She looked Theo Savas straight in the eye. “No.”
“What do you mean, no?” He sounded as if no one had ever said the word to him in his entire life.
Well, it was time someone did.
Martha shrugged with all the indifference she could muster. “Which letter didn’t you understand? N? O? It’s a big house, Mr. Savas. I won’t bother you. Forget I’m here. I have every intention of forgetting you are!” So saying, she picked up her duffel bag, stepped neatly around him, then headed up the stairs.
“Wait a damn minute!” Footsteps pounded after her. He grabbed at her arm, but Martha twisted out of his grasp and kept right on going.
“You can’t stay here!”
“Of course I can.”
“I don’t want company,” he informed her, dogging her heels.
“Tough.” She reached the room that she had always shared with her sister, Cristina, pushed open the door, then turned to face him defiantly. “What are you going to do? Throw me out?”
The house might not belong to her family anymore, but it was her furniture in the bedroom, her childhood books on the shelves. She lifted her chin and dared him to lay a hand on her.
His fingers ball into fists. A muscle pulsed in his jaw and she could swear she heard his teeth grinding. But he didn’t touch her, just glared.
Martha glared back.
“Look,” he said after a moment, “there are tons of hotel rooms.”
“Can’t afford one.”
“I’ll pay for it.”
“No way. I’m not having everyone on Santorini think I’m your kept woman.”
It was one thing to make up her mind to sleep with Julian. Idiot that she was, she’d believed she loved him. It was something else entirely to let a man pay for her room on the island. That might be fine for those who came on week-long holidays and then went home never to reappear. But she was enough of a local that she would scandalize all the gossipy old women.
“And they wouldn’t think that if you stayed here with me?” He arched a brow.
“Of course not. This is my house—was my house,” she corrected bitterly.
Theo Savas shrugged. “So, fine. Call your father, then. He can pay for a hotel room.”
“No!”
None of the family knew where she was—and Martha was determined to keep it that way. The last thing she wanted was to announce her humiliation to her parents and siblings.
“Suit yourself. But you’d better come up with an idea, sweetheart, because I don’t want you here.”
“But—”
“No.” He was adamant. “I’ve had it. No women. I’m sick to death of them.”
Martha blinked. “So you…prefer men?” Pity, actually, because from a “populating the earth” perspective, Theo Savas had gorgeous genes, definitely worth passing on.
“I do not prefer men!” Theo snapped, then scowled furiously and raked a hand through his hair. “I’m just sick to death of being badgered, of women turning up at all hours.”
Martha gave him another once-over and lied with dripping scorn, “Well, you’re not that gorgeous.”
He grimaced. “Never said I was. It was that damn magazine—all that drivel about ‘world’s sexiest this and world’s sexiest that!’”
Martha laughed in disbelief. “Oh? And you’re what? World’s sexiest pirate? Curmudgeon?” That she could believe.
“Sailor,” he muttered, making her brows arch in surprise. He shrugged irritably. “It’s crap. All of it. But tell that to all those stupid females who read it and think they’re the woman of your dreams!”
Martha grinned at his hunted look.
“So I damned sure don’t want some silly gooey-eyed teenager hanging around,” he said, effectively wiping the grin off her face.
“Gooey-eyed teenager?” Martha was outraged. “I’m twenty-four!”
“Wow.” Theo was clearly underwhelmed. “Like I said, a baby.”
Martha bristled, sick and tired of being dismissed as young. Everyone in her family, except Lukas, was always telling her she was too young, that she needed someone to look out for her.
“Trust me, Methuselah, I wouldn’t look at you if you were the last man on earth. Make that the second last,” she muttered grimly under her breath.
Theo obviously heard her. His brow lifted. His mouth quirked. “Ah, like that is it?”
Martha scowled. “Like what?”
“You’re running away from a man.”
“I am not running away from anyone!” she retorted hotly. “I just…needed a break. A vacation. I finished a job and I wanted a little R&R.” It was the truth, just not all of it. “Look,” she said wearily, “as much as I would love to stand here and chat with you, I’m really bushed. I don’t sleep well on planes and I’ve been up for over thirty-six hours. I need some sleep.”
And without waiting for his approval—in fact, half expecting him to grab her by the arm and haul her downstairs—Martha turned her back on him and headed for her bed, falling into its welcome softness and breathing deeply in relief.
Behind her there was silence.
And more silence.
And then finally Theo said, “Okay. You can sleep it off. Take a nap. I’m going out for a sail. But I’ll be back tonight, kiddo,” he warned. “And when I get here, you’d better be gone.”
Theo muttered as he left the house. He muttered all the way down the hill and in the dinghy as he rowed out to his sailboat. He’d just begun to breathe easier in the last few days, relieved that no one on Santorini seemed to know about that damned article. Women still flirted with him, which was fine. But these at least hadn’t been peering in his windows and rubbing up against him in bars.
He’d started to think he’d get his life back.
And now this!
He was overreacting, of course, and he knew it. But it had been a shock to hear the door open and discover his fortress had been breached.
“Damn woman,” Theo muttered irritably now as he hoisted the mainsail, then cast off the mooring line.
Damned attractive woman with her wind-blown tangle of hair and her flushed face and her wide brown eyes. His hormones had registered that, even as his brain had resisted.
He wasn’t interested, and she wasn’t his type! Martha Antonides was too young. Too prickly. Too opinionated. Too wholesome. Too…irritating.
He liked women—a lot—but he preferred to be the hunter, not the hunted. Since that article had been published he’d begun to feel like a deer on the first day of hunting season. The hordes of women who had dogged his steps for the past six months were not to be believed. He certainly wouldn’t have believed it if he hadn’t experienced it firsthand!
He’d been confident the initial frenzy would wear off—a nine-day wonder, he’d assured himself. But he hadn’t counted on low hard news, and wire services hungry for something to spice up their pages.
Especially when a couple of former girlfriends had decided it was in their best interests to gain publicity by kissing and telling.
Of course it would blow over eventually. Who, after all, was really interested in his marriageability—besides his mother? Someone else he’d been avoiding.
When he’d returned to New York long enough to win the sailboat race for his father, Theo had deliberately avoided going out to the family home on Long Island.
He loved his mother, but he didn’t need her input into the mess that was his life. She was always ready to meddle.
“Offer suggestions,” she called it.
In this case he knew exactly what suggestion she’d offer. “Get married, Theo. End of problem.”
But it wouldn’t end the problem, Theo knew. He’d been married once—not that his mother knew it. And it hadn’t ended his problems at all. It had simply created more.
Now, older and wiser, Theo knew that marriage wasn’t his style. Relationships weren’t his metier. He was perfectly happy playing the field—as long as the field wasn’t overcrowded and the wo
men understood the rules.
He was glad he’d made sure Little Miss Jet Lag understood she wasn’t moving in. She might not have known about the article, she might not have come because of it, but he didn’t want her there getting ideas!
He was sorry she’d come all this way for nothing. But there were lots of guest houses on Santorini. So what if the ones available at the last minute weren’t likely to be at quite the level of homey comfort she was used to. Too damn bad. If she didn’t like it, she could go back to wherever she’d come from.
It was her problem, not his.
The ferry from Crete was just coming into the harbor. Tourists hung over the railings and waved and shouted. Plenty of them were gorgeous, eager women. And not one of them, God willing, knew he was here.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Theo cranked in the jib and smiled as the boat heeled away from the wind and picked up speed.
Turning his back on the ferry, he headed out of the harbor and put everything else out of his mind.
It was dusk when he got back. The tavernas were all lit up and music throbbed from half a dozen small nightclubs and cafés. The quay was crowded with holidaymakers, laughing and jostling and some even dancing. Two or three even wanted to dance with him.
Theo smiled and shook his head. Equanimity restored, he could look at them dispassionately now. Sometime in the near future he might even take some lovely lady up on it.
But chatting up some woman seemed more effort than it was worth tonight. He was tired and so he kept going, climbing the steps that led up the hillside, looking forward to a cold beer and a shower and a soft bed.
He climbed the winding stairs to the front door—and stopped dead at the sight of Martha in the window, crossing from the living room toward the kitchen.
Equanimity evaporating, Theo thundered up the last dozen steps, pushed open the front door and headed straight for the kitchen after her.
“Listen, I thought I told you—”
“Theo!” A sultry Scandinavian-accented voice came after him from the living room.
Theo jerked around. A tall slender blonde woman—every man’s dream, he’d thought when he’d first met her—opened her arms wide as she glided toward him.
“Agnetta?” It wasn’t really a question. And Agnetta was no longer a dream—she was a nightmare. If there was any woman he wanted to see in his living room less than he’d wanted to see Martha Antonides, it was Agnetta Carlsson.
But before she could reply, another younger woman appeared as well. “Theo!” She ran across the room to throw her arms around him.
Theo caught her before she could smother him with kisses and stared down at her, horrified. Whoever she was, she looked vaguely familiar, but he couldn’t put a name to her. In fact, he didn’t have to.
“Remember me? Cassandra,” she told him cheerfully. “You know, Cassie! Cassie Thelonikis. Your mother’s goddaughter!”
Ye gods. Deliberately Theo held her at arm’s length, recognizing her now, and not at all happy with the recognition.
“Your mother sent us over,” Cassie said happily, confirming his worst fear. “Isn’t that cool?”
Cool was not the word Theo would have used to describe it. “Sent you here? Why?” He knew he sounded harsh. He couldn’t help it.
But Cassie was immune. “She says you need some distraction. And protection,” she added. “She says you’re too focused on sailing and since you’re the world’s sexiest sailor you have too many women bothering you.”
Which gave his mother full marks for perception. But why the hell had she thought sending more women would improve matters?
And Agnetta Carlsson of all people! Theo grimaced inwardly. She didn’t even know Agnetta! Did she?
Cassandra, who obviously could read minds, explained. “I’ve been modeling this past year, and I worked with Agnetta lots this spring. They seem to think it’s cool, her being so fair and me so dark.” She shrugged. “We got to be friends. And when I had lunch with your mother last week in the city, Agnetta came along. She wanted to meet your mom because you two were friends.”
Was that what they had been? Theo wouldn’t have called it that. He had met Swedish model Agnetta Carlsson last summer at a sailboat race off Marseilles. She had been there on a fashion photo shoot. And after the race and the shoot, there had been a party and Agnetta had come with one of the Australians, who got drunk and promptly forgot her.
Agnetta hadn’t minded. She had found someone far more interesting—Theo.
And at the time Theo had been equally, though casually, interested in her.
His brother George had once called him “an equal opportunity womanizer.” And while Theo wouldn’t have put it that crudely, he had never claimed not to like women. He did. And gorgeous curvy blondes like Agnetta definitely topped the list. He’d charmed Agnetta that night. And she’d charmed him. Still, he’d been clear about what interested him—and what didn’t.
“No strings,” he’d said right up front.
“Strings?” She’d batted her gorgeous long lashes at him. “But no.” She’d cuddled up to him and kissed him soundly. “Of course not!”
Agnetta was beautiful. She was eager. She had been good fun and, not surprisingly, she had been good in bed.
For a month they had been an item. The society editors and gossip columnists loved them. Agnetta’s blond beauty and Theo’s dark features were a photographer’s dream. But soon the columnists—and Agnetta—began talking about marriage.
Is Aggie “the one”? One of the tabloids shrieked.
Will Aggie catch her man? Asked another.
Aggie’s rock? Big as Gibraltar? Demanded a third.
Does Aggie have a secret? Screamed a fourth.
“Where the hell are they getting this stuff?” Theo had done his own demanding. “We aren’t getting married!”
“Of course not, darling.” Agnetta had batted her lashes and shaken her head. “Unless,” she had given him a dimpled coy smile, “they know something we don’t know!”
“Not bloody likely,” Theo had said gruffly.
But it soon became apparent that they had heard rumors Theo hadn’t. At least not until Agnetta had come to him a week later and said, “I’m pregnant, Theo.”
“Pregnant?”
Theo found that hard to believe. He was a careful, responsible man. And he’d never been less than careful with Agnetta. He’d asked to see the pregnancy test, asked to talk to her doctor.
Agnetta’s face had flushed. “You don’t believe me?”
He didn’t say that. But he hadn’t married her, either. He would marry her if a child was involved. But he was determined to wait and see first.
Agnetta had been appalled, then angry. “You don’t trust me!” she’d accused him.
“Show me a test. I want to talk to your doctor.” He’d been adamant.
Agnetta had thrown a shoe at him. She’d cried and wailed.
Theo had not been moved. “We’ll know soon enough,” he’d said. “Plenty of time.”
And within two weeks the wait was justified. There were more tears, of course. Cascades of them. But they were followed by a convenient announcement.
“I—I m-must have been l-late. I thought I was pregnant! It’s because I’m so stressed about our relationship!” She’d glared at him accusingly.
He’d nodded understandingly. “Well, we wouldn’t want you to be stressed, would we?”
Agnetta brightened at once and went to put her arms around him. “So we will marry anyway?” she said eagerly.
“No. It will be better if I just get out of your life.”
And so he had.
He hadn’t seen Agnetta again—until this minute.
Now she smiled calculatingly at him over Cassie’s shoulders. “Such a wonderful suggestion your mother made,” she purred. “Come and spend a week here in our new house, she said to us. So kind. So sweet. And so nice of that girl to be here to let us in.”
Theo’s eyes narrowed. “W
hat girl?”
“Marla? No, Martha,” Agnetta corrected herself. “The girl in the kitchen. She let us in. Helped us with our bags. Very helpful.”
“Was she?” Theo said through his teeth.
“Oh, yes,” Cassie agreed, beaming.
He’d kill her. Damn Martha Antonides! She knew he didn’t want anyone here! Especially not a pair of females who were setting their sights on him.
“She said she was sure you wouldn’t mind the intrusion, that that’s what family homes were for. To be shared,” Cassie reported.
“Did she?” The penny—hell, the whole damn national debt—dropped. Theo’s jaw came together with a snap. “Where is she?”
“Just making us a snack, she said,” Agnetta answered, turning to smile in the direction of the kitchen.
Theo turned, too, and was treated to the sight of Martha Antonides giving him a brilliant smile and waggling her fingers at him in a little wave.
If he could have killed her with a look, she’d have keeled over dead.
Instead she dared to sashay toward them, still all smiles, carrying a tray with bread and oil and canapes and olives.
“I knew you’d be thrilled to have company.” She met his gaze with a challenging one of her own as she held out the plate to Agnetta and Cassie. “It was so sweet of your mother to think of you here by yourself, with so much room available—and hospitality being the cornerstone of Greek culture.”
“Is it?” Theo’s tone was deadly. “I thought war was.”
Her expression grew suddenly wary, but almost immediately she seemed to regain her equilibrium.
“Both, I think,” she said, aiming a cheery smile at both Cassie and Agnetta. “Battling with your friends is almost as much fun as battling with your enemies, don’t you think?”
“I expect we’re going to find out.” Theo swept the plate from her hands and thrust it into Agnetta’s. “If I may have a word with you, Ms. Antonides?”
“I don’t think—”
“You don’t need to,” he informed her as he spun her into his arms, pulling her hard against him and moving her toward the bedroom.
“Mr. Savas! I’m not—”
The Santorini Bride Page 2