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‘Is it safe to let them go inside?’ Lindy queried worriedly.
‘If it were not I would not send them. The seat of the fire is a considerable distance from the library,’ Atreus responded loftily, his irritation at that suggestion of censure unconcealed. ‘My laptop and sensitive papers must be retrieved.’
Lindy could not credit that he could still be concentrating solely on business when the superb paintings she could see decorating the hall walls were under threat. Didn’t he appreciate how terrifyingly fast a fire could move through a building? A terrifying shiver of remembrance that was a powerful hangover from her childhood experiences ran through her. Clenching her hands into fists of restraint, she turned away to approach Phoebe, who was surrounded by a cluster of locals. All of them were frozen into inactivity in the weird fascination of spectators watching a potential disaster develop.
‘There’s no time to waste. Let’s get the artworks out,’ Lindy urged.
A chain of willing helpers formed, and the first paintings were removed and passed out through the windows from hand to hand. Lindy, always a talented organiser, co-ordinated the effort, and once the Dionides bodyguards and estate workers joined them the salvage operation began to function with greater speed and efficiency. Two fire engines arrived and Atreus went into immediate consultation with the senior officer in charge. Ladders went up and hoses began to cover the ground. Chantry House sat on a hill, and water would have to be pumped up from the lake if the flames got a firm hold.
The task of clearing valuables from the vast mansion was eased by the fortunate fact that many of the rooms were awaiting redecoration and still empty. As the pressure on the salvage operation lessened Lindy watched in fierce trepidation as jets of water were directed into the burning building and billowing clouds of black smoke poured into the night sky. Even the smell of the smoke in the air made her feel queasy.
‘The fire’s travelling through the roof void,’ Atreus ground out.
‘Did the cat get out okay?’ Lindy asked, belatedly recalling Dolly, the animal the housekeeper had mentioned.
Atreus urged her back onto the lawn as the orange glare behind a sash window loudly cracked the glass. ‘What cat? I don’t have animals in the house.’
Lindy dealt him a look of consternation and raced over to Phoebe. A storage lorry was reversing in readiness to load the paintings stacked on the tarpaulins that had been spread on the grass.
‘Did Dolly get out?’ Lindy asked frantically.
‘Oh! I forgot about her!’ the older woman admitted guiltily. ‘I closed her in the kitchen for the night. I didn’t want to risk her getting out and wandering round the house.’
The fire team in the hallway told her she couldn’t enter the building. Tears of frustration in her eyes, Lindy pelted round to the back of the house. Would she really have the courage to go inside? she asked herself fiercely, doubting her strength of will in the face of such a challenge? The back door lay open. Her legs felt weak and woolly. She thought about the cat and, sucking in a deep jagged breath, conquered her paralysis and stumbled forward to race into the house. She sped down the flagged corridor and past innumerable closed doors. For a split second she froze in fear, for the smell of the smoke was rousing ever more frightening memories. But commonsense intervened and she snatched up a towel in the laundry room and held it to her face because the acrid smoke was catching horribly at her nose and her throat. Long before she reached the kitchen door, it had become a struggle to breathe.
She could hear a dull roaring sound behind the kitchen door and her courage almost failed to her, but she was powered by an image of Dolly’s terror and the sick memory of herself as a child, trapped in a burning house. Using the towel to turn the door handle, in case it was hot, she opened the door just as a man shouted at her from behind.
‘Don’t open the door…no!’ he roared, but she was on an adrenalin rush and she did not even turn her head.
She was shaken by the discovery that the ceiling was on fire. Although there was a scattering of small burning pieces of debris on the floor, the kitchen was still eerily intact within that unnatural orange glow of impending destruction. The heat, however, was intense. Dolly had taken shelter under the table. An elderly black and white cat, with big green eyes, she was clearly not her usual placid self. A smouldering piece of wood lay nearby and Dolly was snarling at it, with her hackles lifted and her fur standing on end.
Lindy surged forward and snatched up Dolly just as the most dreadful rending noise sounded from above her. Inadvertently she paused and obeyed a foolish compulsion to look up. Someone lifted her bodily off her feet and hauled her backwards. A burning beam fell on the table and rolled off again, showering sparks and choking dust only feet away from her. She had been right in its path, and the fear of what might have been hit her hard and left her limp.
Atreus carried Lindy and the struggling cat to safety and withstood a volley of reproof from the fireman who had followed his rescue bid. She was coughing and spluttering as Atreus lowered her to the cobbled yard outside, and she breathed in the clean air with feverish relief.
‘How could you be so stupid?’Atreus yelled at her, full volume. ‘Why didn’t you stop when I shouted at you?’
‘I didn’t hear you shout!’
‘You risked my life and your own for an animal!’ Atreus launched at her in condemnation.
That verbal attack shocked her, and at the same moment she feverishly fought disturbing recollections of the household fire that had many years earlier taken her father’s life. The combination made her eyes prickle and overflow and she flung him a speaking glance of reproach. ‘I couldn’t just leave Dolly to die in there!’
The cat was now curled up in Lindy’s arms, with her furry head tucked well out of view. She was paying not the smallest heed to the crackling flames leaping through the roof of the west wing, or to the noise and activity of the human beings rushing around. Dolly had had enough excitement for one day and recognised a safe haven when she was offered one.
‘You could have been killed or at the very least seriously injured,’ Atreus admonished fiercely.
‘You were a hero,’ Lindy pronounced through clenched teeth of ingratitude. ‘Thank you very much for saving my life.’
Fighting to contain his anger with her, Atreus gazed down at her defiant oval face. She wasn’t beautiful but there was something about her, a heady je ne sais quoi that made him blatantly aware of her femininity. Was it those clear bright eyes? The luxuriant mane of long dark hair? Or the voluptuous figure that had infiltrated his dreams and caused him more disturbed nights that he cared to remember? She was full of emotion, a far cry from the reserved and controlled women he was used to dealing with. Her tear-filled eyes were as bright as amethysts, her lush, vulnerable mouth as ripe as a peach, and she continued to tremble as if the fire was still overhead. Anger lurched inexplicably into more complex responses that tensed his big powerful frame with surprise and electric sexuality. Hunger for her hit him as hard as a punch in the gut.
‘I know I don’t sound grateful,’ Lindy added gruffly, staring up at him, striving not to notice how beautifully his thick black lashes enhanced his stunning dark golden eyes. ‘But I am really. Dolly was so frightened—didn’t you see her?’
‘Nasi pari o Diavelos,’ Atreus swore raggedly under his breath. ‘I saw only you.’
His intensity slashed through her strained attempt to behave normally. Her mouth running dry in the tension-filled atmosphere, she collided with his smouldering gaze and her ability to breathe seized up. He swooped like the predator she sensed he was at heart. He did not ask, he simply took, and his wide sensual mouth engulfed hers with a hot, driving energy that sizzled through her unprepared body like flame consuming tinder-dry wood. She moaned at the penetration of his tongue between her lips and the slow, sensual glide of it against hers, because her body was going haywire.
Sultry heat was tingling through her nerve-endings in a seductive wave. She tried to make herself pull back from him but could not find sufficient will-power to contrive that feat of mind over matter. Her nipples were lengthening into pointed pulsing buds constrained by the lace cups of her bra, and there was a treacherous yearning burn and an embarrassing dampness between her thighs. Together those sensations were winding her up as tight as a clock spring. As he pressed her against him, even through the barrier of their clothes, she was hopelessly aware of the hard, thrusting evidence of his arousal.
‘Full marks for surprising me,’ Atreus said huskily, surveying her with bold appreciation as he tilted back his handsome head. ‘You are hotter than that fire in there, mali mou.’
Lindy, who had never seen herself as being hot in any capacity, sucked oxygen into her depleted lungs and accidentally, in her eagerness to avoid Atreus’s scrutiny, caught the eye of the woman who had taken up a hesitant stance several feet away. It was Phoebe Carstairs.
‘I’m sorry for interrupting, Mr Dionides,’ the older woman said awkwardly. ‘But I thought I could take care of the cat for you.’
On wobbly lower limbs, Lindy detached herself from Atreus and moved away to hand over the cat, who had tolerated being crushed between their straining bodies without complaint. She could not meet Phoebe’s eyes; she was in shock…
Chapter Two
‘WE CAN make tea, coffee and sandwiches at The Lodge,’ Lindy told Phoebe only minutes later, whipping herself straight back into her sensible self and suppressing all memory of that temporary slide into a persona and behaviour alien to her. ‘Everyone will need a break and my house is the most convenient. I have to get my bike. If you have nothing more pressing to do, follow me down in your car.’
But even back within the cosy confines of her safe home Lindy discovered that she couldn’t stop her hands shaking. She might have mastered her thoughts, but her body was still caught up in shock. She leant up against the sink, breathing in and out in steadying streams. She had gone into the house and got Dolly. That was all that mattered. She hadn’t let her terror of fire paralyse her as it had threatened to do, she reminded herself soothingly. She was not the hysterical type. She was not. She would leave the past where it belonged and stay calm. There would be no crying or silly fussing. The deed was done and nobody had got hurt.
Slowly her hands began to steady and she felt in control again. That reminded her that for a timeless instant in the circle of the Greek tycoon’s arms she had felt frighteningly out of control. Of course the fire had roused distressing fragments of memory which had knocked her very much off balance. How silly she had been, clinging to him like that! But these days what was in a kiss? she asked herself in exasperation. In the press, kisses had become almost meaningless in the face of far more intimate embraces, and in the literal heat of the moment were men not more prone to such physical reactions?
It hadn’t meant anything—of course it hadn’t. It was just that they were both shaken up and rejoicing in being alive and unharmed. Goodness, she wasn’t Atreus Dionides’s type at all! She wasn’t small, blonde and beautiful, or even wellgroomed. Lindy glanced down at the corduroy skirt and V-necked sweater she wore and a rueful peal of laughter parted her lips. The kiss had just been one of those crazy inexplicable things and she would soon forget about it…
But she would not forget how he had made her feel. No, indeed. It would take total amnesia to wipe out the memory of that jaggedly sweet pleasure—jagged because it hurt to feel anything that strong and sweet, because it had melted every bone in her body and dissolved her self-discipline. No other guy had ever managed a feat like that. In fact, never until now had Lindy realised what all the fuss was about when it came to sex. She might not yet have met a man she wanted to sleep with, but she had certainly kissed plenty of frogs in her time. By no stretch of the imagination was Atreus a frog, but that had no bearing on the fact that he was as out of her reach as an astronaut on the moon.
Phoebe finally arrived with a laundry basket packed with provisions. The owner of the village shop had opened up specially to sell her bread and cooked meats, and had donated a pile of paper cups. The two women set about making trays of sandwiches.
‘Lindy?’ Phoebe said tautly, breaking the companionable silence. ‘Please don’t be offended, but I feel I should warn you to be careful with Mr Dionides. I have every respect for him as my employer, but I can’t help having noticed that he’s a very smooth operator with women. I don’t think he takes any of them seriously.’
‘The kiss was a flash in the pan—one of those daft things that just happens in the heat of the moment,’ Lindy responded in a dismissive tone of faked amusement. ‘I don’t know what came over either of us, but it won’t be happening again.’
‘I would hate to see you getting led down the garden path,’ the housekeeper confided in a more relaxed tone.
‘I’m very resilient and not given to flights of fancy,’ Lindy countered.
And she reminded herself of those facts when Atreus himself put in an appearance an hour later. She saw him across the crush in her small packed living room where, to find a space, people stood or sat on the arms of chairs, or even lounged back against the walls. Atreus was unmissable because he towered over everyone else, his dark well-shaped head instantly visible. He was talking on a mobile phone, the shadow of stubble outlining his masculine jaw line heavier than before. He had fabulous bone structure, from the defined width of his proud cheekbones divided by his arrogant blade of his nose to the unsettling fullness of his wide, sensual mouth.
She had to drag her attention from his hard, handsome face to notice that there was a long rip in the sleeve of his jacket, and the cuffs and front of his shirt were smoke-stained. She wondered with a stab of concern if he had got hurt. She glimpsed the glimmering gold of his stunning eyes as he frowned, ebony brows pleating, and she ducked back into the kitchen before he could see her. Even after that brief exposure her heart was already hammering as fast as if she’d run a marathon. He was gorgeous—there was no other word to better describe him. Instant exhilaration and renewed energy leapt and bounded through her, banishing her weariness, overpowering any sensible train of thought.
‘More tea?’ Phoebe prompted.
‘No. I think the rush is over.’ As the kitchen door opened Lindy swivelled, and when she saw who it was she felt ridiculously like a schoolgirl being confronted by a grown-up who knew she had a huge crush on him.
‘So this is where you are,’ Atreus drawled. ‘Come into the other room.’
‘I’m really busy—’
‘You’re a hive of industry, a very capable woman. I’m impressed, but it’s time you relaxed,’ he intoned, closing a dominant hand over hers and tugging her willy-nilly back to the door where he stood.
Never comfortable in receipt of praise, Lindy frowned. ‘I didn’t do anything that other people didn’t do.’
‘You organised them all. I saw you in action. You’re a remarkably bossy little thing,’ Atreus remarked with unhidden amusement.
Nobody had ever described Lindy as ‘little’. But then he was very tall, and in comparison to him she supposed that she could be considered small. Her fingers trembled in the hold of his. After those unexpected compliments she could hardly catch her breath, never mind speak. They were on the threshold of the living room. Heads turned in their direction and stayed turned at the sight of them poised there together. Her creamy skin flamed. She saw the speculative looks they were attracting and averted her gaze.
‘It doesn’t take much to encourage gossip round here,’ she warned him ruefully.
‘Does that bother you? Conventional women don’t strip and jump into rivers in broad daylight,’ Atreus countered.
Lindy froze. ‘I still haven’t forgiven you for the way you behaved that day.’
Atreus was not accustomed either to seeking forgiveness or indeed absolution. Women invariably made life easy for him by affecting not to notice his mistakes or omissions. Last-minute cancellations and his appearances in the company of other women were always ignored to ensure that he called again. He had learned that when it came to her sex he could get away with just about anything.
‘You were a real seven-letter-word that day at the river!’ Lindy proclaimed without hesitation, when he made no comment.
Atreus tried to recall when he had last heard anyone utilise such care to avoid a swear-word and he was amused.
‘You were rude, thoroughly unpleasant and unreasonable, and you humiliated me!’ Lindy spelt out in a fiery rush to get her point across.
‘I apologised to you,’ Atreus reminded her, with more than a touch of impatience. ‘I rarely apologise.’
It was true that he had apologised, Lindy acknowledged ruefully, wondering if she was being unfair in still holding spite. After all, the man had saved her from serious injury when she’d rescued Dolly. He had also proved that in a crisis he was cool, courageous and protective, all sterling qualities of character which she very much admired. So why couldn’t she escape the suspicion that treating a woman well didn’t come naturally to Atreus Dionides?
‘I don’t know why you’re flirting with me,’ she told him flatly.
‘Don’t you?’
The doubt in his tone provoked her into looking up, and she met smouldering golden eyes below the black sweep of his lashes. Excitement hurtled through her like a wild wake-up call. Thought and breath were suspended. Without any warning at all she wanted his mouth so badly on hers that being denied it hurt. In shock, she tore her gaze from his and retreated into the kitchen.
A split second later all the lights in the house went out. A buzz of dismayed comment was accompanied by the sound of switches being put on and off without success. The kitchen door opened.
‘Your electricity supply must be connected to that of Chantry House, which has been disconnected for safety.’ Atreus’s accented drawl came out of the darkness. ‘It’ll take some time to reorganise that, and it’s unlikely to be today.’
‘Oh, great,’ Lindy muttered ruefully, leaning back against the kitchen cupboards and pushing her dark hair off her damp brow. The shower she had been dreaming about was out of reach now.
The locals began to leave with a chorus of thank-yous for her hospitality.
‘You go as well, Phoebe,’ Lindy urged the Chantry housekeeper, who was hovering at her elbow. ‘It’s been a long night and there’s no need for you to stay on. Most of the cleaning up has already been done.’
‘If you’re sure?’ Phoebe said uncertainly.
‘Of course I am.’
‘Why don’t you come home with me?’ the older woman asked. ‘At least we have electricity.’
‘We’re not that far away from dawn. I’ll be okay,’ Lindy pointed out, reckoning that her companion, who had five children and a husband packed into her tiny terraced house, had quite enough people to contend with when she got home. She groped below the sink to locate her torch, and lit Phoebe’s departure through the back door, locking up in the older woman’s wake.
‘Lindy?’
Lindy flinched in surprise at the sound of the Greek tycoon’s distinctive accented drawl, travelling from the room next door. ‘I thought you’d already gone,’ she admitted, able to distinguish now between different shades of light and dark and picking out his tall, dark silhouette by the living room window.
‘Some thanks that would be for the assistance you gave tonight—abandoning you here without either power or heating,’Atreus derided. ‘I have a suite booked at Headby Hall and I’d like you to come with me.’
‘I couldn’t possibly,’ Lindy breathed, taken aback by that casual invitation to the leading country house hotel for miles around.
‘Don’t be impractical. You must be as eager for a shower and a break as I am,’ he pointed out. ‘In little more than four hours I have to be back at the house to meet the insurance assessors and the conservation team being put together as we speak.’
‘I’ll be fine here,’ she asserted.
‘You would genuinely prefer to sit here unwashed and cold rather than accompany me to a more civilised and comfortable location?’
Her small white teeth set together hard, because he was making her sound peculiar while at the same time his tone somehow contrived to suggest that such standoffish behaviour was only what he had expected from her all along. ‘Give me a couple of minutes to pack a bag,’ she told him, her voice as abrupt as the decision she had reached.
By the light of the torch she flung pyjamas and a change of clothes into an overnight bag. The dogs had food, water and cosy kennels, and although they were accustomed to sleeping indoors with her they would be all right until the morning. Even so, she was belatedly stunned that she could have agreed to go to a hotel with Atreus Dionides, for such bold behaviour didn’t come naturally to her.
Lindy eased into the back of the limousine with as much cool as she could muster. In the act of regretting her agreement, she turned to address Atreus—but his phone was already ringing again and his attention was elsewhere. She listened to him talking in what she assumed to be Greek and asked herself why she should feel so apprehensive. After all, he was only being kind in offering her an escape from a cold, dark house without hot water.
Headby Hall was the ultimate in luxury hotels, and Lindy had never crossed its threshold before. She was horribly conscious of her humble clothing and severely tried by Atreus’s efforts to get her to walk through the foyer ahead of him when what she most wanted was to reach the lift without being noticed by a single living soul.
‘Aren’t you tired?’ she asked him in wonderment when he completed yet another phone call.
‘I’m still operating on adrenaline.’
‘I’m sorry about the house. I know that the work you were having done was almost complete.’
‘I have other houses,’ he asserted.
Without thinking, Lindy rested a light hand on his arm. ‘I noticed the rip in your jacket. Did you get hurt?’ she asked anxiously.
Atreus looked down into her warm, sympathetic gaze and wondered when a woman had last looked at him as if she was restraining a powerful need to offer him comfort and a hug. Never, he acknowledged wryly, not even when he had been a child. In his experience women were usually more gifted at taking, and there was a hefty price ticket attached to anything on offer with any greater depth.
‘It’s only a scratch.’
Meeting his brilliant dark golden eyes, she felt her mouth run dry and her tummy lurched. The lift doors opened and she stiffened and tore her gaze from his. They walked down a private corridor to a door that was already being opened by a member of his staff. Tense with unease, Lindy entered a splendid, sumptuously furnished reception room adorned with fresh flowers. Designer luggage was being carried into one bedroom while her ancient holdall was already comfortingly visible through the doors of a second.
‘I’ve ordered some food for us. You didn’t eat anything while I was around,’ Atreus remarked.
‘I’ll get changed,’ Lindy muttered, heading for the second bedroom with alacrity.
In the en suite bathroom, she stripped where she stood and used the hotel toiletries to wash her hair and freshen up in the shower. It was wonderful to rinse away the smell of smoke that seemed to have impregnated her skin and everything she wore. Clean again, she dried her hair with the dryer provided, using her fingers and then fetched her clothes from the holdall. She donned a long green skirt and a cream T-shirt, and left her legs and feet bare because she couldn’t face struggling into tights or shoes. She grimaced at her reflection in the mirror, for her glossy dark brown hair had fallen into the natural waves she disliked and she was convinced that her face was as pink as a freshly scrubbed lobster.
A trolley of food now stood beside the table and chairs in the reception room next door. Atreus was waiting for her and, like her, he had opted for informality. His black hair was damp and swept back from his lean, darkly handsome features. He was wearing black designer jeans and an open-necked shirt. As she appeared he studied her for a long moment and then slowly smiled.
And that smile on his wide, sensual mouth lit Lindy up inside like the blazing fire that had devoured a good third of Chantry House. It left little room for anything but instant reaction on all fronts. Her face was hot, and she sat down because she felt dizzy. Eyes screened by her lashes, she surveyed him, from his straight brows and dark deepset eyes to his newly shaven jawline, no longer defined by a blue-black shadow of stubble. There was something about the exact arrangement of his arrestingly beautiful features that drew her more than mere good-looks, she acknowledged in a daze. He magnetised her, exuding an irresistible pull of energy that overwhelmed her usual common sense. Sexual attraction had never hit her so hard.
