Kristian shoved his wheelchair forward, inadvertently slamming into the edge of the couch. His frustration was written in every line of his face. “I don’t want food—”
“Of course not. Why eat when you’re addicted to pain pills?” She flashed a tight, strained smile he couldn’t see. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll see to your meal.”
The vaulted stone kitchen was in the tower, or pyrgos, and there the butler, cook and senior housekeeper had gathered beneath one of the medieval arches. They were in such deep conversation that they didn’t hear Elizabeth enter.
Once they realized she was there, all three fell silent and turned to face her with varying degrees of hostility.
Elizabeth wasn’t surprised. For one, unlike the other nurses, she wasn’t Greek. Two, despite being foreign, she spoke Greek fluently. And three, she wasn’t showing proper deference to their employer, a very wealthy, powerful Greek man.
“Hello,” Elizabeth said, attempting to ignore the icy welcome. “I thought I’d see if I could help with Mr. Koumantaros’s lunch.”
Everyone continued to gape at her until Pano, the butler, cleared his throat. “Mr. Koumantaros doesn’t eat lunch.”
“Does he take a late breakfast, then?” Elizabeth asked.
“No, just coffee.”
“Then when does he eat his first meal?”
“Not until evening.”
“I see.” Elizabeth’s brow furrowed as she studied the three staffers, wondering how long they’d been employed by Kristian Koumantaros and how they coped with his black moods and display of temper. “Does he eat well then?”
“Sometimes,” the short, stocky cook answered, wiping her hands across the starched white fabric of her apron. “And sometimes he just pecks. He used to have an excellent appetite—fish, moussaka, dolmades, cheese, meat, vegetables—but that was before the accident.”
Elizabeth nodded, glad to see at least one of them had been with him a while. That was good. Loyalty was always a plus, but misplaced loyalty could also be a hindrance to Kristian recovering. “We’ll have to improve his appetite,” she said. “Starting with a light meal right now. Perhaps a horiatiki salata,” she said, suggesting what most Europeans and Americans thought of as a Greek salad—feta cheese and onion, tomato and cucumber, drizzled with olive oil and a few drops of homemade wine vinegar.
“There must be someplace outside—a sunny terrace—where he can enjoy his meal. Mr. Koumantaros needs the sun and fresh air—”
“Excuse me, ma’am,” Pano interrupted, “but the sun bothers Mr. Koumantaros’s eyes.”
“It’s because Mr. Koumantaros has spent too much time sitting in the dark. The light will do him good. Sunlight stimulates the pituitary gland, helps alleviate depression and promotes healing. But, seeing as he’s been inside so much, we can transition today by having lunch in the shade. I assume part of the terrace is covered?”
“Yes, ma’am,” the cook answered. “But Mr. Koumantaros won’t go.”
“Oh, he will.” Elizabeth swallowed, summoning all her determination. She knew Kristian would eventually go. But it’d be a struggle.
Sitting in the library, Kristian heard the English nurse’s footsteps disappear as she went in search of the kitchen, and after a number of long minutes heard her footsteps return.
So she was coming back. Wonderful.
He tipped his head, looking up at nothing, since everything was and had been dark since the crash, fourteen months and eleven days ago.
The door opened, and he knew from the way the handle turned and the lightness of the step that it was her. “You’re wrong about something else,” he said abruptly as she entered the library. “The accident wasn’t a year ago. It was almost a year and a half ago. It happened late February.”
She’d stopped walking and he felt her there, beyond his sight, beyond his reach, standing, staring, waiting. It galled him, this lack of knowing, seeing. He’d achieved what he’d achieved by utilizing his eyes, his mind, his gut. He trusted his eyes and his gut, and now, without those, he didn’t know what was true, or real.
Like Calista, for example.
“That’s even worse,” his new nightmare nurse shot back. “You should be back at work by now. You’ve a corporation to run, people dependent on you. You’re doing no one any good hiding away here in your villa.”
“I can’t run my company if I can’t walk or see—”
“But you can walk, and there might be a chance you could see—”
“A less than five percent chance.” He laughed bitterly. “You know, before the last round of surgeries I had a thirty-five percent chance of seeing, but they botched those—”
“They weren’t botched. They were just highly experimental.”
“Yes, and that experimental treatment reduced my chances of seeing again to nil.”
“Not nil.”
“Five percent. There’s not much difference. Especially when they say that even if the operation were a success I’d still never be able to drive, or fly, or sail. That there’s too much trauma for me to do what I used to do.”
“And your answer is to sit here shrouded in bandages and darkness and feel sorry for yourself?” she said tartly, her voice growing closer.
Kristian shifted in his chair, and felt an active and growing dislike for Cratchett. She was standing off to his right, and her smug, superior attitude rubbed him the wrong way. “Your company’s services have been terminated.”
“They haven’t—”
“I may be blind, but you’re apparently deaf. First Class Rehab has received its last—final—check. There is no more coming from me. There will be no more payments for services rendered.”
He heard her exhale—a soft, quick breath that was so uniquely feminine that he drew back, momentarily startled.
And in that half-second he felt betrayed.
She was the one not listening. She was the one forcing herself on him. And yet—and yet she was a woman. And he was—or had been—a gentleman, and gentlemen were supposed to have manners. Gentlemen were supposed to be above reproach.
Growling, he leaned back in his chair, gripped the rims on the wheels and glared at where he imagined her to be standing.
He shouldn’t feel bad for speaking bluntly. His brow furrowed even more deeply. It was her fault. She’d come here, barging in with a righteous high-handed, bossy attitude that turned his stomach.
The accident hadn’t been yesterday. He’d lived like this long enough to know what he was dealing with. He didn’t need her telling him this and that, as though he couldn’t figure it out for himself.
No, she—Nurse Hatchet-Cratchett, his nurse number seven—had the same bloody mentality as the first six. In their eyes the wheelchair rendered him incompetent, unable to think for himself.
“I’m not paying you any longer,” he repeated firmly, determined to get this over and done with. “You’ve had your last payment. You and your company are finished here.”
And then she made that sound again—that little sound which had made him draw back. But this time he recognized the sound for what it was.
A laugh.
She was laughing at him.
Laughing and walking