Pressing her knees close together, to guard against a decidedly perverse instinct to shift them apart and tilt her hips towards that gorgeous, power-packed rangy body, she decided to get rid of him. Aiming for repressive, her words emerged in a husky tone she didn’t recognise as her own. ‘Did you want something? Can I help you?’
Worryingly, he moved just that little bit closer. His broad shoulders lifted infinitesimally, the bronzed skin gleaming like oiled silk, as it made her wonder what that skin would feel like beneath her fingers.
He gave no answer, but the silence sizzled with something unspoken and his slow smile made her tremble, made her wonder what was happening here—because as sure as hens laid eggs no male had ever made her feel this strange before. This—this what? Expectant?
She swallowed thickly just as he said, ‘I think that for now you should find shade.’ With lazy grace, the lightest of touches, he brushed a strand of damp hair away from her hot forehead. ‘You are hot. Very hot!’ Golden eyes danced. ‘I’ll see you around.’
Not if I see you first, was Maddie’s wild unspoken thought as she took the hint and scurried away from his unsettling presence, heading for the wide door that led to the cool interior of the villa. Her skin was still tingling where he had so lightly touched it, sending responsive quivers down her spine.
Typical Greek male, she fumed. Most of the casuals had been the same. Unable to stop strutting their stuff when a female was around. She’d been able to overlook them, no trouble at all. She didn’t do flirting. Didn’t know how. Didn’t want to know how. Hadn’t had any practice.
But the stranger had been different. And how! It had made her feel uncomfortable. An extra large dose of charisma, she decided as she reached the sanctuary of the suite of rooms she’d been given. A knock-out dose that would make him irresistible if he had seduction in mind.
Seduction? She wasn’t going to go there. No way! No doubt he acted that way with any female under ninety. So snap out of it, she scolded herself.
Getting out of her work clothes, she headed for the shower and put him quite brutally out of her mind. Or tried to. With little success, she conceded with vast annoyance.
The party was going with the sort of discreet swing that only serious money could contrive. Ultra-glamorous guests wandered out from the lavish buffet to the courtyard, wine glasses elegantly in hand, murmuring congratulations for the romance of the strategically placed uplighters, the plants Maddie had chosen for their perfume, the pale roses and sweetly scented jasmine festooning the pillars of the arcade. And because Amanda and Cristos, bless them, had made sure everyone present knew she was the creator of the lush loveliness, Maddie kept her fingers crossed that some of the guests might remember her if they needed any work done in the future.
Amanda joined her on the secluded stone seat Maddie had retired to to get her breath back after answering so many horticultural questions, a glass of chilled white wine in her hot hands.
‘It’s going perfectly. Everyone’s impressed. You never know—you might get one or two commissions.’
‘I hope so!’ Maddie grinned at her friend. ‘I’d love to work here again—I’ve fallen in love with the country! And I’ll never be able to thank you enough for thinking of me.’
‘Who else would I think of, dolt?’ Amanda’s lovely face dimpled with affection. ‘And take my advice—if you are offered a commission, charge top dollar. These people come from the top layer of Greek society—money coming out of their ears—they expect to pay mega-bucks. Offer them cut price and they’ll come all over squeamish and run a mile!’
‘I’ll remember that slice of cynicism!’ Maddie took a grateful long sip of wine and pushed her untidy fringe out of her eyes with her free hand, her dancing blue eyes wandering between the groups of beautiful people who were slowly circulating, chatting, the women discreetly pricing and placing each other’s jewels and designer dresses.
Dressing for the party, Maddie hadn’t even tried to compete. Heck, how could she? Willowy she wasn’t, and her wardrobe was as sparse as the hairs on a balding man’s head. So she’d got into the only dress she’d brought with her—a simple blue shirtwaister, plain but presentable.
She immediately wished she didn’t look so ordinary when she saw him.
An uncontrollable something made her heart leap and her stomach perform a weird loop. The guy she’d tagged as a casual worker—magnetic in a white tuxedo, urbane, elegant—was obviously one of the super-wealthy beings her friend mixed with now she’d married into the highest stratum of Greek society. All his attention was being given to the dark, fashionably skinny beauty clinging to his arm as if she’d been grafted there.
‘Oops—latecomer. I’d better do my hostess thing.’
Amanda, noticing the unmissable, rose to her feet, and Maddie, because she couldn’t help it, asked, ‘Who is he?’
‘He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?'Amanda smoothed the ice-blue silk of her skirt and giggled. ‘Dimitri Kouvaris—the shipping magnate and a near neighbour. He walked over this morning to discuss a business deal with Cristos—but he’s taken! The clinging vine is Irini—some distant family connection, I believe—and the general consensus is that wedding bells are soon to be tolled! So you have been warned!’
Great! Maddie thought bracingly. And the warning was unnecessary. Seeing him in this exalted milieu provided the metaphorical bucket of cold water she’d needed—because despite all her good intentions she hadn’t been able to get him or his final words out of her mind. Or the way he’d looked at her, the sexual interest demonstrated by his body language—and what a body!
She had to put a stop to the unwanted and repeated invasion of the totally stupid thought that he might be the one man capable of making her break her vow of chastity. A vow made to herself because her burgeoning career meant far more to her than any romantic entanglement, and because of her need to prove herself to her parent, who seemed to think that a woman needed a man to look after her, to make her whole.
Codswallop!—as she’d inelegantly informed her mother when she’d aired that outdated view.
But she couldn’t help watching the latecomers and noting the way that the hand that wasn’t around the beautiful Irini’s waist lifted in a salute of recognition as he glanced beyond Amanda to where she was sitting on her stone bench.
Her face flaming, Maddie refused to respond, and tried to wriggle further back into the shadows. The last thing she wanted or needed was for him to saunter over, clinging vine in tow, and humiliate her by reminding her how she had mistaken him for a casual worker.
If that had been his intention she was spared, when a group of guests headed by Cristos joined him. But she squirmed with embarrassment and uncomfortably strong frissons of something else entirely when his eyes kept seeking her out. Narrowed, speculative eyes.
A huge shudder racked its way through her. Enough! She wasn’t going to sit here like a transfixed rabbit while that man stared at her! Clumsily, she shot to her feet, and headed briskly back to the villa, where his eyes couldn’t follow her, making for her room and the calming, sensible task of packing for her departure back to England in the morning.
It was beginning to grow dark when Maddie parked her old van at the side of the stone cottage that had been her home for all her life. It had been a tight squeeze with four children, but her mother had made it a comfy home. Too comfy, perhaps, she reflected wryly. Only Adam, the eldest, had moved out, when he’d married two years ago. He and Anne had been lucky to get a council house on an estate a mile away, his job as a forestry worker providing for his wife and the next generation of Ryans—a toddler of eighteen months and twins on the way.
Sam and Ben still lived at home. Their joint market