Jackie Braun - Greek Bachelors - Tempted To A Fling - A Greek Escape / Greek for Beginners / My Sexy Greek Summer

My thoughts exactly, Kayla mused, unable to keep her eyes from straying to Leon’s superbly broad back as he moved lithely out of the room while her friend made plans for what she intended to do.

‘Lorna’s parents are going to come over and sort out what needs doing,’ Kayla reported to him a few minutes later, having found him in the huge and very outdated farmhouse kitchen at the end of the hall. It contained a dresser and a huge wood-burning stove over which Leon was busily wielding a frying pan. A large pine table stood in the centre of the room, already laid for one. Two large-paned windows faced the front of the house, offering stupendous views of the distant sea, while two more on the other side of the room looked out onto the terraced gardens. ‘Lorna and Josh have their own business and don’t have much free time,’ she explained, handing him back his phone, which he casually slipped into the back pocket of his jeans.

Unlike you, Kayla thought, and for a moment found herself envying his flexible lifestyle. His free spirit and total autonomy. The complete lack of binding responsibility.

‘Have you always been so self-sufficient?’ she asked, watching him cutting melon, which he put on the table beside a plate of fresh pineapple slices. She wondered if he had already eaten or just wasn’t bothering.

‘I like to think so,’ he responded, without looking at her. ‘I’ve always believed—’ and found out the hard way, Leonidas thought, his features hardening ‘—that if you want something done properly there’s no surer way but to do it yourself.’

‘Another of your philosophies?’ Kayla enquired, her hand coming to rest on the back of one the pine chairs and her head tilted as she waited for an answer, which never came.

No man was an island, so the saying went. But Kayla had the distinct impression that this man was—emotionally, at any rate. He seemed more detached and aloof from the rat race and the big wide world than anyone she had ever met. Uncommunicative. Guarding his privacy like a precious jewel.

‘Who did you think I was when you accused me of playing some game with you yesterday?’

‘It isn’t important,’ he intoned, moving back to the stove.

‘It seemed to be very important at the time,’ Kayla commented, still put out by the names he had called her. ‘The things you said to me weren’t very nice.’

‘Yes, well...we can all make mistakes,’ Leonidas admitted, adding freshly chopped herbs to the sizzling frying pan and beginning to accept that he might have made a gross error of judgement in treating her so unjustly. ‘I came here to relax. I didn’t expect some uninvited young woman with a camera to be taking secretive photographs of me. When you realised I’d seen you on the rocks and you ran from me I decided that you must definitely be up to no good.’

So he had charged at her like an angry bull, Kayla thought, wondering what he’d thought she was hiding that had incensed him so much.

‘Yesterday,’ he went on, ‘when I invited you to lunch, it was to try to find out why.’

‘You accused me of spying on you,’ she reminded him, folding her arms in a suddenly defensive pose as she bit back the urge to remind him that she hadn’t been trying to photograph him on that beach. ‘What did you imagine? That I was some sort of secret agent or something?’ she suggested with an ironic little laugh. ‘Or a private investigator, hired by a jealous wife—?’ She broke off as a more plausible possibility struck her. ‘A wife who’s taken you to the cleaners and who’s still hoping to uncover the hidden millions you haven’t told her about that you’ve got stashed away somewhere? Gosh! Is that it?’ she exclaimed, when she saw the way his dark lashes came down over his unfathomable eyes, wondering if she’d hit the nail on the head. ‘Not about the millions. I mean...’

‘About the wife?’

She nodded. Why else would he have referred to her as a blood-sucking female yesterday? He must be licking his wounds after a very nasty divorce.

‘Nice try,’ he said dryly, the muscles in his wonderfully masculine back moving as he worked. ‘I’m sorry to have to shoot down such a colourful and imaginative story, but I’m not married. And since when did a man simply wanting to protect his privacy mean there’s an avaricious and avenging wife in tow?’

‘It doesn’t,’ Kayla answered, wondering why the discovery of his marital status should leave her feeling far more pleased than it should have. ‘It just seemed a little bit of an overreaction, that’s all,’ she murmured, feeling her temperature rising from the way he was looking at her—as though he knew what baffling and unsettling thoughts were going through her head.

‘So how did you know about this house?’ she asked, since it was apparent now that it wasn’t just a deserted building he’d happened to stumble across.

‘I was born on this island,’ he said, in a cool, clipped voice. ‘I have the use of this place when I want it.’

‘Who owns it?’ she enquired, looking around.

‘Someone who is too busy to take much interest in it,’ he answered flatly, suddenly sounding bored.

‘What a pity,’ Kayla expressed, looking around her at the sad peeling walls. ‘It could be nice if it was renovated. Someone must have treasured it once.’

Once, Leonidas thought, when its warm, welcoming walls had rung with his mother’s beautiful singing. When he hadn’t been able to sleep for excitement because his grandfather was taking him fishing the following day...

‘Obviously the current owner doesn’t share your sentimentality about it,’ he remarked, and found it a struggle to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

‘You said you were born on this island?’ Kayla reminded him, feeling as though she was being intrusive again, yet unable to stop herself. Even less could she envisage him as a helpless, squalling infant. ‘It’s idyllic. What made you leave?’

His features looked set in stone as he tossed two slices of bubbling halloumi cheese onto slices of fresh bread, topping them with rich red sun-dried tomatoes before he answered, ‘I believed there was a better life out there.’

‘And was there?’

Again he didn’t answer.

But what sort of satisfaction was there in never settling anywhere? Kayla wondered now. In just drifting around from place to place?

‘Eat your breakfast,’ he ordered, putting the meal on the table in front of her. ‘And then we’ll go down and inspect the storm damage.’

CHAPTER FOUR

THE STRUCTURE OF the villa had sustained less damage than Kayla had feared. However, after Leon had helped her to clear up the debris and mess caused by the falling tree, it was still a far cry from what it had been when she had arrived.

‘I’ll have to look for somewhere else,’ she accepted defeatedly, trying to sound braver and less anxious than she was feeling as she dropped the last packet of ruined food into a refuse bag.

‘My very next step,’ Leonidas assured her, taking his phone out of his pocket.

He had changed into a pale blue shirt and jeans before leaving the farmhouse earlier and, looking up from the bag she was tying, Kayla noticed how his rolled-up sleeves emphasised the dark olive of his skin and the virility of his strong arms.

‘I think you’ve done quite enough already,’ she reminded him. Not only had he rescued her from a terrifying situation last night, he had given her food and shelter, driven her back here, and then refused to leave when it came to the clean-up operation. ‘I’m indebted enough to you as it is!’

‘If that’s all that’s worrying you—forget it,’ he drawled. ‘I’m not likely to be extracting payment any time soon.’

‘That’s not funny,’ she scolded, still unhappy about being in his debt. Or was it that mocking glint in his eyes that affected her more than his hostility?