cut through the tension in the room and the core of steel running up through his spine.

  He bit back a smile at the frustration sparkling in her eyes. ‘He didn’t think so. He was driven and ambitious and he worked every hour that God sent.’

  She dropped her hand from his sleeve. Picked up the oiling cloth and handed it to him. ‘That’s where you get your work ethic from?’

  He took the cloth from her. ‘I suppose... We were all expected to work in the business from a young age. I did love it—getting to know the guests, and in my teenage years scouting for new locations with my father. But he was a tough boss, with high expectations and endless energy, and he expected us all to be the same. The business and the family were one of the same thing in his mind. And I was the eldest son, so he and my mum made it clear that I had to protect both.’

  She held out her hand for the egg he had just oiled and he placed it on her outstretched palm.

  ‘You are protecting your family—nobody could do more than you are, and I’m sure your parents would be proud of you. But I think you’re overprotecting them. You need to give them space and start to live your own life too.’ She held her hand out to him for another egg, cleared her throat and said, ‘I saw you talking with Sofia Zisimos today. You looked fond of one another.’

  ‘Whenever I manged to get some time off work as a teenager I was part of the same gang as her.’

  Rubbing the egg in her hand with particular vigour, Georgie asked, ‘Would you consider dating her?’

  On paper Sofia was everything he wanted in a wife—ambitious, successful, tough, and she loved Talos. Why, then, did he have so little enthusiasm to answer Georgie?

  He shrugged and said, ‘Possibly.’

  Her eyes darted to his. She blinked hard. ‘Do you want me to organise a date
between you?’

  ‘No, with the hotel being such a disaster zone I need to focus on that this weekend.’

  He tried ignoring the voice in his head that said he could make time for a date this weekend if he really wanted to. Was he getting cold feet at the thought of marrying? Or was it his attraction to Georgie that had him feeling so unenthusiastic about the idea of dating?

  He gestured to the workbench. ‘I think we’re finished here.’

  They tidied away the utensils and other kitchen items they had been using in silence. Then, with nothing else left to clear away, they stared at one another. Why was he so reluctant to leave her?

  He gestured to the door. ‘I’d better get back to the hotel.’

  She pointed at the kitchen clock, her head tilting to the side, her ponytail falling over her shoulder. ‘But it’s almost midnight.’

  ‘It’s our first night. I want to make sure the dinner service and the evening entertainment went okay.’

  She nodded. But then, her eyes narrowing, she stepped closer to him. And closer again. What was she doing?

  One hand propped on her hip, she pointed towards his left cheek. ‘You have some olive oil smeared on your cheek.’

  He rubbed his hand against his cheek. ‘Is it gone?’

  She shook her head. ‘No, over that way a little...no, the other way.’

  She stepped closer and touched her fingers against his cheek. ‘There...’

  Her touch was gentle as her fingertips ran over the stubble just beneath his cheekbone. Adrenaline coursed through his veins, kicking against his heart. He stifled a curse. For a brief few seconds he reached up and took her outstretched hand in his. Heady sexual chemistry swirled between them. Her hazel eyes darkened as her body leant ever so slightly into him.

  Pulling on every strand of willpower within him, he stepped away and nodded to her before he walked out onto the terrace, telling himself not to read too much into the disappointment shining in her eyes.

  The fact of the matter was that once you stripped away the physical attraction between them they were two very different people, wanting very different things in life.