The Power of the Legendary Greek Page 3

  ‘Cleaner.’

  ‘But you are still in pain.’

  ‘Yes.’

  He picked her up with exaggerated care. ‘I will strive not to cause you more.’

  ‘Likewise, Mr Andreadis,’ she returned, holding herself rigid, face averted, as he carried her from the room.

  He frowned. ‘Likewise?’

  ‘Carrying me around can’t be doing your back much good.’

  He laughed sardonically as he descended the curving staircase into a marble-floored hall with an alcove containing a striking half-size statue of Perseus brandishing the severed head of the gorgon Medusa. ‘I will survive. You are not heavy.’

  ‘As soon as humanly possible, I’ll get back to the cottage.’

  ‘When Dr Riga says you are fit to do so,’ he said dismissively and carried her through a large plant-filled conservatory to put her in the passenger seat of the Cherokee Jeep parked at the back of the villa. Which, now she had attention to spare for it, Isobel could see was a dream of a house.

  ‘You have a beautiful home,’ she said politely as Luke got in beside her.

  ‘Efcharisto. I bought it years ago, and altered it to suit my taste. I look on it—and the beach that came with it—as my private retreat.’

  ‘Is that why you were so furious when you found me down there?’

  He lifted a shoulder. ‘Trespassers are a common occurrence.’

  She clenched her teeth. ‘Once again, I apologise.’

  It was no surprise to find that Luke Andreadis drove with panache. They swerved at speed round one dizzying bend after another on the tortuous descent until at last Isobel had to beg him to stop.

  Luke came to a screaming halt, raced round the Jeep and hauled her out, then, to her hideous embarrassment, supported her as she retched miserably over a clump of bushes at the roadside.

  ‘Can you continue now?’ he demanded as she straightened.

  ‘Yes,’ she gasped, sending up a prayer that she was right.

  He put her back in the Jeep and handed her bag over. ‘I will drive slowly the rest of the way,’ he said stiffly.

  ‘Thank you,’ she managed, the pain in her head now so unbearable again she could hardly speak.

  The doctor hurried out of the modern clinic building as they arrived, his face anxious.

  ‘You are late. I was worried.’

  ‘We had to stop on the way because Miss James was sick,’ Luke informed him. ‘I am so used to the road I drove too fast.’

  ‘Ah, poor child. Bring her in, Lukas. My radiologist is waiting, and also Nurse Pappas with a wheelchair.’

  Luke lifted Isobel out of the car to transfer her to the wheelchair, his mouth tightening as he felt her shrink from him. ‘You will obviously prefer this.’

  You bet, thought Isobel, as the friendly nurse wheeled her away. Later, after X-rays and a trying episode while her wound was thoroughly cleaned and dressed again, she was given painkillers and water, then wheeled back to the reception area.

  ‘There is no fracture to the skull or the ankle, but you are suffering from mild concussion,’ Dr Riga reported and smiled encouragingly at Isobel. ‘You need light nourishment and much rest. I will give you more medication for the headache, but take no more until bedtime. And Nurse Pappas has a crutch for you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Isobel gratefully, smiling at both of them.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Luke tossed the crutch in the back of the Jeep, then installed Isobel in the passenger seat. His face was so grim as he took the wheel; the drive back to the villa was accomplished in silence so tense until Isobel felt obliged, at last, to break it.

  ‘I’m very grateful for all your help, Mr Andreadis,’ she said formally. ‘Would you give me Dr Riga’s bill, please?’

  ‘I have settled it,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘Then I will pay you,’ she persisted.

  Luke Andreadis, accustomed to women who expected him to foot bills far more expensive than Dr Riga’s, shot her a scathing look. ‘I require no money from you, Miss James.’

  Isobel had no energy to argue, even though the mere thought of owing this man anything at all acted like fire on her skin—which was hot enough already.

  Once back at his house, Luke lifted Isobel out, then handed her the crutch. ‘Welcome back to the Villa Medusa,’ he said formally. ‘You can manage with this?’

  ‘Yes, thank you.’ Even if it killed her. But, by the time they made it through the conservatory, Isobel felt too exhausted to protest when Luke handed Spiro the crutch and picked her up to carry her upstairs.

  CHAPTER TWO

  ELENI and Spiro hurried behind, listening closely as Luke reported in their own language on Dr Riga’s treatment.

  ‘Eleni asked when you last ate,’ he reported, letting Isobel down in the armchair.

  ‘This morning on your beach,’ she gasped. No point in mentioning that grapes had been the only thing on the menu. Nor that she’d parted with them and everything else in her system in the guest bathroom, with an encore on the way down to the clinic.

  ‘I bring food to you very soon, Isobel,’ promised Eleni.

  Relieved to have her catering arrangements decided for her, Isobel smiled wearily. ‘Efcharisto, Eleni. But I’m not at all hungry.’

  Luke took the crutch from Spiro and propped it against Isobel’s chair. ‘You have everything you need?’

  Heartily sick of being heaved around by a man who made it so plain it was a tiresome chore, Isobel made no attempt at a polite smile. ‘Yes. Thank you. I shan’t trouble you again.’

  Luke’s smile set her teeth on edge. ‘You were trouble from the moment I first saw you, on my flight over the beach.’

  ‘Flight?’

  ‘In my helicopter. It is my habit to scan the beach as I come in to land.’

  ‘To scope out trespassers!’ She looked him in the eye—or as well as she could with one of her own half closed. ‘At the risk of boring you, I apologise once again for my intrusion, Mr Andreadis.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘Lord knows, I suffered such swift retribution I’ll never do it again.’

  ‘Even though you failed in your aim?’

  Isobel frowned, her thought processes fighting a losing battle with her headache. ‘I don’t understand.’

  Luke eyed the motionless Spiro, who obviously intended standing his ground until his employer was ready to leave. ‘With your permission, Miss James,’ continued Luke, ‘I will return after you have eaten. I wish to talk to you.’

  Isobel inclined her sore head gingerly. As if she could say no!

  Alone, she sagged for a moment in relief, then pulled herself together and tried putting her crutch through its paces. To her intense satisfaction she found that, headache and sprained ankle or not, she was now mobile, if not agile. Hallelujah! After the talk with the hostile Mr Andreadis, a lift back to the cottage was all the help she would need from him.

  When Eleni came in, followed by Spiro with a tray, Isobel smiled persuasively and pointed to the balcony doors. ‘Could I eat out there, please?’

  ‘It is dark,’ said the woman, astonished.

  ‘Not with the stars and the light from the lamps in here.’

  ‘Whatever you wish, kyria,’ said Spiro, and took the tray out to the small table on the balcony. He rearranged the chairs, opened the other door to make it easier for her and bowed to her, smiling.

  ‘Efcharisto, Spiro,’ said Isobel gratefully and limped out onto the balcony to sit at the table, smiling in such triumph at Eleni as she parked the crutch that the woman laughed and patted her shoulder.

  ‘You are better. Good, good. Now, eat.’ She took a silver cover from an inviting omelette and left Isobel to her solitary meal.

  To her surprise, Isobel’s taste buds sprang to life with the first mouthful. Once it seemed her stomach meant to behave, she ate all the omelette and some of the salad and bread that came with it, finding that eating alone, with only the stars for company, did wonders for her appetite. Isobel drank some
water and then sat back to gaze out over the garden, her eyes fixed in longing on the floodlit pool. She’d love a swim in it before she went back to her cottage. But fond hope of that with Mr Congeniality on the premises.

  A knock on the bedroom door brought her out of her reverie. She picked up the crutch and went slowly into the room, smiling at Eleni. ‘It was a lovely supper. I’ve taken some pills and I feel much better now.’

  ‘Good, good,’ said the woman, beaming. ‘I bring more yoghurt for face. Use before bed. I help you to bathroom now?’

  ‘No, thank you. I can manage myself.’

  The woman frowned. ‘Then I come back later when time to sleep.’

  ‘All right, Eleni,’ sighed Isobel, knowing when she was beaten. ‘Before you go, could you put the big chair near the veranda doors? Efcharisto poli.’

  Isobel eyed her reflection critically in the large bathroom mirror. Her eye was ringed with interesting shades of plum, but at least it was now almost open again, and her sunburn had toned down, thanks to Eleni’s yoghurt. Pleased with her new mobility, Isobel limped back into the room to sit in the big, comfortable chair, content just to look out into the night while she waited for her visitor.

  ‘Come in,’ she called later, in answer to the expected knock.

  Luke strolled in, his eyes on her face. ‘Kalispera. You look better. Eleni tells me you ate most of your supper.’

  ‘Yes. It was delicious.’ Isobel sat still and tense, wondering what he wanted to talk about.

  ‘May I sit down?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Luke drew the dressing table stool nearer Isobel and stood by it for a moment. ‘Shall I fetch your notebook? Since you suffered so much to achieve it, I have decided to grant your interview.’

  Isobel stared at him blankly. ‘Interview?’

  ‘I collected your belongings on the beach,’ he informed her. ‘There was a notebook, also several pencils in your bag. Do you deny that you are a journalist, Miss James?’

  Isobel took in a deep calming breath, then took the pad from the backpack on the floor beside her and handed it over. ‘Look for yourself.’

  Luke’s mouth tightened as he turned over pages of drawings. ‘What are these?’

  ‘I would have thought that’s obvious, Mr Andreadis. I drew the boats from the veranda of the cottage when I first arrived, and the other sketch this morning on the beach next to yours. Ideally, I would have used watercolour, but I had no way of getting the materials down such a steep path.’ Isobel looked at him coldly. ‘Other people take holiday snaps. I make sketches.’

  ‘Which,’ he said slowly, leafing through them again, ‘are most accomplished.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  Luke ran a hand through his thick curls, then looked up, surveying her in silence for so long that Isobel grew restive. ‘It is now I who must make apology,’ he said at last, as though the words were drawn out of him with pincers.

  ‘Accepted.’ She eyed him curiously. ‘You dislike journalists and guard your privacy very fiercely, Mr Andreadis, so are you some kind of celebrity here in Greece?’

  He shook his head. ‘No, just a successful businessman, Miss James. I am in shipping, but also much in the news lately, due to a successful takeover of a private airline.’ His mouth turned down. ‘And I have no wife. This also attracts interest from the press.’

  ‘About whether you’re gay?’ she said, secretly delighted by the look of outrage on his face.

  ‘Ochee! I may lack a wife, but it is common knowledge that I enjoy the company of women. Did you think I was gay?’ he demanded.

  ‘Not easy to tell on such brief acquaintance.’

  His eyes narrowed to a glitter, which put her on the alert. ‘Even though we have been in enforced physical contact from the first moment of our meeting?’

  Isobel’s face heated. ‘I wasn’t conscious for most of it. And, now that I am, no further contact is necessary. Not,’ she added hastily, ‘that I’m ungrateful for your help.’

  He shrugged. ‘I had no choice but to give it, Miss James.’

  She eyed him in disdain. ‘You made that very clear—but I’m grateful just the same.’

  His eyes softened. ‘It has been a bad start to your holiday.’

  ‘It has indeed.’ She pushed her hair away from her throbbing forehead. ‘So, if you can spare the time to drive me to my cottage tomorrow to get on with it, I’d be very grateful, Mr Andreadis.’

  ‘You cannot manage alone there yet,’ he said dismissively.

  ‘I most certainly can. There is absolutely no difference between getting myself around this room and doing the same at the cottage.’

  ‘And how will you feed yourself?’

  She’d been prepared for that. ‘If Eleni will buy food for me before I go, I’ll manage very well until I can walk properly again. My ankle feels better already,’ she lied. ‘In a day or so I’ll be back to normal.’

  He eyed her in silence for a moment. ‘Before you make your escape from the Villa Medusa, please indulge my curiosity. Tell me something about yourself. From your drawings, your interest obviously lies in art, Miss James.’

  ‘Yes. I have a Fine Art Degree.’

  ‘You teach?’

  ‘No. I manage an art gallery and live in the flat over it as part of a deal which includes putting my work on sale at the gallery, as well as the paintings I sell privately.’

  ‘You live near your family?’

  Isobel looked down at the hands she’d folded in her lap. ‘No. My wonderful grandparents brought me up, but they’re dead now.’

  Luke leaned forward slightly. ‘And your parents?’

  ‘I never knew them. They were killed in a motorway pile-up in fog when I was a baby.’

  ‘That is a sad story,’ he said sombrely. ‘But you were fortunate to have grandparents who cared for you.’

  ‘True. They were the only parents I ever knew, and I couldn’t have wished for better. But, though I’m short on family, I’m blessed with very good friends,’ said Isobel, trying to ignore her headache. ‘In the past my holidays were spent with one of them but, since her marriage a couple of years ago, I travel alone.’

  Luke got up. ‘Have you informed this friend of your accident?’

  ‘I saw no point in worrying her. I’ll be fine in a day or two.’

  ‘But you are not fine now. Your headache is bad again, yes?’

  ‘Afraid so,’ she admitted.

  He looked down at her, frowning. ‘I shall send Eleni to help you to bed.’ He held up a peremptory hand. ‘Yes, I know you can manage without her, but she insisted. Is there anything you would like her to bring you?’

  Isobel smiled hopefully. ‘I would really love some tea.’

  ‘Of course. You shall have it immediately. Kalmychta—goodnight, Miss James.’

  ‘Goodnight, Mr Andreadis.’

  Isobel was very thoughtful after he’d gone, wondering why he’d asked so many questions. It made her doubly wary of Lukas Andreadis, mainly because her current opinion of his sex was at an all-time low. But, looked at objectively, from an artistic point of view he was a formidable specimen, with the physique and sculpted features of the Greek statues she’d studied in college. Though more like the Renaissance muscular versions than the androgynous Apollo Belvedere of Ancient Greece. Similar curls, maybe, but Luke Andreadis was very obviously all male, his impressive build a definite plus when it came to carrying her about. His one concession to vanity seemed to be the hair he grew long enough to brush his collar. But she would have expected those curls of his to be black, like his eyes. Instead, they were bronze with lighter streaks, courtesy of the sun. Her mouth tightened. Good-looking he might be, but when she’d first seen him, down on his precious private beach, he’d been so menacing he’d frightened her to death.

  Isobel took more painkillers with the tea Eleni brought her, then submitted to her yoghurt beauty treatment and let the kind little woman help her to bed. Isobel thanked Eleni warmly, wished
her goodnight, and then settled down against banked pillows and, though fully expecting to lie awake for hours with her aches and pains for company, eventually drifted off into healing, dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER THREE

  LUKE ANDREADIS asked Eleni to take tea up to their guest, then went to his room, but felt too restless for sleep. He made for his balcony with a glass of brandy and leaned against the rail, breathing in the heady nocturnal scents of the garden. After the punishing campaign of the past few weeks he felt anti-climactic, already missing the adrenaline rush of corporate battle. His mouth curled in grim triumph as he relived the victory over Melina Andreadis. She must be incandescent with fury now she no longer controlled the airline acquired by the husband who had once given it to his demanding second wife as if it were a toy to play with. But now, Luke thought triumphantly, she had been rendered powerless. Her ties with the airline had been severed without mercy by the grandson Theo Andreadis refused to acknowledge.

  Luke raised his glass to the stars in exultation at the memory of Melina’s fury, of her ageing face, scarlet and suffused with rage. It had been worth every minute of his years of hard, unending work just to see the harpy’s face when the vote went against her. Whoever said revenge was a dish best served cold was right on target. His long fight to wreak revenge on Melina had left little room in his life for personal relationships. But this mattered very little to him now he had finally exacted his revenge. His only sorrow was that his mother had not lived to share in his triumph. His face set in implacable lines. That she was not was another sin to lay at his grandfather’s door. Theo Andreadis had brought up his motherless daughter so strictly her eventual rebellion had been inevitable. The discovery that she was pregnant had enraged her father so much he’d thrown her out on the street. The desperate girl had fled from Athens to take refuge with her old nurse on Chyros, where Olympia Andreadis, daughter of one of the richest men in Greece, had supported herself by working in the kitchen of the taverna owned by Basil Nicolaides, father of the present owner, Nikos.