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With no desire to climb aboard that train of thought, Alekos dragged his mind back to the present.
‘Boys!’ Her voice was melting chocolate with hints of cinnamon—smooth with a hint of spice. ‘Don’t climb the fence! You know it’s dangerous.’
Alekos felt the thud of raw emotion in his gut. Four years ago she would have hurled herself across the playground with the enthusiasm of a puppy and thrown herself into his arms.
The fact that she was now looking at him as if he’d escaped from a tiger reserve added an extra boost to his rocketing tension-levels.
Alekos looked at the boy nearest to him, the need for information unlocking his tongue. ‘Is she your teacher?’
‘Yes, she’s our teacher.’ Despite the warning, the boy jammed the toe of his shoe in the wire fence and tried to climb up. ‘She doesn’t look strict, but if you do something wrong—pow!’ He slammed his fist into his palm and Alekos felt a stab of shock.
/> ‘She hits you?’
‘Are you kidding?’ The boy collapsed with laughter at the thought. ‘She won’t even squash a spider. She catches them in a glass and lifts them out of the classroom. She never even shouts.’
‘You said “pow”.’
‘Miss Jenkins has a way of squashing you with a look. Pow!’ The boy shrugged. ‘She makes you feel bad if you’ve done something wrong. Like you’ve let her down. But she’d never hurt anyone. She’s non-violent.’
Non-violent. Miss Jenkins.
Alekos inhaled sharply; so, she wasn’t married. She didn’t yet have the four children she wanted.
Only now that the question was answered did he acknowledge that the possibility had been playing on his mind.
She crossed the playground towards him as if she were being dragged by an invisible rope. It was obvious that, given the chance, she would have run in the opposite direction. ‘Freddie, Kyle, Colin.’ She addressed the three boys in a firm tone that left no doubt about her abilities to manage a group of high-spirited children, ‘Come away from the fence.’
There was a clamour of conversation and he noticed that she answered their questions, instead of hushing them impatiently as so many adults did. And the children clearly adored her.
‘Have you seen the car, Miss Jenkins? It’s soo cool. I’ve only ever seen one in a picture.’
‘It’s just a car. Four wheels and an engine. Colin, I’m not telling you again.’ Turning her head, she looked at Alekos, her smile completely false. ‘How can I help you?’
She’d always been hopeless at hiding her feelings, and he read her as easily now as he had four years ago.
She was horrified to see him, and Alekos felt his temper burn like a jet engine.
‘Feeling guilty, agape mou?’
‘Guilty?’
‘You don’t seem pleased to see me,’ he said silkily. ‘I wonder why.’
Two bright spots of colour appeared on her cheeks and her eyes were suddenly suspiciously bright. ‘I have nothing to say to you.’
He should have greeted that ingenuous remark with the appropriate degree of contempt, but the ring had somehow faded in his mind, and now he was thinking something else entirely. Something hot, dangerous and primitive that only ever came into his head when he was with her.
Their eyes locked and he knew she was thinking the same thing. The moment held them both captive, and then she looked away, her cheeks as fiercely pink as they had been white a few moments earlier. She was treating him as if she didn’t know why he was here. As if they hadn’t once been intimately acquainted. As if there wasn’t a single part of her body that he didn’t know.
A tiny voice piped up. ‘Is he your boyfriend, miss?’
‘Freddie Harrison, that is an extremely personal question!’ Flustered, she urged the children away from the fence with a movement of her hand. ‘This is Alekos Zagorakis, and he is not my boyfriend. He is just someone I knew a long time ago.’
‘A friend, miss?’
‘Um, yes, a friend.’ The word was dragged from her and the children looked suddenly excited.
‘Miss Jenkins has a boyfriend, Miss Jenkins has a boyfriend…’ the chant increased the tension in her eyes.
