After the Greek Affair

by Chantelle Shaw

  ‘Many years ago a small community, mainly fishermen, lived here. My father was born on Aura. But Kea has a bigger harbour, and gradually everyone moved away, leaving the island uninhabited until I bought it three years ago.’

  ‘So no one lives in those houses?’

  ‘My household staff and their families live in the village now. Many of the houses were in a bad state of repair, but I have a team of builders who are gradually restoring them. There is also a church where Larissa will be married.’

  ‘I hope it’s a big one,’ Belle commented. ‘Larissa told me that hundreds of guests have been invited to the wedding.’

  Loukas grimaced. ‘Yes, her fiancé has a huge extended family, most of whom Lissa has never met before. The church is tiny, and most of the guests will be seated in the square outside for the actual ceremony, but the reception will be at the villa, where there is much more room.’

  Belle gave him a surprised look, wondering how big his villa was. ‘Will there be room for so many guests to stay at your house?’

  ‘Theos, no!’ His horrified expression at the idea of his home being invaded by guests was almost comical, and made him seem a little more human, she mused, desperately trying to fight her awareness of him as she studied his superbly chiselled features. ‘Most people will stay in Athens or on Kea. I’ve chartered a fleet of helicopters to ferry guests over to Aura, and some people will arrive by boat.’

  ‘It sounds a logistical nightmare. Wouldn’t it have been easier to have the wedding in Athens?’

  Loukas shrugged. ‘Probably. But Larissa wanted to be married here, and I’ll move heaven and earth to give her the wedding she wants.’

  Belle stared at him, startled by the sudden huskiness in his voice. There could be no doubt that Loukas adored his sister. The emotion blazing in his eyes was strangely humbling and made her wonder if she had misjudged him. Perhaps he wasn’t as controlling as she had first thought? Certainly it seemed important to him that Larissa’s wedding should be perfect.

  They walked on in silence, the path wider now so that they were side by side. The views from the clifftop, of the sea and across the island, were stunning, and Belle was not surprised that Larissa wanted to hold her wedding in such a beautiful place. It was not Larissa Christakis who occupied her thoughts, however, but her brother.

  ‘You said that your father was born here on Aura, but I take it that you were not?’

  ‘No, the island had been abandoned long before then. I was born on Kea and spent my early childhood there. Larissa was also born there, but she has no memories of the place because we moved to America when she was very young.’

  ‘Why did your family leave Greece?’ Belle asked curiously.

  ‘To make a living.’ Loukas’s mouth tightened as he silently acknowledged the bitter irony of that statement. ‘My father’s fishing boat had been wrecked in a storm and he couldn’t afford to buy a new one. But without a boat he couldn’t fish and make money to feed his family. A distant cousin owned a grocery store in New York. Xenos arranged for us to move there so that my parents could run the shop, and when he died he left it to them.’

  ‘It must have been a big change, moving from a small island to a city. I moved house dozens of times when I was growing up, because my stepfather was in the army and we lived wherever he was stationed.’ She had hated being the new girl at school, always trying to fit in and make friends, Belle remembered. ‘I would have found it even harder to settle in a new country.’ She glanced towards the turquoise sea shimmering in the sunshine. ‘Didn’t you miss all this?’

  ‘Every day. But I was young and better able to cope with the change.’ His voice deepened. ‘It broke my father’s heart to leave Greece.’

  ‘He must have been pleased when you bought Aura—his birthplace.’

  Loukas hesitated for a moment, and then shrugged. The basic facts about his background could be found by anyone who chose to research him on the internet. ‘He never knew. My father died eighteen months after we moved to the States, and my mother followed him to the grave two years later.’

  His voice was so devoid of emotion that Belle shot him a startled glance. Despite the heat from the sun she shivered, sadness sweeping over her at the thought that Loukas’s father had never come home, never seen again this beautiful place.

  ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know—’ She broke off abruptly. There was no reason why she should have known about the tragedy that had torn Loukas’s family apart. She had met him less than an hour ago, they were strangers, so why did her heart ache for him? And why was she so sure that he concealed his pain behind his unfathomable grey gaze? Perhaps because she had learned to hide her own heartbreak at her mother’s death and pretend that she wasn’t hurting inside, she thought bleakly.

  Another thought struck her. ‘Larissa can’t have been very old when your parents died. Who looked after her?’

  Loukas had started walking again, and Belle fell in step beside him. ‘I did. There was no one else. She barely remembers our father, and I have tried to be a father figure to her. But she missed having a mother. She still does—especially now, as she prepares for her wedding.’ He gave a heavy sigh. ‘You know how it is—there’s a special bond between mothers and daughters.’

  His words touched a raw nerve. A lump formed in Belle’s throat and for a moment she could not speak. ‘Yes,’ she said at last in a low tone. ‘I know how it is.’ She stared at the horizon, the sharp line between the sea and the sky blurring as tears filled her eyes. She had shared a special bond with her mother—or at least she had believed she had. But in all those years that she was growing up, during all those mother-and-daughter shopping trips and girly chats, Gudrun had never revealed the truth about her father. The feeling of betrayal burned in her heart as fiercely as the pain of grief.

  ‘Belle… Is something wrong?’ Loukas suddenly realised that she had fallen behind and turned to find her standing looking out over the sea. Her face was half hidden beneath the brim of her hat, but he sensed her tangible vulnerability.

  What the hell had got into him today? he wondered irritably. He was not one of the sensitive ‘new-man’ types so beloved by women’s magazines; he was a hard-headed businessman who dealt in facts and figures, profit margins and takeover bids. Flights of imagination about the emotional well-being of any woman, let alone his sister’s dress designer, whom he’d met for the first time an hour ago, were not in his nature.

  He glanced at his watch and realised he was late to make an important call. He couldn’t blame Belle if he’d missed out on the Tokyo deal, he conceded. But from now on he was determined to concentrate on business and not allow himself to be distracted by her.

  ‘I was just admiring the view.’ Belle blinked fiercely before she turned to Loukas. She could sense his impatience as he waited for her, and she pushed her dark thoughts to the back of her mind and walked towards him, determined to focus on the job she had come to Aura to do.

  They continued along the path for a few more metres before it forked—one branch sloping down to a set of steps cut into the cliff, which led to a white sandy beach below, and the other stopping in front of a set of wrought-iron gates set in a high stone wall. Loukas pressed a button so that the gates swung smoothly open, and ushered Belle through.

  ‘Welcome to the Villa Elena.’

  ‘Oh…wow!’ The stunning sight before her eyes jolted Belle from her painful memories. ‘It’s…spectacular,’ she breathed, as she stared at the ultra-modern architecture of the white-walled villa with its many windows that must offer amazing views over the sea.

  Loukas nodded. ‘It’s home,’ he said simply.

  Belle could have no idea how much those two words meant to him, he thought. Through all the years he had spent living in a grim tenement block in a rough neighbourhood in New York he had clung to his memories of his homeland, and had dreamed of one day owning a house overlooking the sapphire-blue waters of the Aegean.

  Thanks to his quick brain,
ruthlessness determination and years of relentless hard work, he had built his hugely successful company and achieved his dream. Aura was his bolthole, where he had created a home for him and Larissa.

  It would have been his child’s home too. It should have been. The familiar black bitterness filled his heart. He had bought the island when Sadie had told him she was pregnant, and commissioned an architect to design a luxurious villa for the woman he had loved and their baby.

  But Sadie had never come here, and there had been no baby—she had made sure of that. His jaw hardened, his gut twisting at the memory of her betrayal. She had known how much he wanted his child, but she had refused to allow anything to stand in the way of her pursuit of stardom.

  Larissa was the only person he had confided in, and it had been she who had begged him to stop anaesthetising his emotions with whisky. He would never forget how his little sister, whom he had cared for since their parents had died, had become the carer. Lissa had been there for him in his darkest days, when pain and anger had clawed at his insides. But soon she would leave the island and move to the house he had bought for her and Georgios in Athens. Loukas exhaled heavily. His little sister had grown up, and it was time to let her go, but he had not anticipated how hard he would find it.

  He glanced briefly at Belle. ‘Come on through,’ he invited. ‘My butler will know we’re here and will serve drinks on the terrace.’

  Butler! Of course he had a butler, Belle told herself as she followed him across the white marble patio. Loukas was a billionaire and he probably had dozens of staff to run around him.

  She realised that they had entered the villa grounds by a side gate. The house was to the right of her, while on her left they skirted a large circular Jacuzzi and continued on towards an infinity pool that gave the illusion of spilling over the edge of the cliff into the sea below. In the bright sunshine everything seemed to throb with an intensity of colour: the gleaming white walls of the villa, the aquamarine of the pool and the sea, and the vibrant oranges, reds and yellows of the flowers set amidst the lush greenery of the landscaped garden. It was paradise, Belle thought, feeling almost dizzy from the beauty of her surroundings.

  As they walked towards the terrace and stepped into the shade of the white awning fluttering gently in the breeze, a man walked out of the house to meet them.

  ‘This is Chip,’ Loukas introduced the man. Short and stocky, with a shock of red hair and wearing brightly coloured Bermuda shorts, Chip was not what Belle had imagined a butler to be. His broad grin told her he knew what she was thinking.

  ‘How ya doin?’ he greeted her in a strong American drawl.

  ‘As you can’t fail to notice, Chip has a penchant for loud shorts,’ Loukas said dryly. ‘It’s the reason I always wear sunglasses. But he’s worked for me for years and so I have to forgive him for his terrible taste in clothes.’

  The butler chuckled. There was clearly a strong friendship between the two men that went deeper than simply employer and employee, Belle thought. As if he had read her mind Loukas continued, ‘Chip and I spent our teenage years living in the South Bronx. Back then there was a lot of trouble between gangs—a lot of violence on the streets. We used to watch each other’s backs.’ He did not elaborate, but Belle sensed from the look that passed between the two men that they had experienced incidences of street violence, and had relied on each other perhaps for their very survival.

  ‘It’s nice to meet you, Chip,’ she murmured, giving him a smile. ‘Actually, I like your shorts.’

  ‘Thank you, Ms Andersen. It’s nice to meet someone else with good taste.’ He winked at her as he set the tray down on the table, and indicated the teapot. ‘Larissa told me you like to drink tea. I hope Earl Grey is okay for you?’

  ‘Oh, yes—lovely.’ Belle took the china cup and saucer Chip handed her and sipped the delicately flavoured tea with pleasure. ‘Heavenly.’

  ‘Drinking tea is an English custom I’ll never understand,’ Loukas said with a grimace, taking the glass of cold beer his butler offered him. ‘Can you take Belle’s cases up to her room, Chip?’

  Once the butler had disappeared into the house Belle’s intense awareness of Loukas returned with a vengeance. She finished her tea and put the cup back on the saucer with a slightly unsteady hand. ‘I’m really looking forward to seeing Larissa,’ she murmured, looking towards the house in the hope that the Greek girl would soon appear.

  ‘I’m afraid you’ll have to wait until tomorrow.’ Loukas savoured his last mouthful of beer and set his glass back on the tray. ‘Lissa flew to Athens on my helicopter a couple of hours ago. Her fiancé’s father has been rushed into hospital, and she wanted to be with Georgios as the family wait for news on Constantine’s condition.’

  Taken aback by this unexpected news, Belle stared at him. ‘I’m sorry to hear that. Is Georgios’s father very ill?’

  ‘He has a heart condition and is due to have major surgery next month. When Larissa was let down by her first designer she suggested moving the wedding forward a few weeks, which would have meant it was after Constantine’s operation, to give enough time for her dress to be made. But I pushed for her to stick to the original date,’ Loukas admitted. ‘The operation is high risk, and if things were to go wrong—well, let’s just say I believed it prudent to have the wedding before Constantine’s surgery. Not that I let Larissa know of my concerns that Georgios’s father might not pull through,’ he added. ‘She’s very fond of him, and she and Georgios would be devastated if he did not see them marry.’

  Once again Belle heard the fierce protectiveness Loukas felt for his sister in his voice. It sounded as though his insistence that the wedding should take place in a month’s time, as originally planned, was not because it suited his work schedule, but because he was concerned for Larissa’s future father-in-law. Maybe he wasn’t as much of a control freak as she had first thought?

  She frowned as another thought occurred to her. ‘If you knew Larissa wasn’t here, why didn’t you say so when we were on Kea? Why did you bring me to Aura?’ Why did she feel so unsettled by the realisation that she was alone with Loukas on his island? They were not completely alone, she reminded herself. Chip was here, and no doubt a team of staff must be needed to run the huge villa. There was no reason for her heart-rate to quicken. But Loukas had removed his sunglasses and his narrowed gaze was focused on her mouth. Instinctively she wet her dry lips with the tip of her tongue and saw him stiffen, the expression in his eyes becoming predatory, hungry. Her heart gave a jolt.

  ‘I could have stayed on Kea and checked into a hotel until Larissa returned to Aura,’ she said a little desperately.

  He shrugged. ‘I assumed you would want to see where the wedding is to be held. Larissa explained that you take the venue into consideration when designing the dress. She’s coming back tomorrow morning. I thought you might as well unpack and settle in before she arrives.’

  What was it about this man and his determination to control other people’s lives? ‘You should have told me,’ Belle said stiffly. ‘I prefer to make my own decisions.’

  ‘It’s no big deal, is it?’ Loukas wondered why Belle seemed so edgy. She was looking at him suspiciously and he felt his irritation grow. Did she think he was going to jump on her like some testosterone-fuelled youth? Hell, he wasn’t the only one of them to feel the magnetic pull of sexual attraction. He had noticed the way she kept darting him little glances, the way she touched her tongue to her lips whenever he looked at her.

  ‘You seem to be worried about something, Belle,’ he said softly, feeling a flare of satisfaction when he strolled towards her and she immediately took a step backwards. Definitely edgy—and flustered. He wondered if she wanted him to kiss her as badly as he wanted to.

  ‘I’m not worried about anything,’ she denied sharply, carefully avoiding his gaze. ‘What should I be worried about?’

  The fact that he was sorely tempted to pull her into his arms, lower his head and ravage her soft, pink,
moist lips, he thought self-derisively. He was so close to her now that he could see his reflection in her dark pupils. He watched them dilate and heard her breathing quicken. Oh, yes, she was definitely flustered. She hooked a strand of long blonde hair behind her ear and he was suddenly struck by how young she looked. His thoughts cannoned into one another in his head and arrived at the same conclusion: she was a complication he could do without.

  ‘Nothing,’ he said abruptly, jerking away from her. ‘You’re absolutely safe on Aura. There’s no crime here—not even any cars to cause accidents.’ He was waffling—a phenomenon he’d never experienced before—and his irritation with himself increased. ‘Come with me and I’ll show you to your room.’ He walked briskly across the terrace. ‘I’ll be working from my office here at the villa for the rest of the day, but if you need anything just use the house phone to call Maria. She’s my cook and housekeeper, and Chip’s wife,’ he explained when Belle gave him an enquiring glance. ‘Other members of staff come in from the village every day to help run the house, but I value my privacy and none of my staff live at the Villa Elena.’

  He strode into the house, and Belle forced herself to follow him on legs that felt decidedly unsteady. That was the second time in the space of the afternoon that she had thought Loukas was about to kiss her, she thought shakily. He had stood so close to her that her skin had tingled with anticipation that he would take her in his arms and draw her against his hard body. She had been certain that he was about to lower his head and slant his mouth over hers, and she had been waiting for his kiss, longing to feel the demanding pressure of his lips, she admitted, flushing when she recalled how she had swayed towards him.

  What had got into her? she asked herself angrily. She had come to Aura to work on probably the most important commission of her career and she could not allow herself to be distracted by her shockingly fierce sexual attraction to Loukas. It was so unlike her. She was usually so calm and controlled, but for some reason he decimated her composure.