Despite the air conditioning, sweat beaded on his forehead and he strode across his office and pulled a bottle of iced water from the fridge.
Why should it bother him that his father was marrying again?
He was no longer an idealistic nine-year-old, shattered by a mother’s betrayal and driven by a deep longing for order and security.
He’d learned to make his own security. Emotionally he was an impenetrable fortress. He would never allow a relationship to explode the world from under his feet. He didn’t believe in love and he saw marriage as expensive and pointless.
Unfortunately his father, an otherwise intelligent man, didn’t share his views. He’d managed to build a successful business from nothing but the fruits of the land around him, but for some reason he had failed to apply that same intellect to his love life.
Nik reflected that if he approached business the way his father approached relationships, he would be broke.
As far as he could see his father performed no risk analysis, gave no consideration to the financial implications of each of his romantic whims and approached each relationship with the romantic optimism entirely inappropriate for a man on his fourth marriage.
Nik’s attempts to encourage at least some degree of circumspection had been dismissed as cynical.
To make the situation all the more galling, the last time they’d met for dinner his father had actually lectured him on his lifestyle as if Nik’s lack of divorces suggested a deep character flaw.
Nik closed his eyes briefly and wondered how everything in his business life could run so smoothly while his family was as messy as a dropped pan of spaghetti. The truth was he’d rather endure the twelve labours of Hercules than attend another of his father’s weddings.
This time he hadn’t met his father’s intended bride and he didn’t want to. He failed to see what he would bring to the proceedings other than grim disapproval and he didn’t want to spoil the day.
Weddings depressed him. All the champagne bubbles in the world couldn’t conceal the fact that two people were paying a fortune for the privilege of making a very public mistake.
Lily dumped her bag in the marble hallway and tried to stop her jaw from dropping.
Palatial didn’t begin to describe it. Situated on the headland overlooking the sparkling blue of the sea, Villa Harmonia epitomised calm, high-end luxury.
Wondering where the rest of the team were, she wandered out onto the terrace.
Tiny paths wound down through the tumbling gardens to a private cove with a jetty where a platform gave direct swimming access to the sea.
‘I’ve died and gone to heaven.’ Disturbed from her trance by the insistent buzz of her phone, she dug it out of her pocket. Her simple uniform was uncomfortably tight, courtesy of all the delicious thyme honey and Greek yoghurt she’d consumed since arriving in Crete. Her phone call turned out to be the owner of the cleaning company, who told her that the rest of the team had been involved in an accident and wouldn’t make it.
‘Oh no, are they hurt?’ On hearing that no one was in hospital but that the car was totalled, Lily realised she was going to be on her own with this job. ‘So if it normally takes four of us four hours, how is one person going to manage?’
‘Concentrate on the living areas and the master suite. Pay particular attention to the bathroom.’
Resigned to doing the best she could by herself, Lily set to work. Choosing Mozart from her soundtrack, she pushed in her earbuds and sang her way through The Magic Flute while she brushed and mopped the spacious living area.
Whoever lived here clearly didn’t have children, she thought as she plumped cushions on deep white sofas and polished glass tables. Everything was sophisticated and understated.
Realising that dreaming would get her fired, Lily hummed her way up the curving staircase to the master bedroom and stopped dead.
The tiny, airless apartment she shared with Brittany had a single bed so narrow she’d twice fallen out of it in her sleep. This bed, by contrast, was large enough to sleep a family of six comfortably. It was positioned to take advantage of the incredible view across the bay and Lily stood, drooling with envy, imagining how it must feel to sleep in a bed this size. How many times could you roll over before finding yourself on the floor? If it were hers, she’d spread out like a starfish.
Glancing quickly over her shoulder to check there was no sign of the security team, she unclipped her phone from her pocket and took a photo of the bed and the view.
One day, she texted Brittany, I’m going to have sex in a bed like this.
Brittany texted back, I don’t care about the bed, just give me the man who owns it.
With a last wistful look at the room, Lily tucked her phone carefully into her bag and strolled into the bathroom. A large tub was positioned next to a wall of glass, offering the owner an uninterrupted view of the ocean. The only way to clean something so large was to climb inside it, so she did that, extra careful not to slip.
When it was gleaming, she turned her attention to the large walk-in shower. There was a sophisticated control panel on the wall and she looked at it doubtfully. Remembering her disastrous experience with the photocopier and the coffee machine, she was reluctant to touch anything, but what choice was there?
Lifting her hand, she pressed a button cautiously and gasped as a powerful jet of freezing water hit her from the opposite wall.
Breathless, she slammed her hand on another button to try and stop the flow but that turned on a different jet and she was blasted with water until her hair and clothes were plastered to her body and she couldn’t see. She thumped the wall blindly and was alternately scalded and frozen until finally she managed to turn off the jets. Panting, her hair and clothes plastered to her body, she sank to the floor while she tried to get her breath back, shivering and dripping like a puppy caught in the rain.
‘I hate, hate, hate technology.’ She pushed her hair back from her face, took it in her hands and twisted it into a rope, squeezing to remove as much of the water as she could. Then she stood up, but her uniform was dripping and stuck to her skin. If she walked back through the villa like this, she’d drip water everywhere and she didn’t have time to clean the place again.
Peeling off her uniform, she was standing in her underwear wringing out the water when she heard a sound from the bedroom.
Assuming it must be one of the security team, she gave a whimper of horror. ‘Hello? If there’s anyone out there, don’t come in for a moment because I’m just—’ She stilled as a woman appeared in the doorway.
She was perfectly groomed, her slender body sheathed in a silk dress the colour of coral, her mouth a sheen of blended lipstick and lip-gloss.
Lily had never felt more outclassed in her life.
‘Nik?’ The woman spoke over her shoulder, her tone icy. ‘Your sex drive is, of course, a thing of legend but for the record it’s always a good idea to remove the last girlfriend before installing a new one.’
‘What are you talking about?’ The male voice came from the bedroom, deep, bored and instantly recognisable.
Still shivering from the impact of the cold water, Lily closed her eyes and wondered if any of the buttons on the control panel operated an ejector seat.
Now she knew who owned the villa.
Moments later he appeared in the doorway and Lily peered through soaked lashes and had her second ever look at Nik Zervakis. Confronted by more good looks and sex appeal than she’d ever seen concentrated in one man before, her tummy tumbled and she felt as if she were plunging downhill