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The woman smiled sympathetically. ‘I am Eleni. I speak a little English, but not good.’ She took the girl’s arm to help her over to the inviting white bed, but Isobel shook her head, a move she deeply regretted when the pain struck so hard the room swam before her eyes.
‘Sick,’ she gasped, clapping her hand to her mouth, and Eleni acted like lightning to help her hop into the adjoining bathroom. After a painful, humiliating episode, Isobel gasped her thanks and eventually gave in to Eleni’s insistence that she remove the bikini, which had suffered badly during the day’s various adventures. By this time totally beyond embarrassment, Isobel submitted to Eleni’s ministrations as the woman helped her sponge her face and hot, aching body, then wrapped her in a white towelling robe.
‘Thank—you—so—much,’ said Isobel, teeth chattering in reaction as the woman helped her lie down against banked snowy pillows on the bed.
Eleni picked up the bikini. ‘I wash this. You rest,’ she said firmly and went out, closing the door behind her.
The session in the bathroom had rocketed Isobel’s headache to hammer-blow dimensions, which almost blotted out the pain of her ankle but only accentuated her raging thirst as she tried to make sense of her accident. She remembered some idiot on a Jet Ski coming straight at the beach from the sea, then hitting her head and nothing else until she opened her eyes on the angry, handsome face of a stranger and assumed he was the culprit. Which had infuriated him. She tensed as the door opened and her hostile rescuer approached the bed.
‘How do you feel?’ he asked curtly.
‘Not too well.’ She swallowed. ‘I’m so sorry to be a nuisance, but could I possibly have some water?’
Cursing silently for not thinking of it first, Luke nodded stiffly. ‘Of course.’
Isobel watched him as he strode out of the room. He was tall, with a fabulous physique, and in a better mood would be very good-looking. Not that she was concerned with his hostility, or with anything else other than how in the world she was going to get herself out of here—wherever ‘here’ was—and get back to the little cottage she’d paid good money for. And one day of her holiday was already ruined. Tears leaked out of her eyes at the thought, but she knuckled them away, impatient with self-pity as her host returned with her backpack, followed by Eleni with a tray. The woman poured water into a glass and handed it to Isobel, then, at a look from her employer, went from the room, leaving the door wide open.
‘Eleni has looked after my family for years,’ he stated.
Desperate to gulp the water down, Isobel forced herself to sip cautiously. ‘She’s very kind.’
‘I am not?’
‘Of course.’ Her face grew even hotter. ‘I’m extremely grateful to you. And very embarrassed for causing so much trouble.’
Luke shrugged negligently. ‘Tell me your name.’
‘Isobel James.’ She drank the rest of the water and held the cold glass to her cheek, eyeing him questioningly. ‘And you are?’
He laughed scornfully. ‘You do not know?’
She stiffened. ‘I’m afraid not. I only arrived on the island yesterday.’
His dark eyes narrowed to a cynical glitter. ‘So why were you on my beach? You paid someone to take you there by boat?’
Isobel’s knuckles clenched on the glass. ‘No. I went down the path nearest the cottage to the beach adjoining yours. But by mid-morning it was crowded, so when I spotted the gap in the rocks I went to explore.’
‘That way is blocked!’
‘Not quite. I managed to squeeze through.’
‘You were so determined to invade my privacy?’ His eyes flamed with distaste, which touched Isobel on the raw.
‘Certainly not,’ she snapped. ‘I had no idea it was a private beach, nor who it belonged to. I apologise—humbly—for trespassing. And now, if you’ll be kind enough to call a taxi, I’ll get dressed and leave.’
He raised a cynical eyebrow. ‘And how do you propose to walk?’
‘I’ll manage,’ she snapped, praying she was right.
Eleni knocked at the open door and ushered in a familiar figure armed with a medical bag. The two men embraced each other and exchanged greetings before Alex Nicolaides moved to the bed, his eyes wide in consternation as he recognised his patient. ‘Miss James! What happened?’ He turned to her glowering rescuer, obviously asking him the same question in his own language.
‘The lady,’ Luke informed him in very deliberate English, ‘was trespassing on my private beach when she suffered a fall. She was unconscious when I found her. Thank you for coming, Doctor. Please examine her injuries and tell me what must be done for her.’
‘I need Eleni to stay, please,’ said Isobel urgently.
Luke motioned the woman to the bed, but stayed at the foot of it, obviously determined to monitor the proceedings.
Eleni patted Isobel’s hand comfortingly as Alex bent over her.
‘This is very bad luck for you, Miss James,’ he said gently.
His sympathy was so genuine tears welled in Isobel’s eyes, burning as they trickled down her flushed cheeks. Eleni produced tissues to dry the patient’s face so Alex could examine the wound, then he shone a torch in her eyes, held up a finger and told her to follow it with each eye in turn.
‘You have vomited?’
‘Yes.’
‘Does your head hurt very badly?’
‘Yes.’
‘Examine her foot; she hurt that, also,’ Luke said, sounding bored.
Alex frowned as he eyed the swollen ankle. ‘It is necessary to examine for fracture,’ he told Isobel. ‘I will be quick.’
‘Careful,’ warned Luke. ‘She faints a lot.’
A lot? Until today, she’d never fainted before in her life! Isobel clenched her teeth, determined not to faint again as Alex probed gently, though at one point it was a near thing.
‘The ankle is badly sprained only, not broken, Miss James,’ Alex assured her. ‘I will apply temporary bandage, then report to Dr Riga, who will take X-rays to confirm. I will also put a dressing on your face, and give you mild painkillers. Take with much fluid.’
‘Thank you.’ She tried to relax as he strapped her ankle. ‘Did you come here in a car, Doctor?’
He looked up in surprise. ‘No, on back of Milos’s motorbike. Why?’
‘I was hoping for a lift back to the cottage,’ she said, disappointed, and eyed him in appeal. ‘Would you be kind enough to arrange a taxi for me?’
Alex shot a startled look at Luke, who showed his teeth in a cold smile.
‘Miss James may stay here as long as she wishes.’
Not one second longer, if she could help it. ‘How kind,’ said Isobel frostily. ‘But I wouldn’t dream of inconveniencing you. So will you sort out a taxi for me, Doctor?’
Alex looked so uncomfortable Luke took pity on him.
‘I will drive you myself, Miss James,’ he said impatiently. ‘But only when you can manage alone. Demonstrate this for us.’
Isobel summoned every scrap of willpower she possessed to sit up straight. She paused for breath, swivelled round until she could put her good foot on the floor and then took the hand Eleni held out to help her as she struggled to stand. ‘You see?’ she said through her teeth. ‘If you gentlemen will kindly leave, I’ll get dressed.’
‘Miss James, this is not a good idea,’ said Alex, plainly expecting her to collapse in a heap at any second.
‘I must try. The cottage is all on one floor. I have food there, so if Mr—’
She glanced at her host. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know your name.’
‘No?’ He raised an eyebrow in scornful disbelief. ‘I am Lukas Andreadis.’
‘How do you do?’ She turned to Alex. ‘If Mr Andreadis will drive me, I’ll be just fine.’ She swallowed hard on rising nausea and wavered slightly, her hand tightening on Eleni’s.
Luke shook his head. ‘I will drive you when you are fine, Miss James, but that is most obviously not today. Put her back, Eleni.’
‘That is best, Luke,’ said Alex, relieved.
Isobel gave up. She let Eleni make her comfortable, then turned her face into the pillows in despair. Her longed-for odyssey had come to a grinding halt before it had even started. She ignored the hushed interchange in their own tongue between the men, wishing they’d just go away and leave her to wallow alone in her misery.
‘Miss James,’ said Alex, coming back to the bed.
Isobel opened her eyes. ‘Yes?’
‘If you allow me to have your keys, I will take my sister to your house to pack for you.’
‘How kind,’ she said unsteadily. ‘The keys are in my backpack.’
‘I am most happy to do this, but it was Luke’s idea,’ he added.
She turned unsmiling eyes on her host. ‘Then thank you, too, Mr Andreadis.’
‘Here in Greece we believe in helping travellers,’ he informed her indifferently.
‘Unless they invade your beach.’
‘True.’ He unbent enough to smile faintly. ‘Come, then, Alex. I will drive you.’
Eleni closed the door behind them, poured iced fruit juice into a glass and gave Isobel two of the tablets. ‘Drink, kyria,’ she said firmly.
Isobel obediently swallowed the painkillers and drank some of the juice. ‘Efcharisto, Eleni.’ She managed a smile. ‘But please call me Isobel’
Eleni repeated the name shyly, put the glass on the table, then opened the carton of yoghurt.
Isobel eyed it in alarm. ‘I’m so sorry, but I really can’t eat anything right now.’
‘Ochee, not for eating. For your face. It is burning, ne?’
‘Oh, yes,’ sighed Isobel, and submitted to an unexpected beauty treatment. Eleni smoothed the blessedly cool, creamy yoghurt over her face, left it there until it warmed up, then gently cleaned it off with tissues.
‘I will do it more later,’ she promised, ‘but now you sleep, Isobel.’ She smiled and went from the room, leaving the door ajar.
Eventually the pills took enough edge off her aches and pains to let Isobel take interest in her surroundings. Filmy white curtains stirred at glass doors which led on to a balcony, and the room itself was furnished with the type of elegant simplicity that cost the earth. She groaned in sudden despair. She’d come all this way to Chyros to regain her normal perspective on life, yet one day into her holiday and here she was, stranded in a wealthy—and hugely unfriendly—stranger’s house, with no way of escaping until she was more mobile. But why had the man been so sure she’d known who he was? And felt so ticked off about it, too. Perhaps he was some kind of celebrity here in Greece. Her mouth twisted. He needn’t worry where she was concerned. He was good-looking enough in a forceful kind of way, but his personality was so horribly overbearing it cancelled out any attraction he might have had for her as a man…
When Isobel opened her eyes again they widened when she found another stranger looking down at her.
‘Dr Riga, Isobel,’ said Eleni, hurrying to help her to sit up.
The large, bespectacled man gave her a reassuring smile. ‘Kalispera. How do you feel?’ he asked in heavily accented English, and took her pulse.
‘Not too well,’ she admitted.
He nodded, his eyes so sympathetic her own filled with tears again.
‘I’m so sorry, Doctor,’ she said huskily, and took the tissue Eleni had ready.
‘You suffer much pain; you are also in shock and alone in a strange country, Miss James. Tears are natural,’ he assured her. ‘I must take X-ray at my clinic. Eleni will help you dress.’ He smiled reassuringly and went from the room.
‘Eleni,’ said Isobel urgently, ‘will you help me wash again? Did Mr Andreadis bring my clothes?’
The woman nodded and helped Isobel out of the bed, supporting her as she hopped awkwardly to the bathroom. ‘I used iron,’ she said severely. ‘Alyssa Nicolaides packed too quick.’
‘You’re an angel, thank you, Eleni.’ Isobel tried to hurry. ‘I mustn’t keep the doctor waiting.’
Eleni shook her head. ‘He is gone. Kyrie Luke will drive you. Not rush,’ she warned.
After the hurried bathroom session Isobel felt relatively presentable in a white denim skirt and blue T-shirt, though the effect was marred by wearing only one sandal. Otherwise she felt horribly queasy still, and her head was pounding like a war drum. Eleni helped her to the stool in front of the dressing table, anointed her face with more yoghurt, then wiped it away and handed Isobel her zippered travel pack. Resigned to see faint bruising under her eye, Isobel used a comb gingerly, decided against lip gloss and smiled wanly at Eleni.
‘I’m ready.’
The woman nodded. ‘I tell him.’
Isobel would have given a lot to walk downstairs on her own two feet when Luke Andreadis appeared in the doorway in a crisp white shirt and jeans which were obviously custom made by their fit.
‘How do you feel now?’ he asked, his eyes on the bright hair curling loosely on her shoulders.
‘Cleaner.’
‘But you are still in pain.’ ‘Yes.’
He picked her up with exaggerated care. ‘I will strive not to cause you more.’
‘Likewise, Mr Andreadis,’ she returned, holding herself rigid, face averted, as he carried her from the room.
He frowned. ‘Likewise?’
‘Carrying me around can’t be doing your back much good.’
He laughed sardonically as he descended the curving staircase into a marble-floored hall with an alcove containing a striking half-size statue of Perseus brandishing the severed head of the gorgon Medusa. ‘I will survive. You are not heavy.’
‘As soon as humanly possible, I’ll get back to the cottage.’
‘When Dr Riga says you are fit to do so,’ he said dismissively and carried her through a large plant-filled conservatory to put her in the passenger seat of the Cherokee Jeep parked at the back of the villa. Which, now she had attention to spare for it, Isobel could see was a dream of a house.
