“Accidents happen,” his father shot back. “You’re living proof of that.”
Emily winced, appalled by the stunning cruelty of his reply, but realized that although he’d rather die than admit it, Pavlos was hurt that Niko hadn’t bothered to stop by sooner.
“We all have our crosses to bear, Patero,” Niko said scornfully. “Yours isn’t any heavier than mine.”
“Don’t call me patero. You’re no more a son to me than a dog on the street.”
After their last confrontation, Emily had made up her mind she was never again getting caught in the middle when these two went at each other, but the insults flying back and forth were more than she could tolerate. “How do you the pair of you live with yourselves?” she asked sharply.
“By having as little to do with each other as possible,” Niko said, addressing her directly for the first time since he’d entered the room. “Yiasu, Emily. How have you been?”
“Very well, thank you. The same can’t be said of your father, but I guess that didn’t much matter to you, seeing that you waited three days to visit him after his accident.”
“Don’t waste your breath appealing to his sense of decency,” Pavlos advised her. “He doesn’t have one.”
Niko regarded him with weary disdain. “Unlike you in your prime, my career involves more than sitting behind a desk while my minions do all the work. I was away on assignment and didn’t get back to Athens until this morning.”
“Racing off on another mercy mission to save the world, were you?” Pavlos sneered.
“As to thialo, yarro!”
“You hear that, Emily?” Pavlos flung her an injured glare. “He told me to go to hell!”
Emily glanced from one to the other. At the father, his iron-gray hair still thick and his eyes piercingly alive, but his once-powerful body decaying, its bones so brittle it was a miracle they hadn’t crumbled when he fell. At the son, a modern-day Adonis, tall, strong and indomitable. And both so proud, they’d have walked barefoot through fire rather than admit they cared about each other.
“I can’t imagine why he bothered,” she said witheringly. “The way I see it, he’s already there, and so are you.”
On that note, she left them. They might be determined to tear one another apart, but she’d be damned if she’d stay around to pick up the pieces.
Exiting through the French doors, she marched along the terrace and around the side of the villa to the lodge behind the garages. The widowed gardener, Theo, and his son, Mihalis, whom she’d met the day she arrived, lived there. Snoozing on the step outside the back door was their dog, Zephyr, a big friendly creature of indeterminate breed who, when she approached, wriggled over to make room for her to sit beside him and planted his head on her lap.
Niko found her there a few minutes later. “Is there space down there for me, too?”
“No,” she said. “I prefer civilized company and you don’t qualify.”
“But the dog does?”
“Definitely. I’ll take him over you any day of the week.”
He shoved his hands in the back pockets of his jeans and regarded her moodily. “For what it’s worth, Emily, I take no pleasure in constantly doing battle with my father.”
“Then why don’t you put an end to it?”
“What would you have me do? Stand by and let him use me as a verbal punching bag?”
“If that’s what it takes…”
“Sorry, karthula, I’m not the subservient type. And I’m not here now to carry on with you where I left off with him.”
“Why are you here, then?”
“To ask if you’ll have dinner with me again.”
“What for? So you can flaunt me in your father’s face, the way you did the other day?”
Ignoring Zephyr’s warning growl, he hunkered down on the few inches of sun-warmed step beside her. “Would you believe because I can’t stay away from you, though heaven knows I wish I could?”
“Why? Because you blame me for your father’s accident?”
“Don’t be absurd,” he said. “Of course I don’t.”
“Perhaps you should. I’m supposed to be nursing him back to health, not exposing him to further injury. It’s a miracle he didn’t do more damage to himself when he fell.”
“The point is, he didn’t, and I knew it within hours of the accident.”
“How is that possible if, as you claim, you arrived back in town only this morning?”
“This might come as a surprise, Emily, but I’m not completely heartless. I admit I’m away more often than I’m here, but I maintain regular contact with Georgios or Damaris, and know practically to the minute if a problem arises. Judging from their glowing reports, not only are you a dedicated and skilled professional who’s taking excellent care of Pavlos, but you’re earmarked for sainthood when you die—which, I hasten to add, I hope won’t be anytime soon.”
“If you care enough about him to phone them for an update on how he’s doing, would it hurt you to tell him so?”
“Why would I bother when he makes it patently clear it’s not something he wants to hear?”
“He might surprise you.”
“You’re the only one to surprise me, Emily, and I can’t say I’m enjoying the experience. I’ve got enough on my mind, without that.”
At his gloomy tone, she ventured a glance at him. Noticed the grim set of his mouth, the frown puckering his brow and felt an unwelcome stab of sympathy. “You ran into problems when you were away?”
“Nothing unusual about that,” he said, shrugging. “My business is all about solving problems, as long as they’re other people’s. But I learned a long time ago that the only way to deal effectively with them is to draw a firm line between my work and my personal life, the latter of which I make a point of keeping complication free.” He paused, sketched a groove in the dust with the toe of his shoe as if to illustrate his point and laced his fingers through hers. “But somehow, you’ve become just that, Emily. A complication. One I can’t ignore.”
“I don’t see how.”
“I know you don’t. That’s half the trouble.”
“Try explaining it, then.”
“I can’t,” he said morosely. “That’s the other half.”
She sighed, exasperated, and pulled her fingers free. “I’m not a big fan of riddles, Niko, and you don’t appear exactly overjoyed to be involved with me, so let me put us both out of our misery. Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t want to have dinner with you again.”
Bathing her in a molten-green gaze, he inched closer. Slid his hand around her nape. “Liar,” he murmured, the tip of his tongue dallying insolently with the outer curve of her ear.
The last time a man had tried that, she’d barely managed to suppress a revolted Eeuw! before she shoved him away. What was so different about Niko Leonidas, that his every touch, every glance, left her panting for more?
“Just because I refuse to let you play games with me doesn’t make me a liar,” she insisted weakly, almost paralyzed by the throb of tension unwinding inside her to affect body parts she was beginning to wish she didn’t have.
“It doesn’t make you any easier to resist, either.”
“Then I guess we’ve reached an impasse.”
For a long moment, he stared at her as if trying to fathom the solution to a dilemma only he could resolve. Then with a shrug that plainly said, Ah, to hell with it, he rose to his feet with indolent grace. “I guess we have,” he replied, and sauntered away.
“Good riddance!” she muttered, crushing the wave of disappointment threatening to engulf her. “Other women might trip over themselves in their eagerness to fall in with your every whim and wish, but I’m made of sterner stuff.”
She repeated her little mantra several times during the rest of the afternoon, because it was all that stood between her and the urge to call him and say she’d changed her mind about spending the evening with him. To make quite sure she didn’t weaken at the last minute, she went for a long walk on the beach, and ate dinner at a taverna. Upon her return to the villa, she played checkers with Pavlos for an hour, then pleading a headache, escaped to her suite.
Night had long since fallen, and closing the door behind her, she surveyed her sanctuary with a mixture of relief and pleasure. Damaris had turned back the bedcovers and made a fire against the chill of mid-October. Flames danced in the hearth and cast burnished-gold reflections over the polished antique furniture. The pleasant scent of burning olive wood filled the air.
Yes, she’d definitely made the right decision, Emily thought, tossing her sweater on the foot of the bed and kicking off her shoes. Although she couldn’t deny the magnetic attraction between her and Niko, she couldn’t ignore her feminine intuition, either. From the start, it had warned her that giving in to her attraction to him would invite nothing but trouble. If she didn’t step back now, she’d find herself hopelessly, helplessly entangled with a man so far out of her league that she’d be guaranteed nothing but misery. After all, he’d made it graphically clear that his interest in her was purely sexual, and realistically, what else could she expect? He had no room in his life for a serious relationship, and even if he had, her future lay half a world away.
Warding off the unavoidable but depressing truth of the matter, she went into the bathroom and while the whirlpool tub filled, stripped off the rest of her clothes, pinned up her hair and lit a scented candle. Solitude was preferable to heartache any day of the week, she told herself bracingly, as she sank up to her chin in the hot water and let the air jets massage the day’s tension into oblivion.
With the candle finally burned down to nothing, she dried herself with a towel from the heated rack, applied a generous dollop of body lotion to her water-wrinkled skin and pulled on a clean nightshirt. Then feeling limp as cooked spaghetti and so relaxed it was all she could do to stand upright, she tottered back to her bedroom.
Surprisingly the fire still burned brightly as if it had recently been replenished. And her shoes stood neatly aligned next to the armchair which, she noticed in appalled disbelief, was occupied. By Niko.
“I was beginning to think you’d drowned,” he remarked conversationally.
Horribly aware that she wore nothing but a nightshirt whose hem came only midway down her thighs, she tried ineffectually to tug it lower. A huge mistake because, when she let it go, it sprang up with alarming vigor and revealed heaven only knew what of her anatomy. “Don’t look!” she squeaked, shock rendering her incapable of a more quelling response.
“If you insist,” he said, and very politely turned his head aside.
“How did you get in here?”
“Through the door, Emily. It seemed the most logical route to take.”
If she had an ounce of backbone, she’d have matched his sarcasm and told him to leave the same way, but curiosity got the better of her. “Why?”
“I decided I owe you an explanation. Again!”
Wishing the sight of him didn’t fill her with such desperate yearning that she was practically melting inside, she said, “You don’t owe me anything, Niko. And you have no business being in my room.”
“But I’m here regardless, and I’m staying until I’ve had my say.”
“It seems to me we’ve been through this routine before and it got us precisely nowhere.”
“Please, Emily.”
She gave a long suffering sigh. “Then make it quick. I’m tired and I want to go to bed.”
He slewed an audacious glance at her bare legs. “Could you put on something a little less revealing first? I’m only human, and staring at the fire doesn’t quite cut it compared to looking at you.”
Annoyed at the burst of pleasure his words aroused, she stomped back into the bathroom, grabbed the full length robe hanging on the door and dived into it.
“That’s better,” he said, vacating the armchair when she returned with only her hands, feet and head open to his inspection. “Why don’t you sit here?”
“No, thanks,” she informed him starchily. “I don’t anticipate this taking very long.”
He’d convinced himself this would be easy. All he had to do was reiterate his initial reservations, explain he’d put them to rest and no longer had ulterior motives for pursuing her. But the sight of her when she first came out of the bathroom had wiped his mind clean of anything but the raging desire to touch her all over. To lift that absurd scrap of a nightgown and bury his mouth at the cluster of soft, silver-blond curls she’d so briefly and tantalizingly revealed in her attempt at modesty.
“I’m waiting, Niko,” she reminded him, sounding like his high school math teacher.
Would that she looked like her, too—moustache and all! “I want to start afresh with you,” he said.
“I’m not sure I understand what that means.”
He swallowed, grasping for the words that persisted in eluding him. “We got off on the wrong foot, Emily. You’re my father’s nurse, and I’m his son….”
“To the best of my knowledge, the status quo hasn’t changed. I’m still his nurse. You’re still his son.”
How could he do it? How cut to the chase and say bluntly, Despite pretending I no longer believed it, I remained convinced you were out to take him for all he’s worth and decided my only choice was to seduce you, but have now decided I was wrong, and expect her to understand? He wouldn’t, if their situation were reversed.
“But something else has changed,” he said instead.
“What?”
He took a deep breath and plunged in, laundering the truth in a way that made him cringe inside. “Can we just say I’m tired of playing games and leave it at that? I’m not interested in using you to score points off my father, or for any other reason. I want to be close to you not because it’ll annoy him to see us together, but because I like you for yourself. So I guess the only questions still to be answered are, do you want the same thing, or have I misread the signs and the attraction I thought existed between us is just a figment of my imagination?”
“It’s not a figment of your imagination,” she admitted, “but I don’t understand why you’d pursue it when you said just this afternoon that I was a complication you didn’t need.”
“Overanalyzing is second nature to me. It’s saved my skin more often than I care to count. But in this case, I took it too far.”
She shifted from one foot to the other, clearly weighing his words. “Maybe not,” she said judiciously. “Maybe you simply realized there was no future in a relationship with me.”
“Never counting on the future is another by-product of my job. The only certainty is the here and now.”
He took a step toward her, then another, until he was close enough to inhale the scent of her skin. She’d pinned up her hair, but tendrils had escaped to curl damply against her neck. The robe was at least two sizes too large and gaped at the front, drawing his gaze to the faint swell of her cleavage just visible above the top of her nightshirt.
The urge to kiss her, to hold her, nearly blinded him. “What do you say, Emily?” he asked hoarsely. “Will you take a chance on it with me?”
CHAPTER SIX
THE persistent voice of caution warned her not to fall for his line of reasoning. What was he offering her, after all, but the pleasure of the moment?
On the other hand, what had she gained in the past by pinning all her hopes on a better tomorrow? A degree in nursing, a crippling mortgage on her town house, a secondhand car and a short-lived, disappointing relationship with a medical student. Even her circle of friends had dwindled as more and more of them exchanged the single life for marriage and babies. Not that they completely abandoned her, but their interests no longer coincided as they once had. Her schedule revolved around shift work and case histories; theirs, around spouses and midnight feedings.
“Emily?” Niko’s voice flowed over her, sliding inside the bathrobe supposedly shielding her from his potent appeal, to caress every hidden inch of skin, every minute pore.
Why was she holding out for a future that might never dawn, when the man who epitomized her every waking fantasy was offering her the chance to fulfill them? Giving in to her heart instead of her head, she lifted her gaze to meet his and whispered, “Why don’t you stop talking and just kiss me?”
He groaned and reached for her. Cupped her face between his hands and swept his lips over her eyelids, her cheekbones, her jaw. And finally, when she was quivering all over with anticipation, he buried his mouth against hers. Not as he had before, with calculated finesse, but in scalding, desperate greed.
For the first time in her life, her natural caution deserted her, annihilated by a yearning so painful, she was filled with the consuming need to satisfy it at any price. Barely aware that she’d anchored her arms around his waist, she tilted her hips so that they nudged boldly against him exactly where he was most evidently aroused. His hard, unabashed virility inflamed her, scorching any remnant of doubt to ashes.
Somehow, her robe fell undone and he was touching her, his clever seeking fingers tracing a path from her collarbone and inside her sleeveless nightshirt to shape the curve of her breast. But she wanted more and tried to tell him so, angling herself so that her nipple surged against his palm, and pleading with him not to stop.
But stop he did. “Not here,” he ground out, a sheen of sweat glistening on his brow. “Not in my father’s house.”
“But I can’t leave,” she whimpered. “What if he needs me and I’m not here?”
“Emily, I need you. I need you now.”
Without a twinge of shame, she lifted the hem of her nightshirt and guided his hand between her legs. “You think I don’t need you just as badly?”
Chest heaving, he molded his hand against her and pressed, flexing his fingers just so. The ensuing jolt of sensation ricocheted through her body and almost brought her to her knees. Gasping, she sank against him.
Steering her backward, he lowered her to the bed and touched her again, teasing the pivotal nub of flesh at her core that marked the dividing line between cool reason and clamoring ecstasy. And when she tipped over the edge in explosive release, he smothered her high- pitched cry with his mouth and stroked her until the spasms racking her body faded to an echo.
How many languid minutes ticked by before he pushed himself upright and, in a belated attempt to restore her modesty, covered her limbs with the bathrobe? Not nearly enough, and she clung to him. “Stay,” she begged.
He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Don’t you want me, Niko?”
“So badly I can taste it. But not with my father’s shadow hanging over us.”
“Then how…when…?”
“Tell him you’re taking the weekend off. We’ll go away to someplace where we can be completely alone.”
“What if he won’t agree?”
“He doesn’t own you, karthula,” he said. Then, searching her face, asked, “Or does he?”
“Of course not, but he is my patient and he is paying me to look after him. And whether or not you accept it, he isn’t as far along the road to recovery as he’d have you believe. To expect Georgios to assume responsibility for him would be unprofessional and negligent on my part.”
“All it takes to solve that problem is a phone call to a private nursing agency for someone to replace you. We’re talking three days at the most. He can manage without you for that short a time.”
“I suppose,” she acknowledged dubiously, not because she wasn’t sure she wanted to spend the weekend with him, but because she knew she’d have to fight Pavlos to get it.
A muscle twitched in Niko’s jaw. “You know, Emily, if I’m asking too much—”
“You’re not!”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.” She pressed her lips together and nodded. For pity’s sake, when had she turned into such a wimp? She’d been in Greece over three weeks and more or less at Pavlos’s beck and call the entire time. It wasn’t unreasonable for her to ask for a break. “I’ll work something out, I promise.”
He brushed a last kiss over her mouth. “Let me know when it’s arranged.”
In the hectic two days that followed, she alternated between euphoria and bouts of horror at how shamelessly she’d offered herself to Niko. How would she ever face him again? But her yearning outweighed her chagrin and overriding Pavlos’s objections, she booked the weekend off.
“A bikini and lots of sunscreen,” Niko said, when she called to tell him she’d be ready to leave on Friday evening at six and asked what she should pack.
“What else?”
She could almost hear his shrug. “Something warm for the evenings, maybe, although the weather’s supposed to be good. Shorts, a couple of tops. Not enough to fill a suitcase, by any means. Just throw a few things in a carryall.”
“In other words, travel light and keep it casual.”
“That about covers it, yes.”
Much he knew, she thought, scurrying out to shop late Thursday afternoon while Pavlos napped. The clothes she’d brought with her to Greece were, for the most part, serviceable and basic. She hadn’t come on vacation, she’d come to work, and in her profession that meant easily laundered cotton slacks and tunic tops, and comfortable, soft-soled shoes. She certainly didn’t have anything designed for a romantic weekend with the sexiest man on the planet.
After dinner that night, she laid out her purchases, setting aside the dark red velour jogging suit and white socks and runners for traveling, but stuffing racy new lingerie, sheer nightgown, sandals and silk caftan, as well as shampoo, toothbrush, cosmetics and all the other items he’d specified, into a canvas tote designed to hold far less. He had said they’d be completely alone, but clearly didn’t understand that it wasn’t looking the part for strangers that she cared about, it was looking her best for him.
Although Pavlos had allowed a nurse from an agency to fill in for her while she was gone, he’d made it plain he was doing so under duress. To drive home the point, he sulked all Friday morning and ignored Emily all afternoon.
The one thing he hadn’t done was inquire where she was going, or with whom, although from his dire mutterings, he’d obviously concluded it somehow involved Niko. So with her replacement up to speed on her duties, and rather than starting the weekend on a sour note with a confrontation, Emily collected her bag and slipped out of the villa a few minutes before six, to wait for Niko at the foot of the driveway.
Right on time, he drew up in the BMW. “You made it,” he greeted her, slinging his arm around her shoulders in a brief hug.
“Did you think I wouldn’t?”
“Let’s just say I wouldn’t have been surprised if my father had thrown himself on the floor and started foaming at the mouth when you tried to leave. And the fact that you’re lurking here, hidden from view by anyone in the villa, tells me you pretty much feared the same.”
“If I admit you’re right, can we agree that the subject of your father is off-limits for the duration of the weekend?”
“Gladly.” He tossed her bag in the trunk and held open the passenger door. “Hop in, Emily. I want to get underway while we still have some daylight left.”
“Underway,” she discovered was not aboard an aircraft as she’d half expected, but a fifty-two-foot sloop moored at a private yacht club in Glyfada, a twenty-five minute drive north of Vouliagmeni. Sleek and elegant, with a dark blue hull and the name Alcyone painted in gold across her transom, she was, Niko told Emily, built for speed. But without any wind to fill her sails and sunset no more than a crimson memory on the horizon, he was forced to steer her under diesel power to the tiny island of Fleves, just off the east coast of the Attic peninsula.
It was a short trip only, but what made it magical for Emily was the rising moon, which laid down a path of silver to mark their passage, and the luminescence sparkling in their wake like a handful of tiny diamonds. Niko, in blue jeans and a lightweight cream sweater wasn’t too hard to take, either.
