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A ripple of panic washed over her, and then another of guilt. She shouldn’t be here, spying on him. It was wrong on so many levels. Only she didn’t dare move in case he spotted her. Panic replaced guilt. The thought of him emerging from the water and striding towards her like some Greek sea god, only in swim-shorts instead of some artfully draped robe, made it suddenly impossible for her to take a breath.
Hopefully he would start swimming again in a moment, and then she could retreat unobserved.
But he didn’t start swimming. Instead, he just trod water with his face tilted up towards the lightening sky, as if he was communing with a higher power.
Was that why he was here?
She felt something stir inside her. There was certainly something different about him. He looked exhilarated. Freer. Lighter. Only not in the sense of being weightless—more as if a burden had been lifted from those muscular shoulders.
But before she had a chance to pursue that train of thought Achileas stood up and began wading towards the beach. She caught the gleam of light on wet skin, and then her heartbeat began stampeding like a herd of wild horses. She had been wrong again. Achileas wasn’t wearing swim-shorts: he was naked. And whatever his body had felt like through his clothes, it looked a thousand times better, she thought on a rush of air.
Her skin was suddenly on fire. Now she really shouldn’t be looking. But she couldn’t tear her gaze away. Instead, she stared down at him, open-mouthed.
He was, hands-down, the most shockingly perfect specimen of maleness she had ever seen. A mesmerising mix of flawless sleek skin and golden muscle. She watched, hypnotised, as drops of sea water trickled down his contoured chest, over the light smattering of dark hair that arrowed down to the line that bisected his abs, then lower still to...to—
The word seemed to fill her mouth, so that suddenly it was impossible to swallow, and she dragged her gaze upwards, shock fluttering in her throat—and something else. Something sharp and persistent like thirst. Only not thirst.
As if sensing her gaze, Achileas turned, and she felt the blue of his eyes like twin gas rings. Naked flame burned her skin and she stumbled backwards. Had he seen her? Possibly. Should she show herself? Her pulse catapulted. Absolutely not.
She inched her way back up the path and then, once she was sure there was no chance of him catching sight of her, she turned towards the villa and ran.
Her bedroom would be quiet and still. Safe.
Closing the door behind her, she sat down on the bed. This had to stop. And it would. She was just adjusting to living with someone again. Living with Achileas. That was all it was. That and the fact that only a short time ago she had woken every morning in her small flat with nothing more than a clumsy kiss at a party to fuel her imagination.
Her nipples tightened and she felt a thread of heat cutting through her like a freshly forged blade. She’d always had a vivid imagination. Now she had plenty of fuel for it. Too much, in fact. And none of it relevant to her arrangement with Achileas.
She glanced over at her phone. It was where she had left it on the bedside table. Picking it up, she saw that there was a message from her mum.
Have the most wonderful holiday. I can’t wait to see the photos.
Picturing Sam carefully selecting each letter as she typed out her message, Effie felt her eyes burn. She loved her mum every bit as much as Achileas loved his father, and that was the reason she was here. Not sex—and particularly not sex with him. After all, as he’d said, her first time should be with someone who cared about her.
As she’d expected, Achileas made no mention of the night before when they met at breakfast. In fact, he behaved exactly as he had done the previous morning. As if it hadn’t happened. Or he had forgotten it.
She knew she should be grateful, and she was. But it still hurt, knowing he could do that.
She made herself concentrate on spooning yoghurt into her mouth.
‘I thought we might go out to lunch today.’
She glanced up, her heart lurching. ‘What do you mean?’ Surely he wasn’t suggesting that they go public yet? It was too soon.
Not taking his eyes off her face, he raised a dark eyebrow. ‘It’s a meal in the middle of the day. It comes between breakfast and dinner. And by “out” I mean at a restaurant,’ he said, his voice dropping a notch in a way that made her skin prickle with warning.
It wasn’t a suggestion.
Her body tensed. She was already feeling fragile after last night, and she was guessing Achileas’s choice of restaurant wouldn’t be some small, discreet side-street taverna.
‘Don’t you think we should wait a little?’ she said stiffly. ‘I mean, we haven’t really got our story straight.’
She felt a flutter of vertigo as he shifted forward, and there was a moment when it would have been so, so easy to tip herself into his clear blue eyes, but then he shrugged, dismissing her remark with a careless lift of his broad shoulders.
‘Oh, I think we both know where we stand on the essential details.’
He sat back in his chair, motioning with his hand in that imperious way of his, and she watched in silence as Demy instantly appeared at his elbow with a fresh pot of coffee.
‘Besides,’ he said when finally, the housekeeper left them alone, ‘what we do here, when we’re alone, is of no consequence.’
