Читать книгу Irresistible Greeks: Dark and Determined - Шантель Шоу, Rebecca Winters - Страница 13

STARTLED, Zoe wrenched her head around then blinked when she found Kostas sitting across on the other side of the car with Toby strapped in between them sleeping the sleep of the contented innocent.

‘It is not wise to give arrogant bullies like him all their own way, either,’ she flicked right back.

‘You goad him,’ said Kostas.

‘I asked him a simple question and he took my head off!’ She defended herself despite knowing that she did goad Anton all the time and without really understanding why she needed to do that.

And where was he going to that he needed an extra car? she wondered as she watched the lead car begin to move away. Preferring to slit her own throat than to ask Kostas the question, she made do with telling herself that she didn’t care where he was going so long as it was far away from her.

‘He has business to attend to in the village.’ Kostas, who could clearly read minds, offered up the information without her request. ‘He must then be back here to board his plane before sunset arrives because our small airport is not authorised to function after dusk.’

‘So this isn’t actually his private island, then?’ He’d just claimed it as such.

Kostas made a face. ‘It is the place of Anton’s birth, the home of his late father and many more Pallis fathers before him. Anton built the airport, the small hospital in the village and the new school, and he provides employment for anyone who wants to stay on the island or helps those who prefer to find employment elsewhere.’

There was pride in Kostas’s voice as he reeled off his employer’s good points, pride and affection. It only stung Zoe’s into a stubborn determination to think the worst of Anton Pallis’s motives even here in this island where everyone obviously believed he was some kind of living saint. Well, the devil knew how to soften people up with favours—before he demanded your soul as recompense. And she was determined to keep her soul very much intact, thank you very much!

She hated Anton. It was really quite unsettlingly exciting how much she hated him. The feeling kind of taunted her with all different kinds of nerve-stimulating flicks and flurries, so she had to sit tense-backed and consciously control her breathing so what was going on with her on the inside would not show on the outside.

They’d been driving steadily down through the trees since they’d left the tiny airport; now the forest had thinned out to reveal pretty green meadows dotted with olive and fruit groves basking in the sultry late sunlight. In front of them the water was closer, the dusty road they were travelling along showing a junction not far ahead. The front car went to the left; they turned to the right and were suddenly travelling parallel to a pine-edged sandy beach. She could see boats out on the shimmering sea like tiny white dots of glinting white and was surprised to see a small hotel on the opposite side of the road.

‘You have a tourist industry here?’ she asked because, despite not wanting to be interested, she discovered that she was.

‘Tourism is not discouraged,’ said Kostas. ‘However it is expected of anyone who comes to stay on Thalia that they maintain standards of behaviour we islanders are used to here.’

Another snippet of information, Zoe acknowledged. Kostas was a native of this island too.

‘So, what happens if they don’t behave?’ Suddenly her lost sense of humour crept out for an airing. ‘Does he have them thrown into jail then lord it over them in judgement?’

‘He has them removed,’ Kostas said, smiling. ‘We observe zero tolerance from outsiders here. In a world beset by unruliness and crime we suffer neither. This is the one place Anton can come and relax and simply be himself.’

Wondering what Anton Pallis was like when just ‘being himself,’ Zoe chose to make no further comment. A despot was still a despot, no matter how relaxed he could make himself. A few minutes later they turned inland again winding around a shallow headland, and then everything changed within the single blink of an eye.

This was sheer heaven tucked in around a pretty crescent-shaped bay. The pine trees marched almost to the edge of the soft sandy beach, which was all she managed to take in before they were turning yet again and she found herself staring at the promised big gates. Though why they were there at all baffled Zoe when she could see no sign of a fence or a wall, just more pine trees forming a shallow wood either side of them.

The gates swung wide to allow the car to drive through them and she forgot all about fences when her vision was suddenly filled the most breathtakingly beautiful white-painted villa, with pale-blue woodwork and a terracotta roof nestling in a gently tended landscape.

Everything was so pretty, she thought as she glanced around her curiously. Nothing was too formal or overstated, just the tall trees forming a majestic backcloth to sun-kissed green lawns and the villa.

The car drew to a stop then in front of a blue-painted door. Zoe turned her attention to releasing her brother’s seat from its restraints when Toby suddenly woke up as if some instinct had told him all the hours of travelling were over. He went from sweetly angelic to loudly demanding attention with no gap in between. Abandoning her attempts to release his seat, Zoe swapped to releasing Toby from his safety harness instead, shushing him as she gathered the small protesting baby into her arms before scrambling out of the car.

Kostas was already standing on a deep, shady terrace; his big, bulky frame was being hugged by a small lady with a plump face and shining dark brown eyes.

‘This is Anthea, Anton’s housekeeper—and my mother.’ He introduced Zoe in the gruff voice of embarrassment of a tough guy going all soft in front of his adoring mother. ‘This is thespinis Kanellis and her brother Toby.’ he completed the introductions to his mother who was staring at Zoe with the kind of fascination which made her feel as if she’d just landed here from Mars.

‘Beautiful hair.’ Anthea sighed out rapturously. ‘It is golden like the sun.’

Unsure how to answer that without blushing, Zoe was relieved when Toby notched up his crying levels and grabbed centre stage. The next few minutes went by in a rush as Anthea set about hustling them into the house and up the stairs with Kostas following behind them with their things.

Zoe found herself standing in a pretty room with the sunlight softened by the white drapes across the windows. A huge baby’s cot stood in pride of place, with other pieces of baby furniture set efficiently within reach of the cot. She spied a small fridge with en electric kettle placed on top of it, then an old-fashioned rocking chair by the draped window. There was even a television placed comfortably in reach of a small creamy-blue settee. Zoe could tell that the room had been hastily refurbished to accept a small baby, and she suffered a small twist of gratitude towards Anton Pallis because it looked as if he’d tried his best to have the room look as similar as he could to their kitchen in London.

A dark-haired pretty girl the size of a twelve-year-old stepped forward, all shy smiles for Zoe and soothing murmurs of comfort for the weeping boy.

‘This is my sister, Martha,’ Kostas offered up. ‘She is older than she looks. Martha is here to help you with your brother.’

About to insist that she didn’t need help with Toby, Zoe bit back on her independent streak when she saw the eager expression on Martha’s face. Before she knew it she was handing over the tense, crying bundle of anger that was Toby into Martha’s perfectly capable arms.

The next two hours went by in a daze, while between the two of them she and Martha shared soothing the small baby as he went through his usual evening cranky stage. It was gone eight o’clock before she was shown by Anthea into a bedroom directly across the landing from Toby’s room.

Decorated in the softest pastel blue, the colour was contrasted by the furniture which was heavy and dark. ‘Handmade right here on Thalia,’ Anthea informed her proudly. ‘Anton prefers to use local craftsmen whenever he can.’

The man could do no wrong, thought Zoe. She walked over to the window to look out on the now pitch darkness and wondered where he was right now—holed up in Athens already, sighing with relief that he’d got away from his irritating charges?

Then Martha wanted to show her the adjoining bathroom and where to find spare toiletries and towels. A few minutes later, Zoe drew open another door next to the bathroom. She did not know what she’d expected to find on the other side of that door but it definitely wasn’t the row upon row of beautiful feminine garments, all of them complete strangers to her.

She grew hot, and not just on the outside, imagining one of Anton Pallis’s beautiful and sophisticated lovers casually strolling the rails choosing something to wear to please her man, and she backed away from the opening as if the room contained a coven of hissing snakes.

‘Anthea, I th-think you’ve shown me into someone else’s bedroom.’ She tried to sound casual about it but inside her a strange crashing feeling was taking place.

‘No, no, these are for you.’ The Greek woman hurried forward to go and stand in the space Zoe had just back away from. ‘Anton had them flown out here this afternoon, for he said you had been forced to leave your home so fast it would not occur to you that April is much hotter here than it is in England.’

Dealing with the sinking feeling of relief that she wasn’t intruding on someone else’s domain, Zoe enquired, ‘So, where are my own things?’

‘In here too. See?’ With a sweeping-arm gesture, Anthea invited her to step forward again. Sure enough, around the edge of the door her things hung or lay neatly folded in a corner looking dark, drab and pathetically few. On closer inspection, as she drifted her eyes over the new clothes, she could see that the style and the fabrics were far more in keeping with a holiday on a Greek island.

For once she did not mock Anton’s autocratic belief that he could just do whatever he wanted to do because he believed he knew best. Nothing here screamed high-fashion designer label at her, though the clothes were of a class way more expensive than the high-street bargains she had only ever been able to afford. And no black amongst them, she noticed, just bright and vibrant primary colours and soft, summery pastels.

Frowning, because she did not like the idea that Anton had been spending money on her she could not afford to pay back, Anthea questioned anxiously, ‘You do not like the clothes, thespinis?’

Ungrateful and mean-minded, Zoe accused herself, and turned a smile on the Greek woman. ‘Of course I like the clothes,’ she assured Anthea. ‘I’m just finding it—difficult to take in how everyone has gone to so much trouble for Toby and me.’

‘Ah.’ Anthea flipped her thanks away with the flick of a hand. ‘The way those media dogs hung around your doorstep was a disgrace! It is a good thing in my opinion that Anton brought you here, for that kind of thing will not be tolerated on Thalia. Indeed, Anton has gone into town to personally oversee the removal of the reporters who arrived by boat this afternoon. So you relax now,’ she advised as she turned to walk across the room. ‘You are safe here. Martha will sit with the baby so all you need to do is be comfortable. I will serve dinner in an hour.’

Alone at last, Zoe turned to stare at the bedroom with its big, chunky bed covered in snow-white hand-laced bedding and the rivers of the finest muslin flowing down from the ceiling at the head of the bed. She tried to imagine herself climbing into that bed in her grey cotton pyjamas while clutching a magazine and a mug of hot cocoa as she would do at home. It did not work. Perhaps her thoughtful saviour had covered that pending horror and provided silk nightwear?

She would have to take a look later, but for now … she headed for the bathroom. Forty minutes later—having showered and changed into a white halterneck dress she’d spied on one of the hangers in the dressing room and could not resist trying on—she went to check on Toby and found him blissfully at peace in his huge cot, which made her laugh softly as she leaned over the rail to look at him taking up less than a quarter of the space. Martha was curled up on the sofa surrounded by study books and after a few enquires Zoe discovered the young girl was almost eighteen and swatting for a place at university on the mainland—with Anton’s help, of course.

Having left Martha contentedly reading, Zoe wandered down the stairs. She still had ten minutes to kill before it was time for dinner so she used a few of those minutes up taking a look around. Each room she peeped into had a quietly understated style about it which belied the impression she had of Anton Pallis as a sharply modern, outgoing man.

She found the dining room—there were actually two of them—a large, rather grand formal-looking one and this smaller, more intimate room with the circular table already set for its lone diner. Not the most appealing prospect, Zoe mused as she walked along the room towards the pair of long windows she saw standing open at the other end.

Outside on the terrace she paused to glance around. It was so quiet she felt as if she was the only person left in the world. The darkness folded around everything beyond the soft light coming from the house, and the air felt like warm silk each time she breathed it into her lungs. In all of her life she had never experienced quiet like this; it held the true definition of hush.

At home she’d been used to the sound of London’s never-ending traffic, planes flying into Heathrow, trains rattling past on the track not far away. Even inside the house, quiet was something filled with knocks and bangs and the muffled voices of her neighbours leaking in through the walls either side.

Restless suddenly, she rubbed at her arms with her fingers as she tracked a short way down the terrace, passing beautiful cream-upholstered rattan sofas and chairs set like outside rooms around glass-topped tables. Even out here Anton’s home had a quiet elegance about it, she saw. Feeling a sudden breeze pick up, she lifted up her chin to catch hold of its mildly cooling effect.

It was then that she saw them. A fizz, fizz, fizz of glorious excitement caught hold of her and she let out a soft gasp of delight. Like someone being invited into fairyland, she ran out into the garden, felt the soft crush of grass beneath her shoes and did not stop until she was standing surrounded by complete darkness. Then and only then did she allow herself to tilt her head again and look up at the wondrous star-studded night sky.

On his way up the path through the trees which led up from the beach, Anton was in no hurry to reach home. This whole day had been one long link of aggravating problems and he was tired and fed up, though watching the boat-load of reporters sail off into the sunset had momentarily cheered him. Hopefully the word would get around to others who fancied trying their luck here that if they so much as stuck a toe over the tidal line they would not enjoy spending hours in the stuffy confines of Thalia’s tiny customs office trying to convince a stubbornly deaf officer that they were not a boatful of illegal immigrants attempting to sneak onto the island.

A grim smile touched his lips as he drew towards the end of the path which would give him access onto his front lawn. Milos Loukas could be infuriatingly thorough when he wanted to be. Every passport had to be checked by telephone for its authenticity. Even his own Greek patriots were treated with suspicion and forced to endure the same checks. By the time Anton had arrived on the scene, all six reporters had been more than ready to beg him to get the customs officer off their backs. But it was a case of allowing the official his hour of importance and just taking a back seat until Milos was ready to release them into Anton’s care.

Perhaps he should have joined them on their departing boat, he mused, because he’d missed his chance to fly away, which left him with little choice but to come home for the night.

But he did not want to be here. He did not want to suffer the aggravation of another fight with Zoe Kanellis, or worse risk feeding his growing desire.

The sound of a woman’s delighted laughter ringing out into the darkness brought his head up and he pulled to a stop. He had decided to delay his arrival here by walking the two miles home from the village via the beach; his eyes had adjusted to the darkness but still he found himself questioning what it was he was staring at.

She looked like the nymph Thalia come out to play while no one was about, a shimmering vision of golden hair and pale, pearlescent skin. The bright white of her dress glowed in the sultry darkness and she stood in the middle of his garden with her face lifted up to the heavens, her beautiful hair spilling down her back.

She was turning slowly as she counted—counted—the damn stars up above. Had she gone mad? She was naming them too. He could not hear what names she was saying because her voice was just a breathlessly enchanting whisper, but every couple of seconds another laugh would break from her when she spotted something that truly delighted her.

Standing there on the edge of the path in the shadows, Anton was entranced. He should go; he knew that he should. If anyone was guaranteed to rob all that childlike delight from Zoe Kanellis then it was him. He should just turn around and creep away again like a thief in the night. Go and bunk down on the sofa in Kostas’s house in the village. Perhaps the two of them could get drunk on a bottle of ouzo and Kostas could vent his spleen with all the disapproving remarks about Anton’s behaviour he had been storing up.

Where had he got the idea that she was too thin?

That dress didn’t say thin, it said delicately formed curves in all the right places, the teasing shape of her neat behind and her nipped in little waist. His gaze drifted higher as she completed a full circle, giving him a full-on view of two firmly rounded globes filling the shape of her tie-neck top. The inner growl of his sexual animal brought a soft curse hissing from his lips as his body responded with a flood of fierce heat directly to his pelvis, and he twisted round to face in the opposite direction, intending to make good his escape while he still had the strength.

But he stood on a twig and made it snap. Behind him he heard a sharp little gasp.

‘Who is there?’ Zoe Kanellis called out uncertainly.

Anton shut his eyes and ground his teeth together. The ensuing silence behind him played across his tense shoulder-muscles and the fine hairs on the back of his neck. If he moved she would see him. If he stayed where he was it was like accepting that he was a scared wimp.

Be a man, Pallis, he told himself, and made himself turn round again.

‘I said, who’s there?’ Zoe repeated, already balancing on the balls of her shoes ready to run. It was so dark over by the trees her eyes were stinging as she tried to pierce through it.

‘It’s OK,’ a familiar voice answered very dryly. ‘It is only me.’ Her heart gave a giant leap when she saw the tall, lean figure of Anton Pallis emerge from out of the darkness.

‘Oh.’ She put a hand up to cover the pounding beat of her heart. ‘You scared me.’

She caught sight of the way his mouth drew down at the corners in a grimace. He was still wearing the grey suit he’d changed into on the flight over here, only the jacket was no longer on his back put slung over a wide shoulder and held there by a long finger hooked into the loop. His tie had gone, the top few buttons on his shirt dragged open at his taut brown throat. A five o’clock shadow gave his jaw a roguish look and as he came closer she saw how that grimace seemed to mock himself.

‘Stargazing, Zoe?’ he quizzed.

‘I’ve never seen a sky like it.’ She actually smiled at him as she said it, then looked up again as he came to stop a couple of steps away from her. ‘It’s just glorious.’

‘So, how many did you count?’

‘I got to two billion before you interrupted.’

‘My apologies,’ he murmured.

‘Accepted,’ she returned, softly, because as far as Anton could tell she was busy counting stars again. ‘I wish I had my telescope.’

‘You have your own telescope?’

‘Mmm. If you look just up there—’ she raised a pale, slender arm to point towards the night sky ‘—you can see the dense-star field around the Antares. It’s an M4 cluster and looks spectacular here because there’s no air pollution to cloud it out.’

Anton looked up and just saw stars. ‘Where is this telescope you wish you had with you?’

‘I sold it when I left uni … Oh, Anton, look; there’s Perseus. How fitting to find him flying over Greece. I could …’

Her excitement faded into nothing when Zoe realised she was talking to a lost audience. He wasn’t looking up at the sky, he was watching her with a brooding intensity that flooded a blush into her cheeks.

‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, her voice turning husky with embarrassment as she added, ‘The night sky is my—passion.’

‘I can tell,’ he said softly.

She was determined not to react to his soft, taunting tone. ‘What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you flew off before the sun set.’

‘The sun went down and your stars were out before I could get away.’

‘The reporters,’ Zoe remembered. ‘Anthea told me about them. Did you send them packing?’

‘Like Zeus, with a single blow of my breath.’

Now he really was mocking her; Zoe stuck up her chin. ‘Zeus doesn’t have a place up there in the heavens. Up there he’s called Jupiter. The Greek gods did not get everything their own way.’

‘I know the feeling,’ he drawled sardonically.

Meaning she had stopped him getting all his own way? Well, she could argue with that, since she was the one standing here in his garden, on his island, simply because he had decided that this was where she should be.

‘So, how did you get here?’ She hadn’t heard a car while she’d been out here.

‘I walked from the village along the beach. I like the dress,’ he tagged on casually.

‘Oh … thanks.’ Looking down at the dress, Zoe started frowning. ‘You bought it,’ she told him. ‘Which is something I need to talk to you about. You should not be spend ing—’

‘Do you like your room?’ he interrupted.

‘Yes, of course I like my room, it’s beautiful. Thank you,’ she said again with an added snap of impatience this time. ‘But about the clothes …’

‘And you found everything you needed to make your brother comfortable?’ he cut in on her yet again.

Zoe shifted from one foot to the other. ‘That’s another thing we need to talk about.’ She refused to drop the subject though she knew that what he was trying to make her do. ‘All those soft toys and—things—were not necessary. We will only be here for a couple of weeks and Toby is too young to—’

‘I believe my staff made you welcome.’

Zoe sucked in some air and clenched her hands into fists. ‘You’re not going to stop me from telling you what I think, you know!’

‘I noticed.’ It was his turn to alter his stance. ‘However, do you think you could hold back on our next argument until I’ve at least put a foot inside my house?’

It was the same as a slap on the wrist, Zoe noted, and accepted that she probably deserved it. ‘I was just …’

‘Shut up now, Zoe,’ he urged wearily. ‘The clothes were a gift. I will not miss the money. Same thing with the stuffed toys. When I walked out of the wood and first saw you standing here, I was bowled over by how extraordinarily beautiful you looked—until you started sniping at me, then you spoilt it. Now I think I will cut my losses and go inside.’

With that he swung to face the house.

‘OK,’ she said quickly. ‘I accept I should have been more gracious with my thanks.’

Though he didn’t walk off, his darkly handsome face with that wicked five o’clock shadow did not look very impressed with her small climb-down.

‘It was not my intention to start another fight with you.’ Zoe tried again. ‘The clothes were a very thoughtful gesture. And I am, truly, very grateful that you went to so much trouble on mine and Toby’s behalf and … Well, anyway, I’m sorry I am such an irritant to you and …’

‘You are not an irritant,’ he clipped out impatiently.

What was she then—warm solicitude?

It was her turn to twitch. ‘It really is no use trying to have a normal conversation with you, is it?’ She sighed, flicking out a hand in an empty gesture because she didn’t like it that her voice had developed a hurt shake. ‘I was trying to be nice, when you don’t deserve it. I must be stark staring mad. After all, even you must know that your behaviour today was pretty much borderline unforgivable.’

Still the stubborn devil held his grim silence. Zoe heaved in a breath.

‘However, I am also not stupid. I can see for myself that this place is paradise compared to a small terraced house in Islington laid under siege by the press. But if you believe that you are the only one to have had a horrible day, then—’

He moved so gracefully she didn’t see it coming. Next thing he had hold of her chin in the cup of his fingers and a long thumb, and the rest of what she had been about to say just drained from her head. His face was so close to hers now that she could see a brooding restlessness at work behind his darkness, felt a breathless tension spring up between them, made all the more potent by his continuing grim silence.

A slithery, slinky thread of tension began to crawl up her front. If she could she would look away from him because those eyes of his were downright mesmeric and there was something terribly alluring about the stern shape of his lips.

She parted her lips to say something but he gave an infinitesimal shake of his dark head. She knew he was going to kiss her. She could read the dark message of intent plucking at each tiny breath that she took. There was no point by which they were touching other than his light grip on her chin yet the full force of his formidably masculine sensuality still managed to beat over her in waves. The tips of her breasts were tingling, their small, rounded cups filling with the most excruciatingly tender flood of heat. She should move away from him, break the physical connection, but the alarming thing was that she was standing here waiting for him to kiss her.

He moved his thumb to run it gently over her bottom lip and the flesh there bloomed with heat. A wry kind of smile softened the grimness from his own mouth as if he knew about the heat and what it meant. Without knowing she was going to do it, she ran the tip of her tongue across the same place, tracking the trail of his thumb. Light flared in his eyes. The air seemed to still, the dome of bright, twinkling stars above them dimmed then darkened altogether. It was just the two of them standing here in the all-consuming darkness trapped by an energy that circled them like a ring.

His expression was so sombre, his gaze so intense, and he towered over her, wide-shouldered, hard-muscled and breathtakingly male. She knew she should be breaking free from this but still she didn’t do it. It was appalling and shameful and pride-crushingly weak of her but she just stood there in front of him with her eyes drowning in his eyes and her lips parted, waiting for his kiss.

He murmured something about spellbinding nymphs, then it came, just the lightest touch of his tongue tip against the corner of her mouth and Zoe was startled by the force of pleasure that poured into her blood. Her fingers jerked up to grab hold of his shirt either side of his taut waist. The heat coming from him was stunning, as was the intimacy with which she absorbed his slight intake of breath.

‘Ah, Anton, you have arrived at last,’ a pleased voice said.