Читать книгу The Balfour Legacy - Ким Лоренс, Кэрол Мортимер - Страница 15

MIA turned to look at herself in the full-length mirror and felt the now almost-permanent quiver going on low in her stomach quicken like mad.

The dress had once belonged to Bella. She’d spent half the morning shortening the long flow of its near-sheer iced-blue silk skirt. But it was the rest of the dress that made her senses quicken. The strapless style of the bodice draped lovingly around the thrusting shape of her breasts, then went on to hug each slender curve of her body with band after band of exquisitely intricate pleating all the way down to her thighs before the sheer silk flowed to her feet, elevated by the daintiest pair of crystal-studded high-heeled mules.

‘Oh, my,’ she breathed, stealing the expression Sophie had used on the phone that morning because it suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

Sparkling crystal droplets danced amongst the tight pleating, accentuating the shape of her body when she moved or even as she breathed. She’d coiled her hair into a loose pleat at her nape and her skin glowed smooth gold against the pale blue of the gown. A fabulous teardrop diamond necklace, given to her by Oscar, rested on its fine gold chain just above the sloping fullness of her breasts, and matching earrings sparkled at her ears. She had hoped to look elegant and sleek and sophisticated but what she’d seemed to have achieved was—alluringly sensual. She even felt sensual, in places she did not dare think about in case she made herself blush.

But she was chewing on her rose-coloured lip gloss and frowning uncertainly because she was just discovering that it was one thing to imagine herself dressing like this to impress a certain man, but it was quite a different sensation to realise she was seriously shocking herself.

Nikos was standing in the hall talking into his mobile phone when Mia appeared at the top of the staircase. As he glanced up and caught sight of her, the deep base tones of his voice stopped midsentence and he froze, his dark eyes flaring momentarily before he hooded them over with his long eyelashes, his gaze running in a slow sweep that allowed him to take in every sleek curvaceous inch.

Theos, I’m in trouble, was the only thought he was able to register as a familiar heat flared low in his groin and somehow managed to mess with his breathing at the same time.

Then he became aware that he still held his phone to his ear and he turned his back on her while he finished the call and, at the same time, grabbed a tight mental grip on his rampaging libido.

This weekend is about work, he reminded himself.

Yeah, tell that to the kiss you can still taste.

Just watching the way he’d shut down his expression and how his strong jaw had clenched before he turned away was enough to tighten the knot of anxiety toying with Mia’s stomach. He’d done it again, and beaten her up with his silent criticism. She didn’t know whether to get angry or to weep.

She’d reached the last step before he turned around again, wearing his cool urban face. ‘My apologies,’ he said. ‘Something urgent Petros needed to discuss with me before we left.’

He was walking towards her as he spoke, the absolute epitome of gorgeous handsome man about town in a formal dinner suit again.

‘You look fabulous,’ he delivered lightly. ‘Love the dress.’

Mia managed a small tense smile in response.

‘Do you have no coat, a shawl or something?’

Offering a shake of her head, she answered, ‘The evening is quite warm.’

In truth, she had forgotten to bring anything like a shawl with her, but she was not going to admit that to this man who was floating a final glance over her before he gave a curt nod of his sleek dark head.

‘Let’s get going, then.’

Brisk, businesslike, firing on all pistons, Mia described as she walked beside him towards the front door. He did not need to say it out loud to remind her that this was all about work. Networking the social scene while pretending to enjoy themselves. Putting the Theakis name out there where it would be remembered, and remembering people he thought might be useful to him at some future date.

She wanted to ask him if she got paid overtime rates, but decided against setting the evening with a sarcasm that was bound to annoy him.

As they circled down over the D’Lassio estate, Mia was genuinely stunned by its palatial splendour, even with Balfour Manor to use for comparison. Balfour was built on more traditional lines with the patina of age to soften its sturdy grey stone walls, whereas this house was designed to look more like a Roman villa with a central courtyard and formal gardens fanning out from three sides of the house. The front of the house was mainly rolling green parkland split by a long sweeping drive. A makeshift car park to one side of the drive was already glinting due to the dying sun on the lines of cars.

Mia counted six helicopters parked up on the other side of the driveway and, as they swooped lower, she caught sight of two swimming pools, one outdoors and one contained beneath a dome of glass. Two television crews, and what felt like a thousand photographers, waited to record their arrival. The moment she saw them her heart started beating way too fast.

‘Switch the Balfour smile on, glikia mou,’ Nikos instructed softly as he helped her down the helicopter steps.

Obediently Mia switched on her smile. Camera shutters began clicking wildly and flashbulbs lit up the fading light. Nikos maintained his grip on one of her hands as they walked the media gauntlet on a thoughtfully laid carpet of artificial grass. Behind them the helicopter set its rotor blades moving again. A flurry of questions were being called out and a microphone was pushed into her face.

‘Good evening, Miss Balfour, would you tell us which designer made your gown?’

Surprised to find herself staring directly into the lens of a television camera, Mia answered without thinking until it was too late to wonder if the world-famous Italian designer wanted his name given to this particular gown since it was at least twelve months old.

‘Buona sera, signorina.’ The sound of her native tongue calling out to her sent Mia’s head swinging the other way, directly into a second television camera. ‘Signor Valencia knows how to make the most out of a sensational figure, heh?’ The interviewer had already picked up the dress designer’s name. ‘Will you take a moment to tell Italy what it is like for a Tuscan farm girl to discover she is the daughter of such a wealthy Englishman?’

The question came without warning. The camera zoned close on her face. Her fingers tensed, stretched, then pleated tightly in between Nikos’s long fingers, and a warm flush of self-consciousness spread across her face while he just stood there beside her, smiling coolly, waiting for her to give a response.

It was a test, yet another lesson for her that he was letting her learn how to handle. Tutor and pupil at work in the classroom of life.

‘Sì…Grazie…Buona sera, Italia…’ Somehow she managed to keep her smile in place and come up with a reasonably intelligent comment about the differences between her old life and her new life.

‘Love your voice, Mia!’ someone else tossed at her in English. ‘Very sexy. I could listen to you all night! What do you think, Nikos?’

Nikos just smiled and started them moving, thinking sexy did not begin to describe those dark throaty earth tones she used whenever she conversed in her natural language.

Dipping his dark head he murmured, ‘You handled that well. Now let’s see if we can get you through the rest of the evening without you making a bolt for the kitchens.’

‘Non capisco,’ Mia responded coolly, refusing to acknowledge the taunt about her well-documented bolt into the bowels of the kitchens the night of the Balfour Charity Ball.

Nikos gave a soft laugh and swapped his grip on her hand for an arm strapped across her back so he could hustle her in front of him into the house.

The next half an hour passed by in a whirl of first-time introductions that more camera crews recorded moment by moment. By the time she was given a chance to draw in a proper breath again, Mia was feeling dazed.

‘You could have warned me,’ she complained to Nikos.

‘Forewarned, there was a chance you might do a runner,’ he said, catching up two glasses of champagne and handing one to her.

‘This place is amazing,’ she changed the subject, glancing up at a high vaulted ceiling around which a cantilevered glass walkway seemed to stay up there by will alone.

‘Santino likes to impress us with his structural engineering skills,’ Nikos murmured dryly.

‘I thought the D’Lassios were media moguls.’ Mia frowned.

‘Been doing your homework?’

Lifting her chin, she said, ‘To improve my education is the reason why I am here with you, is it not?’

The direct challenge. Nikos arched an eyebrow because he had not expected her to make it. Like a fool playing a very dangerous game he held on to her deep blue eyes and piled the pressure on the constant tug of sexual awareness that was always present between them now.

She looked away first.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘let’s move on to where the real action is.’

The work angle of action, Mia saw the moment they stepped inside a vast reception room already crammed with high-end glittering people. The networking started almost straight away. Nikos kept her at his side as he walked the room, rarely needing to make an effort to gain attention because people were more eager to meet him. It was the quality of the man and his billionaire kudos, his entrepreneurial brilliance, his stunning good looks and his casually presented charm. He handled people with a low-key edginess that made them work all the harder to earn themselves an impressed glance or an approving smile.

Smooth, Mia described as she soaked him in like the rest of them.

Then he ruined it for her when he turned to her and said, ‘OK, this is where I leave you on your own for a while.’

Like a kick in the gut she instantly turned as white as parchment. Nikos released a sigh, catching her by the shoulders and turning her to face him.

‘All you have to do is circulate and listen. If you know what they’re talking about, join in. If you don’t know what they’re talking about, then ask questions,’ he relayed as if it was really that simple. ‘People don’t mind being asked questions. In fact, they like to show off their knowledge. What they don’t like is someone pretending to know what they’re talking about when they don’t. OK?’

Pressing the tremor out of her lips Mia nodded.

‘And you’re a Balfour,’ he reminded her. ‘The people here know you are a Balfour and they’re going to just love to welcome you into their group on the strength of your name alone. In fact it’s going to be them hoping to impress you so you will remember them to Oscar.’

‘Not to you?’

‘To me too,’ Nikos agreed. ‘If they ask you anything too personal shoot them down the way you like to do to me,’ he went on. ‘You have spirit, Mia, use it to your advantage. Always be polite. Always be aware of how much you’re drinking. I will come and find you in, say, half an hour when we are due to go into dinner.’

Glancing down at the fine silver watch circling her wrist which Tia Giulia had bought her for her last birthday, she said, ‘OK,’ with only a tiny scared tremor showing in her voice.

Nikos heard it though and released a sigh.

‘It’s OK—really,’ she said and straightened her shoulders. ‘This is work—yes? I have to treat it that way.’

Still he hesitated, giving her the impression he wanted to say something else, and for some reason Mia found herself holding her breath.

Then he instructed, ‘Don’t bolt,’ and walked away.

For the next half-hour Mia braved the sharp jaws of socialising. Like Nikos had said, it was easier than she expected because people did recognise her instantly and it tended to be them drawing her into their conversation rather than her needing to butt in.

Nikos wished he’d found it easy to walk away from her but he hadn’t. He felt as if he’d abandoned a puppy on the fast lane of a motorway. But he needed to speak to some people about Lassiter-Brunel. During Mia’s research exercise she had—admittedly unwittingly—exposed some business issues that were bothering him. OK, he reasoned, so he had pulled out of the deal they were trying to broker, but he’d done that for personal reasons. It was only this morning when he had gone back to the office to look through Mia’s file that he had picked up on other things that troubled him.

She was good at ferreting, he acknowledged with an inner smile. But other colleagues in the same business might not have a ferret that looked so beautiful Brunel would let his professional guard slip to the point anyone would question whether he was as reputable as he made out.

Hearing himself using Mia’s choice of word made Nikos grimace at the same moment that a set of slender long fingers coiled around his arm. ‘So you’ve been landed with Oscar’s little cuckoo,’ a mocking voice purred.

Glancing down Nikos found a smile for the beautiful but dangerous socialite-cum-gossip-columnist Diana Fischer who’d sidled up against him.

‘Who would have believed Oscar could be such a deliciously secretive dark horse,’ she went on. ‘Perhaps it’s as well that the scandal broke after poor Lillian departed to the afterlife. Imagine her horror if she’d been here to discover that the man she had been married to for twenty years had still been busy sowing his wild oats right up to and beyond their marriage.’

She was fishing for knowledge, timing details, that Nikos was not going to reveal. Setting his teeth together behind the relaxed line of his mouth, he drawled, ‘Still enjoying playing the heartless bitch, Diana?’

‘I’m heartless?’ Her lovely green eyes opened wide. ‘Tell me, Nikos, how many hearts have you broken since you became sexually active?’

‘I was referring to your lack of respect for the dead.’

‘I adored Lillian,’ Diana declared. ‘Everybody did. I thought I was being sympathetic towards her.’ She pouted up at him. ‘After all, who would want to find out that her husband had been laying into another woman?’

‘Remind me,’ Nikos murmured, ‘why is Lance in the process of divorcing you?’

‘Oh.’ The luscious pout became pronounced. ‘That was so below the belt, Nikos.’

Nikos released a dry laugh. Diana was a bitch and a brazen one but at least she never pretended to be anything else. He liked that about her—so long as she kept her barbs out of Oscar and his daughters.

Or one particular daughter, he amended, unable to stop himself from glancing across the room to hunt her down. He caught sight of her dark head in amongst a group of younger people and wasn’t sure he liked the odd stinging sensation that ran down his front.

‘The cuckoo is different from the other seven, isn’t she,’ Diana prodded lightly, following his gaze. ‘She’s so shy and reserved—just look at the way she’s blushing at whatever Joel Symons is saying to her…’

Nikos was looking.

‘She doesn’t have a clue how to deal with people like us.’

‘Like us?’ Nikos was curious enough to pick up on the comment.

‘Well, we’ve already established that I’m a heartless bitch and you’re a ruthless heart-breaker. And there is a room full of both those types here tonight. Elegant, bored, social spinners,’ she extended candidly. ‘Men with their egos in their wallets and their pants, and women with theirs in the exact same two places—and I meant in the men’s,’ she made clear. ‘The cuckoo stares at us all as if we are aliens and I don’t really blame her. Think what it must have been like for her to be launched like a bomb into Balfour society after spending all of her life halfway up a mountain, growing plants.’

‘And perhaps she recognises that she’s sauce for tongues like yours,’ Nikos offered up.

And realised suddenly that he was right. Mia was not overwhelmed by the greatness of the elevated company her new life had thrown her into the midst of; she was overwhelmed by her own notoriety as Oscar Balfour’s shockingly exposed illegitimate child.

‘Do me a favour, Diana,’ he said quietly. ‘Keep your barbs out of Mia.’

‘And you will do what for me?’ she shot back.

Leaning down Nikos brushed a light kiss to one of her smooth cheeks. ‘Respect you,’ he murmured and walked away.

Mia saw the kiss and wondered what the name of that particular blonde was. He had beautiful blondes coming out of his pockets, she decided acidly, thinking of Lois Mansell, who he had been with just last night.

She pitied the one he’d just kissed and walked away from, she decided as she turned and strode off in the opposite direction. For there was one lesson Nikos had already taught her which stopped her short of being jealous of the new blonde and the kiss—he left with the woman he arrived with and saw her safely back to her own front door.

Or her bedroom door in her case tonight.

Or inside the bedroom door if it was anyone else.

A hand caught her wrist as she was about to continue through the open doors onto the pool terrace. For a brief second she thought it was Nikos and a wry smile curved her mouth as she turned her head with the intention of telling him the half an hour was not yet up.

But the smile died along with her sinking heart when she found herself staring into the cold silver eyes of Anton Brunel.

‘I want words with you,’ he informed her thinly.

‘I don’t think so.’ Trying to pull free from his grip, her wrist hurt when he tightened his hold on it. ‘Let go of me!’ She frowned at him in contemptuous surprise.

‘Not until I get some answers from you.’

Pulling her away from the doorway, he swung her into a corner of the room behind a giant palm plant. ‘Right,’ he said, pushing his handsome face up close to hers. ‘You owe me a bloody explanation as to what the hell you think you’re playing at, telling lies about me to Theakis!’

‘I did not lie about you,’ Mia denied, wincing when his hard fingers crunched the tender bones in her wrist.

‘You spent that whole lunch turning me on with your sexy-eyed promises, then you told him it was me coming on to you!’

‘You live in a strange place in your head, signor, if you truly believe what you just said,’ Mia retorted scornfully, still trying to get away from him and glancing over the top of his blocking shoulder to see if anyone had noticed the way he’d cornered her like this.

It came as a shock to realise that he’d chosen his spot carefully because the palm plant virtually sealed them off from view.

Then she gasped when he pushed in on her, his body pressing her back against the wall. ‘Listen to me,’ he rasped. ‘I want you to tell that jealous bastard the truth! You came on to me! You offered yourself up over the damn lunch table, and if I took the bait, he only has you to blame. I don’t see why I should take the flack and lose the best investment deal I had going for my company because you like to play sex games across a table!’

His face was so close to hers that she was breathing in the alcohol from his angry breath.

‘I would not play sex games across anything with you,’ Mia whipped back, shuddering with distaste. ‘And if you don’t release me from this corner I will start shouting for help!’

‘No, you won’t,’ he jeered. ‘You’re a Balfour, and too damn scared of making a scene here. Theakis won’t like it. Darling daddy won’t like it.’

‘But I am not making the scene—you are! Now—let—me—go!’

With an angry tug she managed to yank her wrist free. As he went to grab hold of her again, she pushed at his body with her two clenched fists and enough angry strength to make him stagger back a small step, giving her just enough space to slither around him and get away.

Shaking inside with anger and reaction, she hurried out onto the pool terrace. Scared that he might be following her but determined not to look back and check, she made for the first group of people she saw standing by the swimming pool, and with a deep breath to calm her unsteady breathing, she ventured close enough for them to notice her, and smiled gratefully when they widened the circle to invite her to join in.

Did she do the things Anton Brunel had accused her of doing? Her eyes glazed with the agonised knowledge that she might have done without knowing she was even doing it. But did not knowing make her any less guilty? Hadn’t Nikos accused her of doing the same thing to the waiter at the restaurant last night?

What was she, some kind of unwitting man-teaser?

And her wrist was hurting, she noticed, carefully rubbing the place where Anton Brunel had dug into her bones. Someone offered her a glass of champagne. She smiled as she took it, and hoped the thoughtful person could not see the strain in her eyes.

She did not want to be a man-teaser. She did not like what it meant.

She thought about taking a sip from her glass but she knew she would not be able to swallow. Her throat felt thick and her nerves were still jangling like mad. It was dark outside now and the air was cooler than it had been earlier. Soft lighting had been switched on to light the way to the marquee set up in the garden and the pool glittered a soft aqua blue.

She caught the smooth deep tones of Nikos’s voice and turned to watch him appear in the doorway leading back into the main reception room. He was flanked either side by Santino D’Lassio and Nina, his beautiful flame-haired wife. All three of them were smiling, relaxed—friends by their easy manner with one another.

Someone called out, ‘Hey, Nina! When are you going to feed us?’

And Nina D’Lassio’s light laughter filled the terrace, making Mia find a small smile too because the laughter was contagious. Then a hand arrived in the centre of her back and pushed, propelling her forward. For a moment she teetered like a ballerina on the tips of her toes, fighting the momentum trying to pitch her forwards, her eyes wide as she stared into the lit blue depths of the swimming pool.

Then she lost the battle and the next thing she knew she was falling, her sharp cry of shock the last thing she remembered before she sank beneath the depths of the cool blue waters.

Nikos was grabbing her arms even as she broke through the surface again, winded and gasping for breath. It was his fiercely clenched face she first focused on, his blazing black eyes, as he hauled her up and out of the water like a quivering, shivering, dripping wet rag.

Camera bulbs flashed in the stunning silence that hung over the pool terrace. Still too shocked to care right now, her fingers clutched at the bunched muscles in Nikos’s forearms in an effort to remain standing upright. Her legs had turned to jelly and she’d lost her shoes in the tumble. Her hair had come loose and now it was dripping all over her face, and stinging hot tears were hurting her eyes.

‘What happened?’ Nikos roughed out harshly.

‘I would swear someone gave her a push,’ a disembodied voice claimed, and hearing someone say it out loud like that sent the air choking from her lungs on a broken sob.

Cursing softly Nikos tried to fold her into the shelter of his arms but she held back. ‘I will wet you.’

‘Do you think I care about that?’

A large warm towel arrived around her shoulders and she huddled into it gratefully, shivering badly now as the cool evening air struck deep into her wet skin.

‘Are you all right, Mia—?’ It was only when she heard Nina D’Lassio’s anxious question that she realised it must be her hostess who’d been so quick to produce the towel she was huddling into. ‘Are you hurt anywhere?’

With a shake of her head Mia made an effort to pull herself together, found the strength to push her wet hair from her face and discovered that her wrist was still hurting.

‘I’m OK,’ she shivered out, fighting to slow the pounding pump of her heartbeat. She managed to let out a small shrill laugh. ‘I don’t know how that h-happened but I will not be offended if you believe I am drunk!’

An appreciative ripple of laughter ran around the terrace. After that, people began to relax and talk again, giving her a chance to try and take stock of what she must look like. Staring down she saw that her dress was ruined, her bare toes curling into the cold white tiling in between the solid plant of Nikos’s black shoes.

‘Let me take care of her, Nikos,’ their hostess said quietly. ‘She needs to get out of those wet clothes.’

It was only then that Mia became aware of the way he was still holding her and of the fierce tension gripping him. Lifting her face up to look at him she discovered that without her shoes she had a long way to look up. Tall, dark, heart-shakingly gorgeous, it was like looking at the gladiator she’d first seen on the driveway of Balfour Manor, the flashing eyes, the fiercely clenched angular jaw, the tightly flattened mouth.

Feeling her looking at him, his black eyelashes flickering, he tilted his dark head to look down at her with a simmering shot of barely suppressed fury that made her suck in an unsteady breath.

‘I’m—OK,’ she said again, feeling the strangest need to reassure him. ‘It was just such a sh-shock to hit the water like that.’

‘Were you pushed?’ Quiet though his voice sounded Mia still recognised the danger it attempted to suppress.

A careful glance to her left and to her right told her that some people were still standing around staring at them. The odd flashbulb reminded her that the whole incident had probably been caught on camera a hundred times over. Nina and Santino D’Lassio stood close by, and like Nikos they too were waiting to hear her response.

Moistening her trembling lips, she lowered her eyes while she tried to decide how to answer. Did she lie and say she did not know how it happened, or did she tell the truth and admit she suspected that Anton Brunel had pushed her into the pool?

‘Perhaps I slipped.’ She went for the least sensational option, then frowned in confusion as Nikos increased the tension in the grip he still held her in.

‘Come on, Mia.’ Nina D’Lassio sounded relieved though, as her arm came to rest across her shivering shoulders. ‘Let’s get you dry and find you something to wear…’

‘I’ll call for the helicopter,’ Nikos said.

‘No, you will not!’ Mia reacted hotly. ‘I have no wish for people to think that I am a wimp as well as Oscar’s guilty mistake! Madre di Dio,’ she breathed fiercely, unaware that their host and hostess were staring in surprise at her hot, hushed flare of temper. ‘I am wet and bedraggled and I saw the camera bulbs flashing. Tomorrow I will be plastered all over the papers looking like this, and you wish to turn me into a bigger joke by hauling me away?’

‘Santino will deal with the press, Mia,’ Nina assured her quickly. ‘Oh, do let go of her, Nikos, she is not going to fall apart if you do!’

The fact that both Mia and Nina had snapped at him seemed to wake Nikos up from wherever he had gone off to since he’d pulled her out of the pool. With a final flexing of impressive clenched muscles he dropped his arms away and took a step back, allowing Nina to lead her away.

‘My security people are checking film footage to find out what happened,’ Santino D’Lassio informed him quietly. ‘Fortunately we have a five-minute delay on what’s transmitted on television, so the incident will not go up on the screens.’

‘So you think she was pushed,’ Nikos said grimly.

‘You saw the way she went in there, Nikos,’ Santino responded. ‘She either jumped or she was pushed. Which do you think it was?’

Santino moved away, then began ushering his guests down to the marquee, leaving Nikos to mull over his sardonic question with his angry eyes shuttered while he replayed the moment in his head. The crush around the pool had been heavy but he’d picked Mia out of the crowd the moment he stepped outside. She’d been looking at him; he could see the way her anxious blue eyes lit up the moment they connected with his. He could feel them doing it, followed by the sudden jerk of her body and the look of horror and shock before she began to topple over into the pool.

What he could not see was who had been standing close enough to her to propel her into the damn pool because his full attention had been fixed exclusively on her.

‘So the cuckoo almost drowned and I missed it,’ a disappointed voice drawled beside him. ‘What a shame.’

In no mood for Diana’s Fischer’s twisted kind of humour Nikos intoned flatly, ‘You lead a sad life, Diana,’ then walked away, over to the almost deserted pool bar and ordered a drink while he awaited Mia’s return.

By the time the two women walked out of the house again he was the only person left on the terrace. As a foil for each other Mia’s darkness next to Nina’s flame was pretty much as good as it could get, Nikos observed. Then his full attention had welded on Mia’s transformation from wet and bedraggled to long and curvaceous, a seriously slinky siren which almost blew his edgy control to bits.

She was wearing a figure-hugging strapless black tube of a dress that was nothing short of mind-stopping. For a few seconds he was thrown back to the moment he’d first seen her on the Balfour Manor driveway.

Heat poured into his body. Desire so fierce he did not know how he kept it from showing on his face. Her wet hair had been slicked back and her makeup barely there except for a fresh touch of gloss to her soft full mouth. Her natural beauty just shone out of her, warm, dark—exotic—exquisite.

But as they came closer he saw she looked deathly pale and he knew somehow—instinct—that she was more shaken up by the incident than she was trying to let on. Then he noticed the way she was holding her right wrist in the palm of her other hand and his raging libido altered to raging anger that stung like a blister trying to burn a hole in his gut.

Mia was responding with a smile to something Nina was saying when she saw Nikos slowly straighten his leaning posture from the bar. Her footsteps faltered and her eyes just clung.

‘See, delivered back to you all in one piece,’ Nina said teasingly. ‘All you have to do, Nikos, is stop glaring like an angry bear and perhaps we can join the others and get something to eat!’

And he was glaring, Mia noticed—glaring directly at her! If he said one small word, offered up one single criticism about how she looked, she thought fiercely, then he would be the next one to land in the pool!

‘Why are you holding your wrist like that—?’ he launched at her.