Eve came thrashing up from a deep dark sleep to that halfway place where haunted dream mixed with confusing reality. A sound had disturbed her, though she wasn’t sure what it had represented, only that it had made her pulse accelerate and had pushed up her eyelids so she found herself staring directly into the sleeping face of Ethan Hayes. He was lying kiss-close to her on the same pillow with his arms and legs wrapped warmly around her—or were her limbs wrapped around him? She didn’t have time to consider the puzzle because the sound came again and even as she lifted her head off the pillow she was aware that Ethan was now awake also. They turned together to look towards the open bedroom doorway, then froze on a heart-stopping clutch of stunning dismay.
Theron Herakleides stood filling the doorway, looking like his favourite god, Zeus, with his thickly curling grey locks framing a rough, tough, lived-in face that was clearly preparing to cast thunderbolts down on their heads.
‘Grandpa,’ Eve only managed on a strangled whisper. Ethan hissed out a couple of quick curses beneath his breath. The old man flicked devil-to-pay black eyes from one to the other and conjured up an image of themselves, which showed them what he was seeing. It was so utterly damning neither found the ability to speak in their own defence.
Theron did it for them when hard as rock, he threw his first thunderbolt. ‘One hour, in my study at the main house,’ he instructed. ‘I will expect you both there.’
Then he was gone, leaving them lying there in a tangle of limbs and white bedding, feeling as culpable as a pair of guilty lovers who’d been caught red-handed in the act of sex.
‘Oh, dear God.’ Eve found her voice first, groaning out the words as she fell back heavily against the bed.
Ethan went one stage further and snaked his legs free of the tangle then landed on his feet beside the bed. He did not want to believe that any of this was really happening.
‘How did you get here?’ Eve had the absolute stupidity to ask him.
‘How did I get here?’ Ethan swung round to lance at her. ‘This is my bed!’
They’d both reacted on pure instinct. Now reality hit, clearing away the last muddy remnants of sleep. Eve began to remember. Ethan watched it happen in a slide-frame flicker, as she passed through last night’s ordeal to this morning’s shocked horror. She went as pale as alabaster, clamped a hand across her trembling mouth, and just stared at him through huge dark nightmare-ridden eyes that turned his insides into a raging inferno of anger and gave him a desire to break someone’s neck.
His own at the moment, he acknowledged grimly, and released the air from his lungs on a pressured hiss. ‘My fault,’ he conceded. ‘I fell asleep. I’ll go and talk to him.’
Decision set in his mind, he was already turning towards the door when Eve’s half hysterical, ‘No!’ hit his ears. ‘He won’t believe you. I have to do it!’ She began scrambling shakily to the edge of the bed. All long limbs, flying hair and utterly shattered composure, she landed on her feet beside him and began searching the floor.
‘Shoes,’ she mumbled anxiously.
‘You didn’t come in shoes. I carried you, remember?’
The hand was at her mouth again as a second barrage of memories came flooding in. No shoes, no clothes; Ethan was seeing it all with her. He was also seeing another bed that had looked not unlike this one, with its covers lying in the same damning tangle, half on the floor half on the bed.
Had Theron Herakleides seen that other bed too? His skin began to prickle as he began to fully appreciate what the older man had to believe from the evidence. A passionate interlude spent in his granddaughter’s bed before they’d transferred to this one to repeat the whole orgy all over again.
The air left his lungs on yet another hard hiss. This whole mad scenario was going to take some serious explaining. ‘I’ll do the explaining,’ he grimly insisted. ‘You can stay here while I—’
‘Will you listen to me, Ethan—? He will not believe you!’ Eve stated fiercely. ‘Trust me. I know him. He has seen what he’s seen.’
‘The truth is out there, Eve,’ he reminded her. ‘It has a name and a face—and when I get my hands on him he will be happy to spill out the truth to your grandfather.’
While his eyes began to darken at the delightful prospect of bringing Aidan Galloway face to face with his sins, Eve’s eyes did the opposite and turned bright green, glinting like the eyes of a witch who was busy concocting her next wicked spell. She started walking towards the door.
‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.
‘To see Grandpa before you do,’ she stated firmly.
‘Eve—’
‘No!’ She turned on him. ‘I said I will deal with it!’ The eyes were now glinting with tears, not wicked spells. ‘Y-you don’t understand. You will never understand!’ And on that she was gone, running out of the room and leaving him standing there wondering what the heck that last outburst had been all about?
He’d understood! Of course he’d understood, he claimed arrogantly. From the moment he’d stepped into her bedroom last night, he’d understood without question what it was he’d been seeing!
Now it hurt that she didn’t see that understanding. What did she think he was going to do? Paint her character all the lurid colours he could think of just to make his own part in this fiasco seem prettier?
Well, he was damned if he was going to slink away and hide in some dark corner while Eve fought his battles for him. Theron Herakleides was expecting the two of them to present themselves in his study and that was what would happen.
CHAPTER SIX
UNDERSTANDING anything about Eve Herakleides flew out of the window the moment Ethan found himself confronting her grandfather. Because Eve, he all too quickly discovered, had got in first with her version of events leading up to what Theron had witnessed. Now Ethan was angrily trying to make some sense of what it was he was supposed to have done.
Standing tall and proud behind his desk, Theron Herakleides looked on Ethan as if he was seeing a snake in the grass. ‘You have to appreciate, Mr Hayes,’ he was saying, ‘that in Greece we expect a man to stand by his actions.’
‘Are you implying that I wouldn’t?’ Ethan demanded stiffly.
The older man’s brief smile set his temper simmering. ‘You stand here claiming no intimacy between yourself and my granddaughter,’ he pointed out. ‘Are those not the words of a man who is trying to wriggle off the hook he finds himself caught upon?’
‘We were not intimate,’ Ethan insisted angrily.
A pair of grey-cloud eyebrows rose enquiringly. ‘Now you expect this old man to question what his own eyes have already told him?’
Not only his own eyes, Ethan noted, as he sent a murderous glance at Eve who was standing quietly beside her grandfather. Gone was the seductress in sexy hot-pink. Nor was there any sign of the broken little creature he’d taken under his wing. No, from the neatly braided hair to the clothes that had been chosen with modesty in mind, here stood a picture of sweet innocence wearing a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-her-mouth smile that told clearly that he was going to be made the scapegoat here!
‘Of course,’ Theron Herakleides broke into speech again, ‘you could be attempting to protect Eve’s reputation, in which case I most sincerely apologise for implying the opposite. But your protection comes too late, I’m afraid,’ he informed him gravely. ‘For what I saw with my own eyes had already been substantiated by one of the men that guard my property. He saw you carry my granddaughter from our beach house to your beach house covered only by a sheet, you see…’
Damned by his own actions, Ethan realised. Then he said frowningly, ‘Just a minute. If your guard was watching the beach house, then where was he when Eve—?’
Eve moved, drawing his glance and lodging the rest of his challenge in his throat when he found those eyes of hers pleading with him to say no more. Anger erupted as he glared at her and felt frustration mount like a boiling lump of matter deep within his chest.
I should st
op this right here, he told himself forcefully. I should tell Eve’s grandfather the unvarnished truth and finish this craziness once and for all. But those pleading eyes were pricking anxiously at him, reminding him of the conversation he and Eve had had the night before.
Ethan looked back at her grandfather, and Eve held her breath. If he talked, it was over. If he talked, her life was never going to be the same again.
‘I think it’s time you explained to me where you are going with this, Theron,’ Ethan invited very grimly.
A deep sense of relief relaxed the tension out of Eve’s shoulders. Thank you, she wanted to say to him. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for this.
‘I am going to give you the benefit of the doubt,’ her grandfather smoothly announced, ‘and presume that your intentions towards my granddaughter are entirely honourable…’
It wasn’t a question but a rock-solid statement. Eve watched nervously as Ethan’s full attention became riveted on the older man’s face. Her heart stopped beating in the throbbing silence, her mouth running dry, as she tried to decide whether to jump in and take over before Ethan said something ruinous or to remain quiet and keep praying that he didn’t let her down.
Ethan didn’t know what he was doing. The word ‘honourable’ was playing over and over inside his head while he stared at Theron’s perfectly blank expression. Then he switched his gaze to Eve who was standing there looking like a diehard romantic who’d just had her dearest wish voiced out loud.
I’ve been well and truly set up, he finally registered, and the knowledge was threatening to cut him off at the knees.
Eve came to his rescue—if it could be called a rescue. Leaving her grandfather’s side she rounded the desk and came to thread her fingers in with his then had the gall to lean lovingly against him like an ecstatic bride. ‘You guessed our secret.’ She pouted at her darling grandpa. ‘I’m so happy! This is turning out to be the most wonderful birthday of my entire life.’
Slowly turning his dark head Ethan looked down at her through narrowed, steely I’m-going-kill-you eyes. ‘Oh, don’t be cross.’ She pouted at him also. ‘I know you wanted to wait a while before we told anyone about us. But Grandpa can keep a secret—can’t you, Grandpa?’ It was Grandpa’s turn to receive the full spell-casting blast of her wide green witch’s eyes.
The old man smiled. It was an action that smoothed every hard angle out of him. ‘But why be secretive, my little angel?’ he quizzed fondly. ‘You are in love with each other. Don’t hide it, celebrate! We will announce your betrothal in front of the family when we return to Athens next week…’
He’s remembered he hates me, Eve realised nervously. Ethan had washed and changed before coming up to the main house, but even wearing a smart blue shirt and grey trousers she could still see the man sitting in the beach bar feeding her his utter contempt.
‘Please, Ethan,’ she said, panting as she hurried after him down the path that led the way back to the beach. ‘Let me explain—’
‘You set me up,’ he rasped. ‘That doesn’t need explaining.’
‘It was the only way I could think of to—’
‘Get a marriage proposal?’ he cut in contemptuously.
‘You’re not that good a catch!’ she retaliated.
He stopped striding and swung round to face her. Sensational, Eve thought with an inner flutter. Ethan Hayes in the throws of a blistering fury was exciting and dangerous and—
‘Then, why me?’ he bit out.
‘He dotes on me…’
Ethan responded to that with a hard laugh. ‘Now tell me something I haven’t worked out.’
‘He’s built this shining glass case around me that he likes to believe protects me from the realities of life.’
‘Take my advice, and smash the case,’ Ethan responded. ‘Before someone else comes along and smashes it for you.’ On that he turned and started walking again.
So did Eve. ‘That’s the whole point,’ she said urgently. ‘I know I need to smash the case, but gently, Ethan!’ she pleaded with him. ‘Not with a cold hard blow of just about the ugliest truth I could possibly think of to hurt him with.’
‘He deserves the truth,’ he insisted. ‘You are insulting him by protecting him from it!’
‘No.’ Her hand gripping his arm pulled him to a stop again, like a miniature tyrant she stepped right in front of him to block his path. Her eyes pleaded, her mouth pleaded, the fierce grasp of her fingers pleaded. ‘You don’t understand. He’s—’
Eve watched him go from sizzling fury to another place entirely. His shoulders flexed, his teeth gritted together, his wide breastbone shifted on an excess of suppressed air. ‘Don’t tell me again that I don’t understand,’ he bit out roughly, ‘when all I need to understand is that you are using me, Miss Herakleides. And that sticks right here.’ He stabbed two long fingers at his throat.
‘Yes, I can see that…’ she nodded ‘…and I’m sorry…’
‘Good. Now let me pass so I can go and do what I need to do.’
‘Which is what?’ she asked warily.
The morning sun dappling through the tree tops suddenly turned his face into a map of hard angles that made her insides start to shake. ‘Find the cause of this mess and make him wish he’d never been born before I deliver him into the hands of your grandfather,’ Ethan answered grittily and went to step around her.
‘You can’t!’ Once again Eve stopped him. ‘H-he isn’t here!’ she exclaimed. ‘H-he left the island by launch at first light. I know because I checked before I went to see Grandpa. H-he must have known I—’
‘You checked,’ Ethan repeated, his eyes narrowing on her pale features and her worriedly stammering lips. ‘Now, why should you want to go and do that?’ he questioned silkily.
‘I w-wanted to talk to him, f-find out why he did it,’ she explained. ‘I really needed to know if I had brought it all upon myself! H-he was a friend—a long-standing friend. Friends don’t do that to each other, do they? So I had to at least try to find out why!’
Ethan really couldn’t believe he was hearing this. ‘After everything he put you through last night.’ Grimly he stuck to the main issue here. ‘You went to confront him—on your own?’
Anxiety was darkening those big green eyes again. ‘If I’d asked you to come with me, I knew you would want to kill him!’
Time to stop looking in those eyes, he decided. ‘And you don’t want him dead,’ he persisted.
‘No,’ she breathed. ‘I’m trying to avoid trouble not stir it up! A war will erupt between the two families if what happened last night ever got out.’
But that wasn’t the real reason, Ethan thought grimly. She was hiding something, he was sure of it.
Then that something was suddenly clawing its way up his spine and attacking the hairs at the back of his neck. It was written all over her, in those big green apprehensive eyes, in the unsteady tremor of her lovely mouth—in the very words she had said!
‘You’re in love with the bastard.’ He made the outright accusation. No wonder she’d felt compelled to find out why he had done what he had done! Why she didn’t want Ethan to go anywhere near him—why she was trying to protect the swine now!
Her chin shot up. ‘I’m what?’ she questioned in shrill surprise.
But Ethan was no longer listening. ‘I can’t believe what a fool I’ve been,’ he muttered. For him it was like lightning striking twice! First, he had got embroiled in Leona’s love problems. Now he found himself embroiled in Eve’s!
‘How dare you?’ she gasped out, dropping the surprise for indignant fury.
‘No.’ Ethan hit back by turning on her furiously. ‘How dare you get me mixed up in your crazy love life?’
He was angry; she was angry; the old hostile sparks began to fly. The air crackled with them, ‘That’s rich,’ Eve mocked, ‘coming from a man who is only here on this island because he’s in hiding after being caught red-handed with another man’s wife!’
The sparks changed into a high-voltage current. It was unstable—very unstable. ‘Who told you that?’ Ethan demanded.
Eve shrugged. ‘Leandros Petronades is a relative of Grandpa’s. He told Grandpa, and Grandpa thought I should know before I committed myself to you.’
‘It’s a lie,’ he declared.
Eve didn’t believe him. ‘Don’t insult my intelligence,’ she denounced. ‘Do you think I didn’t notice the bruise on your face when you arrived on the island? Everyone noticed it. In fact it was the source of much speculation.’
‘And the bruise on your neck?’ Ethan went in with the metaphorical knife and took some satisfaction from seeing her snap her hand up to cover the mark.
‘I forgot!’ she gasped out in impressive horror.
Ethan didn’t believe her. The brazen hussy hadn’t even bothered to cover the damn thing up! ‘How many more people have seen it and been equally imaginative about how it was put there?’
She blushed and looked uncomfortable. Ethan released a harsh laugh. ‘My God,’ he breathed, ‘you are unbelievable! Take my advice, Eve,’ he offered as his grim farewell. ‘Go back up to the house and tell your grandfather the truth before I do it for you.’
‘You wouldn’t…’
He was turning away when she said that. It brought him swinging back again. ‘I would,’ he promised. ‘And you know why I would do it? Because you are a danger to yourself,’ he told her. ‘You flirt with every man you come into contact with, uncaring what your flirting is doing to them. Then you have the rank stupidity to fall in love with a piece of low life like Aidan Galloway—And even after what he tried to do to you last night, you are still standing here protecting him! That makes you dangerous,’ he concluded, and tried to ignore her greyish pallor, the hint of tears, the small shocked jerk she made that somehow cut him so deeply he almost groaned out loud.
Instead he walked away, striding down the path towards the beach with so much anger burning inside him he had to reign in on just about every emotion he possessed, or he’d be doing something really stupid like—
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