The Fallen Greek Bride\At the Greek Boss's Bidding (22 page)

Elizabeth knew that losing the rest of his sight would have been a terrible blow. “I read in his chart that there is still a slight chance he could regain some sight with another treatment. It’d be minimal, I realize.”

Elderly Pano shrugged.

“Why doesn’t he do it?” she persisted.

“I think...” His wrinkled face wrinkled further. “He’s afraid. It’s his last hope.”

Elizabeth said nothing, and Pano lifted his hands to try to make her understand.

“As long as he postpones the surgery, he can hope that one day he might see again. But once he has the surgery, and it doesn’t work—” the old man snapped his fingers “—then there is nothing else for him to hope for.”

And that Elizabeth actually understood.

But as the hours passed, and the morning turned to noon, Elizabeth grew increasingly less sympathetic.

What kind of life was this? To just sleep all day?

She peeked into his room just before twelve and he was still out, sprawled half-naked between white sheets, his dark hair tousled.

Elizabeth went in search of Pano once more, to inquire into Kristian’s sleeping habits.

“Is it usual for Kirios Koumantaros to sleep this late?” she asked.

“It’s not late. Not for him. He can sleep ’til one or two in the afternoon.”

Unable to hide her incredulity, she demanded, “Did his other nurses allow this?”

Pano’s bald head shone in the light as he bent over the big table and finished straightening the mail and papers piled there. “His other nurses couldn’t control him. He is a man. He does as he wants to do.”

“No. Not when his medical care costs thousands and thousands of pounds each week.”

Mail sorted and newspapers straightened, Pano looked up at her. “You don’t tell a grown man what to do.”

She made a rough sound. “Yes, you do. If what he’s doing is destructive.”

Pano didn’t answer, and after a glance at the tall library clock—it was now five minutes until one—she turned around and headed straight for Kristian’s bedroom. What she found there, on his bedside table, explained his long, deep sleep.

He’d taken sleeping pills. She didn’t know how many, and she didn’t know when they’d been taken, but the bottle hadn’t been there earlier in the evening when she’d checked on him.

She’d collected the bottles from the small table in the library and put them in her room, under lock and key, so for him to have had access to this bottle meant he had a secret stash of his own to medicate himself as he pleased.

But still, he couldn’t get the prescriptions filled if Pano or another staff member weren’t aiding him. Someone—and she suspected Pano again—was making it too easy for Kristian to be dependent.

Elizabeth spoke Kristian’s name to wake him. No response. She said his name again. “Mr. Koumantaros, it’s gone noon—time to wake up.”

Nothing.

“Mr. Koumantaros.” She stepped closer to the bed, stood over him and said, more loudly, “It’s gone noon, Mr. Koumantaros. Time to get up. You can’t sleep all day.”

Kristian wasn’t moving. He wasn’t dead, either. She could see that much. He was breathing, and there was eye movement beneath his closed lids, but he certainly wasn’t interested in waking up.

She cleared her throat and practically shouted, “Kristian Koumantaros—it’s time to get up.”

Kristian heard the woman. How could he not? She sounded as if she had a bullhorn. But he didn’t want to wake.

He wanted to sleep.

He needed to keep sleeping, craved the deep dreamless sleep that would mercifully make all dark and quiet and peaceful.

But the voice didn’t stop. It just grew louder. And louder.

Now there was a tug on the covers, and in the next moment they were stripped back, leaving him bare.

“Go away,” he growled.

“It’s gone noon, Mr. Koumantaros. Time to get up. Your first physical therapy session is in less than an hour.”

And that was when he remembered. He wasn’t dealing with just any old nurse, but nurse number seven. Elizabeth Hatchet. The latest nurse, an English nurse of all things, sent to make his life miserable.

He rolled over onto his stomach. “You’re not allowed to wake me up.”

“Yes, I am. It’s gone noon and you can’t sleep the day away.”

“Why not? I was up most of the night.”

“Your first physical therapy session begins soon.”

“You’re mad.”

“Not mad, not even angry. Just ready to get you back into treatment, following a proper exercise program.”

“No.”

Elizabeth didn’t bother to argue. There was no point. One way or another he would resume physical therapy. “Pano is on his way with breakfast. I told him you could eat in the dining room, like a civilized man, but he insisted he serve you in bed.”

“Good man,” Kristian said under his breath.

Elizabeth let this pass, too. “But this is your last morning being served in bed. You’re neither an invalid nor a prince. You can eat at a table like the rest of us.”

She rolled his wheelchair closer to the bed. “Your chair is here, in case you need it, and I’ll be just a moment while I gather a few things.” And with that she took the medicine bottle from the table and headed for the bathroom adjoining his bedroom. In the bathroom she quickly opened drawers and cupboard doors, before returning to his room with another two bottles in her hands.

“What are you doing?” Kristian asked, sitting up and listening to her open and close the drawers in his dresser.

“Looking for the rest of your secret stash.”

“Secret stash of what?”

“You know perfectly well.”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t be asking.”

She found another pill bottle at the back of his top drawer, right behind his belts. “Just how much stuff are you taking?”

“I take very little—”

“Then why do you have enough prescriptions and bottles to fill a pharmacy?”

It was his turn to fall silent, and she snorted as she finished checking his room. She found nothing else. Not in the armchair in the corner, or the drawer of the nightstand, nor between the mattresses of his bed. Good. Maybe she’d found the last of it. She certainly hoped so.

“Now what?” he asked, as Elizabeth scooped up the bottles and marched through the master bedroom’s French doors outside to the pool.

“Just finishing the job,” she said, leaving the French doors open and heading across the sunlit patio to the pool and fountain.

“Those are mine,” he shouted furiously.

“Not anymore,” she called back.

“I can’t sleep without them—”

“You could if you got regular fresh air and exercise.” Elizabeth was walking quickly, but not so fast that she couldn’t hear Kristian make the awkward transfer from his bed into his wheelchair.

“Parakalo,”
he demanded. “Please. Wait a blasted moment.”

She did. Only because it was the first time she’d heard him use the word
please.
As she paused, she heard Kristian hit the open door with a loud bang, before backing up and banging his way forward again, this time managing to get through. Just as clumsily he pushed across the pale stone deck, his chair tires humming on the deck.

“I waited,” she said, walking again, “but I’m not giving them back. They’re poison. They’re absolutely toxic for you.”

Kristian was gaining on her and, reaching the fountain, she popped the caps off the bottles and turned toward him.

His black hair was wild, and the scar on his cheek like face paint from an ancient tribe. He might very well have been one of the warring Greeks.

“Everything you put in your body,” she said, trying to slow the racing of her heart, as well as the sickening feeling that she was once again losing control, “and everything you do to your body is my responsibility.”

And with that she emptied the bottles into the fountain, the splash of pills loud enough to catch Kristian’s attention.

“You did it,” he said.

“I did,” she agreed.

A line formed between his eyebrows and his cheekbones grew more pronounced. “I declare war, then,” he said, and the edge of his mouth lifted, tilted in a dark smile. “War. War against your company, and war against you.” His voice dropped, deepened. “I’m fairly certain that very soon, Ms. Hatchet, you will deeply regret ever coming here.”

CHAPTER FOUR

E
LIZABETH
’
S
HEART
THUMPED
hard. So hard she thought it would burst from her chest.

It was a threat. Not just a small threat, but one meant to send her to her knees.

For a moment she didn’t know what to think, or do, and as her heart raced she felt overwhelmed by fear and dread. And then she found her backbone, and knew she couldn’t let a man—much less a man like Kristian—intimidate her. She wasn’t a timid little church mouse, nor a country bumpkin. She’d come from a family every bit as powerful as the Koumantaros family—not that she talked about her past, or wanted anyone to know about it.

“Am I supposed to be afraid, Mr. Koumantaros?” she asked, capping the bottles and dropping them in her skirt pocket. “You must realize you’re not a very threatening adversary.”

Drawing on her courage, she continued coolly, “You can hardly walk, and you can’t see, and you depend on everyone else to take care of you. So, really, why should I be frightened? What’s the worst you can do? Call me names?”

He leaned back in his wheelchair, his black hair a striking contrast to the pale stone wall behind him. “I don’t know whether to admire your moxie or pity your naïveté.”

The day hadn’t started well, she thought with a deep sigh, and it was just getting worse. Everything with him was a battle. If he only focused half his considerable intelligence and energy on healing instead of baiting nurses he’d be walking by now, instead of sitting like a wounded caveman in his wheelchair.

“Pity?” she scoffed. “Don’t pity me. You’re the one that hasn’t worked in a year. You’re the one that needs your personal and business affairs managed by others.”

“You take so many liberties.”

“They’re not liberties; they’re truths. If you were half the man your friends say you are, you wouldn’t still be hiding away and licking your wounds.”

“Licking my wounds?” he repeated slowly.

“I know eight people died that day in France, and I know one of them was your brother. I know you tried to rescue him, and I know you were hurt going back for him. But you will not bring him back by killing yourself—” She broke off as he reached out and grasped her wrist with his hand.

Elizabeth tried to pull back, but he didn’t let her go. “No personal contact, Mr. Koumantaros,” she rebuked sternly, tugging at her hand. “There are strict guidelines for patient-nurse relationships.”

He laughed as though she’d just told a joke. But he also swiftly released her. “I don’t think your highly trained Calista got that memo.”

She glanced down at her wrist, which suddenly burned, checking for marks. There were none. And yet her skin felt hot, tender, and she rubbed it nervously. “It’s not a memo. It’s an ethics standard. Every nurse knows there are lines that cannot be crossed. There are no gray areas on this one. It’s very black and white.”

“You might want to explain that one to Calista, because she
begged
me to make love to her. But then she also asked me for money—confusing for a patient, I can assure you.”

The sun shone directly overhead, and the heat coming off the stone terrace was intense, and yet Elizabeth froze. “What do you mean, she asked you for money?”

“Surely the UK has its fair share of blackmail?”

“You’re trying to shift responsibility and the blame,” she said, glancing around quickly, suppressing panic. Panic because if Calista
had
attempted to blackmail Mr. Koumantaros, one of Greece’s most illustrious sons...oh...bad. Very, very bad. It was so bad she couldn’t even finish the thought.

Expression veiled, Kristian shrugged and rested his hands on the rims of his wheelchair tires. “But as you say, Cratchett, she was twenty-three—very young. Maybe she didn’t realize it wasn’t ethical to seduce a patient and then demand hush money.” He paused. “Maybe she didn’t realize that blackmailing me while being employed by First Class Rehab meant that First Class Rehab would be held liable.”

Elizabeth’s legs wobbled. She’d dealt with a lot of problems in the past year, had sorted out everything from poor budgeting to soaring travel costs, but she hadn’t seen this one coming.

“And you
are
First Class Rehab, aren’t you, Ms. Hatchet? It is your company?”

She couldn’t speak. Her mouth dried. Her heart pounded. She was suddenly too afraid to make a sound.

“I did some research, Ms. Hatchet.”

She very much wished there was a chair close by, something she could sit down on, but all the furniture had been exiled to one end of the terrace, to give Mr. Koumantaros more room to maneuver his wheelchair.

“Calista left here months ago,” she whispered, plucking back a bit of hair as the breeze kicked in. “Why didn’t you come to me then? Why did you wait so long to tell me?”

His mouth slanted, his black lashes dropped, concealing his intensely blue eyes. “I decided I’d wait and see if the level of care improved. It did not—”

“You refused to cooperate!” she exclaimed, her voice rising.

“I’m thirty-six, a world traveler, head of an international corporation and not used to being dependent on anyone—much less young women. Furthermore, I’d just lost my brother, four of my best friends, a cousin, his girlfriend, and her best friend.” His voice vibrated with fury. “It was a lot to deal with.”

“Which is why we were trying to help you—”

“By sending me a twenty-three-year-old former exotic dancer?”

“She wasn’t.”

“She was. She had also posed topless in numerous magazines—not that I ever saw them; she just bragged about them, and about how men loved her breasts. They were natural, you see.”

Elizabeth was shaking. This was bad—very bad—and getting worse. “Mr. Koumantaros—” she pleaded.

But he didn’t stop. “You say you personally hire and train every nurse? You say you do background reports and conduct all the interviews?”

“In the beginning, yes, I did it all. And I still interview all of the UK applicants.”

“But
you
don’t personally screen every candidate? You don’t do the background checks yourself anymore, either. Do you?”

The tension whipped through her, tightening every muscle and nerve. “No.”

He paused, as though considering her. “Your agency’s literature says you do.”

Sickened, Elizabeth bit her lip, feeling trapped, cornered. She’d never worked harder than she had in the past year. She’d never accomplished so much, or fought so many battles, either. “We’ve grown a great deal in the past year. Doubled in size. I’ve been stretched—”

“Now listen to who has all the excuses.”

Blood surged to her cheeks, making her face unbearably warm. She supposed she deserved that. “I’ve offices in seven cities, including Athens, and I employ hundreds of women throughout Europe. I’d vouch for nearly every one of them.”

“Nearly?”
he mocked. “So much for First Class Rehab’s guarantee of first-class care and service.”

Elizabeth didn’t know which way to turn. “I’d be happy to rewrite our company mission statement.”

“I’m sure you will be.” His mouth curved slowly. “Once you’ve finished providing me with the quality care I so desperately need.” His smile stretched. “As well as deserve.”

She crossed her arms over her chest, shaken and more than a little afraid. “Does that mean you’ll be working with me this afternoon on your physical therapy?” she asked, finding it so hard to ask the question that her voice was but a whisper.

“No, it means
you
will be working with
me.
” He began rolling forward, slowly pushing himself back to the tower rooms. “I imagine it’s one now, which means lunch will be served in an hour. I’ll meet you for lunch, and we can discuss my thoughts on my therapy then.”

* * *

Elizabeth spent the next hour in a state of nervous shock. She couldn’t absorb anything from the conversation she’d had with Kristian on the patio. Couldn’t believe everything she’d thought, everything she knew, was just possibly wrong.

She’d flown Calista into London for her final interview. It had been an all-expenses paid trip, too, and Calista had impressed Elizabeth immediately as a warm, energetic, dedicated nurse. A true professional. There was no way she could be, or ever have been, an exotic dancer. Nor a topless model. Impossible.

Furthermore, Calista wouldn’t
dream
of seducing a man like Kristian Koumantaros. She was a good Greek girl, a young woman raised in Piraeus, the port of Athens, with her grandmother and a spinster great-aunt. Calista had solid family values.

And not much money.

Elizabeth closed her eyes, shook her head once, not wanting to believe the worst.

Then don’t, she told herself, opening her eyes and heading for her room, to splash cold water on her face. Don’t believe the worst. Look for the best in people. Always.

And yet as she walked through the cool arched passages of the tower to her own room a little voice whispered,
Isn’t that why you married a man like Nico? Because you only wanted to believe the best in him?

Forty-five minutes later, Elizabeth returned downstairs, walking outside to the terrace where she’d had a late lunch yesterday. She discovered Kristian was already there, enjoying his coffee.

Elizabeth, remembering her own morning coffee, grimaced inwardly. She’d always thought that Greek coffee—or what was really Turkish coffee—tasted like sludge. Nico had loved the stuff, and had made fun of her preference for
café au lait
and cappuccino, but she’d grown up with a coffee house on every corner in New York, and a latte or a mocha was infinitely preferable to thick black mud.

At her footsteps Kristian lifted his head and looked up in her direction. Her breath caught in her throat.

Kristian had shaved. His thick black hair had been trimmed and combed, and as he turned his attention on her the blue of his eyes was shocking. Intense. Maybe even more intense without sight, as he was forced to focus, to really listen.

His blue eyes were such a sharp contrast to his black hair and hard, masculine features that she felt an odd shiver race through her—a shiver of awareness, appreciation—and it bewildered her, just as nearly everything about this man threw her off balance. For a moment she felt what Calista must have felt, confronted by a man like this.

“Hello.” Elizabeth sat down, suddenly shy. “You look nice,” she added, her voice coming out strangely husky.

“A good shave goes a long way.”

It wasn’t just the shave, she thought, lifting her napkin from the table and spreading it across her lap. It was the alert expression on Kristian’s face, the sense that he was there, mentally, physically, clearly paying attention.

“I am very sorry about the communication problems,” she said, desperately wanting to start over, get things off on a better foot. “I understand you are very frustrated, and I want you to know I am eager to make everything better—”

“I know,” he interrupted quietly.

“You do?”

“You’re afraid I’ll destroy your company.” One black eyebrow quirked. “And it would be easy to do, too. Within a month you’d be gone.”

There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, and yet the day suddenly grew darker, as though the sun itself had dimmed. “Mr. Koumantaros—”

“Seeing as we’re going to be working so closely together, isn’t it time we were on a first-name basis?” he suggested.

She eyed him warily. He was reminding her of a wild animal at the moment—dangerous and unpredictable. “That might be difficult.”

“And why is that?”

She wondered if she should be honest, wondered if now was the time to flatter him, win him over with insincere compliments, and then decided against it. She’d always been truthful, and she’d remain so now. “The name Kristian doesn’t suit you at all. It implies Christ-like, and you’re far from that.”

She had expected him to respond with anger. Instead he smiled faintly, the top of his finger tapping against the rim of his cup. “My mother once said she’d given us the wrong names. My older brother Andreas should have had my name, and she felt I would have been better with his. Andreas—or Andrew—in Greek means—”

“Strong,” she finished for him. “Manly. Courageous.”

Kristian’s head lifted as though he could see her. She knew he could not, and she felt a prick of pain for him. Vision was so important. She relied on her eyes for everything.

“I’ve noticed you’re fluent in Greek,” he said thoughtfully. “That’s unusual, considering your background.”

He didn’t know her background. He didn’t know anything about her. But now wasn’t the time to be correcting him. In an effort to make peace, she was willing to be conciliatory. “So, you are the strong one and your brother was the saint?”

Kristian shrugged. “He’s dead, and I’m alive.”

And, even though she wanted peace, she couldn’t help thinking that Kristian really was no saint. He’d been a thorn in her side from the beginning, and she was anxious to be rid of him. “You said earlier that you were willing to start your therapy, but you want to be in charge of your rehabilitation program?”

He nodded. “That’s right. You are here to help me accomplish my goals.”

“Great. I’m anxious to help you meet your goals.” She crossed her legs and settled her hands in her lap. “So, what do you want me to do?”

“Whatever it is I need done.”

Elizabeth’s mouth opened, then closed. “That’s rather vague,” she said, when she finally found her voice.

“Oh, don’t worry. It won’t be vague. I’ll be completely in control. I’ll tell you what time we start our day, what time we finish, and what we do in between.”

“What about the actual exercises? The stretching, the strengthening—”

“I’ll take care of that.”

He would devise his own course of treatment? He would manage his rehabilitation program?

Her head spun. She couldn’t think her way clear. This was all too ridiculous. But then finally, fortunately, logic returned. “Mr. Koumantaros, you might be an excellent executive, and able to make millions of dollars, but that doesn’t mean you know the basics of physical therapy—”