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Her socks were sticky with sweat. She rolled them off gladly, and tucked them into her shoes. She wiggled her toes to stretch them out.
Hooking her fingers into the tops of her joggers, she stood up in one lithe movement and walked in the direction of the villa. It was a spectacularly beautiful property. The perfect showpiece for someone like Loucas.
The thought made her chest hurt.
Loucas had his collection of cars.
His collection of expensive properties.
His company jet.
His billions in the bank.
Loucas always had a trophy woman on his arm, too, to match all of his other prestige collections. And she, Mikey Jones, of Ventura, was definitely no trophy.
She looked wistfully down at her too-short legs, her too-big breasts, the hair that needed a trim, and the skin that was neither fair nor tanned, and sighed. Her looks were something she’d never given a second thought to in her life. Her brothers wouldn’t have allowed it. But now, for the first time in her twenty six years, she found herself wishing she was taller and slimmer, with a face that wasn’t ‘cute’, but beautiful instead.
He’d called her beautiful while she’d been in his bed though.
It brought Mikey precisely zero comfort. After all, it only served to prove how practiced his seduction had been. How false his attraction was.
She forced herself to keep walking, but all the pleasure had gone out of the morning for Mikey. A bird made a high pitched whistling sound and she looked up to find it.
Her heart slammed against her ribcage as she saw him.
Loucas.
Standing in his office, looking out of the wall of windows.
Looking down at her. Across the lawn, up two storeys, and through a tinted window, their eyes locked. And Mikey felt a kick in her gut as though she’d been punched. A throbbing, unmistakable and urgent, began in between her legs.
He didn’t move. He didn’t acknowledge her. Nor did he turn away.
Instinctively, she lifted a hand in a small wave of salute.
He looked at the gesture and raised his brows in an obviously mocking expression. Then, he turned away. Moved deeper into his office, so that she could no longer see him. Well, not in actuality. But his image was burned into her mind. All she had to do was close her eyes and there he was, larger than life and making her want him more than she’d ever known it was possible to want another person.
CHAPTER EIGHT
A week! A whole damned week, Mikey thought with a frown on her face. A week since she’d seen Loucas in person, and her whole body felt sore with need. After coming in from her run, a week earlier, she’d showered and gone straight to his office, determined to work out what was going on between them. Only she’d been too late. Nanny Paxton informed her that he’d left for an urgent meeting in Athens.
She nodded absentmindedly as Andrew continued to copy the letters she’d written. He was actually incredibly good at the task, which hinted at the fact that he’d been competent with writing his letters, and probably reading them, too, before the accident. It was a little early for a four year old to be so adept, but then again, the Washingtons had spared no expense in providing the best for Andrew.
“That’s great, Andy,” she commented, running a hand through his hair as he continued to trace the “K” for her.
It’s not as if Loucas owed her an explanation. He had every right to come and go as he wished. It was, after all, his Villa. His business was just that. His business. Unfortunately, his continued absence left Mikey with very little doubt as to what she meant to him. Clearly, nothing. Nada. A big fat zippo.
So what had that crazy twenty four hours been about? Had he been so bored at Nisi Ourano that he’d hit on the only available woman?
Worse than Loucas’s disappearance was Bobby. Somehow, he seemed to construe Loucas’s departure as an invitation to resume flirting with Mikey, and she was getting ready to tear her hair out if he kept it up. He was keeping things just inside the ‘friendship’ lines she’d insisted on. But only just. With the slightest encouragement, she knew he would push his perceived advantage and she didn’t relish the prospect of turning him down. Again.
She refocussed her eyes on the workbook Andrew was bent over. She peered past his shoulder. He’d stopped writing the alphabet, and was, instead, drawing a picture.
“May I see?” She asked with a smile, holding her hand out. She knew how important it was not to discourage any attempts at expression.
He handed the book to Mikey. Again, she thought how clever he was with his penmanship. Unmistakably, it was an ocean setting. Scribbles of blue met scrawls of yellow, and orange dots. Three stick figures were on the edge of the picture. One was half the size of the other two. Though she knew it was a self-portrait, she pointed to the smallest figure. “Who’s this?” She asked.
Andrew hesitated, then pointed a finger at his chest.
