by Kim Lawrence
Kat caught her breath. This was not close to jealousy, and more a flood than a spurt. This was the real thing with bells on! The shaft that pierced her was so intense that she would not have been surprised to see a knife hilt protruding from her chest.
Kat was as deeply shocked by her visceral reaction as she was scared by it. Lowering her gaze to hide the emotions she felt were written across her face in neon letters, she amazed herself by responding in a relatively calm voice.
‘So she used you, and you used her. Does that cancel out all the using?’ she wondered in a voice that sounded too bright. ‘I’ll look at this myself later. Don’t worry, I always did my homework.’
Aware that Zach was watching her with a puzzled frown, she struggled to control her expression and presumably failed; she could hear the suspicion in his voice as he asked, ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Not a thing.’ She tucked the tablet under her arm. ‘I promised myself I’d explore this morning.’
‘Want a guide?’
‘I think I’ll be fine on my own.’ She had to get out of the room before he guessed, which would be the ultimate humiliation!
He stared at the door, fighting the impulse that gripped him to follow her before he slumped down into one of the chairs. It was time to stop pretending and face facts. When it came to this woman his normal iron control did not apply.
* * *
More by luck than good judgement, she found her way back to her suite. Nobody had cleared the shoes that had littered the bedroom floor since she had pulled them out of the cavernous closet in the early hours of the morning. She kicked one of the soft-as-butter lemon-coloured pumps that were lovely, almost tripped over the striking red loafers, and picked up one of the cute kitten heels in one hand, and one of the spiky, far too high ankle boots, sexy as hell—even with pyjamas—in the other.
With a low moan, she threw them both across the room, then, feeling guilty that she was leaving someone else to pick them up, gathered up the shoes and, pairing them all up, stacked them neatly in their boxes, telling herself that she needed to get a grip. She needed to focus and not think about Zach Garros.
She spent the next hour lying, head propped in her hands, on the bed, poring over the guest list and the cream of Athens society. But for some reason it wasn’t sinking in, so she welcomed the interruption when a maid tapped on the door.
‘Mrs Carras asks me to tell you that there is morning tea in the small salon if you wish it, miss?’
Why not? thought Kat, closing the tablet.
‘Lead the way,’ she said to the girl, who looked startled by the informality.
An hour later, as she sipped her second cup of tea, Kat walked to the high, deep windows. The sea shone in the near distance like silvered turquoise in the morning sun. As the place was built on a peninsula projecting into the water, she assumed that most rooms would have similarly breathtaking marine vistas.
Selene bustled in. Kat found herself envying the woman’s vaguely harassed air and realised she was bored. She was used to being busy. She would make a very poor lady of leisure.
‘Good morning. Did you sleep well?’
‘Perfectly,’ Kat lied. ‘I thought I might explore a little this morning, if there’s nothing you want me—?’ she began hopefully.
‘Gracious, no. I’ll send Della. She can be your guide and she’s too teary this morning to be any help—she’s in love,’ Selene added with an eye-roll.
‘No, don’t worry. I’d prefer to wander alone, if that’s okay?’
‘Of course. Enjoy yourself.’
A little exploration had proved her assumption was right: the scale of the building was daunting and then some. She hesitated to call it a home. It seemed more to her like a massive status symbol. Surely no one needed this much space?
She got turned around several times during her exploration until she realised that the place was built on a grid system. After that her attempts to get her bearings got a little easier. Everything fanned out from one central living area. She supposed that you got your head around massive in time—less so the presence of staff, discreet but liable to pop up and take you by surprise. She hoped some of them were temporary additions for the evening event.
It was her first test and one she hadn’t decided if she actually wanted to pass. Who was she trying to please and impress? The grandfather she didn’t know, or the man who didn’t care one way or the other?
Maybe, Kat, you should try pleasing yourself?
It was a plan.
The first of the two wings she explored seemed to be dedicated to private suites, like her own, and some slightly smaller guest suites. After half an hour of opening doors and admiring views she wandered back out to the terrace that ran the full length of this side of the building. Beautifully manicured lawns ran down to the sea. She took off her cardigan. It felt like spring as she took a seat on one of the long stone benches surrounded by tubs of flowers. Selene appeared, along with a young girl in a maid’s uniform who she introduced as Della.
The appearance was so perfectly timed that Kat imagined her every move being picked up by CCTV cameras. She smiled at the girl, recognising the name, but didn’t get a smile back, just a quick curtsey and a look that mingled tragic with sulky. She was not a recommendation for love with the black mascara rings around her eyes.
Selene noticed this, too. ‘Go on, run along and wash your face,’ she said, and the girl rushed off.
‘It’s such beautiful weather here, I can’t get over it.’ She had as little control over that as she did her visceral response to Zach, but the weather was much easier to live with.
‘Yes, and such a relief after the heat. The summer was hot even for here. You are finding your way around?’
Kat’s smile was a poor disguise for the fact she was overwhelmed by everything. She fought her way through a wave of longing for the comfortable predictability of her old life and nodded. ‘There is a lot to explore.’
‘Are you sure you don’t want someone to show you around? Not Della,’ she added hastily. ‘That girl is just... She is really trying my patience today.’
‘Actually, it’s quite nice discovering things on my own, and if I have a guide to rely on it will take me for ever to find my way around.’
The older woman nodded and smiled. ‘Oh, I should mention that the room is being prepared for this evening, so there might be a little disruption. Can I get you anything—tea, coffee, cakes?’
‘Tea would be nice,’ she lied, thinking, This is how bored people put on weight. ‘So, I’m assuming the guests will be staying overnight?’ It wasn’t as if there weren’t room.
‘Normally they would, but, no, Mr Zach has arranged transport. They will be leaving by eight-thirty sharp.’ Kat picked up on the ‘whether they like it or not’ silent addition. ‘Hence the early start this evening. If you’ll excuse me, the musicians have arrived and they are being a little...artistic.’ She rolled her eyes and whisked away.
When the tea arrived it came with some delicious little honey pastries embedded with nuts and jewelled candy fruit, which Kat, who told herself she was still making up for her half-eaten dinner, demolished.
Exploring the second wing didn’t really work off many calories, Kat discovered. It was dedicated to the domestic area. Her appearance in a food-preparation room created a bit of a shock panic moment for the staff working there.
She apologised and backed out, then promptly lost her orientation once more and ended up outside again where she discovered that there was more than one swimming pool, and this one was in an enclosed courtyard. A shaded area lay to one side of the marble-floored space complete with what appeared to be an outdoor kitchen; on a raised plinth on the opposite side, a massive spa pool bubbled away happily.
She lay down on one of the loungers with a bump, marvelling at how different this world was compared to the one s
he was used to.
Not my world, but I’m still me.
The recognition eased the tightness in her chest. Her chin lifted. If she was going to do this, she’d do it her way. For starters, she’d do what she always did. Focus not on the negative but the positive. Yes, heiress was a bad fit for her, but she’d worn ill-fitting shoes before now and survived, she reminded herself, and they’d always looked good.
She’d already saved the refuge... If she was going to inherit money and power, there were a lot of worthy causes out there who just needed someone to notice them.
When a menu appeared for her lunch, Kat requested a sandwich. She intended to explore the gardens and beach.
‘Just a sandwich?’ Della looked confused. ‘What will I tell Mrs Carras?’
‘That I want a sandwich.’
Her irritation fell away as, without warning, the young girl’s face suddenly crumpled and she burst into loud sobs.
‘Fine, I’ll have lunch,’ Kat said, alarmed. The girl continued to sob.
‘He’s sending him away and I’ll never see him again, and I love him!’
‘Take a seat.’ She got up and the girl took her own, scrubbing her face with her apron. ‘Della, is it...? Who is he? The first he.’
‘Mr Gavros. Alexi thinks he’s marvellous, but he’s not—he’s cruel and heartless and he’s sending Alexi away because he thinks I’m too young! And he doesn’t want anyone to be happy!’
Kat had never been so glad to see anyone as she was to see Selene. The older woman took one look at the scene and bustled the weeping girl out. A few moments later she returned.
‘I am so sorry about that.’
‘It’s fine. She says that Zach is sending her boyfriend away.’
‘Oh, I know. She’s telling anyone who will listen the same thing.’
While Kat was the first to believe that Zach was no saint, that he was cynical and manipulative, the girl’s story just didn’t have a ring of truth to it. Why on earth would Zach go out of his way to blight young love? Mock it, yes, but not... No, she was sure there was another explanation.
‘So, is he?’
The other woman gave a chuckle. ‘Well, I suppose he is. Alexi is one of the placements, one of the big successes, and, as you might know, Zach has an arrangement with the university: if the youngsters he recommends pass the interview and entrance exam they are admitted without formal exams to do a foundation year. Alexi is starting next semester. The boy, as bright as they come, is over the moon.’
Kat tried to pick her way through the information. ‘So, this Alexi was originally—?’
‘Much like Zach, living on the streets, though obviously his situation was not as dire as Zach’s.’ The older woman, unaware she had just dropped a bombshell, shook her head while Kat’s imagination went into riot mode. ‘Not all the youngsters end up in academia, obviously, but they are all offered a way out, a safe way out.’
Kat shook her head. Zach had lived on the streets? She knew his family situation had been bad...outsider, he’d said. Now she fully understood what he had meant.
‘So, he escaped his family by living on the streets.’ The ache in the little corner of her heart was not just for the boy he had once been, but the lone wolf he had become.
Presumably it had been her grandfather who had taken him out of that old life, which perhaps explained the loyalty he seemed to feel towards the older man.
She gave a sudden laugh as she realised that, ironically, it turned out that Zach was as much of a member of the do-gooding fraternity he claimed to despise as she was!
Happily, Selene misinterpreted her amusement.
‘I know, young love. The thing is,’ she said, lowering her voice to a confidential whisper, ‘I think young Alexi is quite relieved. Della is a rather intense girl and very young for her age.’ She hefted out a sigh. ‘Better to give her the day off than risk any more meltdowns, I think. I’ll leave you to your exploring.’
Her exploring took Kat to the beach, where she peeled off the clothes over the black swimsuit she’d put on earlier. She could not swim but she could paddle. She waded out, thigh deep, staring, eyes scrunched against the sun, out to sea. She let her thoughts drift—the tide took them inevitably in the direction of Zach. Would she challenge him with his background, ask him why he was so afraid anyone might suspect he was a good guy?
It was almost as if he had tried to make her think the worst of him earlier. Maybe there was a worse but there was also a better. A better he seemed not to want anyone to see...or is that just me?
She shook her head as she collapsed onto the warm sand. The man was a confusing mass of contradictions! As she shook back her hair she let the sun dry the moisture from her skin, rubbing the sand away as it dried on her bare arms and legs.
It was only when she removed her watch from the pocket where she had put it for safekeeping that she noticed the time. With a yelp, she jumped to her feet, dragged her clothes on over her now dry swimsuit and began to jog up the deserted beach.
She had reached the green manicured lawns that ran down to the sand when she collided not with one of the palms, but a solidity that had warmth.
If his hands had not remained on her shoulders she would have fallen over. Her hands clutched his hair-roughened, sinewy forearms as she inhaled a deep breath of his warm male scent, causing her stomach to violently clench in hopeless desire.
Slowly, her eyes lifted, over the clinging T-shirt stretched across his broad chest to his face. Like the rest of his skin, it was filmed with salty moisture.
She didn’t say a word; she couldn’t. She ached for him. Quite literally. She hadn’t thought it was possible.
It took every ounce of his willpower to resist the longing in her eyes as she looked up at him. Alekis’s granddaughter who needed...deserved more than someone like him could give.
‘You don’t look in the party mood.’ Hair wild, skin glazed with a sun-kissed look, her lips lightly crusted with salt that he longed to kiss off, she looked the ultimate in desirability.
Kat swallowed the occlusion in her throat; her chest felt constricted and tight. He was close, too close. She couldn’t breathe, or think, just feel. Too much feeling.
‘I’m in panic mode. I’m cutting it a bit fine, probably.’ She lifted a hand to her tangled hair and took a step back. His hands fell away as she looked at him through her lashes.
‘I should run,’ she said, thinking, Don’t let me.
‘Yes.’
* * *
She was still running as she entered her suite, brought to a panting, shocked immobility by what waited for her there.
‘Good evening,’ she said pleasantly to the small army of assorted people assembled inside her private salon. What the hell?
She looked to Selene, brows raised, for explanation, even though the hairdryers, tongs and assorted brushes sticking out of a couple of bags was a clue.
‘I thought you might like to start getting ready now?’ Selene’s anxious glance at the ormolu clock over the fireplace that held a massive flower arrangement suggested that she thought this process should have begun some time earlier, and, considering Kat’s salty hair had taken on a life of its own, she couldn’t really blame her.
‘Oh, have you been waiting?’
‘Not at all,’ came the polite lie.
‘Actually, you can all have the evening off,’ she said, addressing the small makeover army. ‘I’m more than happy to get myself ready.’
The expression of shock and consternation on the older woman’s face almost made Kat smile. Clearly the idea that Kat could dress herself, do her own hair and apply her make-up shocked the present company deeply. They wanted to argue, Kat could feel it.
‘Honestly, I’ve been dressing myself for years.’
Nobody smiled. Kat felt her impatience edge up; she enjoyed a spa day as
much as anyone, but she couldn’t see it becoming part of her daily routine, or even big day routine.
She’d read about freak shows and she supposed this was the modern version—she being the freak!
Damping down her mounting panic, she tried again. ‘Honestly, I’ll be fine, but if I have a problem I’ll yell.’
She utilised a smile aimed at robbing her refusal of any offence and firmly closed her bedroom door on their collective shocked faces. It took her a moment to find the music selection she was looking for and turn up the volume. It wasn’t as if there were any neighbours to worry about.
One of these days she was going to take up yoga, but in the meantime her tried-and-tested relaxation method of choice was what it always had been—a five-minute session of wild, unrestrained, let-your-hair-down dancing to a rock anthem while quite frequently singing along.
When the track came to an end, she switched the music off and fell back headlong onto the canopied bed. Staring at the ceiling, she waited for her heart rate to slow to a gentle trot.
To say she was relaxed would have been an exaggeration, but she was willing to accept exhaustion as a substitute—she was just too tired to run away. The thought brought an image of her running away from Zach on the beach. She had stopped once and he’d still been standing there staring after her. The image in her head made her stomach flip.
‘Oh, God, this is crazy!’ she groaned as she padded to the bathroom. Sadly, she hadn’t left herself enough time for a long and lazy bath. The deep double-ended copper tub that took centre stage in the bathroom...now that was one luxury item she might get used to quite quickly.
Sniffing some of the lovely oils lined up, she stripped and walked into the shower, which was big enough to house a football team, though the image that slid into her head did not involve a team, just one man...who was constantly on her mind!
But not your bed, Kat, mocked the voice in her head.
It was about time she remembered she was not the sort of woman who undressed men, even in her imagination, let alone... She scrunched her face and threw a mental bucket of cold water over the febrile images.