"Terrible, isn't it?" he shouted at her over the wind.
"Awful." But she flashed him a brilliant smile.
He lay his arm along the back of the seat just behind her. Her honey-colored hair blew across his hand. He let his fingers tangle in it. "Amazing what those new experiences will do."
She stuck out her tongue at him.
Oh, very good. Way to go. There's a good example you're setting, Mari Lewis, she chastised herself. Just stick your tongue out and get right down to his level.
But she couldn't keep a stern demeanor, not even when she knew she ought to. She was enjoying this too much.
Stavros would be appalled. He would think she'd been taken over by the enemy!
It wasn't true, Mari told herself.
She was in control. She had never had so much speed and power under her command before. It was a little terrifying. And exhilarating as all get out!
And if Stavros asked, she could say she was simply trying to understand the world the way Nikos saw it. It helped to try to put herself in the shoes of the child. If she saw life the way the child saw it, she usually had a better idea of how to help them deal with.
She didn't know, of course, if the same thing applied to thirty-two-year-olds called Nick the Hunk. But she assured herself that it must.
And the Jaguar was marvelous regardless!
She was glad he'd virtually dared her to drive it. It was so different from driving any car she'd ever driven before. Like he was so different from any man she'd kissed before. She had thought she would just go to Amagansett and turn around, but when they got there, she didn't want to stop. So she kept right on, heading toward Montauk.
There she basically ran out of road, and that was when she finally slowed down. "Do you want to go back yet or would you like to stop and get something to eat?''
"Lunch sounds good." Nikos said. He was smiling, too. It was a heady experience just looking at him. Even with his fading bruises and battered face, he looked vibrant, alive—and even more dangerous than the Jaguar.
But the danger wasn't scary, even though perhaps it ought to have been. On the contrary, Mari found herself intrigued by it, enticed, eager to know it—to know him—better.
Purely professionally, of course.
Oh, yes. Sure. Drat, but she wished she were better at lying to herself.
Nikos directed her to a small cafe' near the beach. It was off the beaten track and clearly wasn't frequented by tourists. But when Nikos opened the door, he got a profuse welcome.
"Hey, Nick, honey! How are you? We heard about your accident!" The waitress, a buxom woman in her fifties hurried over, gushing motherly concern. "What happened?"
"Just a little run-in with a tree," Nikos said easily.
"You sure?" The woman looked worried. "There was a picture in the paper. It looked mighty bad. You sit down here. Rollie, Nikos is here!" she hollered toward the kitchen.
A stout, fiftyish man in jeans and a white shirt poked his head out. "Hey, Nick! How ya doin'?"
Nikos shrugged. "Better. Fine now."
The man called Rollie looked him up and down. "Don't look fine." Then he eyed Mari and a speculative grin touched his mouth. "Well, some things do." He waggled his eyebrows at Nikos.
"She's a friend of my father's." Rollie laughed. "Yeah, sure. You're just saying that 'cause you don't want Nita to be jealous."
Nita, Mari gathered, was the waitress. She was a good twenty years older than Nick, but she clearly found him as intriguing as Mari did, which should not have surprised her. Nikos Costanides was the sort of man all women would notice.
Would his kisses make them all sizzle? Mari wondered.
"Sit down, friend of Nikos's father," Rollie said now. "What'11 you have?"
Mari glanced around. There didn't appear to be any menus, just a blackboard with the daily specials written on it. "What's good?" she asked Nikos.
"All the fish. Fresh daily."
"A codfish sandwich, then," she said. "And iced tea."
"Same for me," Nikos told the waitress. "But I'd like a beer."
"Sure thing, sweetheart," she replied. "You gonna sit in here or out there?" There was a patio with half a dozen tables alongside the cafe, sheltered from the offshore breeze. Nikos looked at Mari.
"Outside, please," she said.
They went outside, and Mari took a seat at a table overlooking the beach. There were two other couples and a large family already out there, talking and laughing and eating. A couple of children were squabbling over some French fries. A golden retriever sat on the other side of the patio railing, looking hopeful as sandwiches were consumed. Nikos settled carefully into the chair opposite her, and propped his crutches against the railing.
"What a wonderful place," Mari said.
"It is," he agreed.
"There's a place a little bit like it near where my aunts live on Orient Point."
Nikos's brows went up. "Were you raised around here?"
"On the north shore."
"I was, too. Part of the time anyway," he said. "My mother lived near Greenport."
Mari knew that quite a lot of Greek-American families had homes or summer homes in that area of Long Island. She hadn't expected that Nikos's family would have, though. She'd have imagined they would go back to Greece when they weren't in New York City. "Was your mother from the U.S., then?"
He shook his head. "No. From Greece."
"Then why—?"
"Because my father was from here. And even after he never came around anymore, she wouldn't leave him. God knows why," he added harshly.
There were half a dozen landmines in those few words, and Mari knew it. She picked her way carefully. "Your parents weren't...together?"
"You mean the old man didn't tell you he ditched my mother?''
"I understood she had died."
"Six years ago. But he left her long before that."
Long before? "How old were you?"
"Eight."
Old enough to miss his father dreadfully. Her own father had died when she was only a few years older, and it had been terrible. How much worse it would be, die thought, to lose a father and know he was still alive—just not with you.
She began to understand a bit of the estrangement between Stavros Costanides and his son. "You stayed with your mother?" "Yes." A muscle in his jaw ticked and he looked away, deliberately turning his attention to the golden retriever. He snapped his fingers and, when the dog came over, scratched him behind the ears. He didn't look at Mari again. "What about you?" he asked her after a moment. "How did you end up working for my old man?"
"He saw an article in a magazine," Mari said. She felt a little self-conscious bringing it up. It had been mostly hype, but there had been a core of truth to it. "It made me sound like the answer to the troubled parent's prayer."
"Are you?" Now he was looking at her. And the steadiness of his gaze was even more unnerving than the question.
"I try. Mostly I succeed."
"You think you're going to succeed with me?"
"I'm going to try," she said.
He shook his head. "Waste of time."
"You don't know."
"I do know, sweetheart. The old man and I have spent too many years at odds to patch things up now."
"But—"
"We have. It's hopeless. And in a week I'll have the cast off and I'll be gone."
"A week?" How on earth was she going to do anything in a week?
"A week. I have places to go, people to see. And no interest in staying here at all."
Anita the waitress appeared just then with their sandwiches. "Lola was asking about you just the other day, Nick," she told him as she set his plate down.
"How is Lola? Tell her hi." He took a bite of his sandwich. "Tell her I miss her."
"And Lucy. You know Lucy. She'd follow you to the moon."
Nikos's smile widened. "Lucy, too."
When Anita left Mari looked at him speculatively. "So many women, so li
ttle time?"
Now his grin flashed her way. "Something like that."
Mari couldn't believe the stab of annoyance she felt. Was this possessiveness? Jealousy?
Surely not.
She didn't even know the man! She certainly had no claim on him. Just because she'd kissed him, been kissed by him—
She tried to shove the feeling away. Tried to remind herself how inappropriate it was—how inappropriate he was!
Just because she'd reacted to him sexually, she had no right to be jealous of his interest in other women.
He certainly wouldn't be interested in her!
And if the memory of that folder Stavros had pressed on her, and Anita's passing references to other women didn't convince her, ten minutes later the aforementioned Lucy showed up in person.
Of course Mari didn't know it was Lucy when a woman in her very early twenties, a dark-haired vivacious beauty, shouted, "Nicky!" when she spied him on the patio and practically leaped the railing to get to him.
"Hey, Lucy! How's it going?" He didn't rise, just held out a hand to her.
She swooped down, kissing him on the mouth, then stepped back and said,
"Oh, Nicky, darling! Your poor face. And your leg! Are you all right?"
He gave the same dismissive answer to her that he had given the waitress. And Mari had to give him grudging credit for not taking advantage of all the sympathy he could have elicited from them. "No big deal. I'm fine," he assured Lucy when she continued to gush and
fret.
"But—"
"Don't worry about me," he told her firmly.
"I can't help it." Lucy's lower lip went out. "You matter to me." The look she gave him was equal parts possessiveness and adoration. The one she gave Mari was meant in no uncertain terms to tell her that Nikos
was taken.
"Who's she?" Lucy asked Nikos, jerking her head in
Mari's direction.
"A friend," Nikos said.
Mari noticed that he didn't add of my father's this time. Was he using her as a buffer, then? Interesting
thought.
"Mari Lewis," he said, introducing them. "Lucy
Ferrante."
"Hello," Mari said genially, holding out a hand.
Lucy nodded. "Hi." Then she turned right back to Nikos. "Why didn't you call me? I'd have come to visit
you."
"They wouldn't let me have visitors at the hospital."
"After then?"
"I'm staying at my father's."
"I would have come there."
Nikos didn't reply to that. He changed the subject, asked Lucy about her brothers, what each one was doing this summer, then about her parents. Lucy answered, but at every pass she tried to turn the conversation back to coming to visit Nikos.
He didn't take her up on it, but he didn't rebuff her either. He was a master when it came to dealing with women, Mari decided.
By the time Lucy left ten minutes later, prompted by the honking of a horn that belonged, she said, to her brother's Jeep, she was convinced that it was her idea not to come and see Nikos.
"It would wear you out, I know," she said, patting his arm. "You'll tell me when you're feeling well enough?''
"Of course."
"See you soon?" A hand lingered on his shoulder.
Nikos slanted a grin up at her. "Very soon," he promised.
"Nice to have met you," Mari said, though she was quite sure Lucy didn't even remember she was there.
"Oh. Yeah. You, too," Lucy said. "Take good care of yourself, Nicky." She ruffled Nikos's hair and, after another impatient beep, took off on a run.
"Nicky?"
A corner of Nikos's mouth tipped up. "We go back a long way."
"You must have changed her diapers then," Mari said tartly.
"Jealous?"
She felt her face flame and she scowled at him. "Hardly."
He grinned knowingly, but he didn't comment, and Mari was oddly relieved when he kept his gaze on Lucy and said, "She's a good kid."
"I'm sure she wouldn't appreciate hearing you say so. She wants to 'matter.'"
He shrugged. "She does matter."
"Not the way she'd like to."
He settled back in his chair and looked at her. "Should I tell her to get lost, then?"
"I didn't mean that," Mari said quickly. "Actually," she admitted after a moment, "I think you handled it very well."
"What's this? The Mari Lewis Seal of Approval? I've finally done something right?"
"I'm sure you do a lot right," Mari said. "I'm sure you aren't all those things the papers—" She broke off, embarrassed.
"You've been doing a little research, have you?" Nikos asked. "Did you do it on your own or did the old man provide the reading material?"
Mari hesitated. "Your father gave me them," she said finally. "I haven't read them."
"Go ahead," he said gruffly. "Read your fill."
"I don't want to."
He stared at her, his dark eyes hard and angry and disbelieving. Then he shoved his chair back, got awkwardly to his feet and tossed some bills on the table. "Let's go."
Silently Mari followed him, wondering what she should have done, what she should have said.
He was standing by the car, waiting for her because she had the keys. She moved to unlock the door and he didn't step back. Instead he caught her arm and drew her hard against him.
Her eyes jerked open wide as their bodies came in contact. "Nikos!"
"You want this," he told her. "You've been asking for it!"
And he lowered his mouth to hers. So much for control.
What on earth had she been thinking? How could she have for one minute allowed herself to believe that she could manage what happened when Nikos Costanides touched his lips to hers?
She couldn't. It was as plain and simple as that.
One touch, one taste, and all the good sense and best intentions in the world went right out of her head. She was putty in his hands.
And if she hadn't had one flickering instant's memory of Anita, of Lucy, of Lola, of the lilting Claudia and heaven knew how many other women, there was no telling what a fool she might have made of herself.
They'd driven back to the cottage in silence. She put the car in the garage and handed him back the keys without a word. She didn't look him in the eye. She couldn't.
She would see mockery. Amusement. A playboy's knowing leer.
She hurried back to the house and shut herself in her bedroom.
How was she going to survive this? Nanny to a thirty-two-year-old ladies' man? Oh, Man, you fool!
The first thing she saw was the folder Stavros had given her.
She shouldn't read it. She shouldn't look at anything that might color her view of his older son. It wasn't professional.
And kissing him was?
She glanced sideways at the folder, then curled her fingers into a fist.
The phone rang. She picked it up.
But so had Nikos. It was Claudia again. "Didn't get you up this time, did I?" she said on a voice soft with laughter.
Mari hung up and reached for the folder. The articles all told her what she knew already: that Nikos Costanides was a shallow, irresponsible playboy.
It was the one thing upon which nine out of ten gossip columnists agreed...
CHAPTER FIVE
Mari had never read a lot of tabloid journalism, but she had the notion that very little of it ought to be believed. Still, if even a tenth of what she read was credible, Nikos Costanides was one of the world's sexiest men—with an insatiable appetite for the world's sexiest women.
There didn't seem to be a single actress, model or female recording artist under the age of forty that he hadn't had a fling with. And if those were the ones worthy of being written about, how many hundreds had he bedded who were not?
Heavens.
She read until far into the night. And finally she shoved the folder onto the table unfinished. There was, perhaps, too
much punishment here even for her.
She switched off the light and rolled onto her side and told herself not to think about it—about him.
Of course she thought about it She went to sleep and dreamed about it. She must have awakened half a dozen times from dreams—or nightmares—in which Nikos kissed, caressed or otherwise touched some of the world's most gorgeous women.
She woke up cranky and out of sorts. Who could blame her? She'd never had dreams like these when she'd been anyone else's nanny!
She tried telling herself that the articles were meaningless—pure hype designed to sell the newspapers or magazines that ran them.
But even if she managed some of the time, Nikos seemed determined to prove that they were true.
Certainly over the next few days he seemed to take great pleasure in flaunting risqué, not-so-sotto-voce conversations with a variety of women on the telephone.
There was, of course, the ubiquitous Claudia, still calling at all hours of the day and night. But there were others besides Claudia. In fact, every time Mari came into the living room he was talking or listening to someone of the female persuasion.
Sometimes he was jotting notes on paper and Mari thought he was actually talking business—though she couldn't imagine what because according to the articles he was an unemployed member of the idle rich. But just when she had that notion, he said something like, "Aw, sweetheart, I love it when you say things like that," or, "Oh, pussycat..."
The blatantly seductive tone of his voice set her teeth right on edge. It was as if he was flaunting them in front of her.
Well, fine. Let him.
It wasn't as if she was really interested in him. Not at all. As far as she was concerned, he was just a piece of evidence—living proof, as it were, that she was capable of passion.
He didn't seem capable of anything beyond seductive phone conversations and interminable computer games. Every time he disappeared into his room, talking to Claudia or one of the other women in his life, he seemed to end up sitting on his bed with the laptop, scowling in concentration.
"What a productive existence," Mari jibed, when she brought him lunch one afternoon.
"Huh?" He looked at her, distracted, then rubbed his eyes, and gave her a bleary ironic smile. "A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do."
The Playboy and the Nanny Page 7