eyed the scooter speculatively. “I thought you walked.”
“In the morning, yes, but I’m running late and I thought I’d take this for a spin. It was my yia-yia’s and is proving handy.”
“Your yia-yia’s?” Naomi tried to picture a tiny little grandmother, dressed in black, motoring around Mythelios on this little turquoise scooter.
“Why not?”
“A scooter’s not very practical for a man with a baby.”
“I have a car on the mainland. The ferry’s not a far walk and neither is the clinic. Do you want a ride or do you want to spend all day holding up that wall?”
“Thanks.”
Naomi hobbled over to him and climbed precariously onto the back of the scooter, sitting sidesaddle behind him because she was wearing a tight pencil skirt. She crossed her legs at the ankles.
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Uh...you do have to hold on.”
“There’s nothing to hold on to.”
“Sure there is. Me. You have to hold on to me.”
Definitely cursed.
“Fine,” she murmured as she slipped her arms around his waist.
Under his loose scrubs she could feel every single one of his abdominal muscles, and when she closed her eyes, she could see him without his shirt on and it made her heart beat just a little bit faster.
She’d never really forgotten the electric effect he’d had on her, and being so close to him now, with her body pressed against his, it all came rushing back, making her blood heat and her palms sweat.
She hated that he still had this effect on her. Why did he still have this effect on her? Why was she letting him get to her?
Because you’re weak. Because you’ve never really gotten over him.
“You ready?”
“No!” she said, but nodded.
He chuckled. “Hang on.”
Chris revved the engine and the little scooter took off down the hill, through the narrow cobbled streets of the old part of Mythelios. Naomi closed her eyes tight for a few moments as Chris drove like a maniac through the streets, but then he turned away from the clinic road onto another road. A dirt track that overlooked the sea.
“Where are we going?” she shrieked over the roar of the engine.
“Just taking the back way,” he teased. “A more scenic route, since you probably haven’t seen all of Mythelios yet.”
“Uh, no—I really need to get back.”
“Live a little, Naomi. You’re always so uptight.”
That was what he’d said to her when they’d first met, and look where that had gotten her. It had left her with a broken heart, an unimaginable loss and, for the first time in her life, without a clue as to how to go on.
She’d fought hard to dig herself out of that pit of heartbreak and learn to put herself first. She wasn’t going to let him do that to her again.
“Chris, stop this thing now!”
Chris pulled over into a lay-by and stopped the scooter. Once she was off, she slipped off her shoes and began to walk barefoot down the dirt track toward the clinic.
“Naomi, I was only joking.”
She spun around. “That’s the thing. You’re always joking! I have real work to do. I have patients to see this afternoon! I don’t have time to waste driving all over the island just because I need to let loose! I’ve done enough of that in my life and look where it got me.”
Tears were stinging her eyes—not because she was sad, but because she always cried when she got mad, and she was mad about this whole situation. How he thought things could ever be normal between them was a mystery to her.
Maybe she was cursed and maybe he had all the luck, but she worked hard for what she wanted, for what she’d achieved, and she wasn’t going to let him stand in her way this time.
“Naomi!” he called out, but she ignored him, limping along the road, feeling small pebbles digging into the soles of her feet.
Chris came jogging up beside her and took her hand in his. It was so strong, so warm.
“I’m sorry, Naomi.”
There was sincerity in his eyes, and a well of sadness.
“Please let me take you back to the clinic and I’ll make it up to you any way that I can.”
“You’ll make it up to me?” she asked.
He nodded. “Of course. I was impertinent and flippant and I’ll do whatever it takes to make things right. I’ll do whatever it takes to make this whole thing go away so we can work together.”
“Okay.” She grinned suddenly. “I know exactly how you can make it up to me.”
He cocked a wary eyebrow. “Really? That fast?”
“Yes. It’s something that’s put me in a bit of a predicament.”
“What is it?” Chris asked hesitantly.
“You’re going to be my feature bachelor.”
His expression fell. “What?”
“At a charity auction to raise money for earthquake relief. You’re going to give up your time and take the highest bidder on a romantic night out.”
* * *
He wasn’t quite sure that he’d heard her right.
“You want me to do what?” he asked in disbelief.
“Be in the bachelor auction.”
“No way!” he almost shouted at her, throwing up his arms.
“You said you’d make it up to me, and being the featured bachelor in our Hot Greek Nights bachelor auction would definitely be a highlight.”
“Nope.” He shook his head and crossed his arms. “I’m not a bachelor.”
A strange expression crossed her face and for a fleeting moment he thought he saw that flare of jealousy again.
“You’re involved with someone?” she asked slowly.
“No, but...”
She held up her hand to silence him. “Then you’re doing it, pal.”
“I think not. I’m a single father. I don’t have time to do a charity auction.”
“Even if it will help those less fortunate here in Mythelios? Those who were affected by the earthquake? Not everyone is so lucky as to have a trust fund and live like you do. There are other single parents out there seriously struggling to survive.”
Dammit.
He couldn’t argue with that, and if it was to help out with fund-raising, there was no way he could walk away from it. Naomi had him cornered, the minx.
“Who suggested me?” he grumbled.
“No one did. I see no wedding band. Like you said, you’re a single father.”
“I told you my son’s mother made it clear that she did not want him and left,” he snapped, surprised at how touchy he was about it.
“I’m sorry it didn’t work out.”
“There was nothing to work out. I told you it was a one-night stand. I regret sleeping with Evan’s biological mother, but I don’t regret having him in my