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“How beautiful!”
“We have Poseidon to thank for its creation. He wanted to get away from stress on the big island of Corfu, so he used his trident to create this hideaway for him and his wife.”
“Or maybe to hide his wife from Korkyra? What are you saying? That the stress of having a mistress and keeping his wife happy at the same time was too much, even for a god?” Like a discordant note, he heard brittle laughter come out of her. “That’s hilarious!”
There was a story behind her hollow reaction, but now was not the time to explore it. “The Greek myths are meant to be entertaining. If you’ll notice, there’s another tinier island just beyond this one called Anti Paxos. When Poseidon wanted to be strictly alone, he came here to swim in the clear green water you can see below.”
“I imagine that leading a double life would have worn him out.”
Laughter burst from Akis.
“Wasn’t he lucky to be a god and pick the most divine area in his immortal world to plan his next conquest.” The pilot circled Anti Paxos for a closer look. “What a heavenly spot.”
It was. Akis’s favorite place on earth. He wanted to hide Raina away here, away from the world where the two of them could be together and make love for the rest of time.
Unfortunately they’d come to the end of the tour. He checked his watch. “We’re going to head back to Athens via a little different route. We’ll be crossing over a portion of Albania you should find fascinating. If you’re thirsty or hungry, there’s bottled water and snacks in the seat pouch in front of you.”
“Um. Don’t mind if I do. Would you or the pilot like something?”
That was thoughtful of her. “We’re fine.”
In a minute she said, “These almonds are the best I’ve ever tasted!”
“They’re grown on these islands.” Akis was addicted to them.
“How would it be to live right down there in paradise! If I did, I’m sure I’d become an addict.”
Everything she said and did entrenched her deeper in his heart. She had a sweetness and vulnerability that made him want to protect her. Raina had become his addiction and already he couldn’t imagine life without her. That’s when he realized he was in serious trouble, but for once in his life he didn’t care.
“If you’ll extend your time in Greece, I can arrange for you to stay on Anti Paxos. Think about it and let me know after we get back to Chloe’s house.”
“Even if I could take time off from work, what about yours? Can you afford to be gone any longer?”
His heart leaped. So she was interested...
“My brother will cover for me.”
“You’re lucky to have him.” She sounded sincere. “Is there more family?”
“No. Just Vasso.”
“Is he younger? Older?”
The questions were coming at last. “Older by eleven months.”
“You were almost twins!”
“Almost.”
“Do you resemble each other?”
He turned to his pilot. “What do you think?” he asked in Greek. “Do Vasso and I look alike?”
The other man grinned before giving him an answer.
Akis translated. “He said, superficially.”
“Is Vasso married?”
Why did she want to know that? “Not yet.”
“Then maybe you should arrange for him to meet Chloe’s bridesmaid.”
His black brows furrowed. “I’m afraid my brother prefers to be the one in pursuit. What makes you so concerned for Althea?”
“Even Nora noticed how crestfallen she looked when you stopped dancing with her.”
“According to Theo, she has lots of boyfriends.”
“But she wanted you,” Raina came back.
“Why do you say that?”
“I may have been farther away, but I could see her disappointment. Think how much she would have enjoyed a day like this with you.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel guilty, it isn’t working.”
She flashed him a quick smile. “Not at all. I was just thinking how fortunate I’ve been to be given a fantastic personal tour narrated by you. It’s a real thrill.”
“I’m glad you’re enjoying it. But it’s not over yet. We’ll be flying over a portion of the Pindus National Park covered in black pines. The view from this altitude is extraordinary.” While she studied the landscape, he’d feast his eyes on her.
For the next hour she appeared captivated by the unfolding scenery. Every now and again he heard a little gasp of awe as they dipped lower to view a new sight. Whatever his suspicions might have been in the beginning, her barrage of questions made him think her reactions to the beauty below them couldn’t be faked.
Once they’d landed on the pad of the Milonis estate, he helped Raina down. Their bodies brushed, causing a tiny gasp to escape her lips. He knew exactly how she felt and didn’t know how long he could stand it before he kissed her again.
Akis watched her disappear before he used the guest bathroom and phoned his driver to come to the house. He had plans for him and Raina later. After washing his hands, he walked out to the patio to phone his brother. No doubt he was still at the office. Akis needed to give him a heads-up that he wouldn’t be coming in to work for a few days. He was taking a brief vacation in order to spend time with Raina.
To his frustration, his call went to Vasso’s voice mail. Once again he had to ask him to call him back ASAP. Then he spoke to his private secretary to know if there were any situations he needed to hear about. But he was assured everything was fine. Vasso had been there until two o’clock, then he’d left.
After hanging up, he walked to the cabana and changed into a swimming suit. Akis needed a workout after sitting so long. Much as he wanted Raina to join him in the pool, he knew she couldn’t. But on that score he was wrong. When he’d finished his laps and started to get out, he saw her at the shallow end, floating on her back. The crutches had been left at the side of the pool.
By rotating her arms, she was able to move around without hurting her ankle. He swam over to her, noticing her blond hair looked darker now that it was wet and swept back. The classic features of her oval face revealed her pure beauty. Those eyes shimmered like amethysts. Incredible.
“I’m glad you came out here.”
“After today’s tour, I thought I’d like to see what it was like to swim with Poseidon, god of the sea.”
He sucked in his breath. “You’re not afraid I might make you my next conquest?”
She kept on moving. “Do you think you can?”
He kept up with her. “After our kiss the other night, I think you know the answer to that.”
“What will your wife say?”
“She doesn’t rule my life.”
“That would be the worst fate for you, wouldn’t it? To be ruled by your passion for one woman? To be her slave forever?”
“Not if she’s the right woman.”
“How will you know when you’ve found her?” The pulse throbbing violently in the vulnerable spot of her throat betrayed her.
“I think I have. Stay in Greece until I can unveil all of the real you.”
“The real me?”
“Yes. There’s more to you than you want to let on.”
A beguiling smile broke the corners of her mouth. “And what about you, swimming into my life? Who are you, really?”
He swam closer. “Who would you like me to be?” The blood pounded in his ears.
“Just yourself.”
Raina...
She’d reached for the side of the pool and clung to it. “Akis,” she said softly. “I’m frightened because my feelings for you are already too strong.”
“Strong enough to meet me halfway and kiss me again?”
“I want to.” Her voice throbbed. “But I’m worried I’ll be enslaved by you.”
Akis took a deep breath and moved through the water next to her. “Don’t you know you’re the one who has enslaved me? I need you, Raina.”
Her eyes looked glazed. “You’re not the only one,” she confessed.
He clasped her to him and covered her trembling mouth with his own. This time he’d jumped right into the fire, heedless of the flames licking through his body.
Her curves melted against him as if she were made for him. He kissed her with growing abandon until he felt her hungry response. It wasn’t like anything he’d ever known and he was afraid he’d never get enough.
“Raina,” he whispered in a thick tone. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are? How much I want you?”
She moaned her answer, too swallowed up in their need for each other to talk. This was what Akis had been waiting for all his life, this feeling of oneness and ecstasy.
“Anyone for dinner?” came the sudden godlike voice of thunder.
Raina made a sound in her throat and tore her lips from his. “Socus has seen us.”
“He has to know what’s going on,” Akis whispered against the side of her neck. “You’re a grown woman.”
“Yes, but I’m also a guest in their home. What must he think when we only met a few days ago?”
“That we’re incredibly lucky and are enjoying ourselves.”
She lifted anxious eyes to him. “Way too much.” To his regret she eased away from him in her orange bikini to reach the steps of the pool. After grabbing her towel and crutches, she disappeared inside the house.
Akis threw his dark head back and drank in gulps of air. No doubt Chloe’s father had seen the two of them locked together while the water sizzled around them.
Naturally Raina would bring out a protective instinct in the older man. She was their honored guest. Akis swam to the deep end. After levering himself over the edge, he headed for the cabana to shower and get dressed.
As he was pulling on his crew neck, his cell rang. He drew it from his pant pocket to look at the caller ID and clicked on. “Vasso? Did you get my message?”
“Yes, but we’ve got an electrical problem at the number ten store I’ve got to see about. I’m leaving the penthouse to take care of it now. Before you go away on vacation, I’ve left some papers for you to look at in the den.”
“About that new property we were thinking about on Crete?”
“No. It’s something else. Talk to you later.” He hung up before Akis could question him further.
Something else? What exactly did that mean? Curious over it, Akis left the cabana in a slightly different mood than before and walked around the pool to the covered portion of the patio. Everyone was seated at the table waiting for him. Raina looked a golden vision wearing a pale yellow beach robe over her beautiful body.
“Ah, there you are,” Nora exclaimed. “Now we can eat.”
“I’m sorry to keep you waiting. My brother called me about a business problem. After dinner, I’ll have to get back to the penthouse to deal with it.” His gaze darted to Raina whose eyes were asking questions not even he could answer yet. “I’ll phone you later about our plans for tomorrow.” The night he’d planned with her would have to wait.
* * *
Raina watched Akis’s tall, powerful body disappear from the patio in a few swift strides. Disappointment swept over her. She despised her weakness for remaining silent when he announced in front of Chloe’s parents he’d call her later about plans for the next day. To them the silence on her part meant agreement and she’d be staying in Greece longer.
After the two of them had come close to kissing each other senseless out in the pool, he would naturally assume she couldn’t wait to be with him again. Socus had seen them kissing and had been left in no doubt what was going on between them.
That kiss had been her fault for taunting Akis. In some part of her psyche she’d wanted him to pull her into his arms. Otherwise she wouldn’t have gotten into the pool. She knew she’d come to the edge of a cliff like the kind they’d flown over earlier in the day. One more false step and she’d fall so deep and hard for this man, she’d never recover. Raina couldn’t forget a certain conversation with him.
What will your wife say?
She doesn’t rule my life.
That would be the worst fate for you, wouldn’t it? To be ruled by your passion for one woman? To be her slave forever?
Not if she’s the right woman.
Raina didn’t believe there was a right woman for a man as exciting and virile as Akis. In time he would tire of his latest lover and be caught by another woman who appealed to him. In an instant he’d go in pursuit.
The bitter taste of Byron’s betrayal still lingered. It was time to end this madness with Akis. But she’d promised Chloe’s parents she’d wait to leave Greece until after Chloe and Theo got home from their honeymoon.
Once dinner was over, she went to her room. Though it was early, she took a shower and got ready for bed. She knew Akis would phone her.
If you know what’s good for you, don’t get in any deeper with him, Raina.
CHAPTER FOUR
AKIS LET HIMSELF in the penthouse and walked back to the den. He saw some papers placed on the table next to the computer. They looked like printouts. His brother had handwritten him a note he’d left on top of the keyboard. Akis sat down in the swivel chair and started to read.
Don’t get mad at me for what I’ve done. You’re so damn honorable, I knew you’d let your questions about Raina Maywood eat you alive. So I decided to put you out of your misery and play PI so she can’t accuse you of stalking her. For what it’s worth, you’re going to bless me for what I’ve done.
Start with the printout of the article from a California newspaper, then work through the rest. Any worry you’ve been carrying around about her intentions has flown out the window. There’s so much stuff about her, it’ll blow your mind.
When you told me her last name was Maywood and that she was a friend of Chloe’s from California, it got me thinking about the two helicopters we purchased. No wonder Chloe’s parents allowed her to stay with Raina, the granddaughter of a man who was one of the pillars of the American economy.
Dazed at this point, Akis picked up the top sheet dated nine months ago.
An American icon of aerospace technology is dead at ninety-two. Joseph Maywood died at his estate in Carmel-by-the-Sea after a long bout of stomach cancer. At his side was his beautiful granddaughter, Laraine Maywood, twenty-six, now heiress to the massive multibillion-dollar Maywood fortune. His wife, Ginger Moss, daughter of famous California seascape artist Edwin Moss, passed away from heart failure several years earlier.
Kaching, kaching, kaching.
Pieces of the puzzle were falling into place faster than Akis could absorb them. Nonplussed, he sat staring at the ceiling. She was an heiress...
Adrenaline gushed through his veins.
The X Jet Explorer, built by Pacificopter Inc., was a company owned by the Maywood Corporation in California, USA. Suddenly pure revelation flowed through him. Akis jumped to his feet, incredulous. She was that Maywood.
Absolutely stunned, he reached for the next printout dated four years back.
Scandal rocks world-renowned Carmel-by-the Sea, a European-style California village nestled above a picturesque white-sand beach and home to beautiful heiress-apparent Laraine Maywood Wallace of the Maywood Corporation.
Wallace? He swallowed hard. She’d been married.
He looked back at the paper and kept reading.
Reputed to be a lookalike for the famous French actress and beauty Catherine Deneuve in her youth, she has divorced husband Byron Wallace, the writer and biographer involved in a sensational, messy affair with Hollywood would-be starlet Isabel Granger who was also involved with her director boyfriend.
Akis groaned.
Only now could he understand Raina’s brittle laughter during an earlier conversation. What are you saying? That the stress of having a mistress and keeping his wife happy at the same time was too much, even for a god? He could feel his gut twisting.
Vasso had left a postscript on his note.
You’ve got a green light, bro. No more worry. She’s interested in you, not your money.
He scanned the other sheets, astonished over the two charities she’d started in California in honor of her grandparents, including all she’d accomplished as CEO of the Maywood megacorporation.
These revelations had turned him inside out. It shamed him that he’d been so hard on her in his own mind when she’d suffered such pain in her life. The loss of her parents and grandparents...the betrayal by a man who had never deserved her...
“I hoped I’d find you here. How come you don’t seem happier?”
Akis had been so absorbed and troubled, he hadn’t heard his brother enter the den. He turned in his direction. “I didn’t think you’d be back this soon.”
“There was a power-grid failure, but it was soon repaired. I’m going to ask you again. What’s wrong?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “I feel like I’ve trespassed over her soul.”
Vasso shook his head. “What are you talking about?”
“This information changes everything.” It had been a humbling lesson that had left him shaken.
“Of course it does, but your reaction doesn’t make sense.”
“I can’t explain right now.” He squeezed Vasso’s shoulder. “You’re the best. I’ll get back to you.”
He left the printouts on the desk and hurried out of the penthouse, calling for his limo. Before he left for Chloe’s house, he phoned Raina. She picked up on the third ring.
“Akis? I’m glad you phoned. We were all worried. Is everything okay?”
How strange what a piece of news could do to change everything. She was no longer a mystery in his eyes and the tone in her voice reflected genuine anxiety. The fact that he’d doubted her and had assumed she had an agenda, shamed him. It caused him to wonder how many women he’d falsely labeled when they were as innocent as Raina.
“That all depends on you.” He gripped the phone tighter.
“So...there was no emergency with your business, or—or your brother?” Her voice sounded shaky.
Touched by her concern he said, “No. The problem was a power-grid failure that was soon put to right.” This emergency was one closer to home. One so serious, he could hardly breathe. “I’m on my way over to talk to you.”
“No, Akis. I’ve gone to bed.”
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll do whatever we feel like. I promise not to touch you unless you want me to. I’ve never met a woman remotely like you. I want to get to know you better, Raina. It would be worth everything to me.”
Silence met his question.
“I’m not a god. As you found out in the pool, I’m a mortal with flaws trying to make it through this life. By a stroke of fate you were at the reception when I needed a woman who would dance with me. I haven’t been the same since you lifted those violet eyes to me and told me you didn’t speak Greek.”
“I lied,” she murmured. “I know about ten words.”
His eyes closed tightly. “If you want nothing more to do with me, then say no in Greek and I’ll leave you alone.” It would serve him right. He didn’t deserve her attention. He held the phone so tightly while he waited, it was amazing it didn’t break.
“Neh,” he heard her say.
“That means yes, not no.”
“I know. I’ll be here in the morning when you come over. I admit I’d like to get to know you better, even if it goes against my better judgment. Good night.”
An honest woman.
Akis released the breath he was holding. “Kalineekta, thespinis.”
* * *
Raina spent a restless night waiting for morning to come. After hearing from Akis last night, she’d had trouble getting to sleep. She turned on television just as the news came on. All of a sudden she saw herself and Akis leaving the Grand Bretagne to get into the limo. It was already old news, but still playing because he was so gorgeous.
She shut off the TV, but couldn’t shut out the memory of their kiss in the pool. When Akis had called her, she’d sensed a change in him. That edge in his voice had gone. There was a new earnestness in the way he spoke that compelled her to give in. Not only for his reasons, but for her own.
Besides his exceptional male beauty and the desire he’d aroused in her, she’d never met such a dynamic man. He’d gone to great lengths to entertain her while she had to stay off her leg. Only a resourceful person would give her a tour of Athens through a telescope and a sightseeing tour by helicopter, making sure she was comfortable.
He’d been generous with his time and was obviously successful in business with his brother. If she didn’t know anything else about him, she knew that much. Chloe’s parents seemed very fond of him. When it came right down to it, the big problem was the fact that he was Greek and lived here. Before long she had to go home.
But until that day came, she had to admit to a growing excitement at spending time with him. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken a true vacation. Not since before her marriage to Byron.
Yes, it was taking a big risk to be with Akis, but she was tired of the continual battle to protect her heart. Before her grandfather had died, he’d warned her not to stay closed up because of Byron. She was too young to go through life an old maid because of one wretched man who didn’t know the first thing about being a husband.
“Oh, Grandfather—I wish you were here. I’ve met a man who has stirred me like no other. Maybe he’ll hurt me in the end, but I’ll hurt more if I don’t go with my feelings for him and see what happens.”
If she let Byron win, then she was condemning herself to a life without love or children.
Raina had listened to her grandfather’s wise counsel, but it wasn’t until she’d been with Akis that his words had started to sink in.
Until the other night when he’d taken her back to the hotel, she’d felt old beyond her years, incapable of feeling the joy of falling in love or anything close to it. But being with Akis had made her forget the past and live in the moment for a little while. To date, no other man had been able to accomplish that miracle.
Akis thrilled her. He did. For once, why not go with those feelings? She wasn’t about to walk down the aisle with him, but she could have a wonderful time for as long as this vacation lasted.
Without wasting time, she sat on the side of the bed and phoned the Maywood jet propulsion lab in Salinas where she worked. She asked to be put through to Larry.
“Raina! Great to hear from you. Are you back?”
“No. That’s why I’m calling. I’ve decided to stay in Greece for a couple of weeks. Is that going to present any difficulties for you? I’ve got my laptop. If you need some problem solving done, I can do it from here.”
“No, no. It’s about time you took a long vacation. I take it you attended your friend’s wedding.”
“Yes. It was fabulous.” Akis was fabulous.
“You sound different. Happier. That’s excellent news.”
“It’s because I’m having a wonderful time. By the way, I was given a tour of the Ionian Islands in our latest X Jet Explorer. Take it from me, it’s a winner in every aspect.”
“Wait till I tell everyone! The Giannopoulos Company was our first buyer from Greece. They took delivery of two of them just a month ago.”
Raina sprang to her feet in surprise. She’d assumed Akis had chartered a flight through one of the helicopter companies. “Giannopoulos?”
“Yes. Two brothers—like Onassis—who came from nothing and have become billionaires. How did you happen to meet up with them?”
Chloe had never mentioned a word. She’d been too caught up in her wedding arrangements. “Very accidentally,” Raina’s voice shook as she answered him.
“I’ve heard they have several thousand stores all over Greece.”
Her hand tightened on the phone. You sprained your ankle in one of them, Raina.
Stunned by the news, Raina sank back down on the bed. The knowledge that Akis had his own money meant he was the antithesis of Byron, who couldn’t make it on his own without living off a woman’s money. Her grandfather’s shrewd brain was instrumental in making certain Byron’s extortion tactics for alimony didn’t work.