At The Greek Boss’s Bidding

Jane Porter

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Coming Next Month

For two of my favorite heroes: my brothers Dr. Thomas W. Porter and Robert George Porter.

PROLOGUE

THE helicopter slammed against the rocky incline of the mountain thick with drifts of snow.

Glass shattered, metal crunched and red flames shot from the engine, turning what Kristian Koumantaros knew was glacial white into a shimmering dance of fire and ice.

Unable to see, he struggled with his seatbelt. The helicopter tilted, sliding a few feet. Fire burned everywhere as the heat surged, surrounding him. Kristian tugged his seatbelt again. The clip was jammed.

The smoke seared his lungs, blistering each breath.

Life and death, he thought woozily. Life and death came down to this. And life-and-death decisions were often no different than any other decisions. You did what you had to do and the consequences be damned.

Kristian had done what he had to do and the consequences damned him.

As the roar of the fire grew louder, the helicopter shifted again, the snow giving way.

My God. Kristian threw his arms out, and yet there was nothing to grab, and they were sent tumbling down the mountain face. Another avalanche, he thought, deafened by the endless roar—

And then nothing.

CHAPTER ONE

“OHI. No.” The deep rough voice could be none other than Kristian Koumantaros himself. “Not interested. Tell her to go away.”

Standing in the hall outside the library, Elizabeth Hatchet drew a deep breath, strengthening her resolve. This was not going to be easy, but then nothing about Kristian Koumantaros’s case had been easy. Not the accident, not the rehab, not the location of his estate.

It had taken her two days to get here from London—a flight from London to Athens, an endless drive from Athens to Sparta, and finally a bone-jarring cart and donkey trip halfway up the ridiculously inaccessible mountain.

Why anybody, much less a man who couldn’t walk and couldn’t see, would want to live in a former monastery built on a rocky crag on a slope of Taygetos, the highest mountain in the Peloponnese, was beyond her. But now that she was here, she wasn’t going to go away.

“Kyrios.” Another voice sounded from within the library and Elizabeth recognized the voice as the Greek servant who’d met her at the door. “She’s traveled a long way—”

“I’ve had it with the bloody help from First Class Rehab. First Class, my ass.”

Elizabeth closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, counting to ten as she did so.

She’d been told by her Athens staff that it was a long trip to the former monastery.

She’d been warned that reaching rugged Taygetos, with its severe landscape but breathtaking vistas, was nearly as exhausting as caring for Mr. Koumantaros.

Her staff had counseled that traveling up this spectacular mountain with its ancient Byzantine ruins would seem at turns mythical as well as impossible, but Elizabeth, climbing into the donkey cart, had thought she’d been prepared. She’d thought she knew what she was getting into.

Just like she’d thought she knew what she was getting into when she agreed to provide Mr. Koumantaros’s home health care after he was released from the French hospital.

In both cases she had been wrong.

The painfully slow, bumpy ride had left her woozy, with a queasy stomach and a pounding headache.

Attempting to rehabilitate Mr. Koumantaros had made her suffer far worse. Quite bluntly, he’d nearly bankrupted her company.

Elizabeth tensed at the sound of glass breaking, followed by a string of select and exceptionally colorful Greek curses.

“Kyrios, it’s just a glass. It can be replaced.”

“I hate this, Pano. Hate everything about this—”

“I know, kyrios.” Pano’s voice dropped low, and Elizabeth couldn’t hear much of what was said, but apparently it had the effect of calming Mr. Koumantaros.

Elizabeth wasn’t soothed.

Kristian Koumantaros might be fabulously wealthy and able to afford an eccentric and reclusive lifestyle in the Peloponnese, but that didn’t excuse his behavior. And his behavior was nothing short of self-absorbed and self-destructive.

She was here because Kristian Koumantaros couldn’t keep a nurse, and he couldn’t keep a nurse because he couldn’t keep his temper.

The voices in the library were growing louder again. Elizabeth, fluent in Greek, listened as they discussed her.

Mr. Koumantaros didn’t want her here.

Pano, the elderly butler, was attempting to convince that Mr. Koumantaros it wouldn’t be polite to send the nurse away without seeing her.

Mr. Koumantaros said he didn’t care about being polite.

Elizabeth’s mouth curved wryly as the butler urged Mr. Koumantaros to at least offer her some refreshment.

Her wry smile disappeared as she heard Mr. Koumantaros answer that as most nurses from First Class Rehab were large women Ms. Hatchet could probably benefit from passing on an afternoon snack.

“Kyrios,” Pano persisted, “she’s brought a suitcase. Luggage. Ms. Hatchet intends to stay.”

“Stay?” Koumantaros roared.

“Yes, kyrios.” The elderly Greek’s tone couldn’t have been any more apologetic, but his words had the effect of sending Kristian into another litany of curses.

“For God’s sake, Pano, leave the damn glass alone and dispense with her. Throw her a bone. Get her a donkey. I don’t care. Just do it. Now.”

“But she’s traveled from London—”

“I don’t care if she flew from the moon. She had no business coming here. I left a message two weeks ago with the service. That woman knows perfectly well I’ve fired them. I didn’t ask her to come. And it’s not my problem she wasted her time.”

Speaking of which, Elizabeth thought, rubbing at the back of her neck to ease the pinch of pain, she was wasting time standing here. It was time to introduce herself, get the meeting underway.

Shoulders squared, Elizabeth took a deep breath and pushed the tall door open. As she entered the room, her low heels made a faint clicking sound on the hardwood floor.

“Good afternoon, Mr. Koumantaros,” she said. Her narrowed gaze flashed across the shuttered windows, cluttered coffee table, newspapers stacked computer-high on a corner desk. Had to be a month’s newspapers piled there, unread.

“You’re trespassing, and eavesdropping.” Kristian jerked upright in his wheelchair, his deep voice vibrating with fury.

She barely glanced his way, heading instead for the small table filled with prescription bottles. “You were shouting, Mr. Koumantaros. I didn’t need to eavesdrop. And I’d be trespassing if your care weren’t my responsibility, but it is, so you’re going to have to deal with me.”

At the table, Elizabeth picked up one of the medicine bottles to check the label, and then the others. It was an old habit, an automatic habit. The first thing a medical professional needed to know was what, if anything, the patient was taking.

Kristian’s hunched figure in the wheelchair shuddered as he tried to follow the sound of her movements, his eyes shielded by a white gauze bandage wrapped around his head, the white gauze a brilliant contrast to his thick onyx hair. “Your services have already been terminated,” he said tersely.

“You’ve been overruled,” Elizabeth answered, returning the bottles to the table to study him. The bandages swathing his eyes exposed the hard, carved contours of his face. He had chiseled cheekbones, a firm chin and strong jaw shadowed with a rough black beard. From the look of it, he hadn’t shaved since the last nurse had been sent packing.

“By whom?” he demanded, leaning crookedly in his chair.

“Your physicians.”

“My physicians?”

“Yes, indeed. We’re in daily contact with them, Mr. Koumantaros, and these past several months have made them question your mental soundness.”

“You must be joking.”

“Not at all. There is a discussion that perhaps you’d be better cared for in a facility—”

“Get out!” he demanded, pointing at the door. “Get out now.”

Elizabeth didn’t move. Instead she cocked her head, coolly examining him. He looked impossibly unkempt, nothing like the sophisticated powerful tycoon he’d reportedly been, with castles and estates scattered all over the world and a gorgeous mistress tucked enticingly in each.

“They fear for you, Mr. Koumantaros,” she added quietly, “and so do I. You need help.”

“That’s absurd. If my doctors were so concerned, they’d be here. And you…you don’t know me. You can’t drop in here and make assessments based on two minutes of observation.”

“I can, because I’ve managed your case from day one, when you were released from the hospital. No one knows more about you and your day-to-day care than I do. And if you’d always been this despondent we’d see it as a personality issue, but your despair is new—”

“There’s no despair. I’m just tired.”

“Then let’s address that, shall we?” Elizabeth flipped open her leather portfolio and scribbled some notes. One couldn’t be too careful these days. She had to protect the agency, not to mention her staff. She’d learned early to document everything. “It’s tragic you’re still in your present condition—tragic to isolate yourself here on Taygetos when there are people waiting for you in Athens, people wanting you to come home.”

“I live here permanently now.”

She glanced up at him. “You’ve no intention of returning?”

“I spent years renovating this monastery, updating and converting it into a modern home to meet my needs.”

“That was before you were injured. It’s not practical for you to live here now. You can’t fly—”

“Don’t tell me what I can’t do.”

She swallowed, tried again. “It’s not easy for your friends or family to see you. You’re absolutely secluded here—”

“As I wish to be.”

“But how can you fully recover when you’re so alone in what is undoubtedly one of the most remote places in Greece?”

He averted his head, giving her a glimpse of a very strong, very proud profile. “This is my home,” he repeated stubbornly, his tone colder, flintier.

“And what of your company? The businesses? Have you given those up along with your friends and family?”

“If this is your bedside manner—”

“Oh, it is,” she assured him unapologetically. “Mr. Koumantaros, I’m not here to coddle you. Nor to say pretty things and try to make you laugh. I’m here to get you on your feet again.”

“It’s not going to happen.”

“Because you like being helpless, or because you’re afraid of pain?”

For a moment he said nothing, his face growing paler against the white gauze bandaging his head. Finally he found his voice. “How dare you?” he demanded. “How dare you waltz into my home—?”

“It wasn’t exactly a waltz, Mr. Koumantaros. It took me two days to get here and that included planes, taxis, buses and asses.” She smiled thinly. This was the last place she’d wanted to come, and the last person she wanted to nurse. “It’s been nearly a year since your accident,” she continued. “There’s no medical reason for you to be as helpless as you are.”

“Get out.”

“I can’t. Not only have I’ve nowhere to go—as you must know, it’s too dark to take a donkey back down the mountain.”

“No, I don’t know. I’m blind. I’ve no idea what time of day it is.”

Heat surged to her cheeks. Heat and shame and disgust. Not for her, but him. If he expected her to feel sorry for him, he had another thing coming, and if he hoped to intimidate her, he was wrong again. He could shout and break things, but she wasn’t about to cower like a frightened puppy dog. Just because he was a famous Greek with a billion-dollar company didn’t mean he deserved her respect. Respect was earned, not automatically given.

“It’s almost four o’clock, Mr. Koumantaros. Half of the mountain is already steeped in shadows. I couldn’t go home tonight even if I wanted to. Your doctors have authorized me to stay, so I must. It’s either that or you go to a rehab facility in Athens. Your choice.”

“Not much of a choice.”

“No, it’s not.” Elizabeth picked up one of the prescription bottles and popped off the plastic cap to see the number of tablets inside. Three remained from a count of thirty. The prescription had only been refilled a week ago. “Still not sleeping, Mr. Koumantaros?”

“I can’t.”

“Still in a lot of pain, then?” She pressed the notebook to her chest, stared at him over the portfolio’s edge. Probably addicted to his painkillers now. Happened more often than not. One more battle ahead.

Kristian Koumantaros shifted in his wheelchair. The bandages that hid his eyes revealed the sharp twist of his lips. “As if you care.”

She didn’t even blink. His self-pity didn’t trigger sympathy. Self-pity was a typical stage in the healing process—an early stage, one of the first. And the fact that Kristian Koumantaros hadn’t moved beyond it meant he had a long, long way to go.

“I do care,” she answered flatly. Elizabeth didn’t bother to add that she also cared about the future of her company, First Class Rehab, and that providing for Kristian Koumantaros’s medical needs had nearly ruined her four-year-old company. “I do care, but I won’t be like the others—going soft on you, accepting your excuses, allowing you to get away with murder.”

“And what do you know of murder, Miss Holier-Than-Thou?” He wrenched his wheelchair forward, the hard rubber tires crunching glass shards.

“Careful, Mr. Koumantaros! You’ll pop a tire.”

“Good. Pop the goddamn tires. I hate this chair. I hate not seeing. I despise living like this.” He swore violently, but at least he’d stopped rolling forward and was sitting still while the butler hurriedly finished sweeping up the glass with a small broom and dustpan.

As Kristian sat, his enormous shoulders turned inward, his dark head hung low.

Despair.

The word whispered to her, summing up what she saw, what she felt. His black mood wasn’t merely anger. It was bigger than that, darker than that. His black mood was fed by despair.

He was, she thought, feeling the smallest prick of sympathy, a ruin of a great man.

As swiftly as the sympathy came, she pushed it aside, replacing tenderness with resolve. He’d get well. There was no reason he couldn’t.

Elizabeth signaled to Pano that she wanted a word alone with his employer and, nodding, he left them, exiting the library with his dustpan of broken glass.

“Now, then, Mr. Koumantaros,” she said as the library doors closed, “we need to get you back on your rehab program. But we can’t do that if you insist on intimidating your nurses.”

“They were all completely useless, incompetent—”

“All six?” she interrupted, taking a seat on the nearest armchair arm.

He’d gone through the roster of home healthcare specialists in record fashion. In fact, they’d run out of possible candidates. There was no one else to send. And yet Mr. Koumantaros couldn’t be left alone. He required more than a butler. He still needed around-the-clock medical care.

“One nurse wasn’t so bad. Well, in some ways,” he said grudgingly, tapping the metal rim of his wheelchair with his finger tips. “The young one. Calista. And believe me, if she was the best it should show you how bad the others were. But that’s another story—”

“Miss Aravantinos isn’t coming back.” Elizabeth felt her temper rise. Of course he’d request the one nurse he’d broken into bits. The poor girl, barely out of nursing school, had been putty in Kristian Koumantaros’s hands. Literally. For a man with life-threatening injuries he’d been incredibly adept at seduction.

His dark head tipped sideways. “Was that her last name?”

“You behaved in a most unscrupulous manner. You’re thirty—what?” She quickly flipped through his chart, found his age. “Nearly thirty-six. And she was barely twenty-three. She quit, you know. Left our Athens office. She felt terribly demoralized.”

“I never asked Calista to fall in love with me.”

“Love?” she choked. “Love didn’t have anything to do with it. You seduced her. Out of boredom. And spite.”

“You’ve got me all wrong, Nurse Cratchett—” He paused, a corner of his mouth smirking. “You are English, are you not?”

“I speak English, yes,” she answered curtly.

“Well, Cratchett, you have me wrong. You see, I’m a lover, not a fighter.”

Blood surged to Elizabeth’s cheeks. “That’s quite enough.”

“I’ve never forced myself on a woman.” His voice dropped, the pitch growing deeper, rougher. “If anything, our dear delightful Calista forced herself on me.”

“Mr. Koumantaros.” Acutely uncomfortable, she gripped her pen tightly, growing warm, warmer. She hated his mocking smile and resented his tone. She could see why Calista had thrown the towel in. How was a young girl to cope with him?

“She romanticized me,” he continued, in the same infuriatingly smug vein. “She wanted to know what an invalid was capable of, I suppose. And she discovered that although I can’t walk, I can still—”

“Mr. Koumantaros!” Elizabeth jumped to her feet, suddenly oppressed by the warm, dark room. It was late afternoon, and the day had been cloudless, blissfully sunny. She couldn’t fathom why the windows and shutters were all closed, keeping the fresh mountain air out. “I do not wish to hear the details.”

“But you need them.” Kristian pushed his wheelchair toward her, blue cotton sleeves rolled back on his forearms, corded tendons tight beneath his skin. He’d once had a very deep tan, but the tan had long ago faded. His olive skin was pale, testament to his long months indoors. “You’re misinformed if you think I took advantage of Calista. Calista got what Calista wanted.”

She averted her head and ground her teeth together. “She was a wonderful, promising young nurse.”

“I don’t know about wonderful, but I’ll give you naïve. And since she quit, I think you’ve deliberately assigned me nurses from hell.”

“We do not employ nurses from hell. All of our nurses are professional, efficient, compassionate—”

“And stink to high heaven.”

“Excuse me?” Elizabeth drew back, affronted. “That’s a crude accusation.”

“Crude, but true. And I didn’t want them in my home, and I refused to have them touching me.”

So that was it. He didn’t want a real nurse. He wanted something from late-night T.V.—big hair, big breasts, and a short, tight skirt.

Elizabeth took a deep breath, fighting to hang on to her professional composure. She was beginning to see how he wore his nurses down, brow-beating and tormenting until they begged for a reprieve. Anyone but Mr. Koumantaros. Any job but that!

Well, she wasn’t about to let Mr. Koumantaros break her. He couldn’t get a rise out of her because she wouldn’t let him. “Did Calista smell bad?”

“No, Calista smelled like heaven.”

For a moment she could have sworn Kristian was smiling, and the fact that he could smile over ruining a young nurse’s career infuriated her.

He rolled another foot closer. “But then after Calista fled you sent only old, fat, frumpy nurses to torture me, punishing me for what was really Calista’s fault. And don’t tell me they weren’t old and fat and frumpy, because I might be blind but I’m not stupid.”

Elizabeth’s blood pressure shot up again. “I assigned mature nurses, but they were well-trained and certainly prepared for the rigors of the job.”

“One smelled like a tobacco shop. One of fish. I’m quite certain another could have been a battleship—”

“You’re being insulting.”

“I’m being honest. You replaced Calista with prison guards.”

Elizabeth’s anger spiked, and then her lips twitched. Kristian Koumantaros was actually right.

After poor Calista’s disgrace, Elizabeth had intentionally assigned Mr. Koumantaros only the older, less responsive nurses, realizing that he required special care. Very special care.

She smiled faintly, amused despite herself. He might not be walking, and he might not have his vision, but his brain worked just fine.

Still smiling, she studied him dispassionately, aware of his injuries, his months of painful rehabilitation, his prognosis. He was lucky to have escaped such a serious accident with his life. The trauma to his head had been so extensive he’d been expected to suffer severe brain damage. Happily, his mental faculties were intact. His motor skills could be repaired, but his eyesight was questionable. Sometimes the brain healed itself. Sometimes it didn’t. Only time and continued therapy would tell.

“Well, that’s all in the past now,” she said, forcing a note of cheer into her voice. “The battleaxe nurses are gone. I am here—”

“And you are probably worse than all of them.”

“Indeed, I am. They whisper behind my back that I’m every patient’s worst nightmare.”

“So I can call you Nurse Cratchett, then?”

“If you’d like. Or you can call me by my name, which is Nurse Hatchet. But they’re so similar, I’ll answer either way.”

He sat in silence, his jaw set, his expression increasingly wary. Elizabeth felt the edges of her mouth lift, curl. He couldn’t browbeat or intimidate her. She knew what Greek tycoons were. She’d once been married to one.

“It’s time to move on,” she added briskly. “And the first place we start is with your meals. I know it’s late, Mr. Koumantaros, but have you eaten lunch yet?”

“I’m not hungry.”

Elizabeth closed her portfolio and slipped the pen into the leather case. “You need to eat. Your body needs the nutrition. I’ll see about a light meal.” She moved toward the door, unwilling to waste time arguing.

Kristian shoved his wheelchair forward, inadvertently slamming into the edge of the couch. His frustration was written in every line of his face. “I don’t want food—”

“Of course not. Why eat when you’re addicted to pain pills?” She flashed a tight, strained smile he couldn’t see. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see to your meal.”

The vaulted stone kitchen was in the tower, or pyrgos, and there the butler, cook and senior housekeeper had gathered beneath one of the medieval arches. They were in such deep conversation that they didn’t hear Elizabeth enter.

Once they realized she was there, all three fell silent and turned to face her with varying degrees of hostility.

Elizabeth wasn’t surprised. For one, unlike the other nurses, she wasn’t Greek. Two, despite being foreign, she spoke Greek fluently. And three, she wasn’t showing proper deference to their employer, a very wealthy, powerful Greek man.

“Hello,” Elizabeth said, attempting to ignore the icy welcome. “I thought I’d see if I could help with Mr. Koumantaros’s lunch.”

Everyone continued to gape at her until Pano, the butler, cleared his throat. “Mr. Koumantaros doesn’t eat lunch.”

“Does he take a late breakfast, then?” Elizabeth asked.

“No, just coffee.”

“Then when does he eat his first meal?”

“Not until evening.”

“I see.” Elizabeth’s brow furrowed as she studied the three staffers, wondering how long they’d been employed by Kristian Koumantaros and how they coped with his black moods and display of temper. “Does he eat well then?”

“Sometimes,” the short, stocky cook answered, wiping her hands across the starched white fabric of her apron. “And sometimes he just pecks. He used to have an excellent appetite—fish, moussaka, dolmades, cheese, meat, vegetables—but that was before the accident.”

Elizabeth nodded, glad to see at least one of them had been with him a while. That was good. Loyalty was always a plus, but misplaced loyalty could also be a hindrance to Kristian recovering. “We’ll have to improve his appetite,” she said. “Starting with a light meal right now. Perhaps a horiatiki salata,” she said, suggesting what most Europeans and Americans thought of as a Greek salad—feta cheese and onion, tomato and cucumber, drizzled with olive oil and a few drops of homemade wine vinegar.

“There must be someplace outside—a sunny terrace—where he can enjoy his meal. Mr. Koumantaros needs the sun and fresh air—”

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Pano interrupted, “but the sun bothers Mr. Koumantaros’s eyes.”

“It’s because Mr. Koumantaros has spent too much time sitting in the dark. The light will do him good. Sunlight stimulates the pituitary gland, helps alleviate depression and promotes healing. But, seeing as he’s been inside so much, we can transition today by having lunch in the shade. I assume part of the terrace is covered?”

“Yes, ma’am,” the cook answered. “But Mr. Koumantaros won’t go.”

“Oh, he will.” Elizabeth swallowed, summoning all her determination. She knew Kristian would eventually go. But it’d be a struggle.

Sitting in the library, Kristian heard the English nurse’s footsteps disappear as she went in search of the kitchen, and after a number of long minutes heard her footsteps return.

So she was coming back. Wonderful.

He tipped his head, looking up at nothing, since everything was and had been dark since the crash, fourteen months and eleven days ago.

The door opened, and he knew from the way the handle turned and the lightness of the step that it was her. “You’re wrong about something else,” he said abruptly as she entered the library. “The accident wasn’t a year ago. It was almost a year and a half ago. It happened late February.”

She’d stopped walking and he felt her there, beyond his sight, beyond his reach, standing, staring, waiting. It galled him, this lack of knowing, seeing. He’d achieved what he’d achieved by utilizing his eyes, his mind, his gut. He trusted his eyes and his gut, and now, without those, he didn’t know what was true, or real.

Like Calista, for example.

“That’s even worse,” his new nightmare nurse shot back. “You should be back at work by now. You’ve a corporation to run, people dependent on you. You’re doing no one any good hiding away here in your villa.”

“I can’t run my company if I can’t walk or see—”

“But you can walk, and there might be a chance you could see—”

“A less than five percent chance.” He laughed bitterly. “You know, before the last round of surgeries I had a thirty-five percent chance of seeing, but they botched those—”

“They weren’t botched. They were just highly experimental.”

“Yes, and that experimental treatment reduced my chances of seeing again to nil.”

“Not nil.”

“Five percent. There’s not much difference. Especially when they say that even if the operation were a success I’d still never be able to drive, or fly, or sail. That there’s too much trauma for me to do what I used to do.”

“And your answer is to sit here shrouded in bandages and darkness and feel sorry for yourself?” she said tartly, her voice growing closer.

Kristian shifted in his chair, and felt an active and growing dislike for Cratchett. She was standing off to his right, and her smug, superior attitude rubbed him the wrong way. “Your company’s services have been terminated.”

“They haven’t—”

“I may be blind, but you’re apparently deaf. First Class Rehab has received its last—final—check. There is no more coming from me. There will be no more payments for services rendered.”

He heard her exhale—a soft, quick breath that was so uniquely feminine that he drew back, momentarily startled.

And in that half-second he felt betrayed.

She was the one not listening. She was the one forcing herself on him. And yet—and yet she was a woman. And he was—or had been—a gentleman, and gentlemen were supposed to have manners. Gentlemen were supposed to be above reproach.

Growling, he leaned back in his chair, gripped the rims on the wheels and glared at where he imagined her to be standing.

He shouldn’t feel bad for speaking bluntly. His brow furrowed even more deeply. It was her fault. She’d come here, barging in with a righteous high-handed, bossy attitude that turned his stomach.

The accident hadn’t been yesterday. He’d lived like this long enough to know what he was dealing with. He didn’t need her telling him this and that, as though he couldn’t figure it out for himself.

No, she—Nurse Hatchet-Cratchett, his nurse number seven—had the same bloody mentality as the first six. In their eyes the wheelchair rendered him incompetent, unable to think for himself.

“I’m not paying you any longer,” he repeated firmly, determined to get this over and done with. “You’ve had your last payment. You and your company are finished here.”

And then she made that sound again—that little sound which had made him draw back. But this time he recognized the sound for what it was.

A laugh.

She was laughing at him.

Laughing and walking around the side of his chair so he had to crane his head to try to follow her.

He felt her hands settle on the back of his chair. She must have bent down, or perhaps she wasn’t very tall, because her voice came surprisingly close to his ear.

“But you aren’t paying me any longer. Our services have been retained and we are authorized to continue providing your care. Only now, instead of you paying for your care, the financial arrangements are being handled by a private source.”

He went cold—cold and heavy. Even his legs, with their only limited sensation. “What?”

“It’s true,” she continued, beginning to push his chair and moving him forward. “I’m not the only one who thinks its high time you recovered.” She continued pushing him despite his attempt to resist. “You’re going to get well,” she added, her voice whispering sweetly in his ear. “Whether you want to or not.”

CHAPTER TWO

KRISTIAN clamped down on the wheel-rims, holding them tight to stop their progress. “Who is paying for my care?”

Elizabeth hated played games, and she didn’t believe it was right to keep anyone in the dark, but she’d signed a confidentiality agreement and she had to honor it. “I’m sorry, Mr. Koumantaros. I’m not at liberty to say.”

Her answer only antagonized him further. Kristian threw his head back and his powerful shoulders squared. His hands gripped the rims so tightly his knuckles shone white. “I won’t have someone else assuming responsibility for my care, much less for what is surely questionable care.”

Elizabeth cringed at the criticism. The criticism—slander?—was personal. It was her company. She personally interviewed, hired and trained each nurse that worked for First Class Rehab. Not that he knew. And not that she wanted him to know right now.

No, what mattered now was getting Mr. Koumantaros on a schedule, creating a predictable routine with regular periods of nourishment, exercise and rest. And to do that she really needed him to have his lunch.

“We can talk more over lunch,” Elizabeth replied, beginning to roll him back out onto the terrace once more. But, just like before, Kristian clamped his hands down and gripped the wheel-rims hard, preventing him from going forward.

“I don’t like being pushed.”

Elizabeth stepped away and stared down at him, seeing for the first time the dark pink scar that snaked from beneath the sleeve of his sky-blue Egyptian cotton shirt, running from elbow to wrist. A multiple fracture, she thought, recalling just how many bones had broken. By all indications he should have died. But he hadn’t. He’d survived. And after all that she wasn’t about to let him give up now and wither away inside this shuttered villa.

“I didn’t think you could get yourself around,” she said, hanging on to her patience by a thread.

“I can push myself short distances.”

“That’s not quite the same thing as walking, is it?” she said exasperatedly. If he could do more…if he could walk…why didn’t he? Ornio, she thought, using the Greek word for ornery. The previous nurses hadn’t exaggerated a bit. Kristian was as obstinate as a mule.

He snorted. “Is that your idea of encouragement?”

Her lips compressed. Kristian also knew how to play both sides. One minute he was the aggressor, the next the victim. Worse, he was succeeding in baiting her, getting to her, and no one ever—ever—got under her skin. Not anymore. “It’s a statement of fact, Mr. Koumantaros. You’re still in the chair because your muscles have atrophied since the accident. But initially the doctors expected you to walk again.” They thought you’d want to.

“It didn’t work out.”

“Because it hurt too much?”

“The therapy wasn’t working.”

“You gave up.” She reached for the handles on the back of his chair and gave a hard push. “Now, how about that lunch?”

He wouldn’t release the rims. “How about you tell me who is covering your services, and then we’ll have lunch?”

Part of her admired his bargaining skill and tactics. He was clearly a leader, and accustomed to being in control. But she was a leader, too, and she was just as comfortable giving direction. “I can’t tell you.” Her jaw firmed. “Not until you’re walking.”

He craned to see her, even though he couldn’t see anything. “So you can tell me.”

“Once you’re walking.”

“Why not until then?”

She shrugged. “It’s the terms of the contract.”

“But you know this person?”

“We spoke on the phone.”

He grew still, his expression changing as well, as though he were thinking, turning inward. “How long until I walk?”

“It depends entirely on you. Your hamstrings and hip muscles have unfortunately tightened, shortening up, but it’s not irreparable, Mr. Koumantaros. It just requires diligent physical therapy.”

“But even with diligent therapy I’ll always need a walker.”

She heard his bitterness but didn’t comment on it. It wouldn’t serve anything at this point. “A walker or a cane. But isn’t that better than a wheelchair? Wouldn’t you enjoy being independent again?”

“But it’ll never be the same, never as it was—”

“People are confronted by change every day, Mr. Koumantaros.”

“Do not patronize me.” His voice deepened, roughened, revealing blistering fury.

“I’m not trying to. I’m trying to understand. And if this is because others died and you—”

“Not one more word,” he growled. “Not one.”

“Mr. Koumantaros, you are no less of a man because others died and you didn’t.”

“Then you do not know me. You do not know who I am, or who I was before. Because the best part of me—the good in me—died that day on the mountain. The good in me perished while I was saving someone I didn’t even like.”

He laughed harshly, the laugh tinged with self-loathing. “I’m not a hero. I’m a monster.” And, reaching up, with a savage yank he ripped the bandages from his head. Rearing back in his wheelchair, Kristian threw his head into sunlight. “Do you see the monster now?”

Elizabeth sucked in her breath as the warm Mediterranean light touched the hard planes of his face.

A jagged scar ran the length of the right side of his face, ending precariously close to his right eye. The skin was still a tender pink, although one day it would pale, lightening until it nearly matched his skin tone—as long as he stayed out of the sun.

But the scar wasn’t why she stared. And the scar wasn’t what caused her chest to seize up, squeezing with a terrible, breathless tenderness.

Kristian Koumantaros was beautiful. Beyond beautiful. Even with the scar snaking like a fork of lightning over his cheekbone, running from the corner of his mouth to the edge of his eye.

“God gave me a face to match my heart. Finally the outside and inside look the same,” he gritted, hands convulsing in his lap.

“You’re wrong.” Elizabeth could hardly breathe. His words gave her so much pain, so much sorrow, she felt tears sting her eyes. “If God gave you a face to match your heart, your heart is beautiful, too. Because a scar doesn’t ruin a face, and a scar doesn’t ruin a heart. It just shows that you’ve lived—” she took a rough breath “—and loved.”

He said nothing and she pressed on. “Besides, I think the scar suits you. You were too good-looking before.”

For a split second he said nothing, and then he laughed, a fierce guttural laugh that was more animal-like than human. “Finally. Someone to tell me the truth.”

Elizabeth ignored the pain pricking her insides, the stab of more pain in her chest. Something about him, something about this—the scarred face, the shattered life, the fury, the fire, the intelligence and passion—touched her. Hurt her. It was not that anyone should suffer, but somehow on Kristian the suffering became bigger, larger than life, a thing in and of itself.

“You’re an attractive man even with the scar,” she said, still kneeling next to his chair.

“It’s a hideous scar. It runs the length of my face. I can feel it.”

“You’re quite vain, then, Mr. Koumantaros?”

His head swung around and the expression on his face, matched by the cloudiness in his deep blue eyes, stole her breath. He didn’t suit the chair.

Or the chair didn’t suit him. He was too big, too strong, too much of everything. And it was wrong, his body, his life, his personality contained by it. Confined to it.

“No man wants to feel like Frankenstein,” Kristian said with another rough laugh.

She knew then that it wasn’t his face that made him feel so broken, but his heart and mind. Those memories of his that haunted him, the flashes of the past that made him relive the accident over and over. She knew because she’d once been the same. She, too, had relived an accident in endless detail, stopping the mental camera constantly, freezing the lens at the first burst of flame and the final ball of fire. But that was her story, not his, and she couldn’t allow her own experiences and emotions to cloud her judgment now.

She had to regain some control, retreat as quickly as possible to professional detachment. She wasn’t here for him; she was here for a job. She wasn’t his love interest. He had one in Athens, waiting for him to recover. It was this lover of his who’d insisted he walk, he function, he see, and that was why she was here. To help him recover. To help him return to her.

“You’re far from Frankenstein,” she said crisply, covering her suddenly ambivalent emotions. She rose to her feet, smoothed her straight skirt and adjusted her blouse. “But, since you require flattery, let me give it to you. The scar suits you. Gives your face character. Makes you look less like a model or a movie star and more like a man.”

“A man,” he repeated with a bitter laugh.

“Yes, a man. And with some luck and hard work, soon we’ll have you acting like a man, too.”

Chaotic emotions rushed across his face. Surprise, then confusion, and as she watched the confusion shifted into anger. She’d caught him off guard and hurt him. She could see she’d hurt him.

Swallowing the twinge of guilt, she felt it on the tip of her tongue to apologize, as she hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings so much as provoke him into taking action.

But even as she attempted to put a proper apology together, she sensed anything she said, particularly anything sympathetic, would only antagonize him more. He was living in his own hell.

More gently she added, “You’ve skied the most inaccessible mountain faces in the world, piloted helicopters in blizzards, rescued a half-dozen—”

“Enough.”

“You can do anything,” she persisted. His suffering was so obvious it was criminal. She’d become a nurse to help those wounded, not to inflict fresh wounds, but sometimes patients were so overwhelmed by physical pain and mental misery that they self-destructed.

Brilliant men—daring, risk-taking, gifted men—were particularly vulnerable, and she’d learned the hard way that these same men self-destructed if they had no outlet for their anger, no place for their pain.

Elizabeth vowed to find the outlet for Kristian, vowed she’d channel his fury somehow, turning pain into positives.

And so, before he could speak, before he could give voice to any of his anger, or contradict her again, she mentioned the pretty table setting before them, adding that the cook and butler had done a superb job preparing their late lunch.

“Your staff have outdone themselves, Mr. Koumantaros. They’ve set a beautiful table on your terrace. Can you feel that breeze? You can smell the scent of pine in the warm air.”

“I don’t smell it.”

“Then come here, where I’m standing. It really is lovely. You can get a whiff of the herbs in your garden, too. Rosemary, and lemongrass.”

But he didn’t roll forward. He rolled backward, retreating back toward the shadows. “It’s too bright. The light makes my head hurt.”

“Even if I replace the bandages?”

“Even with the bandages.” His voice grew harsh, pained. “And I don’t want lunch. I already told you that but you don’t listen. You won’t listen. No one does.”

“We could move lunch inside—”

“I don’t want lunch.” And with a hard push he disappeared into the cooler library, where he promptly bumped into a side–table and sent it crashing, which led to him cursing and another bang of furniture.

Tensing, Elizabeth fought the natural inclination to hurry and help him. She wanted to rush to his side, but knew that doing so would only prolong his helpless state. She couldn’t become an enabler, couldn’t allow him to continue as he’d done—retreating from life, retreating from living, retreating into the dark shadows of his mind.

Instead, with nerves of steel, she left him as he was, muttering and cursing and banging into the table he’d overturned, and headed slowly across the terrace to the pretty lunch table, with its cheerful blue and white linens and cluster of meadow flowers in the middle.

And while she briefly appreciated the pretty linens and fresh flowers, she forgot both just as quickly, her thoughts focused on one thing and only one—Kristian Koumantaros.

It had cost her to speak to him so bluntly. She’d never been this confrontational—she’d never needed to be until now—but, frankly, she didn’t know what else to do with him at this point. Her agency had tried everything—they’d sent every capable nurse, attempted every course of therapy—all to no avail.

As Elizabeth gratefully took a seat at the table, she knew her exhaustion wasn’t just caused by Kristian’s obstinance, but by Kristian himself.

Kristian had gotten beneath her skin.

And it’s not his savage beauty, she told herself sternly. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t so superficial as to be moved by the violence in his face and frame—although he had an undeniably handsome face. So what was it? Why did she feel horrifyingly close to tears?

Ignoring the nervous flutter in her middle, she unfolded her linen serviette and spread it across her lap.

Pano appeared, a bottle of bubbling mineral water in his hand. “Water, ma’am?”

“Please, Pano. Thank you.”

“And is Mr. Koumantaros joining you?”

She glanced toward the library doors, which had just been shut. She felt a weight on her heart, and the weight seemed to swell and grow. “No, Pano, not today. Not after all.”

He filled her glass. “Shall I take him a plate?”

Elizabeth shot another glance toward the closed and shuttered library doors. She hesitated but a moment. “No. We’ll try again tonight at dinner.”

“So nothing if he asks?” The butler sounded positively pained.

“I know it seems hard, but I must somehow reach him. I must make him respond. He can’t hide here forever. He’s too young, and there are too many people that love him and miss him.”

Pano seemed to understand this. His bald head inclined and, with a polite, “Your luncheon will be served immediately,” he disappeared, after leaving the mineral water bottle on the table within her reach.

One of the villa’s younger staff served the lunch—souvlaki, with sliced cucumbers and warm fresh pitta. It wasn’t the meal she’d requested, and Elizabeth suspected it was intentional, the cook’s own rebellion, but at least a meal had been prepared.

Elizabeth didn’t eat immediately, choosing to give Kristian time in case he changed his mind. Brushing a buzzing fly away, she waited five minutes, and then another five more, reflecting that she hadn’t gotten off to the best start here. It had been bumpy in more ways than one. But she could only press on, persevere. Everything would work out. Kristian Koumantaros would walk again, and eventually return to Athens, where he’d resume responsibility for the huge corporation he owned and had once single-handedly run. She’d go home to England and be rid of Greece and Greek tycoons.

After fifteen minutes Elizabeth gave up the vigil. Kristian wasn’t coming. Finally she ate, concentrating on savoring the excellent meal and doing her best to avoid thinking about the next confrontation with her mulish patient.

Lunch finished, Elizabeth wiped her mouth on her serviette and pushed away from the table. Time to check on Kristian.

In the darkened library, Kristian lifted his head as she entered the room. “Have a nice lunch?” he asked in terse Greek.

She winced at the bitterness in his voice. “Yes, thank you. You have an excellent cook.”

“Did you enjoy the view?”

“It is spectacular,” she agreed, although she’d actually spent most of the time thinking about him instead of the view. She hadn’t felt this involved with any case in years. But then, she hadn’t nursed anyone directly in years, either.

After her stint in nursing school, and then three years working at a regional hospital, she’d gone back to school and earned her Masters in Business Administration, with an emphasis on Hospital and Medical Administration. After graduating she had immediately found work. So much work she had realized she’d be better off working for herself than anyone else—which was how her small, exclusive First Class Rehab had been born.

But Kristian Koumantaros’s case was special. Kristian Koumantaros hadn’t improved in her company’s care. He’d worsened.

And to Elizabeth it was completely unacceptable.

Locating her notebook on the side-table, where she’d left it earlier, she took a seat on the couch. “Mr. Koumantaros, I know you don’t want a nurse, but you still need one. In fact, you need several.”

“Why not prescribe a fleet?” he asked sarcastically.

“I think I shall.” She flipped open her brown leather portfolio and, scanning her previous notes, began to scribble again. “A live-in nursing assistant to help with bathing, personal hygiene. Male, preferably. Someone strong to lift you in and out of your chair since you’re not disposed to walk.”

“I can’t walk, Mrs.—”

“Ms. Hatchet,” she supplied, before crisply continuing, “And you could walk if you had worked with your last four physical therapists. They all tried, Mr. Koumantaros, but you were more interested in terrifying them than in making progress.”

Elizabeth wrote another couple of notes, then clicked her pen closed. “You also require an occupational therapist, as you desperately need someone to adapt your lifestyle. If you’ve no intention of getting better, your house and habits will need to change. Ramps, a second lift, a properly outfitted bathroom, rails and grabs in the pool—”

“No,” he thundered, face darkening. “No bars, no rails, and no goddamn grabs in this house.”

She clicked her pen open again. “Perhaps its time we called in a psychiatrist—someone to evaluate your depression and recommend a course of therapy. Pills, perhaps, or sessions of counseling.”

“I will never talk—”

“You are now,” she said cheerfully, scribbling yet another note to herself, glancing at Kristian Koumantaros from beneath her lashes. His jaw was thick, and rage was stiffening his spine, improving his posture, curling his hands into fists.

Good, she thought, with a defiant tap of her pen. He hadn’t given up on living, just given up on healing. There was something she—and her agency—could still do.

She watched him for a long dispassionate moment. “Talking—counseling—will help alleviate your depression, and it’s depression that’s keeping you from recovering.”

“I’m not depressed.”

“Then someone to treat your rage. You are raging, Mr. Koumantaros. Are you aware of your tone?”

“My tone?” He threw himself back in his chair, hands flailing against the rims of the wheels, furious skin against steel. “My tone? You come into my house and lecture me about my tone? Who the hell do you think you are?”

The raw savagery in his voice cut her more than his words, and for a moment the library spun. Elizabeth held her breath, silent, stunned.

“You think you’re so good.” Kristian’s voice sounded from behind her, mocking her. “So righteous, so sure of everything. But would you be so sure of yourself if the rug was pulled from beneath your feet? Would you be so callous then?”

Of course he didn’t know the rug had been pulled from beneath her feet. No one got through life unscathed. But her personal tragedies had toughened her, and she thought of the old wounds as scar tissue…something that was just part of her.

Even so, Elizabeth felt a moment of gratitude that Kristian couldn’t see her, or the conflicting emotions flickering over her face. Hers wasn’t a recent loss, hers was seven years ago, and yet if she wasn’t careful to keep up the defenses the loss still felt as though it had happened yesterday.

As the silence stretched Kristian laughed low, harshly. “I got you on that one.” His laughter deepened, and then abruptly ended. “Hard to sit in judgment until you’ve walked a mile in someone else’s shoes.”

Through the open doors Elizabeth could hear the warble of a bird, and she wondered if it was the dark green bird, the one with the lemon-yellow breast, she’d seen while eating on the patio terrace.

“I’m not as callous as you think,” she said, her voice cool enough to contradict her words. “But I’m here to help you, and I’ll do whatever I must to see you move into the next step of recovery.”

“And why should I want to recover?” His head angled, and his expression was ferocious. “And don’t give me some sickly-sweet answer about finding my true love and having a family and all that nonsense.”

Elizabeth’s lips curved in a faint, hard smile. No, she’d never dangle love as a motivational tool, because even that could be taken away. “I wasn’t. You should know by now that’s not my style.”

“So tell me? Give it to me straight? Why should I bother to get better?”

Why bother? Why bother, indeed? Elizabeth felt her heart race—part anger, part sympathy. “Because you’re still alive, that’s why.”

“That’s it?” Kristian laughed bitterly. “Sorry, that’s not much incentive.”

“Too bad,” she answered, thinking she was sorry about his accident, but he wasn’t dead.

Maybe he couldn’t walk easily or see clearly, but he was still intact and he had his life, his heart, his body, his mind. Maybe he wasn’t exactly as he had been before the injury, but that didn’t make him less of a man…not unless he let it. And he was allowing it.

Pressing the tip of her finger against her mouth, she fought to hold back all the angry things she longed to say, knowing she wasn’t here to judge. He was just a patient, and her job was to provide medical care, not morality lessons. But, even acknowledging that it wasn’t her place to criticize, she felt her tension grow.

Despite her best efforts, she resented his poor-me attitude, was irritated that he was so busy looking at the small picture he was missing the big one. Life was so precious. Life was a gift, not a right, and he still possessed the gift.

He could love and be loved. Fall in love, make love, shower someone with affection—hugs, kisses, tender touches. There was no reason he couldn’t make someone feel cherished, important, unforgettable. No reason other than that he didn’t want to, that he’d rather feel sorry for himself than reach out to another.

“Because, for whatever reason, Mr. Koumantaros, you’re still here with us, still alive. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Live. Live fully, wisely. And if you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for those who didn’t escape the avalanche that day with you.” She took a deep breath. “Do it for Cosima. Do it for Andreas.”

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