His Penniless Beauty

But then he was getting to his feet, polishing off the last strawberry as he did so. He held a hand out to her. ‘Come and tell me what you like about the place and what you don’t,’ he said.

He was holding out a hand to her. Almost, almost she put hers into it, as if taking his hand were nothing at all. Once holding Nikos’s hand had been bliss itself. Now it would be nothing less than torture.

She got haltingly to her feet. Nikos was gesturing towards the garden door that led through into the main grounds. Numbly, she let herself be ushered out. Self-consciousness burned through her. They gained the terrace reaching along the front façade, and her gait was still stiff and awkward, then rounded the corner to the carriage sweep that led up to the grand front entrance. Skewed across the weed-infested gravel was a sight that brought her to a sudden halt.

She recognised it instantly—it was the same high-powered, low-slung car that he had been driving the very first day she’d ever set eyes on him. The exact same—she knew, because she’d become so besotted with him she’d learned the make, model and number plate. Memory overwhelmed her—the first time she’d seen him, driving along the street to her father’s house. The first time she’d been in the car herself.

And the last.

The time when he’d been driving her home late that last night, when her heart had been pounding with what she had been intending to do, her hands clammy with nerves.

And the sound of its engine had been the last noise she’d heard as he’d roared off into the night, leaving her weeping, demented, destroyed—clinging to the wall after he’d peeled her from him like a dirty rag…

‘You’ve got the same car.’

The words broke from her before she could stop them. Nikos twisted his head, pausing in his stride. She’d gone pale again, pale beneath the flush of the honey-tan that was already gilding her fair skin.

She’d been pale as milk when he’d first met her. Long hours indoors, in music studios, had made her as fair as porcelain. His hand on hers had been striking in its contrast, with its olive Mediterranean skin.

Not just his hand on her hand.

Her breasts as white as snow, her limbs like ivory, as she pressed against him, as he crushed her to him, all sense swept away from him, all sanity gone—only the heady paradise of the senses…

‘It’s become a collector’s item. Why update it when I can only legally use a fraction of its horsepower anyway?’ His voice broke cuttingly across his thoughts.

‘You let it rip at that racetrack you took me to.’ Again the words were out of her mouth even as the memory formed in her mind.

Herself standing at the trackside, heart in her mouth as she watched him roaring along the straight, then tightening into a curve so punishing she thought he must surely career onto the grass. Her heart filled with an exhilaration she could not contain, an exhilaration that had consumed her completely, when he’d taken her with him on the next lap, her breath punctuated by gasps of terror and excitement, all the time glorying in his skill, his strength, in the way he seemed so effortlessly to control the power of the car. She had thrilled to it all, thrilled to him…

Nikos’s eyes went to hers. For a second, a fraction of a second, they met and held. Then he pulled his gaze away.

‘Let’s take a look at the grounds first.’

He started off down a wide but overgrown pathway. Hesitantly Sophie followed him. The broad lawns were hayfields, stretching either side, and the once elegantly planted herbaceous borders had almost disappeared into the overgrowth.

But there was beauty here, all right.

‘There’s so much work to do!’ Sophie found herself exclaiming.

Nikos glanced back. ‘Too much for you, I think.’ But it was not an admonition—there was a wry smile on his mouth.

It tugged at Sophie, and she glanced away. No—please, not this. Not feeling his power again! Please no!

‘I think it would take half a dozen professional gardeners,’ she made herself respond. She kept her voice light. It seemed the safest thing to do.

‘More like a dozen,’ replied Nikos dryly. He paused as the pathway diverged. ‘I take it you’ve explored already?’ he said. ‘Any suggestions?’

‘There’s a lake of sorts to the left. There’s not much water in it, from what I could see. Irises and bulrushes have taken over.’

‘Let’s take a look,’ said Nikos. He strode off.

Numbly, she followed him. In part of her mind she knew that it was bizarre in the extreme for her to be exploring these neglected gardens with Nikos Kazandros.