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The pastry dropped to the floor with a disgruntled plop.
She stared down at her throbbing feet in disbelief before daring to turn towards Loukas.
‘Georgie?’ he said again.
Why did he sound so confused?
And then she remembered. She lifted her hand and ran her fingers over her shoulder-length light ash-brown hair. ‘I was wearing a wig last night.’
His gaze immediately moved to her feet, and as he moved towards her, her already hysterical heart switched into frenzied mode when it sank in that he was wearing nothing other than a pair of black gym shorts.
Her eyes skimmed over him briefly before she stared again at her throbbing feet, her mind flashing with images of what she had just witnessed. Broad shoulders, muscle tightly wrapped against bone... A powerful muscular chest... Taut stomach... Long athletic legs... Hard thighs... Sharply defined calves.
He was beautiful. It made her itch—no mere mortal deserved such perfection. No wonder he didn’t have to try too hard with his social skills. People would bow down at his flawless feet regardless.
She watched in disbelief as he crouched before her, his huge frame curling effortlessly and fluidly to balance on one knee. His thumb moved against her foot, gently testing the area where there was an angry-looking cut, and a bruise starting to blossom around it. Then he tenderly lifted her other foot to examine its sole.
Unable to breathe, she dug her fingers into the countertop, fighting against the tide of emotions welling in her. Loukas was the first person to touch her in what felt like a lifetime. She wanted to pull away, overwhelmed. And yet she wanted this moment to last for ever.
Her foot still cradled in his hand, he looked up and grimaced, his expression worried. ‘I’ll get the first aid kit.’
‘There’s no need...’ Her words trailed away as he disappeared into the utility room.
He was back within seconds.
Quickly and efficiently, he applied a burn spray to her sole and swabbed a disinfectant wipe across the broken skin of the other foot. She gasped as it stung.
He paused and gazed up at her. ‘Are you okay?’
She nodded, her voice stolen by her surprise at the gentleness of his tone, the tenderness of his touch.
‘The cut isn’t deep, but I’m worried that you might have broken something.’
She wriggled her toes. ‘It’s fine—honestly. The pain is already practically gone. I got a shock, that’s all. I thought you were asleep.’
Balancing her foot on top of his bended knee, he reached into the first aid kit and took out a sticking plaster.
‘Why were you baking in the middle of the night?’
With delicate care he placed the plaster on her foot, his thumbs softly running over each end, gently applying pressure to ensure it was firmly in place.
‘I couldn’t sleep. I take pastries into work most days... Marios especially loves my croissants. I prepared some dough yesterday, before work, and decided to bake the croissants now as it helps me to relax.’ She inhaled a deep breath and gave a guilty grimace. ‘I’m guessing that I woke you?’
He didn’t answer her question, but instead said, ‘I’ll be back in a few minutes...don’t move.’
Georgie threw her head back and stared at the kitchen ceiling when he left the room. She was mortified at being so clumsy. And thrown by Loukas’s patience and care.
What a great start to her employment. All night she had tossed and turned, her mind reeling with thoughts. Her escalating bills. The endless chasing of her builder. The fact that her new boss, who for some reason made her feel as if she was plugged into the electricity mains, was less than happy to employ her. The fact that she had volunteered to be a matchmaker to said boss in order to retain her job.
Was she out of her mind? Undoubtedly a neat queue would form if she advertised the fact that Loukas Christou was looking for a wife—who wouldn’t want to marry a hotel tycoon with dark movie-star looks and the body of a professional athlete? But what would happen when the women learnt it was a practical business marriage, love not included?
Would that work for some women? Perhaps. Look at how successful arranged marriages where in some cultures. But where was she going to find such a woman within the next few weeks? She had needed a distraction. She’d tried reading and then counting sheep, but they had disturbingly morphed into belligerent goats. After that she had known that her usual fail-safe of baking was the only answer.
Why was the prospect of getting Loukas onside so daunting? After all, she had done this a hundred times before. For as long as she could remember in every new country, new city, new school, new job, she had had no option but to smile her way into acceptance. Despite the fear of being rejected, which had been alive and mocking in the pit of her stomach every time she’d approached a wary new face.
And even when she had become accepted by those new schoolmates, and later work colleagues, despite her exuberant front and her deep, sincere desire to connect with people, she had never truly managed to. After her mum had left, and then all the friends she’d lost time and time again when her dad had uprooted them, she had realised that it was easier to keep people at arm’s length. To be a social butterfly. To keep those friendships on the surface. For their sakes and hers.
That was until she’d met Alain. At first, as the owner and head chef of the restaurant where she’d begun her training to be a pastry chef, he had been her boss. She had fallen in love with his enthusiasm and passion and they had quickly become a couple.
But she had hurt him terribly when she’d left him. Feeling as if she were unable to breathe. Panicked at how serious their relationship had become. Questioning everything about their relationship and convincing herself that she was only with him because he made her feel safe. That she wouldn’t feel so freaked out if she’d met ‘Mr Right’.
A few relationships later it had slowly dawned on her that maybe ‘Mr Right’ didn’t exist for her... Not through any fault of the men she’d met. No, the problem lay squarely at her door—she’d been moving about for so long her need for change was bone-deep, her restlessness, her love for travel and exploring new places—all were too strong within her for any relationship to survive.
Loukas was wearing a grey hooded sweatshirt when he returned to the kitchen. In silence he approached her and then, again crouching before her, he began to place a pair of snow-white sports socks on her feet.
‘These will be too big, but they are padded and will be more comfortable when you walk.’ Standing, he asked, ‘Do you want to give it a try?’
She nodded, but before she could react further his hands were on her waist. Gently he eased her forward on the counter, and her hands reflexively reached out to hold his upper arms before he lifted her slowly down onto the marble floor of the kitchen. Her hands refused to drop away from his arms—in fact her fingers insisting on remaining wrapped around the powerful strength of his biceps.
Drop your hands, Georgie. What are you doing?
But his hands aren’t dropping from my waist either, and it’s so nice here, being held, inches away from him, inhaling his scent...citrus, but with a hint of basil and cedar.
He’s your boss—you’re his matchmaker, for crying out loud. Let go!
But instead of letting go she dared to look up into his eyes.
He looked as perplexed as she was feeling.
She gave him a wobbly smile. ‘Hi.’
He jerked his head back, as though suddenly waking up to his surroundings.
In unison they moved apart.
Her heart a churning mess, her legs wobbly, she took a few tentative steps. It stung, but seeing his concerned expression at her measured movements she upped her pace and gave him a bright smile.
‘I think I’ll live.’
‘Good.’ He gestured to the stools by the breakfast counter. ‘Go and sit down. I’ll clean up.’
He refused to allow her to help, so Georgie sat at the counter feeling sheepish. But as he cleared away the baking equipment, wiped the counter surfaces and swept the floor, the silence between them and the darkness outside, the fact that they were all alone in his villa, had an intoxicating feeling of intimacy.
When he’d finished tidying up he turned and considered her.
She smiled and said, ‘Thank you.’
He nodded, and for the longest time they stared at one another, something shifting between them.
He’s your boss, Georgie. Stop it!
She yanked her gaze away and for want of something to do reached across the kitchen island and pulled the cooling rack towards her.
She had managed to place seven croissants on the rack before she’d dropped the baking tray on her foot. She held out a croissant to him, wanting to thank him but also to reach out to him for reasons she didn’t fully understand.
He eyed the croissant dubiously, so she explained. ‘A peace offering—to apologise for waking you.’
He reached for the croissant with a hint of a smile and broke it into two. ‘It’d better be good to make up for having me believe I had a burglar.’
She held her breath as he took a bite. He nodded his head and took another bite.
He raised the remaining small piece of pastry in his hand. ‘You’re safe...this is really good.’
She tried to hide just how pleased she was that he liked her baking and said, ‘I worked for a while as a trainee pastry chef in a restaurant in Lyon.’
He took a bite from the other half. ‘Why did you stop when you’re obviously so talented?’
She shrugged and said, ‘I wanted to move on to something else...to a new city.’
He folded his arms and considered her for a moment. ‘Like dog-walking?’
Annoyed by his judgemental tone, she answered instantly. ‘I was a dog walker when I was eighteen. After Lyon I moved to Lisbon and worked in a theatre there as a stagehand.’ Unable to stop a defensive edge entering her voice, she added, ‘I hate being confined. I like change.’
He popped the last remaining piece of croissant in his mouth and chewed, eyes narrowed as he considered her words. Eventually he said, ‘Having no responsibilities?’
The croissants she had baked were plump and a dark golden colour. She eyed them for a few seconds before darting her gaze back to him. This time she did not bother with a smile. ‘You sound critical.’
He looked at her in silence for the longest while before saying, ‘We’ve a long day ahead of us. We’d better go and get some sleep.’
She stood, her feet stinging a little. She bit back a grimace. Not wanting them to part with the tension that was between them right now, she said, ‘I really am sorry that I woke you. And thanks for looking after me tonight, for allowing me to stay. You have a wonderful home...the tall ceilings, the décor, the courtyard garden...it’s all so beautiful.’
His expression relaxed and his gaze moved from her to the kitchen and dining area beyond. ‘My father and mother loved this house but they didn’t have time to invest in it. It was comfortable, but pretty ramshackle when I was growing up—nobody had seriously invested in it for over a hundred years. I renovated it a few years back.’
She swallowed and tried to find the right words, knowing just how painful it was to lose a parent. ‘Angeliki told me about your parents dying. I’m sorry...it must have been a difficult time.’
His gaze briefly met hers, and there it was again, that something between them—a connection, a recognition despite the tension between them. Was it the silence of the house, the darkness outside, that was causing them to talk like this?
‘We got through it.’ He looked away and said with the hint of a sigh, ‘My siblings didn’t want the villa renovated. Maybe they were right.’
The tension lines around his eyes were back in force, as though he was burdened by that admission.
Puzzled, she asked, ‘Why do you think that?’
‘I thought that if I renovated the villa Marios and Nikos would realise that life had changed...that we all needed to move on and that they needed to start living differently and assume more responsibility. For Angeliki I wanted to create new memories. But they resented it that I’d changed so much about the family home. There were a lot of arguments over it.’
She went and stood next to him, where he was standing by the dishwasher. He clearly blamed himself for the arguments.
‘It sounds like you were doing it for the right reasons...because you care for them.’
He shook his head. ‘They don’t see it that way. Anyway, it’s time we called it a night. Can I help you upstairs?’
Had she gone too far? Why was she risking her job by talking on such a personal level with her boss? Would he regret everything that had passed between them tonight?
‘I’ll manage by myself.’ She gave him a smile. ‘I think my tap-dancing career is still in the bag.’ Her smile faded at his bewildered look. ‘I’ll... I’ll just get myself a glass of water. See you tomorrow.’
At the door, he turned and watched her for a long moment, as though unhappy to leave her there by herself. She deliberately strode to the glasses cupboard, forcing herself not to wince.
She grabbed a glass and waved it towards him. Reassuring him that all was well.
Eventually he said, ‘Come into the office whenever you’re ready in the morning.’
She appreciated the gesture, but there was no way she was going to give him any excuse to find fault with her performance. ‘I’ll be there at seven. I’m looking forward to it.’
* * *
The following morning the rising sun daubed thick smears of burnt orange fading to red on the sky as Loukas left for work. Across the harbour the island’s lighthouse beam flickered and dimmed in the growing daylight.
He had been born and raised on Talos. Had stood at his father’s side as a six-year-old when he had laid the first foundation stone for The Korinna. Had listened to his father’s plans and ambitions to open a hotel on Talos that would become world-renowned for its beauty and hospitality. A hotel that would bring employment and prosperity to the island. The first of many planned hotels.
His father had dug a trench in the hard and resisting earth of Talos, sweat on his brow, his back bent as his shovel sent shock waves through the parched soil, and his words had been the passionate dream of a man who had come from nothing.
‘Loukas, we must work hard, you and me. We need to look after the family. We are Christous, and we will never fail.’
His father’s dream had come true. For almost two decades he had never ceased working, never taken even a single day off. He had pushed himself relentlessly. And pushed his family just as hard.
Within ten years the Christou Group hotel chain had had twelve other properties in the Argo-Saronic Gulf and five years later twenty-one hotels spread throughout Greece, with plans in place to purchase more in Italy and Croatia.
But then Loukas’s mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. And for once his father hadn’t been able to change the future by sheer will and determination alone. It had broken him. And two months after the diagnosis he had died from a heart attack.
Loukas closed his eyes for a moment, remembering his mother’s shouts for help. Remembering how he had run to his father’s office and found him unconscious on the floor. He hadn’t known what to do. Blind panic had immobilised him for crucial seconds. He remembered his feeble attempts to perform CPR, his screams at Nikos to call the emergency services, Nikos pressing the wrong numbers...having to try again.
He had failed his father that day. He should have saved him. He had failed his brothers and his sister. Because a year later when his mother had died they’d been left parentless.
At the age of twenty-three he had inherited not only the majority ownership of the family business but also responsibility for all three of his underage siblings.
From the moment his father had died in his arms he had sworn that he would do everything in his power never to fail him again, that his focus would only be on protecting the business and the family.
And now, eight years on, the business had survived the worst recession in Greek history. But the family had grown more and more fractured as the years had passed, and Loukas knew he was failing as the family’s head.
The family and the business were firmly interlocked. Each needed to function well for the other to survive. His siblings all owned a percentage share in the business, and were able to veto any of his decisions—which they did on occasion. Not on the basis of any business rationale but just to remind him of their power, that they had a voice.
The garden’s cobbled mosaic pathway came to an end at the pale blue garden door, where the track running through the orchard took its place. This was where, when they weren’t working in the hotel he had hung out with his siblings as children. Their parents would try to send them home for a siesta, but instead the four of them would climb the trees, and when the fruit was ripe sit in the shade, sometimes drowsily falling asleep, sugar-drunk on the sweet juices of the peaches.
But now that closeness had disappeared, and the most frustrating thing about this broken family was that he could see that all three of his siblings were brimming with potential. They just refused to co-operate with him and remained too relaxed in their roles. Why couldn’t they assume their responsibilities without fighting him on everything? Why couldn’t they worry like he did? Even break a sweat on occasion?
And now he had this new PA Georgie Jones to contend with too. Last night, being with her in the kitchen, had been bewildering. Taking care of her, touching her, had felt so right. When in truth it had been all wrong.
He inhaled a deep breath. He was overthinking this. Georgie was a temporary PA. The next week would pass in a whirl of work and deadlines and then she would be gone. Georgie Jones was inconsequential. Opening The Korinna and finding himself a wife. Those were his priorities.
He grimaced at the idea of marrying. But he had no choice. His father might no longer be here to fulfil the promise to his mother to buy the Convento San Francesco, but he was and he would do everything in his power to acquire it.
‘Loukas—wait up!’
He turned to Georgie’s call. She waved to him and jogged up the hill towards him with small measured steps. In the daylight she was even more beautiful without the wig, her natural hair colour more in keeping with her lightly tanned skin, the smattering of freckles on her cheeks and her hazel eyes.
She came to a stop beside him and smiled. ‘Morning.’ Then, with an embarrassed grimace, she added, ‘I hope you managed to get back to sleep.’
He wanted to say, Well, what do you think? When all I could picture when I closed my eyes were your long legs in those ridiculously cute shorts, the lift of your breasts beneath your top... With the memory of your vanilla scent when I knelt before you, lifted you down from the counter. The narrowness of your waist. How tempted I was to pull you closer—
Instead he pointed to the white trainers she was wearing beneath slim-fitting black trousers. ‘How are your feet?’
‘Fine. But I thought it would be more sensible to wear something comfortable walking along this path.’ She lifted her hands to reveal a towering pair of black stilettos dangling from her fingers. ‘I’ll wear these in the office.’
He swallowed hard. ‘There’s no need. Allow your feet to heal.’
Liar! You just don’t want the temptation of watching her wear those shoes.
Her dusky pink blouse, tucked into the waistband of her trousers moved as the breeze caught it. The silk pushed against her skin, outlining her lace bra beneath.
He looked away. His jaw locked tight. ‘Let’s go. I’ll brief you on what I need you to do today before my conference call at seven-thirty.’
They walked together along the path, with the voice in his head mocking him all the way.
Oh, yeah—she’s inconsequential, all right.
* * *
That evening, exhausted and dazed, Georgie sent out her final emails of the day. She had worked non-stop for thirteen hours, coordinating Loukas’s next board meeting, planning his promotional trip to Asia and getting updates from the US PR company who, earlier in the week, had launched a direct-to-consumer and social media campaign to publicise the reopening of The Korinna.
Her stomach rolled angrily, demanding some food. After a quick swim in the sea she would cook some dinner.
Her gaze moved to Loukas’s open door. He had spent most of the day on teleconferences. She had taken coffee in to him a number of times throughout the day, each time attempting to make small talk, but he had clearly not been interested in engaging with her.
His mood had first gone downhill when she had heard him argue with Marios over the planning of a ceremony that was to be held in their Athenian hotel soon, and then nosedived even further when Nikos had arrived back from Thessaloníki.
She had given Nikos a piece of her mind for not having informed Loukas of her appointment, but her annoyance had faded when she’d realised just how down he was over his meeting with Eleni.
He had just started to explain to her what had happened when Loukas had arrived back from a meeting with the builders in an irritable mood. He had dragged Nikos into his office, and even with the door closed she had heard them arguing about her appointment.
She had sat there, with that old knot of shame that had been her constant companion as a child forming with such a punch in her stomach that it had felt as if it had never gone away.
It was a knot of shame that had appeared soon after her mum had walked out on her—out of their family home in England—when she was seven years old. A knot of shame that had told her there had to be something wrong with her for her mum to have walked away from her so easily; not to have wanted to take her with her. A knot that was a constant reminder that if her mum could walk out on her, then so could anyone else. She wasn’t wanted... She wasn’t good enough.
She knew her only focus should be on delivering a professional service to Loukas. But he was also her neighbour. She wanted to be able to get along with him. To be accepted by him. And part of her longed to see the Loukas of last night again. The Loukas who had been caring and kind.
Hauling in a steadying breath, she stood and approached his door.
His concentration was fixed on his computer screen, his right hand click-click-clicking away on the mouse, and Loukas did not notice her presence until she cleared her throat.
‘I’m finished for the evening.’ Unease fluttered in her stomach at his terse nod but she kept on smiling. ‘I was going to cook some pasta for dinner—would you like me to make you some too?’
Loukas glanced at his computer screen and then stood. Pulling on his grey suit jacket over his pale blue shirt, he met her gaze. ‘Thanks, but I’m meeting someone for dinner.’
She backed out, towards her office. ‘Oh. A date? Well, I hope it goes well. It’s a lovely evening for it.’
Oh, God, she knew she was blabbering, but the idea of Loukas on a date left her all jittery. She turned and fled before her mouth really got carried away.
Out in her office, after giving herself a quick mental telling-off for not behaving professionally, she swung round to wish him a goodnight, her heart leaping into her throat at finding him standing directly behind her, fixing the collar of his jacket, his movements releasing the scent of his aftershave from the material.
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