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

Her affection for Leon was clear from the start, but suddenly as they were speaking the woman burst into what to Kayla’s ears sounded like a fierce outpouring of objection. The woman was waving her hands in typically European fashion and sending more than a few less than approving glances Kayla’s way.

‘She isn’t happy about my staying here and why should she be?’ Kayla challenged, taking in the abundance of framed family photographs and brightly painted pottery and feeling as much mortified as she felt sympathetic towards the elderly woman.

‘She’s happy, Kayla,’ Leonidas told her, breaking off from a run of incomprehensible Greek. He started speaking very quickly in his own language again, which brought forth another bout of scolding and arm-waving from a clearly none-too-pleased Philomena.

‘I’m sorry,’ Kayla apologised through the commotion, hoping the woman would understand as she picked up her suitcase and starting weaving through the rustic furniture towards the door.

‘No, no! No, no!’ A lightly restraining hand came over Kayla’s arm. ‘You stay. Stay Philomena, eh?’ The look she sent Leonidas shot daggers in his direction. Her voice, though, as she turned back to Kayla, was softer and more encouraging, her returning smile no less than sympathetic as a work-worn, sun-dappled hand gently palmed Kayla’s cheek. ‘You come. Stay.’

A good deal of gesticulation with a far warmer flow of baffling Greek seemed to express the woman’s pleasure in having Kayla as her guest.

‘You see,’ Leonidas remarked, looking pleased with himself as Philomena drew her gently away from the door. ‘I said she would want you to stay.’

The appreciative look Kayla gave her hostess turned challenging as she faced the man who had brought her there. ‘Then what were you arguing about?’ she quizzed.

‘Philomena has no one to scold nowadays, so she likes to scold me.’ His mouth as he directed a look towards their hostess was pulling wryly. ‘Philomena bore seven children, but her one claim to fame, as she likes to call it, is that she delivered me. I’m eternally grateful to her for introducing me to this universe,’ he expressed with smiling affection at Philomena, ‘but she does tend to imagine that that gives her licence to upbraid me at every given opportunity.’

‘For what?’ Kayla was puzzled, still not convinced.

One of those impressive shoulders lifted as he contemplated this. ‘For leaving the island. For coming back. For not coming back.’

Kayla noted the curious inflexion in his voice as he made that last statement. Her smile wavered. ‘And what about just now?’

‘Just now?’

Leonidas looked at the woman who had pulled him screaming into the world. She had been there—never far away—throughout his childhood. A comfort from his father’s strict and sometimes brutal regime of discipline, his rock when his mother had died.

‘I don’t think she’s happy with the way I’ve turned out,’ he commented dryly to Kayla, and thought that if it were true he wouldn’t blame Philomena. There were times lately, he was surprised to find himself thinking, when he had been far, far from happy with himself.

‘Oh?’ Kayla clearly wanted to know more, but he had nothing more to offer her.

Gratefully he expressed his thanks to Philomena, adding something else, which brought Kayla’s cornflower-blue eyes curiously to his as he started moving away.

‘I’ve told her to take care of you,’ he translated, with a blazing smile that made Kayla’s stomach muscles curl in on themselves. And that was that. He had gone before she could utter another word.

* * *

Kayla settled in to her new accommodation with remarkable ease, and as she had suspected, despite the language barrier, she found Philomena Sarantos to be a warm and generous hostess.

She wondered what Leon had meant about Philomena being unhappy with the way he had turned out. Had he meant because of his lifestyle? Not having a steady job? Because he seemed content to drift from place to place?

Two days passed and she saw nothing of him. But then, what had she expected? Kayla meditated. Hadn’t he made it clear from the beginning that he didn’t welcome intrusion into his life? And, although he had invited her to stay with him at the farmhouse the morning after that tree had come down, she wondered if it hadn’t been merely a hollow gesture on his part. He’d known she would refuse, so he’d been perfectly safe in offering her his roof over her head.

What did it matter? she decided now. She’d had enough to occupy her time without bothering herself about Leon over the past couple of days.

The previous day she had driven up to the villa after Lorna’s parents had texted her with the estimated time they would be arriving. They had brought some local men with them who were arranging for the removal of the tree, and someone else who, having inspected the building, pronounced the place off-limits for the time being.

After arranging with the men for the necessary works to be carried out, her friend’s parents had been extremely concerned as to where Kayla would stay. But having satisfied them—just as she had done with Lorna, over the phone the previous day—that she had found suitable alternative accommodation, she had seen the couple off to spend a few days on Corfu and—in their own words—‘make the whole trip worthwhile’.

Now, with the sun having just risen and another glorious day yawning before her, Kayla traversed the dusty path that led from Philomena’s cottage and gasped with delight when it brought her down onto the sun-washed shingle of a secluded cove.

* * *

Striding down through the scrub, Leonidas came to where the beach opened out before him and stopped dead in his tracks.

Kayla was wading, shin-deep, in the translucent blue water, moving shorewards. She was looking down into the water and hadn’t spotted him yet.

He would have considered the fine white cotton dress she was wearing with its sheer long sleeves and modest yoke demure in any other circumstances, because it made her look almost angelic with her loose blonde hair moving in the breeze. But she had evidently—perhaps unintentionally—allowed the sea to lap too high to preserve her modesty, for now the garment clung wetly to her body, so that the gold of her skin and her small naked breasts were clearly visible beneath.

As she waded forward the sun struck gold from her hair, illuminating the lustrous gold of lashes that lay against her cheeks as her interest never wavered from the water.

Transfixed by her beauty, he noticed the grace of her movements, the way her progress changed the light, making her breasts appear indistinct one moment and then tantalisingly defined the next. A virginal siren, tantalising enough to set his masculine hormones ablaze as his gaze swept the length of her tunic, which only reached the tops of her slender thighs.

She looked up—and when she saw him she put her hand to her mouth in shock. Then her bare feet were running lightly over the shingle towards the white floppy hat he had only just noticed lying discarded nearby.

‘I didn’t see you,’ she called out, snatching up the hat that had been covering her ever-present camera and the rest of her things lying there on the shingle.

‘Evidently not.’ He couldn’t contain the slow smile that played across his mouth as he noted the purposeful way she covered her wet top with the hat, her own smile feigning nonchalance, as though she didn’t care.

‘Have you been standing there long?’

Not nearly long enough, Leonidas thought, struggling to keep control of his unleashed hormones and the effect she was having on him. He was glad he hadn’t simply worn bathing shorts, as he’d been tempted to do, and instead had donned linen trousers with a loose, casual shirt.