Читать книгу The Greek's Virgin Temptation - Susan Stephens, Susan Stephens - Страница 11

HIS FIRST DAY on Kaimos was ruined. Arriving late last night, Kris had opted to stay on his yacht. He’d thought an energetic swim in the sea would wash the cobwebs of the city away but, having reached his favourite beach, he was confronted by a group of tourists, apparently oblivious to the fact that this stretch of sand was his private preserve.

Seawater drained off his body as he stepped out of the water and impatiently raked back his hair. He was immediately drawn to a woman at the head of the group. Great breasts, fantastic legs and the most eye-catching waist-length ebony hair streaked with purple. Wearing the tiniest bikini he’d ever seen, she was dancing down the dunes to the sound of an old beatbox one of her companions was carrying on his shoulder. She’d tied a brightly coloured chiffon scarf around her waist and it was decorated with something that flashed in the sun. Tiny bells attached to it jingled as she moved. There were so many strings of beads around her neck that if she went in the water, she’d surely sink. He liked quirky, but this was ridiculous, though her manner interested him as much as her looks. There was something wild, almost reckless in her behaviour, as if she had nothing to lose and was dancing to blot out some unpleasant incident. No doubt in on the facts, he guessed her friends were trying to show their support.

What the hell? His hackles rose as they started to light a bonfire. On his beach! Then someone produced a dress from a sack—it looked like a wedding gown. Did it belong to the quirky woman? Yes, he gathered as she refused to touch it and, pulling a face, stepped back, leaving her friends to place it on the funeral pyre.

Resentment clawed at his gut, but he was keen to see the drama play out. As the flames rose and the dress disintegrated, the woman remained motionless, watching. Her friends, having formed a protective circle around her, also remained still until the fire had guttered and gone out. With only ashes left, she stabbed at the embers with a stick, as if she had to be sure that every atom of the gown had been completely consumed. Dropping the stick, she walked to the water’s edge where, tugging a ring off her finger, she flung it into the sea. He watched it glint as it went out and glint again as a strong wave brought it straight back onto the beach again. The tide was working against her, though she had no idea that the ring had returned as she’d already turned away.

Wanting to meet her for some reason he didn’t examine too closely, he retrieved the ring and caught up with her before she reached her friends. Holding it out on the palm of his hand, he asked, ‘Is this yours?’

She stared at him in silence for a moment, and then her gaze dropped to his outstretched hand and she shuddered.

‘Take it, or I can toss it back,’ he offered.

* * *

Kimmie was in turmoil. Her heart was jumping in her chest. Not only had she survived the shock of her life this morning, and then tried to make things good for her friends, she was now confronted by a Titan who might have stepped straight out of myth and legend. And he was holding out the ring, expecting her to take it.

She guessed he was around thirty years old. Huge and brutally masculine, he was the last thing she needed today. A piercingly intelligent stare that wouldn’t let her go, and hard, rugged features that looked as if they’d been hewn out of stone completed a picture she had no wish to see. His wild mop of thick, inky-black hair was still damp from the sea, and had caught on his sharply etched cheekbones thanks to the thick shading of black stubble that suggested he hadn’t shaved today. Tough enough to be a roustabout from the docks, she guessed he might be a local fisherman. Deeply bronzed by the elements, his body could have been sculpted by Michelangelo.

‘You found it,’ she said lamely, finding her voice.

‘Evidently,’ he confirmed.

‘But I don’t understand.’ She frowned. ‘I just flung it out to sea.’

‘And the tide brought it straight back again. I thought you’d want to know,’ he remarked in perfect English. His voice was deep and husky, and only faintly accented—Greek, she thought, having recognised the familiar intonation. So he was a well-travelled roustabout.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she said, shading her eyes to stare up at him.

‘And now you’d like me to throw it back again,’ he guessed with an amused quirk of his brow.

‘Would you?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can you make sure it doesn’t come back again?’

‘It won’t ever come back,’ he assured her, glancing at her hand on his arm.

What was she thinking?

She wasn’t thinking, Kimmie concluded as she snatched her hand away from his arm. Shock had sent her reeling this morning, and stunned amazement at seeing this man had halted her recovery stone dead.

But he was as good as his word. She watched as he fired the ring so far out to sea she was confident it would never be seen again. Her gaze strayed to the formidable width of his shoulders. He was as stunning from the back as he was from his front.

‘So something went wrong for you today,’ he said as he swung around.

She almost jumped out of her skin, embarrassed to think he might have caught her staring at him. ‘You could say that,’ she admitted sparingly.

‘Everyone has bad days.’ His magnificent shoulders eased in a shrug.

‘This one was extremely bad,’ she admitted.

‘Yet it prompted a party?’ he queried.

‘It’s more of a wake,’ she explained, turning to glance at her friends, who were already dancing on the flat, damp sand at the edge of the beach. They seemed to be having a good time, which was all she wanted.

‘A wake?’ the Titan prompted.

‘I don’t want to answer any more questions,’ she said bluntly. Walking into Janey’s room that morning had been quite enough. Staring into the mirror later, and realising she could never compete with Janey’s polish, wasn’t something she wanted to relive either.

‘Fair enough. Glad to be of service,’ the Titan drawled.

As she filled her eyes with him, her mind raced to work out how she’d reached this point. She’d been a scholarship girl, which was how she’d first met Mike’s sister. Jocelyn had taken Kimmie home for the holidays, which was where she’d met Mike. It was no wonder suave, sophisticated Mike had ultimately grown bored with Kimmie and looked elsewhere. She just wished he’d done that before asking her to marry him.

‘Don’t let me keep you,’ she said to the Titan.

One satanic brow lifted and she guessed he didn’t make a habit of doing other people’s bidding. And that posed another question. Why had he approached her now? Why Kimmie? She couldn’t bear it if he felt sorry for her...if anyone felt sorry for her. She’d sort this out herself.

Lifting her chin, she said, ‘Can I offer you a drink to say thank you?’ In her peripheral vision she could see her friends setting out the picnic they’d brought with them. Their landlady, Kyria Demetriou, had prepared the most wonderful wedding breakfast, and Kimmie was determined it wouldn’t go to waste.

‘I appreciate your offer,’ he said, ‘but I won’t be able to accept as you and your friends must leave.’

‘I’m sorry?’ She gazed up, uncomprehending.

‘This is a private beach,’ he explained, ‘and you don’t have the necessary permission to be here.’

‘And you do?’ she challenged. It might have been a hell of a day, but she wasn’t on the canvas yet, and she had no intention of going down without a fight. Her guests had travelled a long way, only to have the wedding cancelled at the eleventh hour. The least she could offer them was a party on the beach.

‘Look,’ she reasoned when the man remained stony-faced, ‘we’re not doing any harm, and we’ll clear everything up when we leave.’

‘Read the notice,’ he rapped.

She followed his stare to a huge red sign proclaiming the beach off-limits to the general public.

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t see it,’ she admitted. ‘Are you some sort of ranger?’ Her heart thumped wildly as she stared him up and down.

‘Let’s just say I’m an interested party.’

‘Perhaps you can show me a letter of authority?’ She realised how foolish that request was even as she said it. More proof, if she had needed it, that she was only firing on half-cylinders.

The man seemed to find this amusing and flicked a glance down his half-naked frame. ‘I’m afraid I don’t have anything on me at the moment.’

She refused to look at his bronzed perfection, and wasn’t in the mood to back down. ‘With no proof of your authority, we’re not going anywhere.’

The temperature rose between them. ‘Just pack up this circus and leave.’

‘Is that the type of welcome you’d like me to associate with Kaimos?’

‘You’ll have plenty to remember,’ he flashed back.

‘How nice of you to remind me.’

His expression remained unchanged.

‘It would be nice to have some good memories to mix in with the bad, but if you can’t help me...’ She shrugged. ‘Can’t I say anything to change your mind?’

The man remained silent.

‘Are you a member of the crew from that mega-yacht out there?’ she asked, trying another tack. ‘Did you swim to the beach from that...?’ She could only be pleasant for so long under this sort of pressure. ‘That floating office block?’ The huge vessel had been moored up in the bay since first thing that morning. It was the type of eye-popping craft favoured by billionaires and potentates. If he worked for someone like that, she could understand that he’d want to clear the beach before his boss came on shore.

‘Crew?’ he queried, frowning. ‘Floating office block?’

‘That boat out there,’ she said, pointing.

If only her pulse would slow down and her wits would speed up, she thought as he replied in a clipped tone, ‘I’m not crew. And the vessel you refer to is the Spirit of Kaimos.’

‘Well, I’m very sorry, but I’ve never heard of it. And you still haven’t answered my question. Where are you from?’

‘Why is that so important?’

‘It isn’t. I’m just curious.’

‘As am I,’ he shot back.

His lazy gaze stripped her bare and, while her wilful body applauded, her mind sensibly screamed, This isn’t right... I need recovery time... What am I doing here, trading insults with a sexy stranger?

All Kimmie had wanted when she came to the seashore was to dance all the bad stuff out of her head. Instead she was getting deeper into conflict with a man who thought he could order her friends off the beach. She’d reached her tipping point. It was enough to know she’d let everyone down by bringing them all the way to Greece for a wedding that wasn’t going to happen, without having some arrogant Titan order them to leave.

‘Talk and I might let you stay.’

Kimmie’s jaw firmed and her eyes flashed fire at him, but she had her friends to consider. Curbing her anger threw her thoughts back to the mistakes of the day. She should have seen that Mike’s romantic interest in her had only grown wings when her exhibition of paintings straight out of college had been such an unexpected success. That should have rung warning bells, but Jocelyn was like a sister and Kimmie loved her dearly, and she had so wanted to belong and have a family of her own. Mike couldn’t wait to share everything with her, he’d said. Now she realised the only thing he’d actually meant to share with her was the money she’d made from the sale of her paintings. And now this man wanted to take another bite out of her life?

‘I’m not here to sort out your problems,’ he rapped, confirming her impression of him as harsh and unfeeling. ‘Or to be the butt of your anger,’ he added in the same hostile tone.

She stared him straight in the eyes. He might terrify some people, but she’d been through the wringer today and had no intention of backing down, though she had to handle him carefully for the sake of her friends.

‘Without proof that you have the authority to tell us to leave, I don’t see why we should.’

‘I’m asking you politely to leave,’ he emphasised.

‘And I’m telling you equally politely that we’re not doing any harm, and that we’ll leave the beach exactly as we found it.’

* * *

She was wholly in the wrong, but she’d impressed him. Determined to defy him, after what could only have been one hell of a start to her day, he guessed what she’d really like to do was to find a dark, quiet place where she could be alone with her thoughts as she tried to work out what had gone wrong. She struck him as an intelligent woman, not the type to blunder into a hasty marriage, so he was curious too. To her credit, she was concentrating on her friends, doing everything she could to make things right for them. This included holding him at bay, which was no mean task. He was used to women waiting for him to call the shots before falling in line with whatever he wanted. This woman would never do that. He found himself in the unusual position of telling her to go while wanting her to stay. In the interest of compromise he decided to back off for a while.

‘Kris,’ he said, extending his hand in the customary greeting.

Ignoring his hand, she frowned suspiciously. ‘Does that mean you’re joining us?’

‘I didn’t say that.’ He noted the flush in her cheeks and her darkening eyes as his hand closed around hers. The urge to drag her close and kiss her hard was overwhelming, but control was second nature to him.

Displaying the same iron resolve, she stepped back, pulling her hand out of his. ‘Kimmie—Kimmie Lancaster. Kimmie isn’t short for anything; it’s just Kimmie.’

This woman wasn’t just anything. ‘So, just Kimmie...burning a wedding dress and throwing away a diamond ring, and now you’re having a party.’

‘A wedding wake,’ she reminded him. ‘We can’t waste the food. Kyria Demetriou at the Oia Mare, where we’re staying, went to so much trouble to prepare a wedding feast, and this is the only way we can show our appreciation.’

‘Commendable. She’s a friend of mine.’

‘Kyria Demetriou?’

‘Yes.’

Kyria Demetriou was a pretty good judge of character, and he could see Kimmie thinking, Okay, so maybe he’s not so bad.

‘It’s a small island,’ she said. ‘I’m not surprised you know each other. I don’t expect you’d want us saying anything bad about you to her?’

‘Are you attempting to blackmail me?’ he asked, smiling faintly with incredulity.

‘Whatever it takes,’ she said bluntly.

More gripped by her character than ever, he pressed on with his low-key interrogation. ‘The Oia Mare is very nice, but quite expensive...?’

‘I wanted to treat my friends—’

‘You wanted to treat your friends?’

‘What’s wrong with that?’ she fired back.

‘It must have cost you a lot of money.’

She didn’t answer.

‘Why couldn’t your friends contribute towards the cost themselves?’ he prompted.

‘Because I didn’t want them to. I’d had a lucky break and wanted to share my good fortune. I ring-fenced some of the money I’d made for a project I’m interested in, but there was plenty left over and I wanted us all to do something special, something different for a change.’

‘And your fiancé went along with this proposal?’

She clammed up, and then admitted, ‘I don’t even know why I’m telling you all this.’

‘Because you need to get it off your chest?’

Pressing her lips down, she shrugged.

‘Were you engaged for long?’

He could see her wondering whether to say another word, but then her armour cracked and she revealed, ‘If I tell you, you’ll laugh.’

‘Try me,’ he challenged.

‘All right, I will. I’m an artist, recently graduated from studying at college in London. My first art exhibition was held straight out of college. No one, least of all me, could have predicted what a success it would be. My ex-fiancé is an older man whom I’ve known pretty much all my life. He’s my best friend’s older brother. Anyway,’ she added, brushing off unpleasant memories, he guessed, ‘he came to the gallery on the last night when there was nothing left to buy. I think we were both amazed...buoyed up...excited by what had happened. And he proposed to me there and then.’

‘And you agreed to marry him there and then?’

‘Yes. It does sound stupid now,’ she agreed wearily, ‘but sometimes life pushes you down a path you don’t expect, because the past is steering you.’

‘Is that what happened in your case?’

She looked at him for a few long moments and then said, ‘I’m done. I’m not going to tell you anything else.’

‘Quite right,’ he agreed reluctantly.

Life choices. And where had they got her? Kimmie huffed inwardly as she realised that in the personal sense her choices had been disastrous. She’d jumped at the chance to marry Mike, thinking she would be laughing in the face of the past. She could see now he’d caught her at the very best...no, the very worst possible moment.

‘So your fiancé cheated on you?’ Kris guessed shrewdly.

‘What brilliant powers of deduction.’

‘A bride without a groom,’ he added, unfazed by her sarcasm. ‘How unfortunate.’

‘Some would call it lucky.’

‘Do you?’ he asked with a keen stare.

‘I call it a life lesson,’ she admitted.

‘Will it make you bitter?’

‘No,’ she said without hesitation. ‘It will make me cautious, and determined never to make the same mistake again.’

‘Easy to say, harder to do,’ Kris observed.

‘You don’t know me,’ she assured him.

‘That sounds like a challenge,’ he said lazily.

An idea had begun to brew in Kris’s mind. He’d have to explore the possibility a lot more before deciding to progress things further, but this unexpected encounter, coming hot on the heels of a conversation he’d had with his uncle, made him feel as if fate was lending a hand.

‘Well, if you’re not going to join us, I guess I’ll see you around,’ she said pointedly.

‘It will be hard to avoid you on such a small island.’

‘I’ll do my best to stay out of your way.’

‘Starting now?’ he suggested, shooting a meaningful glance at her friends.

She sighed. ‘Not that again. I promise we’ll be ultra-careful. I’ll be personally responsible for making sure that every grain of sand is returned to its rightful place before we leave.’

He huffed a laugh. She’d won. Whether that was because she was so unusual, or because she’d stood up to him, he didn’t know and didn’t care.

‘Make sure you do that,’ he warned lightly. ‘Or you’ll answer to me.’

The blush on her face suggested that wasn’t an entirely unwelcome proposition. She was extremely attractive, like no one he’d ever met before. He liked a challenge and he admired her grit. With their stares locked in mutual interest, he wondered if her body ached like his. Animals would have cut to the chase by now, but humans were bound by rules of convention. Getting to know her would take time.

‘Why don’t you introduce me around?’ he suggested.