Cathy Williams - Six Greek Heroes

Nevertheless, she found herself trying to draw his mother into conversation. The older woman’s dark eyes were too sad for Rachel’s tender heart to ignore.

Sebastian had been called from the table to take an urgent international call at the beginning of dinner. His brother had left the island with the rest of the family after the wills had been read.

“I’ve only got a small patio at my apartment, but I keep an herb garden,” Rachel said as the salad course was served.

Phillippa’s great passion was gardening and Rachel gave silent thanks for something to talk about unrelated to the family’s recent loss.

“Basil and mint grow especially well in pots,” Phillippa replied, her dulled eyes lighting a little with interest. “I had not expected you to like gardening. Andrea was appalled by the very idea of getting dirt on her hands.”

“My mother and I shared very little in common.”

“That is unfortunate.”

“Yes.” What else could she say?

“A mother and a daughter can find much joy in sharing one another’s lives. My own mother taught me many things, not least of which was a love of growing things.”

“She must have been a very special woman.”

“She was. She and Uncle Matthias were always close.” The grief came back to settle over Phillippa like a physical mantle.

“Did you teach your sons to garden?” Rachel honestly couldn’t imagine Sebastian or Aristide tending plants, but she hoped the question would get Phillippa’s mind off of her grief.

The older woman smiled with indulgence. “No. Those two were always too busy for such a time intensive hobby.” She shook her head. “I have two wonderful sons, but I would have liked having a daughter as well.”

“I’m sure when they marry, their wives will find you a welcome addition to their lives.”

The thought of Sebastian married to a proper Greek girl caused pain deep in the region of her heart, but Rachel disregarded it. She had grown very adept at ignoring her feelings.

But Phillippa was shaking her head again. “They were too busy as boys for hobbies and are too busy as men making money to find wives. Sebastian is already thirty and he has never even dated a woman longer than a few weeks.”

“I’m sure when the time is right…” Her voice trailed off at the strange look in the older woman’s dark eyes.

But before she could question it, Sebastian returned from his telephone call.

He folded his tall frame into the chair at the end of the table. “Mama, there is something I would appreciate you doing for Rachel.”

The Greek woman looked at her son with obvious love and approval. “What is it, my son?”

“She wants to donate her mother’s possessions to auction for charity, but she doesn’t want anything of sentimental value to the family to be sold.” He looked to Rachel as if expecting her to confirm or deny his words.

So, she nodded. “That’s right.”

Phillippa’s dark brown eyes expressed her surprise. “You wish me to go through your mother’s things with you?”

“Just the things in her room. Anything that might be considered hers in the other rooms of the house can simply stay with the villa.” She’d thought about it and that seemed the easiest way to handle the situation.

“But surely you’ll want the things she treasured.”

“No.”

“I have a few items of my mother’s. They give me comfort when I think of her.”

“I will find more satisfaction knowing her possessions brought something good to the lives of children in need.”

The compassionate understanding in Phillippa’s eyes was almost enough to make Rachel lose the rigid hold she had on her emotions. “I understand. I would be pleased to help you.”

“Thank you,” Rachel replied with deep sincerity.

The sweet fragrance of honeysuckle mingled with the warm, salt laden air off the sea, wrapping around Rachel while her toes sank into pebbly sand. Unable to sleep, she’d come down to the beach, thinking a walk would help settle her mind.

But it wasn’t her mind that needed settling.

It was her body.

Being around Sebastian always did this to her, made her aware of her femininity in a way she managed to ignore the rest of the time. After what had happened to her when she was sixteen, that wasn’t hard, but somehow the powerful tycoon undermined defenses that were rock-solid around other men.

And he didn’t even try.

Sebastian Kouros had no interest in her, had never once intimated that he was aware of her as anything other than his beloved great-uncle’s stepdaughter.

But that didn’t stop her hormones from raging, or her heart from tying itself in knots over him.

“What are you doing out here, pethi mou?”

Spinning around at the sound of his voice, her heart climbed right up into her throat. She staggered backward away from that all too close masculine body, her feet hitting wet sand and then water. “Sebastian!”

His hands shot out and grabbed her shoulders, stopping her from an ignominious landing in the shallow water. “You did not know I was here?”

She shook her head dumbly.

He pulled her forward until her feet were once again on dry land, but he did not move, leaving her way too close to him. “I made no attempt to disguise my approach.”

“I w-was thinking.” She stumbled over her words, her brain processing the new sensory input from his arrival.

His fingers were warm and solid through the silk-thin cotton of her sleeves and his scent, spicy and overwhelmingly male, dominated her senses. The full moon supplied sufficient light for his formfitting, black T-shirt to reveal every defined abdomen and well-developed chest muscle. While his light colored sports shorts drew attention to legs that would have looked more appropriate on a long-distance runner than a corporate executive. His feet were bare like hers and their toes were scant inches apart.

For some reason that seemed very intimate.

“YOU must have been thinking about something very absorbing if your thoughts were so deep they prevented you from hearing my footsteps.”

How ironic that thoughts of the man had prevented her from preparing herself mentally to meet up with him. “Yes.”

“Why are you not sleeping?”

Did he realize he was still holding on to her? She tried shrugging to see if the movement would remind him to release her and step back. “I couldn’t.”

He ignored her silent bid for freedom, probably hadn’t even noticed it. “Your mother died less than a week ago. It is understandable, this lack of rest.”

“I suppose,” she replied, content to let him draw his own conclusions.

She had enough to deal with not moving those remaining inches and snuggling into the warmth and safety his tall body offered. She wanted him physically and that in itself was shocking enough, but she wanted something else from him, something she’d learned long ago was not on offer in her life. Love. Commitment. Security.

“I understand. My uncle’s death has caused much grief in my family.”

That was probably as close as Sebastian would come to admitting his own weakness and the fact he was no doubt awake because of his own undiluted grief. Any feelings of sadness she had at the death of her mother were weakened by relief that the emotional pain of living in the shadow of her misdeeds was over.

She licked her lips, trying to maintain her concentration when his nearness was wreaking havoc with her ability to focus on what was being said. “Matthias was a good man.”

Sebastian’s hands dropped away from her shoulders finally, but he remained too close to ease her awkwardness. “He was, but I should not have dismissed your own grieving.”