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His eyebrows snapped together. ‘I was looking where I was going. More importantly, I was also on time for our meeting this morning. Unlike you.’
He stared down at her, a muscle pulsing in his cheek. Beside them, the sea kept on being the sea, and she wondered if he was regretting bringing her. Or just contemplating throwing her in.
‘I need you to pay attention, Effie, because I’m only going to say this once,’ he said at last, his voice gratingly harsh in the whispering breeze. ‘This is not some holiday. We made a deal. I am investing in your business and in return you will be my wife. But for that to be believable we need to spend some time together. So, when I say I’ll see you at breakfast, I’m not asking you.’ His blue gaze locked onto hers. ‘I’m paying you. Is that clear?’
To be fair, it had been clear before. Only, stupidly, she had thought that there was an equality of sorts in their arrangement. But to him she was only a cog in the wheel of a machine, brought here to serve a purpose.
His purpose.
Because, of course, Achileas was the machine.
She gazed up at him, her heart beating in her throat. Sunlight was caressing his cheekbones and the line of his jaw reverently, like an adoring lover. But no amount of sun could disguise the hard, uncompromising set of his features.
‘Perfectly.’
Her response was automatic, her voice as quiet and placating as it would have been if she was at work and he was a dissatisfied guest, but she felt a flicker of defiance as she spoke. As a maid she was truly just a cog, a tiny moving part. But wasn’t a wife—even a fake one—by definition a partner?
‘Good.’ His brooding gaze held hers momentarily. ‘Then let’s get back to the villa. We’ve wasted enough time this morning already.’
It was on the tip of her tongue to point out that they could use the time it would take to walk back to the villa to get to know one another, but he had already turned and stalked off down the path. And, as it turned out, it took considerably less time to get back than it had taken her to reach the sea.
Achileas walked swiftly and with the same intensity of purpose with which he seemed to do everything else, eating the ground with his long, fluid strides, only pausing occasionally and impatiently for her to catch up.
It was as if he was in a race. But where was the finishing line? More importantly, what was the prize? Surely there were only so many houses and private jets and islands you could buy, she thought.
Back at the villa, breakfast was waiting for them on the beautiful stone terrace.
Effie sat down at the table and, like a member of an orchestra tuning up for a performance, her stomach started to rumble.
It was nothing like the breakfast she ate at home, she thought, gazing down at the array of plain white bowls and platters, filled with soft, billowing peaks of yogurt, freshly sliced fruit and delicious pastries dusted with icing sugar.
But, despite her hunger, it was the house that drew her gaze.
She had seen it last night, when they’d arrived on the island, but she had been too tired—not just from the journey but from the days leading up to it—to register much about the exterior except that it wasn’t quite what she had imagined.
To her, Greek architecture was either a ruined temple with lots of columns or those postcard-pretty white houses with blue doors and domed roofs. But the Villa Elytis was neither a ruin nor white. It was a soft shell-pink and it was beautiful. The most beautiful house she had ever seen.
Strangely, though, there was nothing about it to connect it to the man sitting opposite her. Inside everything was perfect but impersonal—like a stage set. Surely his whole life couldn’t be a performance? Not in his home?
‘Why aren’t you eating? Do you want something else?’
Achileas frowned at her across the table. He was dressed casually, in linen trousers and a T-shirt, but somehow that only seemed to emphasise his innate unadorned authority.
‘The kitchen can make you whatever you want.’
By ‘the kitchen’, he meant Yiannis and Anna. Feeling a swirling rush of solidarity with the nameless behind-the-scenes staff, she immediately helped herself to yogurt. ‘No, thank you, this is wonderful.’
And it was. Rich and gloriously creamy, with a hint of lemon. The tiny custard-filled pastries were delicious too.
Achileas watched her while she ate. He didn’t eat, but maybe he had eaten earlier. Or maybe masters of the universe didn’t eat breakfast.
As she put down her spoon he shifted back in his chair, his blue eyes calmer now.
‘We might have to adjust the timeline a little, but I think it’s best if we stick as closely to the truth as possible.’ He took a sip of his coffee. ‘That way it will all flow quite naturally between us.’
She knew he was talking about the story they would tell people—about how they’d met and fallen in love—but something in his darkly handsome face made her pulse pick up and her stomach knot as she remembered what had happened the last time it had all flowed ‘naturally’ between them.
‘Actually, I think we should probably keep as far away from the truth as we can,’ she said quietly. ‘Being forced into a car by a stranger isn’t usually a prelude to marriage.’
