A Greek Escape (10 page)

Offended
him! He couldn’t stop a lazy smile from touching his mouth.

She’d blown his mind, he thought, when she’d woken him up from a deep, deep sleep and dragged him straight into a cauldron of sizzling pleasure. He hadn’t had time to catch his breath—let alone think! And he wouldn’t have been caught so off-guard, still in bed, if he hadn’t been up practically all night trying to get round one last hitch with those amended plans…

The plans!

He shot up in bed just as Kayla was emerging from the bathroom.

He’d left all his paperwork spread out over the kitchen table with his laptop—incriminating evidence of who he was! It had been late, and he’d obviously crashed out on the bed after he’d come up here and showered!

‘Kayla, come here!’

The authority in his voice would have stopped a lesser mortal, but she ignored it as she moved around the bed, frowning, tugging at the draping folds of the bedlinen.

‘Are you looking for something?’ he asked, knowing he had to act quickly.

Kayla made a grab for the red briefs he was holding up, which only succeeded in bringing her across the bed and against his disturbingly masculine body as he withheld them, effectively securing what he wanted.

‘You haven’t offended me. You were wonderful,’ he murmured,
his warm breath a delicious sensuality against her hairline. ‘Now, come back to bed. I want to talk to you,’ he said, and just as an incentive slipped his hand under the tantalising little skirt and let his fingers play along the outer curve of one taut, silky buttock.

Kayla groaned, weakening beneath his mind-boggling powers of persuasion. She felt vulnerable and incredibly sexy with no panties on, but she despaired at herself too, at how easily and effortlessly he could bend her to his will.

Whatever he had to say, she had the strongest suspicion that she wasn’t going to like it. He didn’t want commitment. Of course he didn’t. And anyway she wasn’t ready for another serious relationship yet. Yet neither was she ready to let him have it all his own way.

Catching him in an unguarded moment, reaching round to adjust the pillows behind them, she managed to wriggle out of his arms and snatch her underwear from his grasp, saying, ‘I can talk better over a cup of coffee,’ as she ran giggling out of the room.

‘Kayla, come here!’

She was in the hall, pulling her panties back on, when he raced down the stairs, still fastening his robe, but darted off again laughingly as soon as she saw him coming.

‘Will you just stand still and let me talk to you?’ he called after her as she grabbed the carrier bag she’d left on the chest and headed for the kitchen. He had to break it to her gently. She’d be angry, it was true, but not as angry as she would be finding it out for herself.

‘Go and sit down,’ he commanded softly when she turned around. He was pointing to the sitting room. ‘I will make the coffee.’

‘Fine,’ she agreed airily, pivoting away again, ‘but I’ll keep you company while you’re doing it.’

‘In the sitting room,’ he breathed, in one last attempt to prevent her from seeing all his papers.

She turned in the kitchen doorway, her chin lifting in playful challenge. ‘And since when did you suddenly start issuing so many orders?’

‘Since I thought you were running out on me without finishing what you started.’ One purposeful stride brought him over to her, his mouth a sensuous curve. But inside he was a heaving mass of turmoil.

He had to keep her out of the kitchen—stop her going in there before he had a chance to explain. He cast a surreptitious glance over her shoulder at the table in the centre of the room, heaving with incriminating evidence. He should have told her before. Should have kept her in bed…

‘Kayla…’

The way he spoke her name never failed to turn Kayla’s bones to jelly.

‘Say it again,’ she murmured huskily.

‘What?’ He looked tense, she thought, and mystified too.

‘The way you say my name.’

‘Kay-lah.’

She groaned her satisfaction and nestled against his chest above the gaping V of his dark satin robe. His skin smelled of the lingering traces of shower gel overlaid with a sensual musk.

‘It should be censored—or at least X-rated,’ she purred, with her tongue coming out in a provocative caress of that bared skin. It felt silky and tasted slightly salty…

Dear heaven!

Leonidas dragged in a breath, at a loss for the words he needed to say. He didn’t know what powers this girl used to bewitch him, but even as he struggled to engage his normally incisive brain his body was responding with an urgent message of its own. It was taking all the mental strength he possessed
not to rip down her panties, lay her down right here on the marble floor and enjoy the pleasure of having her beneath him, with himself in the driving seat this time. But he
had
to get her out of this room!

Swiftly his mouth swooped down over hers in a bid to distract her enough to manoeuvre her back into the hall. But he hadn’t reckoned on how distracting her soft mouth would be to him.

Feeling her warm body against his, he could only respond to it in a kiss that went on and on, until they both came up for air and her head dropped back against his shoulder.

A few moments later, lifting her head, she murmured, ‘What is that?’

Leonidas’s spine pulled into a tight, tense rod. All he had succeeded in doing was turning her round, so that their positions were reversed, and she was now looking at the plans he’d set up on an easel. Allowing her to pull out of his arms, he felt the slaying blow of defeat.

Stepping down into the kitchen and dumping the bread bag on the table, bewildered, Kayla couldn’t take it in. There were papers. Lots of papers. A laptop and a memo pad. And what she had thought were sketches looked like some sort of plan…

‘What is it?’ Her eyes skittered from the easel to the table and then the briefcase standing open on the floor. ‘Is it something you’re working on? Some building work…?’

Leonidas took a step towards her. ‘Kayla, I can explain.’

‘Explain?’ She looked at him with confusion in her questioning blue eyes. ‘Explain what?’

What was he doing with what looked like a whole set of plans for some development scheme? And a big,
big
development scheme by the look of it, she realised, when her gaze swept back over the table. Something proposed by the Vassalio Group—a big,
big
developer. She knew that much as her
eyes took in the recognisable black and gold logo at the top of the plan she was staring at.

‘I don’t understand…’ Why had his cosy farmhouse kitchen taken on the look of some executive’s pad? Why was he looking so serious?

At that moment his cell phone rang from somewhere, shrilling across the sudden pregnant silence.

He pulled it out of the pocket of his robe, his eyes never leaving hers as he intoned incisively, ‘Vassalio.’ And then the penny dropped.

It was like an unashamed declaration directed specifically at her, Kayla thought, realising she had started to tremble.

Vassalio. Leon. Leonidas Vassalio. She knew the name. Of course she did! She’d heard it often enough in the media, seen the company logo on billboards and advertising for commercial developments, but she’d never taken much notice of it until now.

‘You lied to me,’ she accused in a virtual whisper when he cut the call short, feeling so shocked and betrayed that it was almost painful to breathe. ‘You’ve lied to me ever since I got here!’

‘Misled,’ he corrected as he dropped his phone back into his pocket.

As if it made a difference!

‘Most of it was what you assumed.’

‘Hah! Like I assumed I knew who you were when we were doing what we were doing just now?’

Leonidas Vassalio. The man she had just taken advantage of—and who had let her!

‘How could you do it?’ She was referring to the sex, shame creeping over her, scorching her already flushed cheeks. What a laugh he must have been having—and at her expense!

‘You didn’t give me much choice,’ he reminded her dryly.

‘You could have stopped me any time you wanted to!’

‘Really?’ A sceptical eyebrow arched sharply. ‘You think I’m that superhuman?’ His mouth twisted in hard self-derision. ‘Show me any red-blooded man you think would be capable of resisting being dragged out of sleep by a sex-goddess with no panties on.’

He made her feel cheap, and she wished fervently that she could turn back the clock instead of just standing there, hating herself for feeling the burn of desire stir deep down inside her where she was still moist and slightly tender from their spontaneous and unrestrained coming together.

‘If it makes you feel any better,’ he said, running fingers through his long dishevelled hair, ‘I didn’t intend for things to go as far as they did.’

‘Oh, really?’ she shot back, her features distorted with self-disgust. ‘What a bonus it must have been for you when they did!’

‘It wasn’t like that.’ He sounded defensive, exasperated—angry, almost. ‘Why the hell do you think I didn’t take things to their natural conclusion the other day on that island?’

‘Because it was more fun stringing me along.’

‘That isn’t true.’

‘Isn’t it? And what about just now? You wouldn’t have thought twice about doing it again.’

‘That wasn’t my motive,’ he stated decisively. ‘I was trying to coax you into the sitting room so that I could break it to you gently who I am without it flaring up into the mess we find ourselves in now.’

‘You mean instead of me finding out for myself what a rotten lying cheat you really are?’

‘If that’s what you want to believe,’ he rasped, grim-mouthed. ‘But it was never my intention to deceive you.’

‘Why?’ It was a small cry from somewhere deep down inside of her. ‘Why should I believe anything you say?’

‘All right. I deserve that,’ he accepted with no loss of dignity.
He clearly wasn’t a man to grovel or to eat humble pie. ‘Look, I apologise for not telling you before now,’ he continued. ‘But I didn’t know who you were when you first arrived. For all I knew you were a snooping journalist on a mission for a story, and I came here for some privacy. To get away from all the media attention and publicity that’s been dogging me over this past year. I wasn’t going to risk losing all that for a girl I didn’t even know. Apart from which, I found it rather refreshing being with someone who wasn’t playing up to me because of the size of my bank balance.’

‘So you used me!’ Kayla breathed. ‘Just for your own amusement.’

‘That isn’t what I’m saying. But if you want to think that, then there’s nothing I can do to stop you.’

‘You could have trusted me enough to tell me the truth!’

He made a self-deprecating sound down his nostrils. ‘A man in my position can’t afford to trust.’

‘Which just goes to show the type of people you mix with,’ she tossed back, refusing to give any quarter. He had lied to her. Deceived her. And, though it was killing her to acknowledge it, that made him no better than Craig.

‘I can’t argue with that,’ Leonidas conceded. ‘But I don’t suppose it would make any difference to tell you that you don’t fall into their category.’

‘You mean because none of the others have been such a push-over as I’ve been?’ Near to tears, it came out almost on a sob, but there was no way in a million years that she was going to let him see that. Forcing aggression into her voice, she uttered, ‘A builder. Hah! You must have been laughing up your exclusive designer sleeve!’

Ignoring that last remark, he said, ‘That was your interpretation when I said I was in construction—which, as you can see…’ he gestured to the plans on the easel, the others on the table ‘…I
am
.’

‘And you let me think it! That’s worse than lying! That’s…’

‘Kayla, stop it!’ He made a calming gesture with his hands. ‘I can understand how you must feel.’

‘Can you?’ Her eyes were dark and tortured, and her mouth was twisted in wounded accusation. No wonder he’d got nasty about her taking photographs of him in the beginning!

‘I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I?’

‘And you think that makes it all right? An apology from the great Leonidas Vassalio!’ Her bitter little laugh made him visibly wince.

‘No, it doesn’t make it all right.’ Beneath the robe his tanned chest fell in hopeless frustration. He hadn’t intended it to sound as dismissive as it had come out. ‘I was constantly aware that I was going to have to tell you sooner or later.’

‘Oh, really?’ Kayla shot him a look of pure incredulity. ‘Like when, exactly? After we’d had sex again?’

‘Kayla, stop it!’ He was moving towards her, but she backed away.

‘So how did you imagine I’d respond?’ She’d come up against a chair, the one where she’d sat that morning after he’d rescued her from the villa, but she didn’t want to think about that now. ‘By being grateful to you?’

‘Which is exactly why I’ve never said anything,’ Leonidas admitted raggedly.

‘Because it would have spoilt your fun!’

‘Because I didn’t want to hurt you.’

‘Oh, you wouldn’t have hurt me, Leon!’ Hadn’t she been hardened by Craig? And before that her father? she reflected bitterly, before tagging on with painful cynicism, ‘I’m sorry.
Is
it Leon? Or should that be Leonidas now?’

The emphatic distaste she placed on the name everyone knew him by made him flinch. But he couldn’t blame her, he thought. He had misled her, and then been stupid enough to imagine he might be let off lightly when he came clean and
admitted it. But she had been hurt too deeply before and he should have known better, he realised. It was crass of him to have thought she would be anything but angry and bitter, especially after finding out in the way she had.

‘You wouldn’t have hurt me, Leonidas,’ she reiterated, in an attempt to ease the pain of another betrayal—and by a man she had believed was different from men like Craig and her father and all the others. A construction worker who’d come here to fish and sketch and live rough for a while because he valued his solitude and his privacy. Except all the time she’d been naïve enough to imagine he’d been sketching he’d been controlling his multi-billion-pound empire! ‘I just wouldn’t have touched you with a bargepole.’