by Julia James
Numbly, she followed him. In part of her mind she knew that it was bizarre in the extreme for her to be exploring these neglected gardens with Nikos Kazandros.
Unreal.
And yet the reality of it was vivid. Far, far too vivid—
‘You were right—it’s hardly a lake at all any more.’ Nikos’s voice penetrated her thoughts. ‘This will call for dredging. All the same…’ He paused, scanning around him. ‘It will be spectacular one day.’
His gaze came round to Sophie again.
‘Did I do well, buying this place?’
There was humour in his voice and warmth in his eyes. She felt the breath squeeze in her lungs.
For a moment she did not move—could not. Only let her gaze be held by him, only let herself be warmed by the warmth in his eyes.
Once he looked at me like that all the time…
An ache started in her. She pulled her gaze away.
‘It’s very beautiful,’ she said. There was constraint in her voice now.
Did he feel the same? He must, for abruptly he turned away, checking out a stand of ash saplings that had invaded from the woods beyond the lake.
‘Those will have to go,’ he said. ‘And we’ll need more specimen trees planted.’
We…
The ache in her side intensified. There was no ‘we’. There never could be—never again.
She blinked. Nikos turned back. His eyes flickered over her, but she kept her expression veiled.
‘Time to see the house,’ he announced. His tone was brisk, businesslike.
Dutifully, Sophie followed him back through the long grass, up to the crumbling terrace.
‘This way,’ he said, and walked up to the door, fishing the keys from his trouser pocket, walking more quickly than he needed to. Briskly, he opened the front door of the house. The lock was stiff, but the door opened smoothly enough, even though the movement brought a strand of a cobweb floating down. He stepped inside, nostrils wrinkling at the dusty smell, and gazed around him.
Yes, he was right to have bought this place. On the verge of ruin it might be, but it was a gem of a house! Neglect and deterioration could not disguise the elegance of its proportions, nor the beauty of its interior. The moulding around the ceiling edge, the sweeping rise of the staircase, the dusty chandeliers suspended from the high central rose all testified to that.
‘So, what do you think?’
He half turned. Sophie was in the doorway, looking up and about her. She hadn’t seen the hall from this perspective before, and it was stunning.
‘It’s wonderful,’ she said. The words came out spontaneously as she craned her head, gazing upwards.
Nikos stopped looking at the beautiful proportions of the hall—another set of beautiful proportions were riveting his gaze. Sophie’s slender body was outlined in the sunlight filtering down through the high-set windows above the front door, making a halo around her hair. The exquisite line of her profile, the bow of her slightly parted mouth, the arched line of her throat, the gentle swell of her breasts all made his breath catch. He could not look away. Could not.
How does she do it? How?
Warning bells sounded inside his head, but he ignored them. Ignored, too, the warning words sounding there—be careful, be careful…
Instead he went on gazing, feeling emotion uncoil inside him as if from a long, long sleep of many years.
Then her gaze swept round and down, and back to him—and pulled away, breaking the moment.
‘Can you see this place as a hotel?’ he asked.
Her expression flickered a moment under the impact of his regard, then steadied, darting about a moment to take in the space around her.
‘Not really,’ she said slowly. ‘It’s just a beautiful grand house.’ Her brow furrowed slightly. ‘Who lived here?’ She’d wondered that on her earlier explorations, finding it sad that it was so clearly no longer inhabited.
‘A very elderly widow who’d married the owner and lived here for fifty years with him before he died. Her nephew inherited and wanted to sell.’
‘Fifty years?’ Sophie echoed. So many years of marriage! She felt her heart contract. So beautiful a house to live in, for so long! In her head burned, betrayingly, the thought that had pierced her the day she’d wandered around on her own. We could have lived here, Nikos and me…our own private paradise…
But paradise had not been waiting for her. Neither with Nikos nor without. To purge the traitorous thought, she made herself go on. ‘I’m sure it could be done up to make it work as a hotel,’ she said.
‘It has to be restored very carefully, with scrupulous period detail,’ Nikos replied, his gaze working methodically, assessing all that needed doing. ‘The historical architect who is to be in charge was to have met me here this afternoon. He’s been delayed until tomorrow. I’m staying overnight at a local inn. You’re in the only habitable part of the house.’
Sophie could only stare. ‘Oh,’ was all she could say. Dismay filled her, and more complex emotions too. Disturbing emotions.
He was opening doors now, looking inside the rooms opening off the hallway, pausing as if to make mental notes, but Sophie did not follow him. Only when he headed further into the interior of the hallway, beyond the staircase, did she follow him. A moment later she wished she had stayed where she was. Nikos had opened the double doorway to the music room. The covered bulk of the grand piano was instantly visible. He turned to look back at her.
‘Something of a find for you—though, I take it it’s out of tune?’ There was a timbre to his voice she didn’t want there. He was acknowledging a past where once the presence of such an instrument would have had her trying it out instantly. But no longer.
She spoke tightly. ‘I’ve no idea.’
He raised an eyebrow. ‘Surely you couldn’t resist playing it?’
‘I don’t play any more.’ Her voice was terse. Her mouth tight-lipped.
A frown creased between his eyes. ‘So much for the dedicated music student,’ he remarked caustically.
Of its own volition Sophie’s throat constricted. Parting with her piano had caused almost more anguish than having to sell the house. But her baby grand had been worth money, and money was all that she had allowed herself to focus on.
Nikos was looking at her, she realised. Frowningly.
‘I thought your music meant everything to you. What made you give it up?’
She could not answer him. Turning away, she stumbled blindly towards the baize door that led to the servants’ quarters. He strode after her, catching her arm to stay her. It burned like a brand and she pulled free. He caught at her again, catching her hand. Then abruptly he frowned, lifting her hand into the light and turning it over, seizing her other hand at the same time before she could stop him.
He was staring down at them, his frown deepening, while she tried desperately not to feel the touch of his cool fingers on her or feel the closeness of his body to hers.
‘They’re scratched to pieces!’ he exclaimed.
‘It’s just from gardening,’ she answered faintly. Again she tried to pull them away from him, but it did not make him let them go. Instead he smoothed his thumbs over her palms.
‘You should look after them more.’ His voice had softened, like his touch. Sophie’s stomach hollowed. The tone of his voice and the slow smoothing of his thumbs sent a thousand nerve endings sussurating.
He was speaking again, with the same timbre in his tone. ‘You always had such beautiful hands. You kept them as soft as silk. Your touch was like velvet…’
There was a husk in his voice. He was too close—way, way too close to her. Her hands were like imprisoned birds in his—birds that he was soothing, captivating. Her heart was thudding, slow and heavy, her breaths were shallow and uneven. Dear God, she couldn’t be here—she couldn’t! Couldn’t let him caress her palms like that—couldn’t let herself respond. Couldn’t. Mustn’t.
Somehow she had to break free, stop him
‘Nikos,’ she breathed. Her eyes fluttered to his. ‘Let me go…’
The tall bulk of his body was too close to hers, the spiced, heady scent of his skin too overpowering. She could see everything about him—everything. The darkening line of his jaw, the sculpted shape of his mouth, the blade of his nose and the dark, drowning eyes.
‘Let me go…’
It was a whisper. A plea.
Something moved in his eyes. They were alone in the house, alone in the world. And far, far too close—
‘I can’t,’ he said, his eyes pouring into hers.
As he spoke the words he knew them for the truth. The hopeless, stark truth. Slowly, infinitely slowly, his grip on her hands tightened, drawing her closer towards him, closer still. His mouth started to lower to hers…
‘I can’t resist you.’ His voice was nothing but a husk. ‘Sophie…’
There was longing in his voice, a caress.
Panic beat up in her—panic and more—much, much more! For a moment she was poised between the two, almost yielding to his voice, his touch, to his mouth so close to hers…
With despairing sanity, she freed herself. She stared blindly, her face aghast at what had so very nearly happened. Then, as if impelled by a reflex so urgent it possessed her totally, she pushed roughly past, tugging at the baize door and then hurtling down the stone-flagged corridor beyond, her footsteps echoing in the empty house.
Behind her, Nikos stood stock still.
What had he nearly done?
For a moment he, too, was poised in the balance, between what had so nearly happened and the hollowing realisation flooding through him now.
I nearly kissed her—
How had he let himself get so close to such a thing?
But he knew how—knew utterly. He’d wanted to kiss her. Feel for one long, blissful moment her soft lips beneath his…
Shudderingly, he pulled his mind away, banned it from the path it sought to follow. No! No, he must not allow this! Sophie was the past—the poisoned, tormented past. She was not the present—she must not be! Yet he had come that close to kissing her! That close to taking her slender, pliant body in his willing arms and kissing her…
With stringent effort, he sheered his thoughts away again. This had to stop! Now—right now! He should leave—right away—and never, never come near her again!
But would that stop him thinking about her? At his sides, his hands balled into fists. Four years ago, it had cost him more than he could bear to stop himself thinking about Sophie, by day and by night. And now—now that he stood so close to the edge of the cliff he had hauled himself up, hand over hand, so arduously four years ago—would he not be back exactly where he had once been?
I have to make myself immune to her! I have to see her as simply an ordinary woman, no one special. Beautiful, yes, but nothing more than that!
But how to make himself immune? As he stood, with the silent, deserted house all around him, it came to him. The logic clear and simple. Obvious. Slowly he felt his hands unfist. Of course! That was what he must do! That was his way out of this impossible impasse! He wanted immunity to her—well, the way to achieve it was staring him in the face! Immunity was achieved by exposure—that was how it worked. You exposed yourself to the infection and you gained immunity to it. If it worked with disease, it would work with the lethal vulnerability to Sophie Grafton that he was infected with!
As his hands unfisted he felt the tension drain out of him. Of course that was what he must do. Desensitise himself to her by treating her as if she were anyone—someone quite ordinary. Someone who had never had the disastrous impact on him that she had once had. Someone he could spend time with as easily, as uncomplicatedly, as any other person.
Over dinner, for example.
Yes, that was what he would do—he would take her to dinner tonight. A few hours in her company, in a public place, and he would soon be desensitised to her. See her not as a ghost from his past but as just a dinner companion, one of so many in his life. He would take from her the power to haunt him.
Resolution filled him. He glanced at his watch. By the end of the evening his purpose would have been achieved. Immunity from a woman he must never, never allow himself to desire again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
SOPHIE was tearing up weeds. Ruthlessly, urgently. As if pulling weeds out of her own heart. Weeds that had the face of Nikos Kazandros! Emotion scythed through her. Dear God, how close, how perilously, disastrously close she had come to letting him kiss her—
Kiss her! Just like that—there and then!
She had so nearly let it happen! Nearly let herself yield to him! The strength it had taken to pull away, back to safety, to sanity, had been almost beyond her! But she’d done it, and thank God for it!
Gradually, as she worked, her heart-rate slowed and she started to calm, to regain some shred of composure. It was all right. She was safe. He hadn’t come after her. He was leaving her alone. And when she heard, a short time later, the throaty roar of Nikos’s car, she felt safer yet. Safer still if she didn’t let herself dwell on what had nearly happened. Safer if she kept herself doggedly working, until the shadows lengthened across the whole garden, and her back was aching, and she knew she needed to stop.
Stiffly, she got to her feet. There was sun now only in the treetops, high above. The walled garden itself was completely in the shade. She gave a little shiver. It was cool to the point of chill. And as she looked around the shadows seemed to bring a pall of melancholy sifting over her—a sense of slow, abandoned desolation.
She was alone. Completely alone. Nikos was long gone. And, for a reason she did not want to think about, she felt suddenly bereft.
For a moment she just stood there, staring bleakly. Then, as she knew she must—for what else could she do?—she squared her shoulders and went indoors.
She would fill the evening ahead as she had filled all those up till now. She would wash, make herself some supper, and watch something on TV—whatever was on, she didn’t care much—then go to bed. And she would not think herself lonely, the evening ahead empty…
No—she must not allow herself to feel like this! She’d been content enough alone here up till now! Relishing the peace, the silence, the beauty of nature all around. So why, now, should she think she felt alone…restless?
So empty.
So desolate.
She felt tears prick behind her eyelids, but she blinked them away. She would not cry, must not cry, for something that was was impossible. It had been impossible four years ago and it still was—always would be. There was nothing in her life now but the endless grind of doing what she had to do, whatever it took.
With an indrawn breath she would not admit was heavy, she got on with washing the dirt off her hands, wincing slightly at the scratches.
He held my hands, soothed them with his—
No—the shutter sliced down again. Roughly, she dried her hands, flexing her shoulders to loosen them up. But just as she was replacing the hand towel she stilled, every nerve suddenly alert.
It was a car, coming along the drive. And the low, throaty note was all too familiar. Her thoughts churned wildly, but before she could even think coherently the car had drawn to a loud halt by the back door. She heard the engine cut, a door slam. Then Nikos was at the kitchen door, walking right in.
Sophie froze, silenced completely. Inside, she felt her pulse kick into hectic life.
‘I’ve come to take you out to dinner,’ Nikos announced.
For a timeless moment Sophie could only stare up at him.
‘Dinner?’
‘Yes. I’ve made a reservation at the inn I’m staying at. It’s a few miles off, but not too far.’ He spoke as if taking her to dinner were the most natural thing in the world.
She couldn’t speak. Could only stare and swallow helplessly. Then she found words.
‘I can’t go to dinner with you.’ It was baldly said, but inside her head her mind was flailing helplessly, incapable of thought, of rational comprehension. Overwhelming her was emotion.
It was Nikos! Nikos back again—standing right here, right in front of her. Telling her he was taking her to dinner.
A dark eyebrow tilted upwards at her words. ‘You have another engagement?’ he posed.
She felt herself flush. ‘Of course not. But that doesn’t mean I can just—’
‘Why not?’ he interrupted. ‘After all, you’ve been living on short rations for a few days—you must be keen for some more sophisticated fare by now!’
‘I’m perfectly OK here,’ she riposted.
‘Well, now you can have a decent dinner anyway, can’t you?’ He glanced at her attire. ‘You’ll need to change, though.’
‘I haven’t anything suitable for going out,’ she answered. In her mind, painfully, sprang the memory of the extensive wardrobe she had once enjoyed. Every item had long gone.
‘It doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘There’s no dress code at the restaurant.’
It wasn’t the answer she wanted. ‘Nikos, this is…’ she began.
Mad, she wanted to say. Insane. Pointless. But the words didn’t come. Helplessly, she fell silent.
‘Go and change,’ he prompted. ‘Don’t be too long—I only had a sandwich for lunch, remember!’
There was light humour in his voice, and she wondered at it. She was still trying to make sense of what was happening. Why on earth was he here to take her to dinner? It was incomprehensible.
It was unbearable.
Her mouth twisted briefly. But then the last four years had taught her that the unbearable still had to be borne…
This was just one more thing that she had to endure. And that was what she would have to do this evening. Get through it. Endure it. Endure the torment of having dinner with Nikos…
Numbly, she found herself turning round and heading upstairs to the little bedroom over the sitting room.
Below, Nikos felt his breath draw in.
Was he really doing the right thing? He silenced his doubts. He’d been through them all since driving away earlier. This was the right thing to do. Somehow he had to make himself immune to Sophie, so that she was no longer haunting him from the past. So that he could see her again and feel nothing about her. Nothing at all.
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