by Lynne Graham
‘So that’s your house…my new home,’ Hilary breathed, straining to see the small dwelling to the right of the vast Drakos compound. ‘And that massive yacht out there is Sea Queen? I had no idea the yacht was as big as a cruise liner.’
‘You’ll be able to come on aboard and tour the yacht on St George’s Day,’ Billie commented. ‘The whole island takes a holiday for the festival of Agios Georgios and although it’s the celebration of the saint that the village church is dedicated to, there’s also a lot of fun with bonfires on the beach and loads of food and drink.’
‘I’m looking forward to it. I remember you talking about it a couple of years ago,’ Hilary admitted. ‘Isn’t it typical that Nicky has finally fallen asleep?’
Billie gave her infant son a rueful look. That was Hilary’s polite way of saying that Nicky had been a little horror for most of the journey from London, evidently disliking the changes in his usual routine. He had cried for most of the flight and had refused to settle in between times. Offers of bottles, changes and cuddles had made no impression on his general dissatisfaction with life.
‘I can’t wait to see my house. The photos Damon emailed only whet my appetite.’ Billie’s arm was aching and she shifted Nicky to her other shoulder, where he continued to doze, his little breathy snuffles sounding in her ear. He was a surprisingly heavy bundle for a baby of only three months old. She stroked his back, wondering how she would bear working for hours away from him every day but knowing that, like millions of other working mothers, she had no choice.
Lauren greeted them at the harbour and made a beeline for the baby, who was now in Hilary’s arms. ‘So this is my…nephew,’ she exclaimed, and it seemed to her daughter that there was a deliberate hesitation over that designation. ‘My goodness, he looks older than three months and he’s rather Mediterranean in his colouring, isn’t he? I wonder who he got all that black hair from—’
‘Don’t exaggerate, Lauren. He’s not a baby werewolf.’ Hilary reclaimed the sleepy baby from her sister and clambered after Billie into the village taxi.
‘What colour are his eyes?’
‘Brown.’ Billie avoided the hard stare her mother was subjecting her to from the front passenger seat.
Mercifully the new house took over as the topic of conversation. Billie had had furniture and household effects ready in storage before she even left the island and Lauren and Alexei’s housekeeper, Anatalya, had worked together to find a place for everything. The two women had done a great job, but Billie realised that the furnishings looked sparse, particularly when the wood and tiled floors and white walls were bare of any adornment.
‘It’s so light and bright!’ Hilary carolled, walking out onto the terrace where Billie was already admiring the wonderful panoramic view of the bay. ‘It’s amazing, a fabulous house and so spacious. Should we put Nicky down for a nap?’
‘You’re his mother, darling. Surely that should be your decision,’ Lauren interposed with suggestive bite.
‘He’s the most beautiful baby!’ Anatalya exclaimed in admiration, bridging the awkward moment between the three women related by blood.
Nicky was settled in his nursery where a musical mobile was switched on for his entertainment. He watched it with wide unblinking dark eyes and then his little face creased and he began to grizzle and complain.
‘I think the mobile is irritating him,’ Hilary opined.
Billie switched it off.
‘So the baby rules the roost,’ Lauren remarked from the doorway. ‘Is it, by any chance…a Drakos baby?’
‘Shush!’ Billie hissed at her mother in shock. ‘Don’t even breathe an insinuation like that!’
‘I worked it out a long time ago. That’s why he gave you the building plot next door—’
‘Billie!’ Anatalya called.
Relieved by the excuse to move, Billie slid past her mother to answer the older woman, whose plump smiling face was set in an unusual expression of discomfiture as she returned a mobile phone to her pocket. ‘What is it?’
‘Thespinis Calisto has just phoned me to say that she would like to see you immediately.’
Billie swallowed hard. As Lauren broke into rude comment Billie gave her mother’s arm a warning squeeze. ‘She’s probably going to be my boss’s wife, so although I don’t start back to work officially until tomorrow I had better show willing.’
‘I’ll soon find my way around. Nicky and we’ll be fine,’ Hilary declared.
Billie got into Anatalya’s beat-up old car. Alexei was heading home from Australia and not due back until later that night. And here Billie was finally heading for the meeting she had managed to avoid for months. ‘Do I address her now as Miss Calisto or Mrs Bethune?’ she asked the older woman.
‘She told us all to call her the first. We all find her difficult,’ the housekeeper admitted heavily. ‘She has new ideas about the way we do everything at the villa.’
‘Well, that’s to be expected,’ Billie quipped with determined good cheer. What can’t be cured must be endured had become her personal mantra in recent months.
Calisto elected to see her in Alexei’s office. She was still gorgeous, all blonde hair, white teeth and long legs displayed to advantage by a fluorescent pink dress.
‘So you’re Billie,’ the statuesque blonde pronounced, treating her husband’s employee to a head-to-toe unimpressed appraisal, her lips curling with scorn. ‘There’s loads of things going wrong at Alexei’s properties because you’ve taken too much time off.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s unfortunate that my replacement didn’t work out.’
‘You’re very lucky to have a job to come back to.’ Calisto lifted a sheet of paper and extended it in a regal gesture of command. A whiff of her expensive perfume engulfed Billie. ‘I’ve made a list of the most important things you need to take care of. I hope you’re planning on working late tonight.’
‘No, not tonight. I’ve been travelling since early this morning. But I’ll make a start now,’ Billie declared equably, glancing down at the entries on the paper. It was not a factual list of tasks, rather a long list of complaints that appeared to range from a poorly maintained swimming pool to impertinent domestic staff and finally colour and furnishing schemes that Alexei’s consort wanted changed. ‘I’ll soon get it all sorted out.’
‘See that you do. Alexei likes things to run like clockwork. He has no patience for cock-ups and neither do I. He says you’re very efficient and this is your chance to prove it.’
Billie nodded and went to the door that led through to her own office space.
‘I believe you organise things here for Agios Georgios day,’ Calisto remarked in sudden addition. ‘Do you think you could cancel the open house reception here at the villa?’
‘It became a tradition when Alexei’s father was a boy.’
‘Yes, well, we’re the new generation and I like my privacy. I don’t fancy the local fisherfolk marching through our home. Make sure it doesn’t happen.’
Billie said nothing, for it was not within her power to make such a decision. She suspected that Alexei, who had great respect for island tradition and hospitality, would insist that the usual arrangements went ahead.
That night she slept in her new house for the first time, the smell of fresh paint and new furniture in her nostrils. She wakened very early, fed and dressed Nicky, who was squirming with morning liveliness in his cot, and decided to go for a swim before getting ready for work. Hilary didn’t fancy swimming at that hour and prepared breakfast to eat out on the terrace.
The beach on the other side of the narrow coastal road was a stretch of pale golden sand. Billie shed her towelling robe on a rock and waded into the water, shivering at the chill of it. The water was colder than she had expected and she realised that she had been spoiled by the temperature of the Drakos swimming pool. After a vigorous swim to warm up, she had walked back up the beach before she realised that she was no longer alone.
Alexei, casually dresse
d in faded jeans and a black sweater, and with dark stubble outlining his stubborn jaw line and wilful sensual mouth, strode across the sand towards her. ‘I saw you from the villa,’ he drawled with a smile. ‘England has made you hardier. That water is icy.’
‘A little colder than I expected,’ Billie conceded, her full attention welded to him for their first meeting in eight interminable months. And he did not disappoint her. Even fresh and unshaven from Calisto’s bed, a thought that sent a sharp slicing arrow of pain through her, Alexei looked stunningly handsome. Furthermore, his aura of raw energy and white-hot sexuality hit her like a force field. A tingle of urgent heat speared between her legs and she came to a sudden halt, trying not to shiver from awareness as much as from cold.
Long before he had reached her, Alexei had noted the full lush silhouette of her breasts and hips in the swimsuit. Had her curves always been that pronounced, that spectacular? Surely not? With her Titian hair trailing in wet dark red ribbons against her white skin and her nipples protruding through the clinging fabric, she was intensely sexy, and as his body reacted his jeans grew tight. He didn’t fight it either, but he was frantically striving to work out how she could have that effect on him when her hair was in a mess, she wore no make-up and her costume was as old as the hills.
Self-consciousness made Billie hurry on until she could grasp her robe, pull it on and turn back to him. Although she had lost almost all her pregnancy weight, her breasts had gained a cup size and her stomach, no matter how hard she sucked it in, now had a slightly rounded curve.
‘You’re never getting a career break again,’ Alexei warned her. ‘Things I took for granted have gone haywire without you.’
‘I’ll hit the ground running,’ she promised him.
‘Bring your aunt up to join Calisto and me for dinner tonight,’ he told her. ‘What do you think of your house?’
‘It’s wonderful.’
‘Damon actually pulled it off.’
Her eyes gleamed emerald. ‘With a lot of interference from you.’
‘He’s back with his wife and kids where he belongs,’ Alexei told her. ‘I was on target there, wasn’t I?’
‘I’m glad they’re back together.’ Billie refused to rise to the bait he offered. ‘I’d better get back home or I’ll be late.’
‘I believe you have an understanding employer.’ Brilliant bronzed eyes held hers for a long moment and her tummy performed a somersault. ‘I noticed your absence, moraki mou.’
Without warning, hot burning tears pricked the backs of her eyes. With a forced smile and a clumsy wave, she sped off back home. She spent a busy day working and asked Anatalya’s daughter to babysit for her that evening.
Hilary was very impressed by the dinner invitation and fussed over what she wore. ‘We’re keeping his son from him. I can’t afford to like him,’ she said uneasily.
‘It’s a lovely welcome to the island for you.’
‘I’m dying to see Alexei’s home, and the gilded lifestyle of a billionaire!’ Hilary rolled her eyes with humour.
It was fortunate that Hilary was in an upbeat mood, for Calisto could not have made her dislike of the occasion and the guests more obvious. Alexei drew out Hilary’s intention of writing a book about King Henry IV, while Calisto sighed, wrinkled her classic nose and yawned with boredom before rising to put on music at a volume that made it difficult to continue the conversation. Billie saw Alexei glance at his fiancée and knew he was annoyed. Whatever faults he had, generosity and courtesy towards guests were sacrosanct to him. His shrewd gaze rested on Billie for an instant and she reddened fiercely, hoping he couldn’t sense her uncharitable thoughts.
‘I’m glad I got the chance to meet Calisto,’ Hilary told her niece late that evening. ‘How can Alexei be in love with a woman like that? He’s a clever, cultivated man and she’s a spoiled brat with no manners and, I suspect, pretty dim—’
‘Let’s face it, you’re biased. She is a very beautiful woman.’
‘That won’t be enough to sustain a durable relationship.’
‘Alexei is no fool. He must see something in Calisto that we don’t,’ Billie responded heavily.
‘Maybe you should come clean with him about Nicky—’
‘No! Why are you saying that now?’ Billie demanded in dismay.
‘You should tell him before he gets married to another woman. It wouldn’t be fair to either him or his wife if you dumped the news on them afterwards.’
‘He’s not planning on getting married yet.’ That question settled, Billie cuddled Nicky, her son a drowsy and sweet-smelling weight in her protective arms. He was adorable. She could not imagine Alexei as a father, only as a lover, and that was a discomfiting realisation. She tucked her child back into his cot and wished him goodnight.
The minute she told Alexei that Nicky was his, her whole life would change, because she would hardly be able to continue in her job. In addition, what relationship she did have with Alexei would be destroyed. An inner chill pierced her deep at that prospect. Shorn of the memory of their sexual encounter, he wouldn’t believe her story. Initially she would just seem like another one of the gold-digging women who had tried to entrap a share of his huge wealth.
No, Billie decided doggedly, having gone to such lengths to conceal her secret, she would be very careful to pick the optimum moment to tell Alexei the truth. When that precise moment came, her sixth sense would tell her…
Chapter Nine
TWO weeks later, the celebration of Agios Giorgios began with a parade to the little church down by the harbour and a celebratory service, which Alexei and most of his staff attended.
A buffet lunch for all followed at the Drakos villa, where games and amusements were laid on for the island children. As a former teacher Hilary was a great help with organising fun activities to keep the children occupied. At Calisto’s request, Billie had made arrangements for a private lunch for Alexei, Calisto and their house guests, but Alexei excused himself from the meal in the isolation of the separate dining room and attended the villagers’ buffet instead. That there was tension between him and his girlfriend was obvious to everyone.
Billie watched him circulate. He cut a flawless figure in a superbly tailored silk-blend grey suit while his air of command and self-assurance left no one in any doubt of his elite status. But he mixed with the villagers at a much more comfortable level than his late father, Constantine, ever had. He kicked a stray ball back to the boys playing football on his immaculate lawns.
‘Tell Alexei I want to speak to him,’ Calisto instructed Billie, who was watching over events from the shade of the terrace.
Billie glanced at the beautiful blonde, gloriously if impractically clad in a pure white dress that was low of neck and very short of skirt. Her mouth compressing into an apologetic line as she approached Alexei, she did as she was asked.
His lean, darkly handsome features took on a forbidding aspect and Billie marvelled at Calisto’s lack of savvy about the man she was hoping to marry. In certain moods, Alexei needed lots of space. A woman who clung or demanded more attention at that point could only infuriate him. And summoning him through a third party, who was also an employee, was an absolute no-no.
‘Calisto and I will go out to Sea Queen now,’ Alexei imparted. ‘I’ll leave you to oversee the transfer of our visitors.’
Billie nodded, sensing the anger he was controlling, grateful she was not the target. Alexei could be so unpredictable and volatile and she sensed that Calisto had very little idea of how his mind worked. All the seething passion and power of Alexei’s strong personality could suddenly ignite like a volcano and—like lava—he would burn everything he came into contact with.
When she arrived on the yacht with Hilary and Nicky, Captain McGregor got talking to her aunt and offered to act as her escort for a personal tour of the luxurious vessel. It was fortunate that Billie was able to leave Hilary in good hands because, with Calisto nowhere to be seen, Billie was forced to act as host
ess and greet and organise the arrivals.
Much later that afternoon, Billie found Alexei squatting down on deck in an effort to calm a lost little boy who was crying noisily. She went to his assistance, lifting the child to comfort him and recognising him as the son of the island nurse. ‘He needs his mum. I’ll go and find her,’ she told Alexei softly. ‘He’s probably over-tired and high on sugar from all those treats you laid on for the kids.’
‘It’s only once a year.’ Straightening again, Alexei gazed down at his PA with hooded dark-as-ebony eyes that were unusually serious and contained no glint of gold. The toddler was now clinging trustingly to Billie with chocolate-stained fingers and sucking his thumb. ‘Efharisto, moraki mou. You like children, don’t you?’
Billie paled. ‘Very much.’
His darkly handsome face shadowed and hardened as though that response was the wrong one and, without another word, he inclined his proud dark head in acknowledgement and left her to it. She restored the toddler to his grateful mother, who had assumed her youngest child was being looked after by his older siblings. When it was time for all the locals to return to dry land, Calisto finally put in a grudging appearance on deck. Her once-pristine white designer dress now bore stains and it looked as though an attempt to clean it had enjoyed little success. There was quite a breeze and seeing Billie—who had left her jacket on shore—shiver, Alexei had a word with one of the stewards, who went off and returned with a soft cream-coloured pashmina. Alexei draped the wrap round Billie’s bare shoulders.
Taken aback by that considerate gesture and mortified by the angrily accusing stare she was receiving from Calisto, who seemed to be in a particularly bad mood, Billie busied herself with ensuring the guests enjoyed a smooth departure. She was hurrying off to look for Hilary and Nicky when Calisto cornered her as she walked past the main salon. ‘Come in, I need to speak to you.’