And a woman—this woman—had merely to survive. She could do that, she assured herself. He was giving her no reason to look twice at him. And once he had gone, and she was free of the Costanides men, she could set to work finding the right man to focus her newly discovered passion on.
In the meantime, though, because it was what she was here for, she felt obliged to try to create some sort of rapport between Nikos and his father.
"Talk to him," she urged him. "Listen to him."
But Nikos didn't want to talk, and he didn't want to listen—to her or his father. He turned his back, shrugged her off, ignored her words.
"I'm not interested," he said.
"You are," she argued. She'd seen the look on his face whenever he looked up toward the main house and, especially, when he caught glimpses of Stavros out by the pool with his wife and little boy.
Nikos might think he didn't care, but it was as plain as day that he cared a great deal.
But, "Leave me alone," he said whenever she brought it up.
"I have a headache," he said, almost as often. And, rubbing his temple, he retreated to his room.
Mari thought the headaches might go away if Claudia's interminable middle-of-the-night phone calls went away.
"Doesn't that woman ever sleep?" she groused after four days of being awakened at three o'clock in the morning.
Bleary-eyed and clearly in pain, Nikos shrugged.
'She needs me," he said. And he didn't seem to mind. In fact, sometimes Mari heard him calling her!
But this time when the phone rang again, it was someone Nikos called Briana, with a seductive teasing tone that reminded Mari again what a two-timing bastard he was. She gnashed her teeth as, cradling the receiver against his ear, Nikos disappeared into the bedroom.
She should have been glad. After all, she reminded herself, there was no way she could entertain the notion that he was worthy of her interest when he was totally consumed with half the other women on the planet. He must have a little black book the size of the Manhattan phone directory.
"Do you ever date the same woman twice?" she asked him the next night. She didn't want to pretend interest, but the question was out before she could stop it.
He leaned back in his chair and smiled one of his blatantly sexy smiles, though his eyes were still bloodshot from being up most of the night again, and his continual rubbing of his eyes and his temples indicated another headache. "If they're worth it," he said with that easy, teasing smile of his. She could almost hear the smoulder in his voice.
"Is that your way of finding the perfect woman to settle down with?" She knew her tone was sharp, but she couldn't seem to stop that either.
"I'm not settling down. Ever." The seductiveness was gone. Now his tone was just as sharp as hers.
Surprise, surprise. "Too many women in the world to limit yourself to just one?"
"Exactly." He bit the end of the word off, then shoved himself out of his chair. "And I have to go call one now." He started to hobble toward his bedroom.
"It's a little early for Claudia, isn't it?" she asked his back.
"This is Briana," he said without turning. Then, mockingly, he added, "Are you keeping score?"
When the phone rang at a little past three, Mari ignored it. She knew who it was. She had no desire to hear the lovely Claudia again this morning. She rolled over, punched her pillow and said silently to Nikos, / hope you have the damnedest big headache in the world.
When it rang again, she said, Take your time, why don't you?
And when it shrilled yet again, she yanked the pillow over her head and thought dire thoughts about him and the insomniac Claudia.
Finally, after five rings, it stopped. About time, Mari thought. She settled on the pillow again, banishing all thoughts of Nikos bare-legged and bare-chested, having sleepy nocturnal conversations with other women.
There was a tap on her door.
Disoriented, she rolled over, thinking she'd imagined it. Then it came again. "Mari?"
The door opened. Nikos poked his head in. "Do me a favor." His voice sounded rough and edged with pain.
Mari scrambled out of bed and grabbed her robe and pulled it on in the darkness. "Are you all right?"
"Yeah. Just a headache."
"Another one," she growled.
"I'll be fine. But I need to read some figures and I can't seem to focus."
"Figures?" What? They did math problems in the middle of the night? Whatever happened to verbal love-making? Or, for that matter, counting sheep?
"Will you help or not?" He was impatient now.
"Lead on." Shaking her head, she wrapped the robe around her and knotted the tie as she followed him out the door.
He was heading back toward his bedroom as fast as his crutches could take him. By the time she got there, she could just make out his form on his bed. He was lying flat on his back, an arm over his eyes. Beside him lay the phone and the laptop computer.
Nikos kept his arm across his eyes, but gestured toward the computer with his other hand. "Read the figures on that screen into the phone."
Into the phone? Claudia wanted Mari to read her a bunch of numbers? What were they doing, comparing Jezzball scores?
"Just sit down, for God's sake," Nikos muttered, and reached out for her hand, pulling her down onto the bed.
Mari sat, but she edged away from him, then fiddled with the angle of the screen, trying to see what numbers he was talking about. There appeared to be a whole row, none of which made any sense to her.
"Hello?" she said tentatively into the phone.
"Hello." A very masculine, albeit British voice startled her in reply. "Brian Jenkin here. I gather Nikos is under the weather at the moment. Don't blame him, he's been working flat out So if you could just read me the specifications, please?"
Working flat out? Nikos?
She shot Nikos a curious hard stare, but he still had his hand over his eyes. And Brian Jenkin—Briana? she wondered. No, it couldn't be! But still—
"Er, yes." Mari fumbled once more with the screen, then slowly, haltingly read down the list of numbers. M equaled some number or other. Other letters equaling other amounts. The word volume cropped up a lot. It made no sense to her, but, it seemed to satisfy Brian Jenkin.
"Sounds great. Tell him I'll talk to Carruthers and see if this will fly. Or sail, I suppose I should say," Brian said jovially. "Does he want to talk to Carruthers himself?"
Mari relayed the question to Nikos.
"No."
Brian said, "I heard him. That's it, then. Tell him I'll ring back as soon as I've had a word with Carruthers. Thanks a lot." He hung up the phone.
Mari sat with the receiver in her hand, feeling somewhat at sea herself. She looked at the computer screen, at Nikos. She remembered the myriad phone calls, the middle-of-the-night conversations, the soft, seductive, suddenly highly suspicious "Ah, Briana"s breathed into the phone. Her teeth clamped together. A muscle in her temple ticked.
She took a careful measured breath. "He says he'll call you as soon as he's talked to Carruthers."
Nikos grunted. "Thanks."
"How long has this been going on?"
He ran his tongue over his top lip. "Started a few hours ago." His voice was barely more than a whisper.
"I don't mean the headache," Mari said sharply.
He winced. But he didn't answer.
"Briana?" she said sweetly.
The wince became a grimace. Still he didn't talk.
"Who's Claudia?"
He let out a weary exhalation of air. "My secretary."
"Not the one who keeps your little black book straight." Somehow she was sure of that.
"No."
"Who's Brian?" Mari said.
"A friend."
"And business partner," Mari prompted him.
Nikos sighed. "That, too."
"So this playboy thing is an act." It wasn't even a question.
He moved his arm and opened his eyes. "I
t's not an act," he protested.
"No, I suppose some of it wasn't." She would allow him that much. "You couldn't have possibly conned the world's freest press into reporting a hundred sightings of you and the world's most gorgeous women if there was no kernel of truth. But there's more to you than Nick the Hunk, isn't there?"
"I never said there wasn't."
"You did your damnedest to give that impression."
"It's none of your business what I do."
"Nor your father's?"
"Especially not his!" Nikos propped himself up on his elbows and glared at her. "He never gave a damn about me. He only wants me to do what he tells me to do!"
"And what do you really do?"
There was a pause. "Design boats. And ships."
Mari's eyes grew as big as dinner plates. "That's what I was reading to Brian?"
"You were reading conversions for some tankage we had to adjust. Brian is the on-site coordinator. In Cornwall. That's where we're based."
"The three a.m. phone calls?"
Nikos grimaced. "It's eight in Cornwall. He works on his time—and when he needs me, I do, too."
"This is a...big business?"
"Yes." And somehow that wasn't a surprise, either.
"Have you been doing it long?"
"Why? Do you want references? Want me to design you a ship?" he snapped. "I'm out of your price range."
"Undoubtedly. But I'm still curious. Why would you bother to keep a perfectly respectable career hidden?"
His jaw tightened. "Because I choose to."
"You want to be thought of as a playboy."
"I never said I was a playboy."
"But—"
"And you're not telling the old man about this."
"But he'd— "
"No!" His fingers tightened so hard around her wrist that she thought he would cut off the circulation. Experimentally she wiggled her fingers. It seemed to make him aware of the pressure he was exerting. He dropped her hand. "Sorry. But I don't want you to tell him." Dark, pain-filled eyes bored into hers.
Mari nodded slowly. "I won't."
He sank back and shut his eyes again. His chest heaved slightly, then he breathed more easily.
"You're a naval architect?" Mari asked after a moment. "How did that happen?" It wasn't something a person just fell into.
' 'I always messed about in boats. Goes with the genes, I suppose." His mouth twisted bitterly. "Costanides men have been involved with boats in one way or another as long as anyone can remember. I had a boat when I was a kid. Sailing was my...salvation." His face relaxed a little in reflection. "I liked drawing them, designing them, too—as well as sailing them." He shrugged. "Nobody tried to tell me how to do that."
"Nobody like Stavros?"
"He was very big at trying to tell me what to do. Wanted me to do things his way. Work in his business. Study what he told me to."
And he wouldn't have gone along with any of it, she could see that. A boy like Nikos, whose father had left him, would never respect that father enough to do what he wanted.
'"Go to Greece,' he said. 'Or go to Harvard,'" Nikos went on. '"Learn the old family way. Learn the new Harvard Business School way.' I wasn't interested. I didn't want Greece or Harvard. I went to Glasgow."
"Scotland?"
"They taught what I wanted to learn."
"Naval architecture."
"Yes. But he didn't know that. He never asked. He just said that if I didn't do what he wanted, he wouldn't foot the bills. I could waste my life as far as he was concerned." He opened his eyes and looked at her again. "So as far as he is concerned, I have."
And Mari knew that was the whole reason for Nikos's playboy facade right there.
If Stavros didn't care enough to find out who his son really was, if he only thought of Nikos as an extension of him, Nikos would solve the problem his own way. A typically in-your-face Costanides way. Let the old man think I'm wasting my life. Let him fret. Let him stew. He doesn't want me, I don't want him.
"And that was that?"
"Not quite. He demanded that I come work for him in the summer—to learn the business, not because he wanted me around. I went, even though I didn't want to, because my mother asked me to. 'You'll get to know each other better,' she told me." Nikos gave a bitter laugh. "I never saw him. He put me in some damned smelly warehouse in Athens one year, and the next he stuck me in an airless office building in the Bronx where I spent eight hours a day filling out forms. The next year I had a chance to work on a design project. I wanted to do that. He threw some nonsense at me about only wanting to play, never wanting to work." His fists clenched around the sheet and he had to consciously loosen his fingers.
"And that's when you decided to let him think what he wanted."
"He already thought what he wanted. He always has." He shut his eyes and sighed. "So now you know."
Mari sat quietly, studying the complex man lying just inches from her. She saw the sexy playboy, the intense designer, the hurt child. They were all there, tangled up inside one tough, hard-edged man.
She sighed softly, too. "Now I know."
He'd blown his cover.
He remembered that the minute he opened his eyes and saw the computer back on the desk where it belonged and not in the bed where he seemed to have had it most of the time over the past few days.
He sighed and rubbed a hand over his eyes. They were what had finally betrayed him. All the hours squinting at the screen had done exactly what the doctor had told him they would do.
"Strain and stress will cause you headaches. Head injuries take time to heal," he'd said the last time Nikos went in, complaining. "Give it a rest."
But he couldn't give it a rest when work needed to be done.
Finally, though, he couldn't even focus on the work he'd done. When Brian had called, needing the answers, he'd needed them right then. There was no time for Nikos to say he'd call back in a few hours when the lines sorted themselves out and the numbers made sense again.
So he'd had to get Mari to read them. And of course Mari knew she wasn't reading the scores of some computer game.
Now what?
He didn't know. He dared hope she wouldn't tell his father, though he supposed it wouldn't matter much if she did. The pleasure he'd got out of convincing the old man that his oldest son was a worthless, lazy ladies' man had waned some time ago.
Now keeping up the facade was just a matter of principle.
The phone rang, and he noticed that it was out of reach as well. He sighed and started to haul himself up to get it, but it stopped ringing almost at once. If he was very quiet, he could hear Mari talking in the living room.
To Stavros?
Maybe. He didn't care.
To her aunts? Possibly. He wondered about them. Were they like her? She'd told him a few days ago that they raised her after her parents had died. That explained a lot of her more nun like tendencies. He'd said that just to watch her blush, and he'd been gratified when she had.
"I had other influences in my life, too," she'd told him seriously. "My uncle Arthur was a dancing instructor. He had quite a way with the ladies. Though he was not," she'd added, "quite as proficient as you."
He wondered what she thought about his proficiency now.
She knew who Claudia was. She knew that all those phone calls from "Briana" were really Brian with business problems. There had been women who had called him over the past few days. Lucy had called. So had her sister, Lola. But not as many as he'd made it seem. He'd played it up, teased them, made sure Mari had heard.
So she'd think what his father thought. So she'd cross him off as a hopeless womanizer.
And now?
Now there was a light tap and door opened a crack. Mari peeked in . "Oh, you are awake. Good. Brian's on the phone. He wants you to know that Carruthers is pleased." There was a hint of a smile on her face. "For the moment," she added with an almost impish grin.
Seeing it, Nikos permitted a hint of a
smile to touch his lips. Something in him seemed to loosen, to lighten. Not only because he'd satisfied Carruthers, though that was certainly worth celebrating.
Mari knew. He'd thought he would be sorry.
Instead he was relieved.
She was out of her depth, out of her league, over her head.
It would have been better by far if he'd been the womanizing playboy he'd pretended to be.
It had made sense to fight her attraction to a man who had a woman in every port. It hadn't been easy to resist Nikos Costanides's charm when she'd been sure he laid it on so freely, but it had been easier than it was now.
He did lay it on freely, she reminded herself. Even naval architects with clients and demands and a secretary named Claudia could be charming! Remember Nita, and Lucy, and all those women in the magazines and newspaper?
But that wasn't the real Nikos. Or certainly not the whole Nikos. That was the public Nikos—the one he had created to irritate his father.
That was the Nikos who had kissed her the first day when she'd knocked on his door. She understood that. And she could resist him. She had been resisting him since she'd been here.
The question was, which Nikos had kissed her beside the car the day they'd gone to Montauk?
There hadn't been any photographers there then. There hadn't been any journalists. Not even any interested witnesses. It had happened just between the two of them.
She and...which Nikos?
She tried to tell herself it didn't really matter. Whichever Nikos it was, she couldn't handle him. Didn't want to handle him. It was her passion she needed to develop and control—not the man who'd inspired it. Passion was a transferrable commodity.
At least she told herself that. And hoped.
She should have run.
She didn't have the chance.
She took the call from Brian and received his misplaced congratulations—as if she'd had anything to do with their success beyond reading the numbers on the screen. Then she went to see if Nikos could talk to him.
He had fallen asleep soon after they'd hung up the phone after talking to Brian in the middle of the night She'd got some pain medication down him, then wordlessly rubbed his temples and the back of his neck, trying to ease what strain she could.
The Playboy and the Nanny Page 8