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“Your accent is strange.” She narrowed in on that as a way to hold him at a distance. Something about his voice caused a prickle of apprehension in her. “Where are you from?”
His expression blanked into what must be a winning poker face. Which had to mean he was lying when he said, “I was born here.”
“In Greece or on this island?” She knew most of the locals by sight, if not by name. “I don’t recognize you. What’s your name?”
A flash of something came and went in his gaze. Annoyance? “Stavros. I’ve lived abroad since I was twelve. I’m back for a working vacation.”
She might have latched on to his lack of a surname if she hadn’t just realized what colored his fluid Greek.
“You’re American.” On vacation.
Her blood stuttered to a halt in her veins, sending ice penetrating to her bones. No. Never again. No and no. She didn’t care how good-looking he was. No.
As if he heard the indictment in her tone, he threw his head back, expression offended. “I’m Greek.”
She knew her prejudice was exactly that. It wasn’t even a real prejudice. She quite enjoyed chatting with rotund, married American tourists or any American woman. She wanted to go to America. New York, to be precise.
No, the only people she truly held in contempt were straight men who thought they could treat the local women like amusement-park rides. It didn’t matter where they came from. Been there, done that, and her wounds were still open to prove it.
But the man who had left her with nothing, not even her reputation, happened to be American, so that was the crime she accused this one of committing.
“You’re here to fix the pool,” she reminded with a sharpness honed by life’s hardest knocks. “You only have two weeks. Better get to it.”
CHAPTER TWO (#u27eaabda-8b0e-5702-b767-f25d66b167bb)
DAY THREE AND Stavros was sore. He worked out regularly, but not like this. After ten hours of physically breaking tiles with a sledgehammer and wheelbarrowing them up a flight of stairs, he had exchanged a few texts with Antonio. His friend’s conglomerate built some of the world’s tallest buildings.
Can I use a jackhammer?
He had included a photo.
I wouldn’t. Could damage the integrity of the pool.
Stavros didn’t have the cash to rent one anyway. If he rented anything, it would be a car. He had had to catch a lift with the coffee truck this morning and walk the rest of the way. What the hell did Sebastien think he would learn from this exercise?
Hell, it wasn’t exercise. It was back-breaking labor. Which was allowing him to work out pent-up frustrations, but not the one eating a hole through him.
He wanted that woman. “Calli,” she had informed him stiffly when he had asked for her name. She had pointed out the tiles that had been cracked by the roots of a tree. Since those tiles and that tree had to come out, they were redoing the entire surface surrounding the pool. He was.
She had disappeared into the house and had been a teasing peripheral presence ever since, flitting behind the screened door, playing music now and again, occasionally talking on the phone and cooking things that sent aromas out to further sharpen an appetite made ravenous by hard work.
He’d eaten well the first night, then did the math and realized he would have to make his own sandwiches the rest of his time here. It made the scent of garlic and oregano, lamb and peppers all the more maddening.
Who was she cooking for? It was ten o’clock in the morning and no one else was here, not even the man who kept her tucked away on the Aegean like a holiday cottage. A married man, presumably.
Stavros couldn’t quit thinking about that. Or the way she’d looked as she had risen like a goddess from the water. The physical attraction in that moment had been beyond his experience. He’d been compelled to move closer, had physically ached to touch her. His body still hummed with want and he had this nagging need to get back to that moment and pursue her.
But she had wished him dead on the spot. For being American.
It had been a slap in the face, not least because he had been working through mixed feelings over his identity for most of his life, ever since his father’s father had yanked him from this paradisiacal island to the concrete one of Manhattan.
He’d always been too Greek for his grandfather’s tastes and not Greek enough for his own. Having Calli draw attention to that stung.
Which left him even more determined to get back to that moment when she had revealed she desired him—him. Woman for man, all other considerations forgotten, most especially the man who kept her.
He hadn’t experienced impotent rage like this since his early days of moving to New York, when he’d been forced to live a life he didn’t want, yet defend it on the schoolyard. And he’d never before experienced such a singular need to prove something to a woman. Force her to acknowledge the spark between them.
He wanted to catch her by the arms, pull her in and kiss her until she succumbed to this fierce thing between them, show her—
He was too deep in thought, throwing too much weight behind the hammer. A chunk of broken tile flew up and grazed his shin, completely painless for a moment as it scored a lancing line into his flesh.
Then the burn arrived in a white-hot streak. He swore.
* * *
Calli heard several nasty curses in a biting tone. It meant trouble in any language.
She had spent the last few days trying to ignore Stavros, which was impossible, but she couldn’t ignore that. She instinctively clicked off the burner and moved to glance through the screen-covered door to the courtyard.
He was bare-chested, wrapping his lower leg with his T-shirt. Blood stained through the bright yellow.
She ran for the first-aid kit, then hurried out to him. “What happened?”
It was obvious what had happened. He wore sturdy work boots and had showed up in jeans this morning, but it was already hot, even in the partially shaded courtyard and with the cooling curtain running beside the outdoor lounge. He had stripped down to his shorts an hour ago—yes, she had noticed—and now a jagged piece of tile had cut his leg.
“Let me see.”
She started to open the kit, but as he unwrapped the shirt, she knew this was beyond her rudimentary skills. Good thing she wasn’t squeamish.
“That needs stitches.”
“Butterfly bandages will do.”
“No, that’s deep. It needs to be properly cleaned and dressed. Are your shots up-to-date?”
He gave her a pithy look. “I have regular physicals, and yes, I’m one hundred percent healthy.”
She had a feeling he wasn’t talking about tetanus, but refused to be sidetracked. For the last six years she’d been dealing with an overbearing boss and keeping his spoiled daughter out of trouble. She had learned to dig in her heels when circumstances required.
“Do you know where the clinic is? It’s not a proper hospital and only open during the day. You’re best to go now or you’ll be paying the call-in fee for after hours. Or trying to find a boat to the mainland for treatment there.”
She tried to ignore the twist and flex of his naked torso and the scent of his body as he reached to take a roll of gauze from the kit. “I don’t have a vehicle.”
“Shall I call your employer?”
“No one likes a tattletale.” He efficiently rewrapped the T-shirt and used the gauze to secure it, then used barbed clips to fasten the tails.
“No one likes stained tiles.” She nodded at the red working its way through the layers of gauze. “I meant should I ask him to come take you to the clinic. I noticed you don’t have the truck today.”
“He’ll say I have a job to finish. Which I do.”
That was a barb at her, but he had been attacking his task doggedly, seeming determined to complete on time. Yes, she had peered out at him regularly, and his relentless work ethic dented her perception of him as a useless philanderer, intriguing her.
“Shall I drive you?”
“Look.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, swore under his breath. “I don’t have insurance. And I can’t afford to pay for treatment. Okay?” He begrudged admitting it, she could tell. It wasn’t so much a blow to his pride, though. He was impatient. Exasperated.
She was surprised. Not that he resented admitting he was short on resources, but that he was down on his luck at all. He didn’t possess even a shred of humility and oozed a type of confidence she only saw in men with fountains of money, like Takis. Who was this man? What had happened to knock him off his keel?
“You think Ionnes will fire you if you make a work-injury claim? He’s not like that. But I’ll have them send the bill here. We can lump it in with the costs of the repair. My boss won’t mind.” Since she would pay it out of her own pocket.
She’d been at rock bottom once and Takis had saved her. She looked for chances to pay it forward. “I have to pick up a few groceries anyway.”
That was another white lie and she wasn’t sure why she tacked it on. Maybe to spare his pride because she knew what it was like to face losing self-esteem along with everything else.
Or because she wanted to spend time with this man, now her view of him was out of focus. She studied his stern visage only to have his attention narrow on her, like a predatory bird spotting an unsuspecting hare.
Why on earth had she thought he needed anything from her, least of all benevolence? That innate fierceness in his expression took him from handsome to all powerful. He was magnificent. She was spellbound, exactly as a bird’s prey might be. Frozen in fascinated horror as she stared into her own demise.
“Your boss?” Sexual tension swooped in on the wings of a speculative look to perch between them, impossible to ignore.
Her scalp prickled and her breasts felt constrained by her bra. Who was she kidding? The sexual awareness had only dissipated because she’d been hiding in the house for three days. Had she realized he had made the same assumption about her as everyone else did she might have let the fallacy continue, since it offered a type of protection.
She wanted to be annoyed. Furious. Hurt.
She was scared. Her heart battered the inside of her rib cage like a fist against a wall. She needed protection because that youthful indiscretion that had put all the wrong thoughts into all the smallest minds was still alive in her. She had buried it deep behind the rarely used dishes, but he’d found it. He was reaching into her, bringing it to the light, blowing away the dust and asking, What’s this?
With her stomach in knots and her blood moving like warm honey, she pretended ignorance. Indignation.
“Takis Karalis.” She clumsily shoved the gauze and scissors back into the first-aid kit. “The owner of this villa. I’m his housekeeper. Why? What did you think?”
His gaze flicked over her, reassessing. It should have insulted her, but it caused a bright heat to glow inside her. She wanted him to discover that hidden part of her. Play with it. Polish it and make it shine.
In that moment, she wanted to be his type, able to be casual about intimacy and physical delights. There was such promise in his eyes. Such pleasures untold.
But that way lay heartache of the most shattering kind. She knew it far too well. She had to remember that.
“You’re not the first to think I’m his mistress.” She hadn’t bothered fighting the perception because her reputation had been in ruins the day Takis offered her this job. What was one more snide remark behind her back?
She needed to hold this man off, though, or she might self-destruct all over again.
“That’s really sexist, you know, to assume that sleeping with the owner is the only reason I would be living here. Or to think I couldn’t own this house. Not when it sounds as though I’m a lot closer to affording it than you are.”
He didn’t move, but his silence blasted her, warning her to mind herself.
A power struggle with this man was deeply foolish. In fact, trying to keep him at a distance might be a lost cause.
That thought was so disturbing, she could only blurt, “I’ll meet you at the car.”
She charged—retreated—into the house where she quickly scraped the moussaka filling she’d just finished browning into a bowl. She set it in the fridge before collecting her keys and purse, hands shaking.
Outside, her car was blocked by the pallet of new tiles he had unloaded a few days ago, along with the bin of broken ones.
Damn. No way could she risk staining the convertible. She glanced at his makeshift bandage. That must be painful, but he was stoic about it.
“We’ll have to take the scooter.” She moved to the stall and reached for her helmet, offering him Ophelia’s. They were both pink, matching the Vespa.
“It’s too small,” he dismissed with a dry glance.
“I’m sure you’re right. Your big head would never fit.” Shut up, Calli. She set aside the helmet and paused before buckling on her own. “Do you want to go by yourself?”
“I don’t know where the clinic is, do I? I might bleed out before I find it. No, by all means, take me.”
He was being sarcastic, but his voice hit a velvety note with that last couple of words, causing a clench of heat in her. Her mind filled with imaginings she didn’t even want to acknowledge. Take me. She maneuvered the scooter out of its spot with a practiced wangle, started it and balanced it between her legs.
He took up twice the space Ophelia did and wasn’t shy about setting his hands on her hips. He guided her backside into a snug fit between his thighs.
She tried to stiffen and hold herself forward, but that only arched her tailbone into his groin. There was no escaping the surrounding heat off his bare, damp chest or rock-hard thighs shoved up against the outsides of hers. She wore shorts and a T-back sports cami. It was a lot of skin grazing skin. He let his hands fall to the tops of her legs, fingertips digging lightly into the crease at her hips.
She stopped breathing, held by an electrical current that stimulated all her pleasure points.
His growing beard of stubble scraped her bare shoulder and his breath heated the sensitive skin where her neck met her collarbone. “Shouldn’t you be speeding off to save my life?”
“I’m seriously debating whether it’s worth saving.”
He hitched forward, jamming her buttocks even tighter into the notch of his spread legs.
She took off in a small act of desperation, glad for the muffle of the helmet and the buzz of the motor so she didn’t hear his laugh, even though she felt it.
Honestly.
She sensed him turning his head this way and that as she took the shortcut over the top of the island, through the area with the very best views, between the extravagant mansions that dominated the peak of the hill. Then, as they came down the other side and the road wound toward the coast, the horizon appeared as a stark line between two shades of blue. They descended to where the land fell away in a steep cliff.
On the mountainside above them, stone fences kept sheep in their fields and hopefully off the roads. She kept her speed down just in case. The scent of blossoms in the lemon groves filled the morning air and she couldn’t help relax as the cool breeze stroked over her skin.
His thumbs moved on her and she grew tense in a different way. Tingles of anticipation raced up her rib cage, longing for his touch to rise and soothe, cup her aching breasts and draw her back into him more fully.
How did she even know what that would feel like enough to want it? Her sexuality had been flash frozen before it had had time to properly bloom. She didn’t want to want a man’s touch. It was self-destructive madness.
Descending the hairpin turns rocked her against him, driving her mad. She had come this way because it was quicker, but she usually avoided this route into the port town. It wasn’t the once-daily ferry traffic and swarm of fresh tourists that bothered her. This part of the island actually had the best beaches and the better shopping. Ophelia begged to come here and there were a handful of really great restaurants.
Unfortunately, this route took her directly past a kafenion where local men sat and watched the world go by. Her father was often among them and she braced herself as they approached, refusing to look, keeping her nose pointed forward as she passed.
Not that he would acknowledge her, especially with a man behind her. He would ignore her completely, exactly as she would ignore him. She just preferred not to set herself up for that blaze of layered pain.
They hit the melee of the village streets and she was glad they had the scooter. It allowed her to zigzag around traffic snarls and down narrow alleys, coming in the back way to the clinic where she parked next to staff cars.
“Who is Ophelia?” he asked as they dismounted.
