Ким Лоренс – In the Greek's Bed: The Greek Tycoon's Wife / The Greek Millionaire's Marriage / The Greek Surgeon (страница 11)

‘Alex…good puss, nice kitty,’ she called, advancing cautiously into the smoke-filled room.

She had barely gone a couple of yards into the room when the visibility became nil. The only thing she could now see was a dull orange coming from underneath her bedroom door; it was the only thing that gave her any sense of orientation in the gloom. It also gave her a deep sense of foreboding…how long would the door contain the flames?

At times like this a well-developed imagination was not helpful.

No good thinking about that, she told herself, just get on with it. The sooner you find that damned cat, the sooner you can get out. Despite this stoicism her knees were shaking as she cautiously proceeded.

She stopped every few feet to listen but there was no response to her calls.

Katie didn’t know why she had expected him to respond, because Alexander was not a nice kitty, or a good puss, he was a belligerent animal who brought live mice into her bedroom and spat when you tried to show him affection. If he’d been human, doctors would have said he had a personality disorder.

And if I had any sense, she reflected grimly, I’d leave him to fry!

‘Alex, puss, puss…’ Mid coaxing call she walked straight into a solid object—the coffee-table she’d discovered in the garage sale. The impact of solid teak on her vulnerable shin was enough to send her to her knees. She eased her weight from her bruised knee and felt the tangled fabric of her dress rip.

‘Damn!’

It was while she was on her knees that she realised the smoke was thinner nearer the floor. She decided to continue her search from this position.

She was crawling cautiously along when she heard a deep voice calling her name.

Nikos…well, if he wants to murder me this would be the ideal opportunity, she thought. If ever there was a situation where black humour was appropriate, this was it, she decided, continuing her search, studiously ignoring his increasingly urgent cries.

Her grim smile turned into a cough when she heard a loud sound of impact closely followed by a strong Greek curse. It must, she realised in retrospect, have been the cough that alerted him to her position because moments later she was aware of strong hands sliding underneath her arms and hoisting her off the ground.

‘Let me go, you fool!’

‘Be still and keep calm. I have you.’ He did, in an iron grip that made escape impossible. ‘You are quite safe now,’ a deep, soothing voice in her ear informed her.

Katie, who had no desire to be saved, knew instinctively that safety was something Nikos Lakis’s arms would never offer her. It was the thought of what they might offer that made her start to struggle in earnest. As several of her blows connected the reassuring note in his deep voice began to sound a lot more strained.

She let out a shriek as he stopped trying to gently soothe her when, reverting to character, without so much as a ‘by your leave’ he threw her resistant body over his shoulder fireman-fashion.

This is a classic case, she told herself, lapsing into exhausted passivity, of resistance being quite definitely futile.

Katie was forced to maintain this undignified position until they had reached the hallway when she found herself plonked on the wooden floor, which Sadie had only had stripped and polished before Christmas… Oh, God, poor Sadie…! And this is all my stupid fault! I’m the tenant from hell!

She felt cool fingers press against the pulse point at the base of her throat, then a hand, the same one presumably, slid under her chin and began to firmly tilt her head back.

Her watering eyes shot open; embarrassingly it seemed that Nikos had wrongly attributed her sudden inertia to a loss of consciousness. She was ashamed that for a spilt second she had actually considered letting him try to revive her—her curiosity was purely of the scientific variety, of course.

‘Will you stop that?’ In her head her voice had been strong and defiant, but annoyingly what actually emerged from her dry lips was a weak croak.

‘Well, that’s a relief, you don’t require mouth to mouth,’ said the big figure who was straddled over her body as he settled back on his heels.

Though his face and clothes were blackened and soot­-stained, he still managed to looked as incredibly handsome as ever, Katie noted despairingly.

‘Imagine your relief and quadruple it,’ she croaked.

‘I did not expect gratitude for saving your life, but civility would have been nice…’

‘Saving my life!’ she squeaked, struggling to sit up. ‘My life didn’t need saving, I had everything under control until you got all Neanderthal.’ Panting and unable to rise, she grabbed onto the first available solid support to provide leverage, which happened to be his thighs, which were clamped either side of her waist.

The iron-hard firmness she encountered made her pause and caused her sensitive stomach muscles to tighten; escape somehow seemed less urgent as her splayed fingers explored a wider area and discovered no give in the bulging contours.

Then she came to herself and was deeply ashamed. It was unforgivable under the circumstances that she’d wasted precious seconds.

‘Thanks to you,’ she snarled, ‘Alexander is probably frying in there,’ she informed him, sliding out from between his legs and struggling to her feet. She got to them when, unaccountably, her knees gave way.

Nikos, a startled expression on his face, had also got to his feet, but with considerably more agility and athletic grace than she had. He caught her as she slid to the floor, which cushioned the impact of her contact with the bare wood.

With her head thrust between her knees, Katie batted blindly with her hands connecting only with empty air. It was only after she stopped fighting that he let her up.

‘You stupid, stupid man!’ she quavered, wiping with the back of her hand angry tears that coursed down her filthy face leaving paler tracks in the grime. Nikos, who was kneeling beside her, did not look particularly chastened by her attack. ‘Alexander is still in there.’ She gestured towards the door.

Nikos looked grim. ‘I heard you. Stay calm—hysteria will achieve nothing.’

‘I am calm!’ she bellowed.

‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me what you were doing earlier? Surely this was not the time to preserve your image?’

Katie’s brow creased in impatient bewilderment—image, what image? As for staying calm, the part of his recrimination she did understand was not only unjust, but would, if she’d been the type given to throwing wobblers, have set her off again. Katie was rendered speechless—but only temporarily.

‘Like you gave me a chance!’ she yelled. Or would have yelled if she hadn’t been coughing so much.

‘Katie…oh, Katie! You’re all right, thank goodness!’ A sobbing Sadie gasped as she reached the top of the staircase. ‘Oh, my, I really should lose a couple of pounds,’ she moaned, clutching her chest. ‘I’m signing into that fat farm next week…’

Nikos was looking with some bewilderment at Sadie, who was babbling wildly on about the detox therapies guaranteed to shed the pounds.

It seemed likely to Katie he was about to make one of his nasty sarky remarks.

Katie elbowed him hard, wanting to protect her friend from his nasty tongue. ‘She’s terrified, it’s her way of coping,’ she hissed at him. God, the man had the empathy of a brick.

Nikos seemed to take her explanation on board. Nodding, he left her side with a terse instruction to stay put!

‘Just take some deep breaths.’ Katie watched in astonishment as, with a smile of incredible charm and gentle manner, Nikos bent over Sadie.

The sound of Nikos’s voice seemed to calm Sadie, who nodded and looked up at him gratefully. Katie saw her do a double take and then an appreciative grin spread over her face.

‘Are you asthmatic?’ Nikos asked.

‘No, just fat and unfit.’ Sadie laughed shakily. ‘I ran all the way from the gate,’ she explained. ‘I think the fire brigade are coming. I heard them in the distance. Shall I go back and wait for them…?’

‘Take Katerina downstairs, and leave the house immediately.’

I suppose, Katie thought numbly, that people like Nikos come into their own in situations like this—situations that require someone to take charge and make decisions. Not even his worst enemy—which might be me—can accuse Nikos of having a problem with decision-making, she conceded wryly.

‘I’m not going anywhere until Alexander—’

‘I will get Alexander and you will leave the building,’ Nikos announced in a lordly fashion. ‘How old is he?’ he asked, advancing towards the door from which smoke was now billowing.

‘You can’t go in there,’ Katie said positively, as convenient as it might be, she couldn’t let the rat die for her cat, who might still have a few of his lives left.

‘Concentrate.’

Katie was, on the amazing silver flecks in his eyes. She was stressed, exhausted, terrified, and frankly there couldn’t be a worse time to admit that you were sexually attracted to a person, and had there been any other conceivable explanation for the way her mind disintegrated and her body came to life around him Katie would have plumped for it.

‘How old is he?’ Nikos asked as though she hadn’t spoken.