'Over-conscientious?' Elisa suggested, . childishly licking her fingers after finishing the strawberries.
Rafe watched her. She looked so natural, so damned nice. There were times he actually believed she was, then that resist-me-if-you-can gleam would come into her eyes to remind him she was just another walking man-trap. Well, if anybody got caught this time, it wouldn't be him.
'She knows she's the lynchpin of Penny's life, the one consistent factor. She's looked after Penny since she was born, the only person who has. I'm worried how Penny will cope without her.'
Elisa frowned. 'She's got you, hasn't she?'
'Me? I'm on sufferance.' He grimaced and Elisa, taken aback, thought she'd never heard so much bitterness in anybody's voice. It didn't ease as he continued, 'I can't get close to her. She won't let me.'
Elisa felt his anguish as though it were her own. How ironic, considering he had no hesitation about hurting her whenever the mood took him. But, oh, how she wished he would stop half telling her things! As it was, she was left to guess, 'Are you saying your wife—ex-wife?—has custody of Penny and you only have her for the holidays?' She could think of no other reason why father and daughter should be estranged.
'My ex-wife did have custody. She was killed in a skiing accident three months ago.'
'Poor Penny,' Elisa gasped involuntarily, 'and now she's lost her nanny for a few weeks.'
'Precisely. That's the real tragedy. Janet Tilson has been more of a mother to her than ever Sheena was.' Again the grimace, again the bitterness. 'Now do you see why it's so important Penny gets who she wants? When I told her I'd cancel my business appointments and look after her myself, she panicked and asked for you. So you she gets.' He stood up suddenly. 'She's waiting now. If you don't want that drink, we might as well get moving.'
Elisa got to her feet, but when he came round to her side of the table and took her arm she didn't move. She was being steam-rollered into a situation more fraught than the one she'd been running away from, and she couldn't allow that. His touch, impersonal as it was, reminded her of all she had to fear.
'Look, I'm sorry for Penny --' she didn't dare tell him she was sorry for him as well '—but you're taking an awful lot for granted. I haven't said I'll work for you. In fact, I couldn't have made it plainer I don't want to.'
'You mean the bribe wasn't high enough,' he replied flatly. 'All right, name your price.'
'It isn't a question of money!' she exclaimed, exasperated.
'Then what is it a question of?' He turned her fully towards him and ran his hands slowly up her bare arms to her shoulders. Her spine retracted with pleasure, sending shivers of delight all over her body. His hands slid round to her back, pulling her against him as he explored the length of her body.
They were capable, knowing hands and they moved over her almost lazily, searching for response and arousing wave after wave of sensual pleasure. She lost her will to resist, and her mind with it. She pressed her soft curves against his lean, hard body, her head coming to rest on his shoulder, her eyes closing, her arms going around him and her hands beginning an exploration of their own.
Love and hate, she thought dreamily, opposite sides of the same coin. The coin had flipped and they'd come down in paradise.
It was only when he turned her face up to his and murmured, 'So, Elisa, I've found out what you want...' that she realised what was motivating him, and by then it was too late. His lips came down on hers and she was lost in her love and his expertise. Tears choked her because, for him, this was nothing but a manoeuvre to get his own way. There was nothing she could do about it. Everything had swung in his favour. She could only live on for the touch of his lips on hers, and die of shame because of it.
He was very thorough. It seemed an eternity before he put her away from him. Ample time for her to scale the heights and plumb the depths, and for the coin to spin again so she no longer knew which side up it was.
'Whatever it takes.' His voice broke the silence, the spell was already shattered. He seemed to be repeating a resolution for his own benefit, and he spoke so harshly that she didn't notice how unsteady his voice was. 'Come on,' he added, as though he knew he'd reduced her to a slave-like state, 'let's go.'
He was very careful not to touch her, there was no rough grabbing of her arm, but she didn't notice that, either. She was staring down at her feet, concentrating hard, willing her tears not to spill over. She caught her full lower tip between her white teeth, but still a tear rolled down her cheek, and then another.
'Stop it,' Rafe said sharply. 'I'm sick of playing games.'
Games... he thought she was playing games. The injustice, the indignity and the terrible sorrow of being used when she wanted to be loved checked Elisa's tears. Her indigo eyes were still swimming with them as she raised her face to his but, mercifully, none spilled over.
She slapped his handsome face so hard that, powerful as he was, he reeled back. Then she turned and walked away from him. She walked straight into the sea in her jeans and her blouse.
Rafe followed her to the water's edge. 'What the hell do you think you're doing?'
'Getting myself clean.' She plunged forward and swam out with strong clean strokes.
Her battered straw hat floated back to him. He picked it out of the sea and shook it, finding Spiro beside him as he straightened up. For a moment neither of them spoke, then Spiro said in Greek, 'It is not good to swim with a full stomach.'
'I'm watching her,' Rafe replied grimly, also in Greek.
'You should be going after her. The lady is in her clothes. They will be heavy.'
'If I go after her, she'll swim all the way to Greece. I've upset her.'
'So I can tell by your face, my friend.' The marks of Elisa's fingers stood out lividly on Rafe's tanned cheek.
Spiro smiled. 'That is good. A woman who doesn't get upset, doesn't care.'
He wasn't at all surprised when Rafe bent suddenly to unstrap his leather sandals. He cared, too, and that was also good. It was a long time since he had last brought a woman here, the one he had married, and she had been bad for him...
As Rafe straightened up and kicked off his sandals, Elisa turned and headed for the end of the beach where the Land Rover was parked. Spiro caught the relief in his voice as he said, 'She's coming in.'
He smiled. 'First she hurt you and now she will make you better. It is the way of women.'
Rafe didn't feel inclined to argue. He thrust his-hands into his shorts' pocket for his money and peeled off some to give to Spiro. 'Thanks,' he said tersely, his eyes going back to Elisa, then he picked up his sandals and walked urgently towards the car.
'Bring her back another time. I like her, too,' Spiro called after him, and laughed, thinking he was witnessing nothing more than a lovers' tiff.
Rafe had never felt less like laughing. When he reached the car, he got out Elisa's pack and rested it against the back wheel. She'd need to change. She might even need to lash out at him again. He'd let her, if it would make her feel better. It might make him feel better himself...
He turned and watched her come out of the sea. She didn't look exhausted. She came out purposefully, like an angry young Amazon. Her jeans and blouse were moulded to her shapely figure. Her hair, freed by the sea from its plait, was plastered to her head and then fell in dripping rats' tails to her shoulders.
She looked beautiful, vital, wholly desirable.
Rafe wanted to look away, needed to, but couldn't. His eyes were doing what his aching body wanted, making love to her. He remembered how she'd felt in his arms, the way her soft body had moulded to his as though it were meant for no other purpose. He remembered the elation of her willingness, the sweetness of her lips, his own struggle not to surrender, which he'd so nearly lost.
She'd almost made him forget why he was kissing her. For several desperate seconds everything had become blurred, unimportant in comparison with holding her exciting body in his arms, drawing untrammelled passion from her lips.
Elisa thought he'd been harsh with her, and he had, but it was nothing to how harsh he'd been with himself. He remembered her tears—those unexpected, unnerving tears—and was less certain which of the two of them he'd hurt the most, and would go on hurting if he had to.
Rafe's eyes were wary as she came towards him. She was ignoring him, her eyes fixed on some point over his shoulder. The heat of her rage had chilled to an implacable fury, and he knew it would spill out somewhere unless she was given time to recover herself.
He moved aside so she could reach her pack, and watched in silence while she took out a plastic bag containing a towel, then pulled out a few items of clothing. Her shoulder was almost touching him, but he might have been on the moon for all the notice she took. He looked at the tanned skin, drying rapidly in the sun, and almost envied the droplets of water that splashed on to it from her hair. How much he wanted to lower his head and lick that water away, kiss that smooth skin, taste it.
'You can change behind the car,' he said, and his voice, because he still had so much passion to hide, was harsher than ever. 'There's nobody to see and I won't look.'
She gave no indication of having heard, and strode towards the myrtle bushes lining the track up to the road. The silent treatment, he thought. Woman's ultimate weapon. It was never easy to break down. He saw her feet were bare. She must have kicked off her sandals in the sea. He thought it best to be silent himself for a while, but worry made him say, 'Watch out for snakes.'
'I'm not likely to miss you, am I?' she retorted stonily, and disappeared from his view.
Rafe leaned back against the car, a hint of respect lightening the bleakness of his eyes. She was a fighter, Elisa Marshall. And yet, unless he really had been wrong about her from the start, she shouldn't be fighting him at all. She wasn't only a fighter, she was a paradox as well.
He put Elisa's hat on the roof of the car to dry, and scowled at the bushes she had disappeared behind. Little Penny hadn't known what she'd been letting him in for when she'd asked for Elisa as a temporary nanny...
He straightened as Elisa came back on to the beach. She was wearing her cut-off shorts and a little blue suntop with narrow shoulder straps. She put the plastic bag containing her wet clothes at the base of a tree, hung her wet towel over a low branch to dry, and marched along the beach with a hairbrush in her hand.
She couldn't go far before the crescent of the beach ended in a rocky outcrop. She sat down on the last of the shingly sand and brushed her hair. Rafe stayed where he was, biding his time, watching her hair return to platinum as the sun dried it. She's ageless, he thought. With those classical features, she will always be beautiful and nobody will ever notice when that platinum hair turns to white.
The thought disturbed him on a different level from the physical havoc watching her wreaked on him. He was thinking of her in terms of the future, and she had no place in his future. It was then he realised the only way he could deal with her was to be totally bloody-minded, and he'd made a good start. It was time to capitalise on it.
He walked towards her. When he was standing over her she stood up, stalked past him and sat down again, midway between him and the car. He turned and glared at her. 'If there's one thing I detest,' he said, 'it's a woman who sulks.'
She glared rigidly out to sea. Not only was she refusing to see him, she wasn't going to hear him, either. He went and stood over her again. 'Your move,' he told her, 'if you're really into musical chairs.'
This time there was no movement at all. Rafe looked down at her consideringly, then scooped her up in his arms and carried her to his car. He expected her to start fighting and screaming and kicking, but she was too clever for that. She lay in his arms like a log, mutely resistant, saving her strength for the right moment.
He dumped her in the front passenger seat, closed the door and moved to put her pack in the back of the car, watching her like a hawk all the time. Then he moved round the car to get her plastic bag and towel. She was out of the car in a flash and sprinting towards the little house. He was after her even faster and brought her down in a rugby tackle.
Rafe picked her up and put her back in the car before she had time to get her breath back. 'We can keep this up all day if you like,' he said sardonically. 'You'll be worn out before I am.'
Elisa measured the distance from the car to the house. It wasn't so very far, if she got a good start: Rafe followed her gaze and read her mind. 'It's no good throwing yourself on Spiro's mercy. He thinks we're the best thing since Romeo and Juliet. I could chase you-all over the beach and he'd only stand back and cheer.'
'You're despicable,' she fumed.
'As for Christina,' he went on impeturbably, 'she's a woman. She'll think you want to be caught. So sit still and behave yourself. I said I'd take you to Kavos if you didn't want to work for me.'
'You also said I'd be safe with you,' Elisa reminded him furiously.
'I don't remember you fighting.'
Her face flamed. Satisfied, he retrieved the rest of her belongings, put them in the back and climbed into the driver's seat. As he strapped himself in, he looked at what little he could see of her averted face. 'Put your seat-belt on,' he ordered. 'You'll have less of a bumpy ride.' .
Elisa, too livid to speak, reverted to a policy of non-co-operation. She didn't move. Deliberately he reached across her for the safety strap, his shoulder touching hers, her soft hair brushing his face. She smelled fresh and clean and her hair was as sensuous as silk. He gritted his teeth, wondering how he was going to get the strap across her and keep his hands off her at the same time.
She solved the problem for him by coming back to life like a fury, pushing him away and snapping, 'All right, I'll do it. You can take me to Kavos, but that's all you can do. Don't look at me, don't talk to me, and most of all don't touch me!'
'That's suits me,' he replied, but he watched her strap herself in. The belt came across her shoulders and between her breasts before she locked it in. She wasn't wearing a bra. Rafe felt the ache in his groin and silently cursed her. He held all the aces, but she was trumping him every time. Thank God she didn't know it.
The thought crossed his mind that Sheena would have known it—depended on it—and that made Elisa different. 'Bloody hell,' he said, and started the engine.
Elisa didn't know what he was ; swearing about, but she didn't complain. As far as she was concerned, he was swearing for both of them. He was right about one thing, the ride back up the track wasn't so bad with the seat-belt on, perhaps partly because there were now two pairs of tanned bare legs in the car. She didn't know why that should distract her so much. It was a big car. There was no chance of them touching. It was just that she was so terribly conscious of him and that made her even more conscious of herself.
At the top of the track he turned right. Her alarm was instant. 'This isn't the way to Kavos.'
'That's right.'
'But you promised to take me to Kavos!'
'So I will,' he reaffirmed. 'Eventually.'
Elisa's alarm deepened into panic. 'What do you mean, eventually?'
'I'm not going to tell Penny you won't be her nanny,' he told her evenly. 'You are.'
Elisa's lips parted in dismay. She thought of the sorrowful little girl with huge blue eyes full of puppy-like anxiety to please, and her heart sank. She didn't think she'd be able to refuse her anything. When she found her voice, it shook with anger. 'That's the worst kind of emotional blackmail I've ever come across.'
His eyes flicked briefly to her. 'I thought it was clever.'
'You... you...' she ground out, searching for exactly the right word to describe her opinion of him.
'Bastard,' he supplied. 'I
can't argue with that. The way things are, I can't promise any improvement, either.'
CHAPTER SIX
'My God,' Elisa breathed as soon as she'd recovered from this latest example of his arrogance, 'no wonder your marriage broke down. You're medieval. What am I supposed to be? The little milkmaid who bobs and Curtsies and does everything the master desires?'
'All you're required to do is look after my daughter for a fortnight. I don't know why you're making such a drama out of it. I'm not going to chase you up to the attic at night. This is my home I'm taking you to, not a love-nest. Penny's disturbed enough, without me introducing a string of loose women into her life.'
'I am not a loose woman!' Elisa stormed.
'I'm prepared to take your word for that,' he told her coldly, 'and you can take my word that you won't be treated as one. What you do in your own time is your business. It's only if you invite any boyfriends back you'll find out how much of a bastard I can be.'
'I don't believe any of this is happening,' she murmured wonderingly. 'I should, but I don't. You kidnap me, insult me, assault me, do every damn thing you can to force me into a job I don't want, then have the gall to behave as if I'm the one on sufferance. You're crazy.'
'Desperate.'
'Well, don't expect me to feel sorry for you. I'm feeling pretty desperate myself. So would you if you were shut in a car with a raving lunatic.'
He was silent for a few moments, then he said, 'You have a point.'
'Thanks very much,' she snapped. 'It's a bit late to start considering my feelings, but I appreciate the effort.'
He slammed on the brakes. Elisa's heart began a nervous tattoo, but he sat staring through the windscreen as though he'd forgotten she was there. They were high in the hills, not far from where she'd picked up Penny yesterday. The fantastically gnarled shapes of ancient olive trees pressed towards the track on either side, nets neatly spread beneath them to catch the falling crop. The slightest of breezes stirred the silver-green leaves of the trees, the only movement there was, even the birds resting during this hottest part of the day. They might have been the last people left on earth. It was an uncomfortable feeling.
That Special Touch Page 7