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As for Akis, whether he knew about her background or not, it didn’t matter. Finances would never get in the way of her relationship with him. For the first time in her adult life she had no worry in that regard. Akis had his own money and was his own person.
“Thanks for letting me take more time off, Larry.” Once she hung up, Raina felt so light-hearted she wanted to whirl around the room, but that wouldn’t be a good idea yet. She couldn’t risk taking a chance in delaying her recovery.
After getting dressed in a clean pair of jeans and blouse, she took time with her hair and makeup, wanting to look her best for him. Once ready, she left the bedroom on her crutches and headed out to the patio where the family always gathered for meals.
Her senses came alive to see Akis at the table with Chloe’s parents while they ate breakfast. He wore a simple T-shirt and jeans. All she saw was the striking male who’d swept into her world, moving mountains to find out where she was hiding.
Well, maybe not mountains above the sea, she smiled to herself, remembering that he wasn’t Poseidon. Right then she discovered him staring at her. The longing in his jet-black eyes told her he wanted her for herself. No other reason. He got to his feet and came round to relieve her of the crutches.
“Good morning, thespinis.” His deep voice sent curls of warmth through her body.
“It’s a lovely morning,” she said as he helped her to sit. The soap tang from his body assailed her with its fresh scent.
Socus smiled at her. “What are your plans for today?”
Her gaze switched to Akis who sat across from her. “I’m going to leave the decision up to my tour director.”
His eyes gleamed over the rim of his coffee cup. “In that case you’ll need to pack a bag because we’ll be gone for a while. For the first couple of days we’ll lounge by the water to give your ankle a good rest. After that we’ll do more ambitious things.”
“That’s good for you to be careful,” Nora commented.
“I’ll make sure of it.” Akis finished his meal. “When you’re ready, we’ll leave in the helicopter.”
Raina took a certain pride in knowing she’d helped on the project that had tested it before it was ready for the market. Who would have dreamed she’d end up with Akis taking her for a tour in one he’d recently purchased for his business?
After eating some yogurt and fruit, she stood up. “I’ll just go put some things in a bag.”
Akis came around and handed her the crutches. In a few minutes they made their way out of the house to the helicopter pad. It was like déjà vu, except that this time Raina knew she and Akis were functioning on a level playing field where all that mattered was their mutual enjoyment of each other.
He helped her on board and propped her leg. Soon the blades were rotating and they were off. Raina hadn’t asked where they were going. The thrill of being taken care of by a good man was enough for her to trust in his decision making.
After a minute he turned to her. “We’re headed back to Anti Paxos.”
“That island must have great significance for you.”
“It’s home to me when I’m not working. En route we’ll fly over Corinth and Patras, old Biblical sites.”
“I get gooseflesh just hearing those names. My grandparents took me to Jerusalem years ago. We didn’t have time in Greece to see the religious sites. They promised we’d come back, but because of my grandmother’s ill health, that promise wasn’t realized.”
“Then I’m glad you can see some of the ancient Biblical cities from the air.”
For the next hour, the sights she saw including the islands of Cephalonia and Lefkada filled her with wonder.
“Do you recognize your birthplace?” he spoke over the mic.
She chuckled. “I thought I was born in Carmel, California.”
“Then you’ve been misled. The goddess Aphrodite was reputed to be born on Lefkada.” With his sunglasses on, she couldn’t see his eyes, but she imagined they were smiling.
“That put her in easy reach of Poseidon.”
“Exactly.”
Before long they circled Paxos and still lower over Anti Paxos before the pilot set them down on a stone slab nestled on a hillside of olive trees and vineyards. Through the foliage she could make out a small quaint villa.
Enchanted by the surroundings, she accepted Akis’s help as he lifted her to the ground and handed her the crutches. The pilot gave him her suitcase and purse to carry. They both waved to him before Akis led her along a pathway of mosaic and stone lined by a profusion of flowers to the side of the villa.
“What’s that wonderful smell?”
“Thyme. It grows wild on the hillside.”
The rustic charm and simplicity in this heavenly setting delighted her.
Once inside, she saw that the living room had been carved out of rock. A fireplace dominated that side of the cottage. The vaulted ceiling and beams of the house with its stone walls and arches defied description. Here and there were small framed photos of his family and splashes of color from the odd cushion and ceramics. She felt like she’d arrived in a place where time had stood still.
He opened French doors to the terrace with a table and chairs that looked out over a small, kidney-shaped swimming pool. A cluster of flowers grew at one end. Beyond it shimmered the blue waters of the Ionian in the distance. You couldn’t see where the sky met the sea.
She walked to the edge of the grill-work railing. “If I lived here, I wouldn’t want to go anywhere else. What a perfect hideaway.”
He stood behind her, but he didn’t touch her. He’d promised he wouldn’t, but the heat from his body created yearnings within her. “I like living in a cottage. It suits my needs.”
Unlike the penthouse, this place reflected his personality.
“How old is the original house?”
“Two hundred years more or less. If you want to use the bathroom, I’ll take your bags to the guest room.”
“Thank you.”
In a few minutes she’d seen the layout of the house. The kitchen and bathroom had been modernized, but everything else remained intact like dwellings from the nineteenth century. She adored the little drop-leaf table and chairs meant for two, built into a wall in the kitchen. On the opposite wall was a door that opened onto steps leading down to the terrace.
A room for the washer and dryer had been built in the middle of the hallway between the two bedrooms. He had everything at his fingertips. She sat in one of the easy chairs and put her crutches down beside her. Akis brought a stool over to rest her leg, then he went to the kitchen and started getting things out of the fridge.
“I’m going to fix our dinner.”
“If you’ll give me a job, I’ll help.”
“Don’t worry about it today.”
“Akis? I don’t know if you’ve heard the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but this cottage reminds me of their adorable house in the forest.”
“We Greeks have our own fairy tales. My favorite was the one our father taught me and Vasso about Demetros who lived with his mother in a hut much like this one was once. When I come here to be alone, I’m reminded of it. He fell in love with a golden-haired fairy, but she wasn’t happy with him and went away.
“Vasso and I must have heard that story so many times we memorized the words. Demetros would cry for the rest of his life, ‘Come back, come back, my fairy wife. Come back, my fairy child. Seeking and searching I spend my life; I wander lone and wild.’”
Strangely touched by the story she asked, “He never found her again?”
“No. She belonged to a fairy kingdom where he couldn’t go.”
“That’s a sad fairy tale.”
“Our father was a realist. I believe he wanted us to learn that you shouldn’t try to hold on to something that isn’t truly yours or you’ll end up like Demetros.”
That’s what Raina had tried to do when she first felt like she was losing Byron, who’d married her for money. It wasn’t until the divorce she’d learned he’d been unfaithful even while they were dating.
No wonder their marriage hadn’t worked. He thought he could have a wife, plus her money and another life on the side. Byron had belonged to his own secret world and could never be hers. Her choice in men before she’d come to Greece had been flawed.
As she glanced at Theo’s best man, she realized she was looking at the best man alive. The knowledge shook her to the foundations. “Your father sounds like a wise man,” she murmured. “Tell me about him.”
“He came from a very poor family on Paxos.” Ah, she was beginning to understand why these islands drew him. “My grandparents and their children, with the exception of my father, were victims of the malaria epidemic that hit thousands of Greek villages at the time. By the early nineteen-sixties it was eradicated, but too late for them.”
“But your father didn’t contract the disease?”
“No. Sometimes it missed someone in a family. A poor fisherman living in a tiny hut in Loggos, who’d lost his family, took my father in to help him catch fish they sold at a shop in the marketplace. When he died, he left my father the hut and a rowboat. Papa married a girl who worked in the olive groves. Her family had perished during the epidemic too. They had to scrape for a living any way they could.”
“It’s hard for me to believe people can live through such hardships, but I know they do. Millions and millions, and somehow they survive.”
“According to our papa, our parents were in love and happy.”
“The magic ingredients. Mine were in love, too.”
He nodded. “First Vasso was born, then I came along eleven months later. But the delivery was too hard on Mama, who was in frail health, and she died.”
“Oh, no,” Raina cried softly. “To not know your mother... I’m so sorry, Akis. I at least had mine until I was twelve.”
Solemn eyes met hers. “But you lost both parents. It seems you and I have that in common.”
“But you never even knew her. It breaks my heart. How on earth did you all manage?”
“Our father kept on working to keep us alive by supplying olives and fish to the shop. When we were five and six years old, we would help him and never attended school on a regular basis. Life was a struggle. It was all we knew.
“The village thought of us as the poor Giannopoulos kids. Most people looked down on us. Then things turned worse when our father was diagnosed with lymphoma and died.”
A quiet gasp escaped. “How old were you?”
“Thirteen and fourteen. By then the woman’s husband who owned the shop had also died and she needed help. So she let us work in her shop and helped us learn English. She said it was important to cater to the British and American tourists in their language. We studied English from a book when we could.”
“You learned English with no formal schooling? That’s incredible.”
He stared hard at her. “You’re talking to a man whose education is sorely lacking in so many areas, I don’t even like to think about it.”
“I see no lack in you. Anything but.”
“Give it time and my inadequacies will be evident in dozens of ways, but I digress.
“While Vasso waited on customers and did jobs the woman’s husband had done, I would go fishing and pick olives. Then it would be my turn to spell him off. I don’t think we got more than six hours sleep a night for several years.”
“No time to play,” she mused aloud.
He made an odd sound in his throat. “We didn’t know the meaning of the word.”
Raina hated to see him do all the work and got up to help him. For the first time she didn’t use crutches because the kitchen was so close.
“Careful,” he cautioned.
“My ankle doesn’t hurt.”
“Just do me a favor and sit in the chair at the table. The food is ready. I’ll bring everything over so we can eat.” He’d cut up fresh melon and made a shrimp salad. Lastly came some rolls and iced tea.
“When did you have time to stock the refrigerator?”
He sat down opposite her. “I pay a boy to do errands for me when I come to the island.”
“No housekeeper?”
“I prefer to do the work myself.”
“You’re a jack-of-all-trades as we say in English.”
“What does it mean exactly? Whether you’ve been aware of it or not, I’ve been picking up a few expressions from you, but I’ll admit I’m not familiar with that one.”
“Jack is a common name and it means that you can do everything well. Now that you’ve given me some idea of your background, I understand why.” The minute she said the word, she saw the slightest hint of emotion cause his lips to thin.
Realizing she’d stumbled on to something significant when he already felt vulnerable she said, “Akis? At the pool when I told you to talk to someone of your own kind and background, you thought I was being condescending. Admit it.”
“The thought did cross my mind.”
“Since I knew nothing about your upbringing until just now, will you believe me when I tell you I only said what I did because—”
“Because you sensed I was extremely attracted and it made you nervous.” His dark eyes devoured her as he spoke.
She squirmed on the wooden chair. “You’re right. Please go on and finish telling me your life’s story. I’m riveted. The food is delicious, by the way.”
“Thank you.” He leaned forward. “The widow we worked for started to suffer from poor health and gave us more and more responsibility. One day an American came in and told us the place reminded him of the convenience-store chains in America. He said they were all over the country. We looked into it and started to make innovations.”
“Like what?”
“To keep the shop open twenty-four hours, which we took turns manning. Besides stocking it with a few other items tourists needed, we let patrons cash checks and provided free delivery for those living or staying nearby. In time we’d saved enough money to buy half the store. When she had to stop working, we bought her out.”
“That’s amazing! How old were you?”
“I was eighteen. Vasso had turned nineteen and had to serve nine months in the army. While he was gone, I ran things. After he got back, it was my turn for military service. We both served in the peacekeeping forces and undertook the command of Kabul International Airport.”
“It’s a miracle neither of you was injured, or worse.”
He shook his head, dismissing it too fast for her liking. What was it he wasn’t prepared to share? “The real miracle was that overnight we started making real money. After the early years when most nights we went to bed hungry, it was literally like manna falling from heaven.
“After selling the hut, we moved to an apartment in Loggos right along the harbor. When the widow died, we purchased the property and undertook renovations. In time we’d made enough money to buy failing shops of the same type in Gaios and Lakka, the other towns on the island. We patterned them after the chains we’d investigated and called them Alpha/Omega 24.”
She looked at him in amazement. “When I think of two brothers who had the will to survive everything and succeed, I’m in absolute awe over what you accomplished. How did you end up in Athens?”
“You really want to hear?”
“I can’t get enough. Please. You can’t stop now.”
* * *
Not immune to her entreaty, Akis brought some plums to the table for their dessert before he spoke. “When our staff was in place at all three stores and we felt confident enough to leave, we took a ferry to Corfu. From there we flew to Athens, our first commercial plane trip.”
“Late bloomers on your way to do big business.” The warmth of her smile melted him. “Were you excited?”
“We were so full of our plans for future expansion, not much else registered. Without the backing of an established bank, we didn’t have a prayer. After two days we found a shop for sale we wanted to buy and started talking to bankers. We were turned down by everyone.”
Her eyes reflected the hue of a lavender field. “Obviously that didn’t stop you.”
“No. At the last bank on our list we met Theo Chiotis in the loan department. He was working his way up in his family’s banking business. Maybe it was because we were all the same age and he could tell we were hungry, or maybe we just caught him on a good day, but he was actually willing to examine the books.”
“Bless Theo,” she murmured.
Akis nodded. “He asked a lot of questions and went with us to look at the property the next day. As we explained how we would remodel and showed him pictures, he said he would take the matter up with the bank director and get back to us. We had no choice but to return to Paxos and go about our business.”
“How long did you have to wait?”
“A week.”
“It must have felt like an eternity.”
Unable to resist, he covered her hand resting on the table and squeezed it before letting it go. “He told us the bank would give us the loan for the one store. If it turned a profit, they’d consider loaning us more money for other stores in the future. But the loan was contingent on our offering our other stores as collateral.”
“Of course. Akis—you had to have been overjoyed!”
He sat back in the chair. “Yes and no. Athens was a big city, not a little village. We had to gamble that Athenians as well as tourists would patronize us. In no time our number four store was up and running. Vasso and I took turns manning it. Literally overnight we started making a profit we hadn’t even imagined and we never looked back. We call it our lucky store. Would it interest you to know that’s the store where you fell?”
A gentle laugh escaped her lips. “The concierge at the hotel recommended it so I could buy some headache medicine. After spraining my ankle, I didn’t think I was so lucky.”
“Fate definitely had something in store for us.”
“Certainly for you since you and Theo became best friends.”
“Theo had the good sense to fall in love with Chloe. If there’d been no Theo, you and I would never have met.” Akis didn’t even want to think about that possibility. “While I clean up, why don’t you go in the living room so you can stretch out on the couch? There’s an evening breeze coming in off the terrace.”
“What’s that other smell besides thyme?”
“It’s the woody scent of the maquis growing here mixed with rock rose and laurel.”
“I think you’ve brought me to the Elysian fields where Zeus allowed Homer to live out his days in happiness surrounded by flowers.”
Everything she said reminded him that she was highly educated and had seen and done things only experienced by a privileged few. She knew things you only learned from books and academic study. That was part of what made her so desirable. What could he give her in return?
That question burned in his brain as he cleared the table and put things away. “I take it you don’t mind being whisked here.”
Her mouth curved into a full-bodied smile, filling him with indescribable longings. “Your only problem, Akis Giannopoulos, will be to pry me away when it’s time to leave. I love this island where you come to fill your lamp with oil.”
The things that came out of that beautiful mouth.
He took a swift breath. “Raina Maywood? Before it’s time for bed, it’s time I heard the story of your life.”
CHAPTER FIVE
RAINA GOT UP before he could help her and walked into the other room, but she didn’t dare lie down on the couch. The way she was feeling about Akis right now, Raina would ask him to join her and beg him to love her, so she opted for the chair.
He was a man a breed apart from other men in so many vital ways. What an irony that she’d tried to run from him that first night! What if he hadn’t pursued her? The thought of never knowing him was like trying to imagine a world without the sun. She waited for him to come in the living room.
When he did, he stretched out on the couch, using the arm for a pillow. After hearing about his beginnings, she felt doubly privileged to be with him like this in his own private sanctuary. He turned his head toward her. “You haven’t told me much about your parents.”
Somehow Raina knew that question would come first. “I was blissfully happy until they died. Dad was an engineer.”
“Your father had the kind of education I would have given anything for. And your mother?”
“She went to college, but became a housewife after I was born. My most vivid memory of her was playing on the beach. We built sand castles and talked about life while my grandmother painted. I was blessed with grandparents who were there for me when my parents died. I don’t know how I would have survived otherwise. They brought happiness into my life again, but they knew I was lonely, even though I had friends.
“That’s why they said I could have a student from a foreign country come and live with us during my senior year. I don’t know how it happened that Chloe was the perfect pick for me. It was so fun helping her with her English. She was an only child, too, so we just clicked from the beginning.
“My parents’ house was near my grandparents who lived close to the ocean. We had horses. I grew up riding and loving it. When Chloe came, we rode along the beach and we did a lot of hiking in the Big Sur Mountains. We made all these plans about what we’d do when I went to Greece. But after Chloe left, my grandmother’s heart started to act up and I was afraid to leave her.”
“I’m sorry,” he murmured. “Was it hard to see Chloe go?”
“Yes, but thankfully I had college and became engrossed in my studies.”
He turned on his side toward her. “I missed out on that experience a lot of people take for granted.” Akis sounded far away just then.
She smiled at him. “You didn’t miss anything.” Mindful that his impoverished background had made him the slightest bit sensitive, she said, “What you learned growing up was something no professor or textbook could ever teach you. Every student could take lessons from your work ethic alone.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want to talk about me.”
“I’m not patronizing you, Akis.”
“I know that. Keep talking. I love to hear about you. What did you study?”
“My father took after his father and his father before him. I guess a little of it rubbed off on me. I did well in math and science so I went to graduate school and studied physics. After that I went to work for the Maywood Corporation at our jet propulsion lab in Salinas, not far from Carmel.”
* * *
Incredulous, Akis jackknifed into a sitting position. “Where the helicopters Vasso and I bought are manufactured?”
Her eyes lit up in amusement. “My team did work on its sensor system, one that spanned the electromagnetic spectrum using state-of-the-art instrumentation.”
He was aghast. “You rode in a helicopter whose electronics you helped design and you never said a word?”
“Maybe I didn’t for the same reason you didn’t tell me your number-four store was only one of many.”
They’d both been gun-shy of revealing themselves. He got it. “I’m so impressed with the work you do, I can hardly believe you’ve decided to prolong your vacation here.”
“If you want to know the truth, I’ve worried that you’ve taken your tour director duty too seriously and your brother might feel that you’re neglecting business because of me.”
After the information Vasso found on Raina, no doubt he was curious about what was going on and had left a message for Akis to call him. But he’d put off returning it because for the first time in his life, a woman filled his world and he couldn’t concentrate on anything else.
“It’s getting late, Raina. Before we go to bed, what would you like to do tomorrow?”
“Swim in that green water off your private section of beach. It tops anything I’ve seen in the Caribbean.”
“I’ve never been to the Caribbean.” It was yet another reminder of how worlds apart they were in experience. But her observation caused him to expel a satisfied breath. “That can be arranged. There are few cars on the island, but I have a run-down truck parked on the property to get me around if I need it. We’ll drive down to the shore line. Getting there would be tricky with your crutches.”