Standing there on the edge of the path in the shadows, Anton was entranced. He should go; he knew that he should. If anyone was guaranteed to rob all that childlike delight from Zoe Kanellis then it was him. He should just turn around and creep away again like a thief in the night. Go and bunk down on the sofa in Kostas’s house in the village. Perhaps the two of them could get drunk on a bottle of ouzo and Kostas could vent his spleen with all the disapproving remarks about Anton’s behaviour he had been storing up.
Where had he got the idea that she was too thin?
That dress didn’t say thin, it said delicately formed curves in all the right places, the teasing shape of her neat behind and her nipped in little waist. His gaze drifted higher as she completed a full circle, giving him a full-on view of two firmly rounded globes filling the shape of her tie-neck top. The inner growl of his sexual animal brought a soft curse hissing from his lips as his body responded with a flood of fierce heat directly to his pelvis, and he twisted round to face in the opposite direction, intending to make good his escape while he still had the strength.
But he stood on a twig and made it snap. Behind him he heard a sharp little gasp.
‘Who is there?’ Zoe Kanellis called out uncertainly.
Anton shut his eyes and ground his teeth together. The ensuing silence behind him played across his tense shoulder-muscles and the fine hairs on the back of his neck. If he moved she would see him. If he stayed where he was it was like accepting that he was a scared wimp.
Be a man, Pallis, he told himself, and made himself turn round again.
‘I said, who’s there?’ Zoe repeated, already balancing on the balls of her shoes ready to run. It was so dark over by the trees her eyes were stinging as she tried to pierce through it.
‘It’s OK,’ a familiar voice answered very dryly. ‘It is only me.’ Her heart gave a giant leap when she saw the tall, lean figure of Anton Pallis emerge from out of the darkness.
‘Oh.’ She put a hand up to cover the pounding beat of her heart. ‘You scared me.’
She caught sight of the way his mouth drew down at the corners in a grimace. He was still wearing the grey suit he’d changed into on the flight over here, only the jacket was no longer on his back put slung over a wide shoulder and held there by a long finger hooked into the loop. His tie had gone, the top few buttons on his shirt dragged open at his taut brown throat. A five o’clock shadow gave his jaw a roguish look and as he came closer she saw how that grimace seemed to mock himself.
‘Stargazing, Zoe?’ he quizzed.
‘I’ve never seen a sky like it.’ She actually smiled at him as she said it, then looked up again as he came to stop a couple of steps away from her. ‘It’s just glorious.’
‘So, how many did you count?’
‘I got to two billion before you interrupted.’
‘My apologies,’ he murmured.
‘Accepted,’ she returned, softly, because as far as Anton could tell she was busy counting stars again. ‘I wish I had my telescope.’
‘You have your own telescope?’
‘Mmm. If you look just up there—’ she raised a pale, slender arm to point towards the night sky ‘—you can see the dense-star field around the Antares. It’s an M4 cluster and looks spectacular here because there’s no air pollution to cloud it out.’
Anton looked up and just saw stars. ‘Where is this telescope you wish you had with you?’
‘I sold it when I left uni … Oh, Anton, look; there’s Perseus. How fitting to find him flying over Greece. I could …’
Her excitement faded into nothing when Zoe realised she was talking to a lost audience. He wasn’t looking up at the sky, he was watching her with a brooding intensity that flooded a blush into her cheeks.
‘Sorry,’ she mumbled, her voice turning husky with embarrassment as she added, ‘The night sky is my—passion.’
‘I can tell,’ he said softly.
She was determined not to react to his soft, taunting tone. ‘What are you doing here, anyway? I thought you flew off before the sun set.’
‘The sun went down and your stars were out before I could get away.’
‘The reporters,’ Zoe remembered. ‘Anthea told me about them. Did you send them packing?’
‘Like Zeus, with a single blow of my breath.’
Now he really was mocking her; Zoe stuck up her chin. ‘Zeus doesn’t have a place up there in the heavens. Up there he’s called Jupiter. The Greek gods did not get everything their own way.’
‘I know the feeling,’ he drawled sardonically.
Meaning she had stopped him getting all his own way? Well, she could argue with that, since she was the one standing here in his garden, on his island, simply because he had decided that this was where she should be.
‘So, how did you get here?’ She hadn’t heard a car while she’d been out here.
‘I walked from the village along the beach. I like the dress,’ he tagged on casually.
‘Oh … thanks.’ Looking down at the dress, Zoe started frowning. ‘You bought it,’ she told him. ‘Which is something I need to talk to you about. You should not be spend ing—’
‘Do you like your room?’ he interrupted.
‘Yes, of course I like my room, it’s beautiful. Thank you,’ she said again with an added snap of impatience this time. ‘But about the clothes …’
‘And you found everything you needed to make your brother comfortable?’ he cut in on her yet again.
Zoe shifted from one foot to the other. ‘That’s another thing we need to talk about.’ She refused to drop the subject though she knew that what he was trying to make her do. ‘All those soft toys and—things—were not necessary. We will only be here for a couple of weeks and Toby is too young to—’
‘I believe my staff made you welcome.’
Zoe sucked in some air and clenched her hands into fists. ‘You’re not going to stop me from telling you what I think, you know!’
‘I noticed.’ It was his turn to alter his stance. ‘However, do you think you could hold back on our next argument until I’ve at least put a foot inside my house?’
It was the same as a slap on the wrist, Zoe noted, and accepted that she probably deserved it. ‘I was just …’
‘Shut up now, Zoe,’ he urged wearily. ‘The clothes were a gift. I will not miss the money. Same thing with the stuffed toys. When I walked out of the wood and first saw you standing here, I was bowled over by how extraordinarily beautiful you looked—until you started sniping at me, then you spoilt it. Now I think I will cut my losses and go inside.’
With that he swung to face the house.
‘OK,’ she said quickly. ‘I accept I should have been more gracious with my thanks.’
Though he didn’t walk off, his darkly handsome face with that wicked five o’clock shadow did not look very impressed with her small climb-down.
‘It was not my intention to start another fight with you.’ Zoe tried again. ‘The clothes were a very thoughtful gesture. And I am, truly, very grateful that you went to so much trouble on mine and Toby’s behalf and … Well, anyway, I’m sorry I am such an irritant to you and …’
‘You are not an irritant,’ he clipped out impatiently.
What was she then—warm