Читать книгу Modern Romance December 2016 Books 1-4 - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 13

CHAPTER FOUR

WITH THE CUCUMBER stuck in her throat, Talia erupted into an inelegant fit of coughing. Angelos poured her a glass of water and pushed it across the table, watching unsympathetically all the while.

Talia took a few sips, thankful that she’d managed at least to stop coughing. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said on a gasp.

‘You haven’t answered my question.’ Angelos’s gaze was narrowed, his lips compressed, his arms folded. He wasn’t exuding warm fuzzies—that was for sure.

Talia took another forkful of salad in order to give her time to think of a reply. How much to admit? She felt instinctively that if she were to talk about her true reason for coming to Greece now, Angelos would have her back on that helicopter so quick her head would be spinning as fast as the propeller blades.

And the truth was, she didn’t want to leave. Not just because she needed to find her grandfather’s book, but for Sofia’s sake as well. Already she was forming a picture of what the little girl’s life here on Kallos had to be like, lonely and isolated, with only a few elderly staff for company.

Kind of like yours, then.

The realisation gave her an uncomfortable jolt. She didn’t think of herself as either lonely or isolated, not with her work for stimulation and her grandfather for company. Perhaps Sofia was happy here, just as she was happy on her grandfather’s estate. Maybe she wasn’t as needed as she’d felt she was...which still left her with no idea how to answer Angelos’s question.

‘Talia? I am waiting.’

Talia jerked her unfocused gaze back to Angelos. He’d laid down his fork and put his hands flat on the table, his dark gaze fastened on hers, hard and unyielding. The man looked seriously annoyed, but even with the irritation flashing in his whisky-brown eyes Talia couldn’t keep from noticing the lean planes of his cheek and jaw, the warm olive tone of his skin. If he’d just smile a bit more, she might start seriously crushing on him.

But considering their situation, it was probably better that he didn’t smile.

‘You’re right that I wasn’t looking to be a nanny,’ Talia said finally, choosing her words with care. ‘I came to Athens for a...a different reason. But when you assumed I was there for the nanny position, it seemed...fortuitous that I apply. And accept.’ That much was true at least.

‘Fortuitous,’ Angelos repeated flatly. ‘How so?’

‘I like Sofia, Mr—Kyrie Mena. She seems a very kind girl. I want to help her, or at least be her friend.’

‘And yet with, by your own admission, absolutely no child-care experience, you think you have the ability, even the expertise, to help her?’

Talia blinked at his scathing tone. ‘I may not have child-care experience, but I know what it is like to be a child—’

‘As does every person on this planet.’

‘I know what it’s like to be lonely,’ she burst out, and then wished she hadn’t. She wasn’t lonely. She’d always told Giovanni she wasn’t, and she’d believed herself. She had.

‘My daughter is not lonely,’ Angelos informed her shortly. ‘She has everything she needs here on Kallos.’

‘Everything?’ Exasperated, Talia shook her head. ‘Then why did you hire me?’

‘I’m asking myself that question as well,’ he retorted. He sat back, taking a measured breath. Talia could feel the crackle of tension in the air. ‘The truth is,’ he continued, ‘I was running out of both time and options. And,’ he conceded grudgingly, ‘Sofia seems to have formed some kind of attachment to you. But I must confess, in our short acquaintance, you have not recommended yourself to me, Miss Di Sione.’

‘Talia.’

‘Talia. You have in fact seemed extraordinarily short-sighted and, dare I say it, flighty—’

‘I think you just dared,’ Talia snapped before she could think better of it. She felt annoyed and bizarrely hurt by his quick and brutal judgement. What did Angelos Mena know about her, really? Only that she hadn’t packed very much and she didn’t do well in helicopters. And for that he felt capable of dismissing her as a person?

‘You disagree with me?’ he enquired, and she let out a huff of disbelieving laughter. No doubt Angelos Mena expected her to bow and scrape and apologise—and for what? Coming over a little dizzy?

‘Of course I do. You don’t know me, Kyrie Mena. You didn’t know I existed until a couple of hours ago. How can you say I’m anything when you’ve barely met me?’

‘I am basing my opinions on what I’ve seen so far. I’m a consultant, Miss—’

‘Talia.’

‘Talia.’ He expelled her name on a hiss of breath. ‘It’s my job to come into a situation and assess it swiftly.’

‘Too swiftly, maybe. What are you basing your judgement on? That I didn’t pack more than one dress or that I was a little nervous in your helicopter?’ She raised her eyebrows in challenge, half amazed at her own daring. She didn’t normally pick a fight, but then she didn’t normally need to. She’d cocooned herself in safety and isolation instead. It felt kind of good to come out swinging. Strangely empowering. She’d much rather stand tall than shrink back. ‘Well?’ she challenged when he didn’t answer. ‘Which is it?’

Angelos leaned back in his chair. ‘I take your point,’ he said after a pause. His face was expressionless, his gaze implacable. Of course it would be too much to expect to see a glimmer of apology in those darkly glowing eyes. ‘But surely you can understand my concern,’ he continued. ‘I am entrusting my daughter, my only child, to your care.’

‘Of course I can understand your concern.’ Talia sighed, the fight going out of her. ‘If I had a daughter, I’d feel the same.’ Angelos had hired her without knowing anything about her. He had the right to ask some questions, to be a bit sceptical. And she was hiding something, just as he suspected. Perhaps if she admitted her interest in the book...but no. She needed him to get to know her first. ‘If you’d like to know more about me,’ she said, trying to smile, ‘then all you have to do is ask.’

He studied her for a moment, his gaze assessing and speculative. Talia suppressed the urge to squirm or fidget under his unnervingly direct and unblinking stare. ‘You’re American,’ he said at last, and she gave a shaky breath of relief at the innocuousness of that statement.

‘Yes.’

‘Where do you come from?’

‘Outside New York City.’

He nodded slowly. ‘You must be in your mid-twenties. You had a job before this?’

‘Yes, and I still have it. I’m an artist.’

‘An artist,’ he repeated, sounding decidedly unimpressed. He spoke as if she dabbled in finger paints in her free time.

‘A portrait artist,’ Talia clarified. ‘I work on commissions.’

‘I see.’

What he saw, Talia suspected, was that she was an unemployed airhead who traipsed around the world, being short-sighted and flighty. It was foolish of her to be so rankled, so hurt, by his assessment, and yet she was. No one had ever sized her up and dismissed her so thoroughly before. She’d worked hard for her reputation as a reclusive but talented artist. She hated the thought that Angelos was judging her, and so harshly at that.

‘You said you wished to help my daughter,’ Angelos said after a pause. Again with that direct stare, and Talia forced herself not to look away, to find some way to hide from Angelos Mena’s searching gaze and questions. Being the focus of his full attention felt like standing on a beach, watching as a tidal wave gained in towering power, readying to crash down on you. ‘How do you think you could help her?’ he pressed.

‘By being her friend,’ Talia answered.

His gaze blazed into hers. ‘I am not paying you to be her friend.’

‘Very well,’ Talia answered, trying not to quake under that unyielding stare, ‘perhaps you should tell me what you’re paying me for exactly. You haven’t actually told me what my duties are.’ Angelos had the grace to look slightly discomfited, his gaze thankfully flicking away from hers for a second, giving Talia the courage to add, ‘Not to mention an actual job contract or reference check or any of the usual protocols. I mean,’ she continued as she shrugged expansively, ‘if you want to talk about being short-sighted or, I don’t know, flighty.’

Angelos turned back to her, his lips tightening, his nostrils flared with annoyance, and Talia wondered if she’d gone too far. She didn’t actually want to be fired. She certainly didn’t want to get in that helicopter again anytime soon. But she hadn’t been able to resist pushing back just a little. If Angelos Mena was a different kind of man, he might have even smiled at her pointed joke.

For one tantalising second she imagined that granite gaze softening, those sensual lips curving into an answering smile, that hard body relaxing towards her, and she felt a weird leaping sensation in her middle. She pressed one hand to her stomach to soothe those sudden butterflies. Better for him not to tease. He was so much easier to resist that way.

‘Very well,’ he said stiffly. ‘I am happy to give you the details now. You are to be a companion to my daughter and provide her with stimulating conversation and activities when she is not at her lessons.’

‘And when is she at her lessons?’

‘Her tutor comes to the island every weekday morning, for a few hours until lunchtime.’

‘Could she not go to a school near here?’ Talia asked. ‘On Naxos, maybe? To be with other children?’

‘She prefers to be on the island.’ Angelos’s tone was final, and despite the iron warning she heard in his voice not to ask any more questions, Talia continued.

‘Is that because of her scarring?’ she asked quietly, and Angelos stilled.

‘What about her scarring?’

‘I noticed she seemed self-conscious about it,’ she explained carefully. ‘And it’s hard for any child to feel different.’

Angelos hesitated, and in the ensuing silence Maria came in to clear the plates. Talia thanked her in clumsy Greek and the woman brusquely nodded her acceptance before turning away. Talia wondered if the housekeeper would ever thaw towards her. She’d seemed suspicious and unimpressed from the moment Talia had stepped into the villa. Someone else who’d judged her and found her wanting.

‘Sofia suffered burns in a fire when she was a baby,’ Angelos said abruptly. Talia opened her mouth to reply, but he cut her off before she could frame a syllable. ‘It is a very painful memory for her. We do not discuss it. Ever.’ He held her gaze for one long, taut moment, and Talia’s mouth dried at the implacable look in his eyes. Message received.

Then Maria came in with the main course and Talia knew the chance, if there ever had been one, to say anything about the fire had passed. Angelos would clearly brook no more discussion of it, and she wasn’t brave enough to press.

Still her mind whirled with this new information as Maria set plates of lamb souvlaki in front of them. Was it a house fire? Had Angelos been there? And what of his wife? She hadn’t even given the woman a thought, and she realised she hadn’t because it had been so glaringly obvious that no woman was around. She knew what a motherless home looked like, felt like. That had been another point of sympathy with Sofia, one that had been so innate Talia hadn’t even realised it until now.

‘Do you have any other questions?’ Angelos asked. ‘I will have my assistant in Athens draw up a contract and fax it to my office here. If you have any concerns while I am away, you can reach me by email, which Maria has.’

‘While you’re away?’ Talia repeated, remembering that he’d said he was leaving tomorrow. ‘How long will you be gone?’

Angelos’s mouth thinned. ‘A few weeks. I can hardly work from an island in the middle of the Aegean.’

‘It seems like everyone is telecommuting these days,’ Talia answered. ‘Can’t you?’

‘I’m afraid not.’ He took a sip of water, effectively closing down the conversation.

Talia stared at him, wondering how close he was to Sofia. She’d sensed a yearning in the girl, a desire to please her father even as she tensed when she was around him. But what did Angelos feel for Sofia? Didn’t he realise how important he was to her, especially with her mother gone? ‘Won’t you miss your daughter?’ she asked.

He set his glass down with a firm clink. ‘That is hardly your concern.’

‘No, but it may be Sofia’s,’ Talia answered. ‘Surely she’d like to spend more time with her father. Especially considering—’

‘Your job,’ Angelos cut across her in a hard voice, ‘is to be her companion, not form an opinion on any aspect of her or my life.’

Talia nodded and swallowed down her protests. She knew she’d been terribly outspoken. She was this man’s employee and she barely knew him. But she knew what it felt like to be without a mother or father, and she was incredibly thankful for Giovanni’s care and devotion during her childhood. But Sofia didn’t have a doting grandfather in her life, at least as far as Talia could tell.

‘So you have no other questions,’ Angelos said, a statement, and Talia merely shook her head.

They ate in tense silence for a few moments; the souvlaki was delicious but Talia barely registered a mouthful. Finally she couldn’t stand the silence any longer and so she nodded towards the large portrait of a woman that hung in pride of place on the far wall.

‘That is a beautiful portrait. Is it of a relative?’ The portrait was of a young woman with dark hair pulled back in a loose bun, her heavy-lidded gaze full of secret amusement, her lips curved in a small, knowing smile. ‘She reminds me of the Mona Lisa.’

Angelos didn’t look at the portrait as he answered. ‘It is of my late wife,’ he said, and after that Talia didn’t dare ask any more questions.

* * *

An hour later Angelos strode through his bedroom, shrugging out of his suit jacket and loosening his tie. Outside a silver sickle moon hung in an endless starlit sky, the sea like a smooth, dark plate underneath. Angelos braced a forearm against the window frame as he let the serene beauty of the scene wash over him.

His dinner with Talia Di Sione had left him feeling unsettled, even angry; she’d been like a stick prodding the hornet’s nest of emotions he’d kept buried deep inside for the last seven years. He’d seen the judgement in her clear hazel eyes when he’d said he was leaving Sofia. He’d felt her censure at learning he would be away for several weeks.

But Talia Di Sione had no idea how it felt to gaze at his daughter every day and know it was his fault, entirely his fault, that she felt more comfortable hidden away on an island than living the kind of life any young girl would want, with friends and school and a mother who loved her with all of her heart.

The emotion Talia had stirred up rose within him, and resolutely, relentlessly, Angelos clamped it down. Now was not the time to indulge in self-pity, especially considering he was the last person who was deserving of any such sentiment.

He let out a long, low breath and then turned from the window. He would work; work always made him focus, helped him to forget, at least for a little while.

He moved through the villa to his study downstairs, turning on a lamp and powering up his laptop. Yet even as he reread the notes he’d made on the latest company he was helping to turn around, his mind wandered back upstairs to the woman occupying a bedroom only a few doors down from his own.

Talia Di Sione was an impossible, aggravating mystery. He had never had someone speak to him with such flippant irreverence as she had, and he found himself, to his own irritation, to feel both appalled and reluctantly admiring of her spirit. And yet she’d seemed positively terrified when they’d boarded the helicopter, and she’d practically fainted in his office. The woman was an utter contradiction, and he still knew very little about her.

He knew Maria would tell him if Talia was unsuitable in any way; she’d kept an eye on the previous nannies, most of them unfortunate young women who had taken the post in the hopes of becoming the next Kyria Mena. A few of those women Angelos had had no choice but to fire; others had left in a huff when their cringingly obvious seduction attempts had failed.

Talia, at least, didn’t seem interested in him that way, if her snappy comebacks were anything to go by. Yet before he could keep himself from it, he imagined what a seduction attempt by Talia Di Sione would look like. Her hair loose and wavy about her face, her hazel eyes sparkling, her lips parted invitingly as she walked towards him, hips subtly swaying, that sundress sliding over her slight curves...

Horrified by the nature of his thoughts and his body’s insistent and alarming response, Angelos quashed the provocative image immediately. He slammed the lid of his laptop down and rose from his desk, pacing the confines of his study in an attempt to keep his body under tight control. It had been a long time since he’d been with a woman, but he wasn’t so desperate or deprived that he needed to fantasise about his nanny.

Shaking his head in self-disgust, he left his study and headed back upstairs. The hall was quiet, no light shining from under any of the doors. His body now firmly under control, Angelos walked past Talia’s bedroom to his daughter’s, quietly opening the door and slipping inside the darkened room.

Sofia was asleep in bed, her knees tucked up to her chest, one hand resting palm upwards on the pillow next to her face. Lying as she was, her scarred cheek against the pillow, she almost looked whole. Healthy in both mind and body. Angelos could almost believe she hadn’t been burned, that he hadn’t damaged his daughter for ever.

Gently he smoothed a tendril of curly dark hair, hair just like Xanthe’s, away from her forehead. She stirred slightly, her lips pursing in a frown before her expression smoothed out and she settled back into sleep.

‘S’agapo, manaria mou,’ he whispered. His little lamb. With a sad smile Angelos touched his daughter’s cheek and then quietly left the room.