Джеки Браун – Greek Bachelors: Tempted To A Fling: A Greek Escape / Greek for Beginners / My Sexy Greek Summer (страница 17)

* * *

‘No rowing boat today?’ Kayla remarked, surprised when, after driving them to a beach further along the coast, Leon guided her towards a small motor boat moored alongside a wooden jetty. ‘I didn’t think you’d be seen dead in anything less than fifty years old!’ she said laughingly.

‘Didn’t you?’ he drawled, with a challenging and deliciously sensual gleam in his eyes as he handed her into the boat. ‘Contrary to your thinking, hrisi mou, I can...’ he hesitated, thinking of the words ‘...come good when circumstances demand.’

‘And do circumstances demand?’ she enquired airily, in spite of her pulse, which was racing from his nearness and his softly spoken endearment.

‘Oh, yes,’ he breathed with barely veiled meaning. ‘I think they do.’

* * *

It was a day of delight and surprises.

With effortless dexterity Leonidas steered the boat through the sparkling blue water, following the rocky coast of his own island to begin with, and pointing out coves and deserted beaches only accessible from the sea.

Having a field-day with her camera, Kayla lapped up the magic of her surroundings whilst using every opportunity to grab secretive and not so secretive shots of this dynamic man she was with: at the wheel, in profile, with his brow furrowed in concentration, or turning to talk to her with that sexy, sidelong pull of his mouth that never failed to do funny things to her stomach. She captured him looking out over the dark body of water they were cutting through, his T-shirt pulled taut across his broad muscular back, his black hair as windswept as hers from the exhilarating speed at which they were travelling.

She’d need to remember, she realised almost desperately, wondering why it was so important to her to capture everything about this holiday. This island. These precious few hours. This man.

Suddenly aware, he glanced over his shoulder and, easing back on the throttle, said challengingly, ‘Don’t you think you’ve taken enough?’ She was about to make some quip about it being her ‘fix’, but he cut across her before she could with, ‘What are you going to do? Put them on the internet?’

With a questioning look at him, not sure how to take what he’d said, she pretended to be considering it, and with a half-tantalising, half-nervous little giggle, answered, ‘I might.’

‘You do that and our association ends right now.’ His contesting tone and manner caused her to flinch.

‘If you’re that concerned, then keep it,’ she invited, holding the camera out to him. She hadn’t forgotten what a private person he was. ‘I promise I’m not going to publish them on the web, but take it if you don’t trust me not to.’

For a moment her candour made Leonidas hold back. How could he demand or even expect integrity from her when he wasn’t being straight himself?

Briefly he felt like flinging caution to the winds and telling her the truth. Only the thought of the repercussions that could follow stopped him.

She would be angry, that was certain. But he had come here seeking respite from all the glamour and superficiality that went hand in hand with who he really was, and he wasn’t ready yet to relinquish his precious anonymity. It didn’t help reminding himself that it was primarily because of trusting a woman that he had felt driven to take some time out. Because of being too careless and believing that a casual but willing bed partner would share the same ethics as he.

Not that this girl was in any way like the mercenary vamp with whom he had unwisely shared the weekend that had proved so costly to his pride and reputation. But his billionaire status and lifestyle still generated interest, despite his best attempts to keep it low-key—and never more so since his unfortunate affair with the media-hungry Esmeralda—and Kayla was only human after all. What a boost it would be to her bruised ego after being ditched so cruelly by her fiancé for news of her liaison with a man whose corporate achievements weren’t entirely unknown to filter back to the world press. One text home to this Lorna might be all it would take to bring the paparazzi here in their droves.

‘It’s stolen enough of your time from me for one day,’ he said, smiling. Yet he still took the camera she was offering and stowed it away in a recess beneath the wheel.

They had lunch on the boat—a feast of lobster and cheeses, fresh bread and a blend of freshly squeezed juice. Afterwards there were delicate pastries filled with fruit and walnuts, and others creamy with the tangy freshness of lime.

Kayla savoured it all as she’d never savoured a meal before, and there was wonder mixed in with her appreciation.

‘This must have set you back a fortune,’ she couldn’t help remarking when she had finished.

‘Let me worry about that,’ he told her unassumingly.

‘But to hire a boat like this doesn’t come cheap...’ Even if only for a day, she thought. ‘And as for that lunch...’ She wondered if he would have eaten as well had he been alone and decided that he wouldn’t, guessing that he must have been counting on her being unable to resist coming with him today.

‘What are you concerned about, Kayla?’ he asked softly, closing the cool box that had contained their picnic before stowing it away. ‘That I might have spent more than you think I can justifiably afford? Or is it finding yourself in my debt that’s making you uneasy?’

‘A bit of both, I suppose,’ she admitted truthfully. After all, she’d always been used to paying her way when she was with a man, to never taking more out of a relationship than she was prepared to put in. Emotionally as well as financially, she thought with a little stab of self-derision as she remembered how with Craig she had wound up giving everything and receiving nothing, coming out a first-rate fool in the end.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ Leonidas advised. ‘I promise you I’m not likely to starve for the rest of my holiday. As for the boat, I hired it to take myself off exploring today. Your coming with me is just a bonus, so there’s no need to feel awkward or indebted in any way. If you want to contribute something, then your enjoyment will suffice,’ he assured her, and refrained from adding that most women he’d known would have taken his generosity as their due.

The island, when they came ashore, was beautiful. Lonely and uninhabited, it was merely a haven for wildlife, with only numerous birds and insects making their voices heard above the warm wind and the wash of the sea in the cove where they had left the boat.

There was no distinct path, and the climb through the surprisingly green vegetation was hot and steep, but the feeling of freedom at the top was worth a thousand climbs.

It was like standing in their own uninhabited world. In every direction the deep blue of the sky met the deeper blue of the sea. Looking back across the distance they had covered, Kayla saw the hulk of mountainous land they had left with its forests and its craggy coastline slumbering in a haze of heat.

There were huge stones amongst the grass—sculpted stones of an ancient ruin, overgrown with scrub and wild flowers, a sad and silent testimony to the beliefs of some long-lost civilisation.

‘You said you came to sort out some issues?’ Kayla reminded him, venturing to broach what she had been dying to ask him since they had left that morning. ‘What sort of issues?’ she pressed, looking seawards at the waves creaming onto a distant beach and wondering if it was the one where she had first seen him over a week ago. ‘Woman issues?’ she enquired, more tentatively now.

He was standing with his foot on one of the stones that had once formed part of the ancient temple, with one hand resting on his knee. The wind was lifting his hair, sweeping it back off features suddenly so uncompromising that he looked like a marauding mythical god, surveying all he intended to conquer.

‘Among other things,’ he said, but he didn’t enlarge on the women in his life or tell her what those ‘other things’ were.

Kayla moved away from him, pulling a brightly flowering weed from a crack in what had formed part of a wall. She was getting used to his uncommunicative ways.

She was surprised, therefore, when he suddenly said, ‘I used to dream of owning this island when I was a boy. I used to sit on that hillside...’ he pointed to a distant spot across the water, indiscernible through the heat haze ‘...and imagine all I was going to do with it. The big house. The swimming pool. The riding stables.’

‘And dogs?’ Kayla inserted, her eyes gleaming, following him into a make-believe world of her own.

‘Yes, lots of dogs.’

So he liked animals, she realised, deriving warm pleasure from the knowledge. Contrarily, though, she wrinkled her nose. ‘Too costly to feed.’ Laughingly she pretended to discount that idea. ‘And too much heartache if they get sick or run away.’

‘They couldn’t run away,’ Leonidas reminded her. ‘Not unless they were proficient swimmers.’

‘Haven’t you ever heard of the doggy paddle?’ She giggled, enjoying playing this little game with him. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were glowing from an exhilaration that had nothing to do with their climb. ‘So you were going to build a house with a swimming pool? And have horses? Racehorses, of course.’