Читать книгу Kyriakis's Innocent Mistress - Diana Hamilton - Страница 8

‘STAVROS!’

The sharp call cut through the searing afternoon heat, a hollow boom as the sea surged against the base of the cliffs. Suddenly feeling insecure in her resting place, a handy shady niche among the high rocks, Bonnie listened to the following spate of Greek and understood not a word, only the tone. Whoever was issuing what she suspected were orders was a guy who expected to be obeyed smartish, no questions asked. Her mouth quirked wryly. She pitied this Stavros if he was neglecting some duty or other.

Holding on to the wall of the blisteringly hot rock face, Bonnie got gingerly to her feet, stowed herwater bottle, and hitched the leather strap of her canvas bag over her head and shoulder. At least there was someone around who could point her in the right direction.

Two days ago a workhorse of a ferry had deposited her and a load of what had looked like second-hand agricultural machinery on the quayside of this tiny harbour town, its pastel-coloured squat houses clustering around the deep water inlet, backed by hills thick with gnarled and ancient olive trees.

‘It is not a tourist destination. Only the occasional backpacker visits,’ Andreas had told her. ‘From what I gather it boasts only one road, a handful of basic shops and tavernas. The lifestyle is low-key and traditional, which is why the seriously wealthy build holiday homes there, attracted by the peace and quiet. My son is one of that select number. He is there now, and my feeling is that you may find him more approachable while he is in a relaxed mood.’

If she could find him!

The mention of Dimitri Kyriakis had been rewarded with blank stares from the locals, and the widow Athena Stephanides, with whom she was lodging, courtesy of Andreas’s deep purse, had merely shrugged. ‘Sorry. I know of no one with that name.’

The only option she had was to head south, to the area where the super-rich built their luxurious hideaways. Complete, so Athena had divulged with much raising of eyebrows, with helipads and swimming pools of Olympian proportions. Then she’d clammed up, as if regretting that she’d said that much.

It would appear that the locals guarded the privacy of their wealthy incomers. And in all fairness Bonnie couldn’t really blame them, because they obviously boosted the island economy, recruiting permanent and temporary staff from amongst the close-knit island families.

So she had no choice but to head down there and knock on doors—provided she could get past security fences and prowling guard dogs! She wasn’t looking forward to it, but she had promised Andreas. Besides, she wanted to help the poor old guy, because the mistakes he’d made in the past were now deeply regretted, were troubling him, and if she could help him put them right then she was up for it.

Her idea of following the coastline and then striking inland to the southern tip of the island where the secluded villas of the mega-wealthy were located didn’t seem as brilliant now as it had when she’d pored over a rudimentary map of the island after breakfast.

She might have made better progress if she had followed the long, dusty road that led over the high spine of the island. It might have been tedious in the extreme, but it wouldn’t have been as hairy as this coastal shortcut was proving to be.

Far too many feet below her, deep green translucent water swelled and subsided. It made her feel giddy. Telling herself she wouldn’t fall into the ocean, she wasn’t that stupid, she gritted her teeth and edged forward around the outcrop, heading for what her map had told her was a small horseshoeshaped bay. From there, as far as she could make out, an unmade track led further south, skirting the central rocky spine of the island.

Successfully negotiating the obstacle, she paused, expelled the breath she hadn’t realised she’d been holding, then sucked in another, deeper gulp of air. The cove below her was idyllic, but even more spectacular was the man walking along the waterline carrying driftwood.

Tall, tanned, magnificently built, his sleek musculature of wide shoulders and deep chest narrowed down to lean hips clad in shabby, ragged-hemmed denim cut-offs.

Stavros?

His long, relaxed stride halted as he turned and stared out to sea. He hadn’t seen her, clinging to the rocks high above. Suddenly it seemed imperative that she get down to him. Only to ask him to point her in the right direction for the track that would take her to her objective, of course. Conversing, if only briefly, with such a gorgeous hunk would be a bonus!

Grinning at her very natural female folly, she began to scramble on, and caught her foot in a fissure. She let out a yelp of pain, and cursed herself roundly for not looking where she was going.

Clinging awkwardly to the rock, she bent to rub the offending ankle, a slippery hank of long silvery blonde hair falling over her face as it escaped the pins that had secured it in a knot on top of her head. A sob of frustration blocked her throat as she discovered that she couldn’t put her weight on the foot.

Now how was she going to get back? Get anywhere? There was no public transport on the tiny island, and even if she could hobble—or crawl!—to the only proper road some way inland she might have to wait hours before she could thumb a lift in some passing truck back to the small fishing port where she was based.

‘Stay where you are.’

Annoyance with herself, and frustration over her self-inflicted plight, had driven the stranger on the shore below right out of her mind. But now—well, he had abandoned the driftwood and was climbing up towards her, with a lithe efficiency that widened her smoky grey eyes with admiration and made her heart pump a little faster.

Close to, he was even more knee-tremblingly sensational than her first assessment had led her to believe. And as that first assessment had given him top marks plus in the eye candy category, all Bonnie could do was stare while her entire body went into melting jelly mode.

His face was as stunning as the rest of him. No pretty-boy good-looks these. Hard lines and an angular bone structure carried the stamp of the alpha adult male. Tough, darkly shadowed jawline, and silky black hair, eyes as dark as jet.

Her own eyes fell in a trembling heartbeat to a wide mouth that was a shattering mixture of the sensual and the ruthless.

Wordlessly, he was returning the shockingly intimate intentness of her visual assessment and Bonnie dropped her eyes, her face flaming as something like an electric charge skittered through her.

His bare feet were planted firmly apart on the rock as he finally spoke, his deep, only faintly accented voice sending ripples down her spine. ‘You are hurt. Will you trust me to get you down from this place?’

Pulling herself together, Bonnie found her voice. ‘Of course. Thank you. I’d be grateful.’ She attempted a smile. It wobbled. What was wrong with her? She had both her feet firmly on the ground—metaphorically, if not physically at this precise moment—and she wasn’t the air-headed type to go to pieces just because she’d happened across the most lip-smackingly gorgeous man to inhabit the planet.

She was a practical, down-to-earth qualified remedial nurse and—

Every last sensible thought was swept out of her head as the gorgeous stranger hoisted her, without apparent effort, into a fireman’s lift and carried her down the steep rocks with the surefootedness of a mountain goat.

Carefully depositing her on the soft white sand, he hunkered down in front of her, long, deft fingers gently exploring her injured foot.

His touch was magic. A lock of soft black hair fell forwards over his tanned forehead. She wanted to run her fingers through it.

Stupid woman!

She was shivering all over.

Merely the entirely natural after-effects of her hairy passage down from the cliffs!

Only she hadn’t felt scared. She’d felt safe—gloriously safe.

‘Just a slight sprain and a tiny cut,’ he pronounced, a smile playing at the corners of that devastating mouth. ‘I’ll take you to the house and clean the cut.’

Forcing herself out of the entirely unwelcome ditzy-schoolgirl-meets-pop-star mode, Bonnie located her best no-nonsense voice and used it. ‘You’ve been very kind already, but—Stavros, is it?—I don’t want to put you to any more trouble on my account. I’m sure that if I just rest a while I’ll be fine to go on.’

Dimitri Kyriakis didn’t correct her.

She must have heard him calling to his manservant/minder, to remind him to drive down to the port to collect the incoming mail that had been waiting for two days since the weekly ferry had docked.

The longer his father’s blonde, gold-digging bimbo remained in ignorance of his true identity the better.

His father had taste, though, he conceded grimly. The bimbo was even more enticingly sexy in the flesh than she’d appeared in the photograph. All that long, silky pale blonde hair, falling in a tousled touchable mass to well below her shoulders.

Pretty shoulders, sleek of skin, warm with tan, partially concealed by the turquoise-blue halter top that lovingly cradled truly superb full and shapely breasts. Her cropped top left her tanned midriff naked and tempting above a pair of skimpy shorts. And those legs—

‘It will be no trouble,’ Dimitri contradicted her truthfully. ‘It would be my pleasure to help you.’

Help you to unburden yourself, to tell me exactly what a woman with her eyes on the opportunity to marry an old man for his money is doing scrambling around on an island hardly anyone has heard about, out of her preferred milieu of fancy restaurants, swish hotels and designer boutiques.

Unless, of course, the old man was with her. It seemed unlikely. And did she know that Andreas Papadiamantis was facing a vastly reduced financial status? He guessed not.

She would run like a rabbit if he told her. There was only one reason a beautiful young woman would shack up with an old man, he decided, with the cynicism born of long experience of the female sex. Inform her of the non-existence of the bottomless pit of money and she’d take to her toes.

Yet there was a more entertaining way of depriving his enemy of his bed companion, he thought, staring into a pair of beguiling smoke-grey eyes.

He had never had any trouble in attracting the female sex. Quite the opposite. But he never knew whether his personality was the attraction or his massive wealth.

The latter, he suspected.

It cut both ways. On the few occasions when he’d taken a mistress, he had made it plain that he didn’t do long-term.

So what was new? Earlier he’d played with the idea of settling down, creating a family. Seeing the photograph of this blonde had had the idea taking a nosedive. Meeting the blonde in the flesh had killed it stone-dead. For a while. The fates had delivered another chance to take his revenge for what his father had done all those long years ago right into his lap.

Never one to lose an opportunity, Dimitri swept the delectable gift from the fates up into his arms. His smile as she wound her arms around his neck with a gaspy little sigh was grim. And satisfied.

He had her!