‘Yes…no.’
The creases around his stupendous eyes deepened. ‘Which?’
Oh, no, he was going to go back to whatever planet he came from—clearly he was too gorgeous to be earthbound— and laugh about the mentally challenged locals. She made a supreme effort to act as though her IQ reached double figures.
‘We spend the summer holidays here. My…’ Her eyelashes lowered, as she repressed the embarrassing impulse to give him her life story. Even if that life could be summed up in a paragraph, his stupendous eyes would have glazed over with boredom before she got to the end.
One noteworthy thing had happened in her life and she didn’t even remember it! She had been a baby when her mother had run away with a Greek waiter. Since then her deserted father had refused to travel abroad, hence the house here where she had spent every summer she could remember, firstly with just her father and grandmother, latterly with her stepmother and stepbrother.
‘But you know the area well? You know all the places to go?’
‘Places to go…?’ Her puzzled expression cleared. ‘I suppose I do.’ She was delighted to be able to be of use to this most amazing man. ‘Well, actually, it depends,’ she told him seriously.
‘On what?’
‘If you have a head for heights.’
‘I do.’
‘Not me,’ she admitted regretfully. ‘The headland walk along the nature reserve is apparently marvellous, but if you prefer something a little gentler the trail across the marsh is very well marked and there are hides where you can…Are you interested in birds?’ The area drew a lot of people who were; they arrived with their binoculars in their droves. ‘It’s not the breeding season, but there are still some—’
‘I am not a bird-watcher; I prefer more…active pursuits.’
Now that he said it she had no problem seeing him fitting into the mould of those tough, reckless individuals who indulged in extreme sports…Extreme as in those extremely likely to result in injury or worse!
The thought of him breaking his beautiful neck made her unthinkingly blurt out, ‘You should be careful.’
‘At the moment I’m under strict instructions to relax.’ A slow smile that made her tummy flip spread across his lean features. ‘And suddenly,’ he confided in a husky drawl that made Georgie’s skin prickle, ‘that doesn’t seem such a bad idea.’
Was he flirting with her…? Georgie dismissed the thought even before it was fully formed.
‘I was actually wondering about the night-life…?’ he went on.
‘Night-life?’ she parroted. The distracting shadow of dark body hair visible through the fine fabric of his shirt was making it hard for her to concentrate on what he was saying.
‘As in nightclubs.’
‘Nightclubs?’ she echoed as though he were talking a foreign language. ‘Here?’
His beautifully moulded lips quirked. ‘No nightclubs.’ She shook her head. ‘Restaurants…?’
Georgie’s eyes had got even wider. ‘I think you might have got the wrong place. There’s the teashop next to the post office—they do a great cream tea—and the fish and chip shop, but…Are you laughing at me?’
‘You’re delightful.’
Even though she realised he probably meant delightful in a cutesie, cuddly, clumsy puppy sort of way, she couldn’t stop smiling.
‘And this feels like the first time I’ve laughed in a very long time.’
Georgie was pondering this enigmatic statement when a football landed in her lap, spraying sand all over her. There was the sound of laughter as she sprawled inelegantly backwards onto the sand.
‘Jack Kemp!’ she yelled, spitting out a mouthful of sand as her stepbrother approached. She struggled into an upright position and glared at the guilty figure.
‘What’s got into you?’ asked the freckle-faced twelve-year-old. ‘It wasn’t hard,’ he added scornfully.
Clicking her tongue, she threw the ball back, with an admonition to be careful. ‘And five minutes only,’ she cautioned, glancing at her watch. ‘I promised I’d get dinner tonight,’ she reminded him.
‘Sure…sure, Georgie,’ Jack called back before loping off down the sand.
‘Georgie…?’
‘Georgette,’ she said with a grimace. ‘My family call me Georgie. That’s my stepbrother,’ she explained, nodding to the skinny running figure.
She turned as she spoke and found he wasn’t looking at the distant figure of the fair-headed boy, but at her. There was a sensual quality in his dark-eyed scrutiny that sent a secret shiver through her body; the condition of her nipples was less a secret as they pressed against the stretchy fabric of her bikini top.
She looked around red-cheeked and mortified for the shirt she had discarded. She found it in a crumpled heap under the sun cream; hastily she fought her way into it.
‘I will call you Georgette,’ he pronounced.
She was never going to see him again, but as far as Georgie was concerned this man could call her anything.
CHAPTER TWO
‘HOW old are you, Georgette?’
Georgie flirted briefly with the notion of coming back with a cool, Old enough, but she knew she’d never carry it off. Besides, how mortifying would it be if he laughed?
‘Twenty-one,’ she responded more conventionally.
‘Will you come to dinner with me?’ he asked without skipping a beat.
Her eyes, round with astonishment, flew to his. ‘Me…you…?’
‘That was the general idea.’
Georgie swallowed before running her tongue over her dry lips—they tasted salty—and she looked at him suspiciously. ‘You’re not serious.’ She tried to laugh but her vocal muscles didn’t co-operate.
‘Why would I not be?’ She shook her head, flushing as his gaze became ironic. ‘You are the most attractive woman on the beach.’
‘I’m the only one under sixty without a husband and children,’ she rebutted huskily, ‘so I’ll try not to get carried away with the compliment.’
Who was she kidding? Her entire life she had thought of herself as an average sort of girl—hidden depths, sure, but was anybody ever going to bother looking? Now totally out of left field there came this incredible man who was looking at her as though she were a desirable woman.
Carried away…? She was quite frankly blown away!
She tried to adopt an amused expression and failed miserably as the screen of ebony lashes swept up from his cheekbones. Combustible best described his smoky-eyed stare.
‘I don’t even know your name,’ she protested weakly.
His smile had been confident, tinged with the arrogance that came naturally to someone like him. And why shouldn’t it be? she mused, four years down the line. Angolos Constantine was used to getting what he wanted; a little bit of complacence was understandable when women had been falling at his feet since the day he’d hit puberty!
‘Not an insuperable barrier and I already know yours, Georgette.’ The way he said her name had a tactile quality. It made the hairs on her nape stand on end and intensified the unspecified ache low in her belly.
She stared back at him dreamily.
It