His Penniless Beauty

Which was exactly why he’d come to see her. Not because he wanted to see her again—never that!—but simply to drive home to her that, pay her debts he might, but pamper her he would never do! She’d have to put up with being dumped here, with all the privations it entailed, however much she resented it!

Except that she didn’t seem to be resenting it….

Seemed, indeed, to have made herself at home here—humble though it was, self-reliant though she had to be. Seemed, indeed, to have got stuck in, quite unnecessarily, to diligent peasant labour! And found it peaceful!

Nikos found his gaze going out again over the garden. But then it was peaceful….

Warm and sunny and somnolent, with bees buzzing and birds chirruping. Unconsciously he reached for another strawberry, savouring again its sweet ripeness. He felt his muscles relax, and out of nowhere a sense of well-being start to steal over him. He stretched his long legs out and crossed them at the ankle, hooking an arm around the back of the chair as he continued with the strawberries. Across the table he could see Sophie’s fingers reach out tentatively, stiffly, and take a strawberry for herself.

‘They’re very good,’ he remarked. ‘Are they from that bed over there?’ He nodded in the direction.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘They’re ripening every day now. I had to clear away the weeds first.’

‘Well worth it,’ responded Nikos. His eye was drawn as a bird darted down to the pile of weeds and hopped on to the bared earth, pecking suddenly.

‘What’s that?’ he enquired lazily, indicating the bird with his hand.

‘It’s a robin. It’s after the grubs and worms in the soil. It’s been dropping in every day. It’s probably got a nest somewhere.’ She was trying to talk normally, but it was hard. Harder still to go on sitting here, tense and awkward, while just across from her Nikos was stretching out in all his masculine glory, making himself at home, replete and relaxed.

Why can’t he just go away? Why can’t he clear off and leave me alone?

But the anguished rhetoric sounded hollow. Her sense, her sanity, might want him to disappear, but there was a part of her—a weak, dangerous part of her—that only wanted to let her gaze rest on him again, now that he was no longer looking at her, and gaze and gaze and gaze…

Feast on him even as he was feasting on the strawberries she’d picked.

‘Feeding her chicks?’ mused Nikos.

‘His chicks,’ she corrected. ‘That’s the male.’

‘How can you tell?’ His enquiry was as lazily voiced as his pose was relaxed.

‘His red breast. Very handsome. Pulls the females.’ There was a tart note in her voice.

Nikos gave a low chuckle. His gaze flicked to hers.

Mistake.

Mistake, mistake, mistake.

Nikos smiling—laughing. How many times had she seen him smiling at her, laughing with her? Her breath caught.

Oh, God, don’t let me remember—don’t let me remember!

She stifled the memories, fought them back. Fought just as hard against the tug of unstoppable attraction that pulled like a rope, lassoing her. Four years had only made him even more devastating, more magnetically compelling!

‘So what do the females look like?’ His question pulled her round.

‘Very dull. Brown. Boring. Plain.’

He cocked an eyebrow again. ‘How curious that nature is so different from humans. With us, it is the female who lures with her beauty—the male is the dull one, the plain one.’

Her eyes went to him. Not you! Never, never you!

She shifted in her seat, taking yet another strawberry. Focussing on that, not on him.

‘So, tell me, what do you think of the place?’ His query came invitingly, at odds with his former riling provocation.

‘What?’ She looked across at him again.

He took another strawberry too. ‘You’ve been here four days—what do you make of the place? I take it you’ve wandered around? Not just confined yourself to this small garden? So, what do you think? Who knows? Once I’ve restored it and it’s a hotel you might stay here one day.’

He spoke lightly, nonchalantly. But even as he did so he could suddenly see in his mind’s eye Sophie as a guest at the hotel. A thought stabbed at his mind—what if there were no blighted past between them? What if he were to meet her at the hotel in the future for the first time? Attraction, unfettered by poisonous memories, flared in him.

How can she be so beautiful, even making no effort, like now, so full of natural grace that I cannot take my eyes from her?

His eyes rested on her, and Sophie felt her emotions plunge wildly, her breath catch. No, he mustn’t have that effect on me any more—he mustn’t!