Irresistible Greeks: Dark and Determined
‘I am not your enemy, Zoe,’ Anton murmured as if he knew exactly what was going on in her head. ‘I know I have given you little cause to believe me, but if you will give me the chance I will try my best to amend that.’
She could feel herself wanting to give in. Was it a mild version of Stockholm syndrome? Was she being very stupid here by wanting to believe him again?
Kostas strode past them on his way to check Toby. In a lightning-flash decision, she stopped him. ‘I will go,’ she told the security guard, and without allowing herself to glance at Anton she slid her hand out from beneath his, got up and walked away.
They landed as the sun floated low above the glistening sea she’d glimpsed as they’d rushed towards the ground. Kostas, who seemed to have put himself up as her protector, took control of Toby’s disembarkation. Zoe didn’t brother to argue with him over it.
Everyone was standing up and gathering their things together, including Anton Pallis, who stood with his back towards her between the table and his seat. He had the most disturbingly beautiful long, muscular back, Zoe found herself noticing, then blinked and made herself stop looking.
The moment the plane shut down its engines he picked up his mobile phone and clamped it to his ear. Zoe heard him start firing out orders like soft bullets, the low growl of his voice a very good substitute to the engines’ roar, she thought with a dry smile.
As she was about to draw on her jacket, Kostas said, ‘You won’t need that, thespinis. It is twenty-seven degrees outside.’
Zoe was happy to take the jacket off again since it was now sadly creased after she’d slept in it. A movement just ahead of her in the cabin made her glance up to find that Anton had turned and was looking at her through low hooded eyes. Her chin went up—she didn’t know why—like she didn’t know why her cheeks started to heat.
They filed out of the plane as if it was any ordinary scheduled flight. Anton was ahead of her and he clearly was not concerned about the heat outside because he’d pulled on his jacket again; the creaseless, elegant businessman was back, she saw as she followed him. Kostas brought up the rear with Toby’s seat secure in his big-handed grasp.
At first she paused at the top of the steps to allow the heat to envelope her. It was filled with the most evocative aromas of what she recognised as jasmine, citrus and thyme. Ahead of her on the other side of the shimmering tarmac runway, a line of vehicles waited: two silver limousines, a people carrier and a dusty sedan with an official type standing beside it.
Anton’s staff was heading towards him with what she recognised as passports in their hands. Anton followed, with a laptop bag swinging from one broad shoulder. He still had his phone clamped to his ear, his other hand making expressive gestures of irritation as he walked.
Behind Zoe, the hard edge of Toby’s seat gave the base of her spine a gentle nudge. She started walking down the shallow flight of steps but there was a strange sensation beginning to swirl inside her legs. She didn’t recognise it for what it was until she had taken two strides across the tarmac then she pulled to a trembling stop.
She was in Greece.
Looking down the length of her legs to her shoes, she thought, I’m standing on the land of my father’s birth for the first time in my life.
Of all the reasons she had been fighting against coming here, this one had never once entered her head, this strange, prickly, stirring sensation which began at her toes and was slowly spreading up her body until it encompassed all of her in the heart-clutching revelation that this moment was the most profound one she’d ever had.
Closing her eyes, she just soaked in the feeling, the strangest impression that she had come home at last. It didn’t make sense. She was as British as afternoon tea, as scented roses in the summer, as Big Ben striking the hour with such very British reliability. She was a ‘grey cloud and cool climate’ girl, a pale blonde with delicate, light skin. She was her mother’s daughter, yet she was standing here feeling the Greek genes she’d never acknowledged tug themselves free from wherever they’d been hiding and scramble like hungry animals to the surface of her skin.
Tilting her head back, she kept her eyes closed and just took it all in—the sultry heat, the exotic scents, the shimmering gold of the late-afternoon sunlight stroking the back of her eyelids—and she felt strangely at peace.
Was this the reason why her father had never come back here? Because he’d known that he would have to experience the same things she was feeling—this almost spiritual sense of coming home? Home was special. Home was built into the very roots of everyone’s psyche. It called to you, drew you to it when you saw it on television—she’d witnessed her father’s stillness and seen the shadows cloud his eyes whenever a programme mentioned Greece.
‘Zoe …’ It was that voice again, the low, dark, modulated voice saying her name like her father had, only this time she recognised the difference.
Lowering her chin, she opened her eyes and found Anton standing in front of her, more handsome, his skin more golden beneath his own sun. His eyes were not polished jet any more but deep, dark warm brown as if they too had been altered by the light. His expression was watchful, and both of his arms were raised in a curve either side of her, but not touching, as if he was waiting to catch her if she fainted away.
‘I’m all right,’ she whispered.
‘You don’t look it,’ he responded.
‘It—it’s a bit of a shock to be standing here after all these years,’ she admitted. ‘I did not expect to—feel anything.’
Anton was beginning to realise that Leander Kanellis’s beautiful daughter felt everything deeply, passionately and with no compromises or restraint. Curiosity as to how all of that passion would translate itself in his arms in his bed fired up his senses, but also had him dropping his arms in an abrupt act of withdrawal.
Forbidden, he told himself. Zoe Kanellis had put herself in forbidden territory the moment she’d accused him of being after her grandfather’s money.
His movement brought her into focus with her surroundings for the first time. Everyone else seemed to have disappeared—the dusty sedan, the black people-carrier. Only the two expensive saloons were left standing there.
‘I’m sorry,’ she murmured. ‘I’m holding you up.’
‘Not at all,’ he responded very politely. ‘I have dealt with the necessary formalities. Your brother has not been hauled off to jail.’
‘Make a joke of it if it amuses you.’ Zoe frowned at him. ‘But I was worried.’
‘Worry over, then,’ he came back smoothly.
‘Where is Toby?’ she asked then, scanning the two remaining cars for signs of occupation.
‘Safe with Kostas in the second car, out of the heat from the sun.’ Digging into his jacket pocket, he brought out a maroon leather-bound passport and offered it to her. ‘Yours,’ he told her. ‘Kostas recovered it from your box of papers. I hope it was OK for him to do that.’
Too late if it wasn’t, thought Zoe, taking the passport from him with a mumbled, ‘Thanks.’
‘Then, if you have finished communing with the land of your ancestors, we should leave.’
Drifting out a dry grimace because he almost used the same words she’d been thinking of earlier, Zoe nodded. He turned on his heel and started striding towards the two cars, all brisk, elegant grace and arrogant loftiness that made Zoe pull a wry face as she tagged on behind. She was aware that she’d annoyed him somewhere in the last five minutes though she couldn’t work out which bit of their conversation had been the cause.
With a shrug she glanced curiously around her as she walked. They seemed to have landed at yet another private airport which was nothing more than a landing strip with a white-painted concrete observation-tower set high on a plateau of land. She could see the sea glinting in the distance, and the slopes of the pine-coated hills.
‘Where are we in Greece, exactly?’ she asked curiously.
‘This is Thalia.’
She quickened her pace to catch up with him. ‘Thalia was the daughter of Zeus,’ she said, trying to remember her Greek myths.
‘Or the nymph Thalia, deity of rejuvenation?’ he suggested. ‘No one knows for sure which one the island was named for.’
‘This is an island?’ The slow rumblings of cold suspicion pulled her to a sudden stop.
Having reached the car, he turned to look at her, his expression growing impatient when he saw her standing still a couple of metres away. ‘Can we do the Greek-history lesson another time? It is growing late and I need to be back here in time to take off again before dusk.’
It was like being hit with too much information. Zoe turned a full circle, casting her gaze out across the forest tops. They were surrounded by sea, glinting water everywhere she looked. The island could be no bigger than a few miles wide either way.
‘Island,’ she whispered, staring at him as if he’d grown horns out of his head. ‘You’ve done it again, haven’t you? You’ve promised me one thing then done something else!’
Looking at her standing there pinned to the shimmering tarmac in her slender black clothes—which more and more were making him aware that there was a nicely shaped women hidden within—Anton let out a sigh. ‘Having a normal conversation with you is like treading on broken glass! What,’ he incised, ‘Are you getting so fired up about now?’
‘This!’ Zoe cried, flinging her arms out. ‘You are intending to just dump Toby and me here with Theo Kanellis before you fly off into the sunset!’
‘Are you out of your head?’ Anton fired angrily back at her. ‘This is not Theo’s island it is my island! Don’t you even know the name of your own father’s birthplace?’
The way she blinked those infuriatingly beautiful eyes at him made it clear that she did not. The lowering sun was turning her hair into a halo of spun-golden threads. Oh damn it, he thought, growling the curse inside his own head. And he knew why he was cursing—hell did he know.
‘You grandfather’s island is called Argiris—Argiris!’ He repeated it furiously, flinging out one of his arms. ‘It lies about fifty kilometres off in that direction.’
‘Oh,’ she mumbled, and actually swivelled to look as if she had laser vision and could see fifty kilometres away.
He allowed himself the absolutely guilty pleasure of visualising himself striding over there and dragging her into his arms so he could kiss that contrite pout she was now wearing off her pink mouth. ‘Get in the car,’ he growled, and made do with swinging the car door open then stood, glowering down at his shoes, while he waited for her to come and get into the car.
He caught the scent of her again as she came closer, that distracting smell of freshly cut apples that made the juices inside his mouth spring out on to the flat of his tongue. It attacked other parts of him too, making him pull in the muscles around his hips.
‘Blame yourself if I can’t trust a single thing that you say or do,’ she informed him coolly before she disappeared into the car with an aggravating, lofty flounce.
Anton closed the door with a cringingly gentle click. Zoe bit down on her soft bottom lip and stared after him as he strode off towards the other car. He didn’t even want to be in the same car as her any more, she realised, and felt this strange hollow feeling open up in the pit of her stomach.
‘It is not always wise to make him angry,’ a dry voice murmured beside her.
CHAPTER SIX
STARTLED, Zoe wrenched her head around then blinked when she found Kostas sitting across on the other side of the car with Toby strapped in between them sleeping the sleep of the contented innocent.
‘It is not wise to give arrogant bullies like him all their own way, either,’ she flicked right back.
‘You goad him,’ said Kostas.
‘I asked him a simple question and he took my head off!’ She defended herself despite knowing that she did goad Anton all the time and without really understanding why she needed to do that.
And where was he going to that he needed an extra car? she wondered as she watched the lead car begin to move away. Preferring to slit her own throat than to ask Kostas the question, she made do with telling herself that she didn’t care where he was going so long as it was far away from her.
‘He has business to attend to in the village.’ Kostas, who could clearly read minds, offered up the information without her request. ‘He must then be back here to board his plane before sunset arrives because our small airport is not authorised to function after dusk.’
‘So this isn’t actually his private island, then?’ He’d just claimed it as such.
Kostas made a face. ‘It is the place of Anton’s birth, the home of his late father and many more Pallis fathers before him. Anton built the airport, the small hospital in the village and the new school, and he provides employment for anyone who wants to stay on the island or helps those who prefer to find employment elsewhere.’
There was pride in Kostas’s voice as he reeled off his employer’s good points, pride and affection. It only stung Zoe’s into a stubborn determination to think the worst of Anton Pallis’s motives even here in this island where everyone obviously believed he was some kind of living saint. Well, the devil knew how to soften people up with favours—before he demanded your soul as recompense. And she was determined to keep her soul very much intact, thank you very much!
She hated Anton. It was really quite unsettlingly exciting how much she hated him. The feeling kind of taunted her with all different kinds of nerve-stimulating flicks and flurries, so she had to sit tense-backed and consciously control her breathing so what was going on with her on the inside would not show on the outside.
They’d been driving steadily down through the trees since they’d left the tiny airport; now the forest had thinned out to reveal pretty green meadows dotted with olive and fruit groves basking in the sultry late sunlight. In front of them the water was closer, the dusty road they were travelling along showing a junction not far ahead. The front car went to the left; they turned to the right and were suddenly travelling parallel to a pine-edged sandy beach. She could see boats out on the shimmering sea like tiny white dots of glinting white and was surprised to see a small hotel on the opposite side of the road.
‘You have a tourist industry here?’ she asked because, despite not wanting to be interested, she discovered that she was.
‘Tourism is not discouraged,’ said Kostas. ‘However it is expected of anyone who comes to stay on Thalia that they maintain standards of behaviour we islanders are used to here.’
Another snippet of information, Zoe acknowledged. Kostas was a native of this island too.
‘So, what happens if they don’t behave?’ Suddenly her lost sense of humour crept out for an airing. ‘Does he have them thrown into jail then lord it over them in judgement?’
‘He has them removed,’ Kostas said, smiling. ‘We observe zero tolerance from outsiders here. In a world beset by unruliness and crime we suffer neither. This is the one place Anton can come and relax and simply be himself.’
Wondering what Anton Pallis was like when just ‘being himself,’ Zoe chose to make no further comment. A despot was still a despot, no matter how relaxed he could make himself. A few minutes later they turned inland again winding around a shallow headland, and then everything changed within the single blink of an eye.
This was sheer heaven tucked in around a pretty crescent-shaped bay. The pine trees marched almost to the edge of the soft sandy beach, which was all she managed to take in before they were turning yet again and she found herself staring at the promised big gates. Though why they were there at all baffled Zoe when she could see no sign of a fence or a wall, just more pine trees forming a shallow wood either side of them.
The gates swung wide to allow the car to drive through them and she forgot all about fences when her vision was suddenly filled the most breathtakingly beautiful white-painted villa, with pale-blue woodwork and a terracotta roof nestling in a gently tended landscape.
Everything was so pretty, she thought as she glanced around her curiously. Nothing was too formal or overstated, just the tall trees forming a majestic backcloth to sun-kissed green lawns and the villa.
The car drew to a stop then in front of a blue-painted door. Zoe turned her attention to releasing her brother’s seat from its restraints when Toby suddenly woke up as if some instinct had told him all the hours of travelling were over. He went from sweetly angelic to loudly demanding attention with no gap in between. Abandoning her attempts to release his seat, Zoe swapped to releasing Toby from his safety harness instead, shushing him as she gathered the small protesting baby into her arms before scrambling out of the car.
Kostas was already standing on a deep, shady terrace; his big, bulky frame was being hugged by a small lady with a plump face and shining dark brown eyes.
‘This is Anthea, Anton’s housekeeper—and my mother.’ He introduced Zoe in the gruff voice of embarrassment of a tough guy going all soft in front of his adoring mother. ‘This is thespinis Kanellis and her brother Toby.’ he completed the introductions to his mother who was staring at Zoe with the kind of fascination which made her feel as if she’d just landed here from Mars.
‘Beautiful hair.’ Anthea sighed out rapturously. ‘It is golden like the sun.’
Unsure how to answer that without blushing, Zoe was relieved when Toby notched up his crying levels and grabbed centre stage. The next few minutes went by in a rush as Anthea set about hustling them into the house and up the stairs with Kostas following behind them with their things.
Zoe found herself standing in a pretty room with the sunlight softened by the white drapes across the windows. A huge baby’s cot stood in pride of place, with other pieces of baby furniture set efficiently within reach of the cot. She spied a small fridge with en electric kettle placed on top of it, then an old-fashioned rocking chair by the draped window. There was even a television placed comfortably in reach of a small creamy-blue settee. Zoe could tell that the room had been hastily refurbished to accept a small baby, and she suffered a small twist of gratitude towards Anton Pallis because it looked as if he’d tried his best to have the room look as similar as he could to their kitchen in London.
A dark-haired pretty girl the size of a twelve-year-old stepped forward, all shy smiles for Zoe and soothing murmurs of comfort for the weeping boy.
‘This is my sister, Martha,’ Kostas offered up. ‘She is older than she looks. Martha is here to help you with your brother.’
About to insist that she didn’t need help with Toby, Zoe bit back on her independent streak when she saw the eager expression on Martha’s face. Before she knew it she was handing over the tense, crying bundle of anger that was Toby into Martha’s perfectly capable arms.
The next two hours went by in a daze, while between the two of them she and Martha shared soothing the small baby as he went through his usual evening cranky stage. It was gone eight o’clock before she was shown by Anthea into a bedroom directly across the landing from Toby’s room.
Decorated in the softest pastel blue, the colour was contrasted by the furniture which was heavy and dark. ‘Handmade right here on Thalia,’ Anthea informed her proudly. ‘Anton prefers to use local craftsmen whenever he can.’
The man could do no wrong, thought Zoe. She walked over to the window to look out on the now pitch darkness and wondered where he was right now—holed up in Athens already, sighing with relief that he’d got away from his irritating charges?
Then Martha wanted to show her the adjoining bathroom and where to find spare toiletries and towels. A few minutes later, Zoe drew open another door next to the bathroom. She did not know what she’d expected to find on the other side of that door but it definitely wasn’t the row upon row of beautiful feminine garments, all of them complete strangers to her.
She grew hot, and not just on the outside, imagining one of Anton Pallis’s beautiful and sophisticated lovers casually strolling the rails choosing something to wear to please her man, and she backed away from the opening as if the room contained a coven of hissing snakes.
‘Anthea, I th-think you’ve shown me into someone else’s bedroom.’ She tried to sound casual about it but inside her a strange crashing feeling was taking place.
‘No, no, these are for you.’ The Greek woman hurried forward to go and stand in the space Zoe had just back away from. ‘Anton had them flown out here this afternoon, for he said you had been forced to leave your home so fast it would not occur to you that April is much hotter here than it is in England.’
Dealing with the sinking feeling of relief that she wasn’t intruding on someone else’s domain, Zoe enquired, ‘So, where are my own things?’
‘In here too. See?’ With a sweeping-arm gesture, Anthea invited her to step forward again. Sure enough, around the edge of the door her things hung or lay neatly folded in a corner looking dark, drab and pathetically few. On closer inspection, as she drifted her eyes over the new clothes, she could see that the style and the fabrics were far more in keeping with a holiday on a Greek island.
For once she did not mock Anton’s autocratic belief that he could just do whatever he wanted to do because he believed he knew best. Nothing here screamed high-fashion designer label at her, though the clothes were of a class way more expensive than the high-street bargains she had only ever been able to afford. And no black amongst them, she noticed, just bright and vibrant primary colours and soft, summery pastels.
Frowning, because she did not like the idea that Anton had been spending money on her she could not afford to pay back, Anthea questioned anxiously, ‘You do not like the clothes, thespinis?’
Ungrateful and mean-minded, Zoe accused herself, and turned a smile on the Greek woman. ‘Of course I like the clothes,’ she assured Anthea. ‘I’m just finding it—difficult to take in how everyone has gone to so much trouble for Toby and me.’
‘Ah.’ Anthea flipped her thanks away with the flick of a hand. ‘The way those media dogs hung around your doorstep was a disgrace! It is a good thing in my opinion that Anton brought you here, for that kind of thing will not be tolerated on Thalia. Indeed, Anton has gone into town to personally oversee the removal of the reporters who arrived by boat this afternoon. So you relax now,’ she advised as she turned to walk across the room. ‘You are safe here. Martha will sit with the baby so all you need to do is be comfortable. I will serve dinner in an hour.’
Alone at last, Zoe turned to stare at the bedroom with its big, chunky bed covered in snow-white hand-laced bedding and the rivers of the finest muslin flowing down from the ceiling at the head of the bed. She tried to imagine herself climbing into that bed in her grey cotton pyjamas while clutching a magazine and a mug of hot cocoa as she would do at home. It did not work. Perhaps her thoughtful saviour had covered that pending horror and provided silk nightwear?
She would have to take a look later, but for now … she headed for the bathroom. Forty minutes later—having showered and changed into a white halterneck dress she’d spied on one of the hangers in the dressing room and could not resist trying on—she went to check on Toby and found him blissfully at peace in his huge cot, which made her laugh softly as she leaned over the rail to look at him taking up less than a quarter of the space. Martha was curled up on the sofa surrounded by study books and after a few enquires Zoe discovered the young girl was almost eighteen and swatting for a place at university on the mainland—with Anton’s help, of course.