It was not that anyone should suffer, but somehow on Kristian the suffering became bigger, larger than life, a thing in and of itself.
“You’re an attractive man even with the scar,” she said, still kneeling next to his chair.
“It’s a hideous scar. It runs the length of my face. I can feel it.”
“You’re quite vain, then, Mr. Koumantaros?”
His head swung around and the expression on his face, matched by the cloudiness in his deep blue eyes, stole her breath. He didn’t suit the chair.
Or the chair didn’t suit him. He was too big, too strong, too much of everything. And it was wrong, his body, his life, his personality contained by it. Confined to it.
“No man wants to feel like Frankenstein,” Kristian said with another rough laugh.
She knew then that it wasn’t his face that made him feel so broken, but his heart and mind. Those memories of his that haunted him, the flashes of the past that made him relive the accident over and over. She knew because she’d once been the same. She, too, had relived an accident in endless detail, stopping the mental camera constantly, freezing the lens at the first burst of flame and the final ball of fire. But that was her story, not his, and she couldn’t allow her own experiences and emotions to cloud her judgment now.
She had to regain some control, retreat as quickly as possible to professional detachment. She wasn’t here for him; she was here for a job. She wasn’t his love interest. He had one in Athens, waiting for him to recover. It was this lover of his who’d insisted he walk, he function, he see, and that was why she was here. To help him recover. To help him return to her.
“You’re far from Frankenstein,” she said crisply, covering her suddenly ambivalent emotions. She rose to her feet, smoothed her straight skirt and adjusted her blouse. “But, since you require flattery, let me give it to you. The scar suits you. Gives your face character. Makes you look less like a model or a movie star and more like a man.”
“A man,” he repeated with a bitter laugh.
“Yes, a man. And with some luck and hard work, soon we’ll have you acting like a man, too.”
Chaotic emotions rushed across his face. Surprise, then confusion, and as she watched the confusion shifted into anger. She’d caught him off guard and hurt him. She could see she’d hurt him.
Swallowing the twinge of guilt, she felt it on the tip of her tongue to apologize, as she hadn’t meant to hurt his feelings so much as provoke him into taking action.
But even as she attempted to put a proper apology together, she sensed anything she said, particularly anything sympathetic, would only antagonize him more. He was living in his own hell.
More gently she added, “You’ve skied the most inaccessible mountain faces in the world, piloted helicopters in blizzards, rescued a half-dozen—”
“Enough.”
“You can do anything,” she persisted. His suffering was so obvious it was criminal. She’d become a nurse to help those wounded, not to inflict fresh wounds, but sometimes patients were so overwhelmed by physical pain and mental misery that they self-destructed.
Brilliant men—daring, risk-taking, gifted men—were particularly vulnerable, and she’d learned the hard way that these same men self-destructed if they had no outlet for their anger, no place for their pain.
Elizabeth vowed to find the outlet for Kristian, vowed she’d channel his fury somehow, turning pain into positives.
And so, before he could speak, before he could give voice to any of his anger, or contradict her again, she mentioned the pretty table setting before them, adding that the cook and butler had done a superb job preparing their late lunch.
“Your staff have outdone themselves, Mr. Koumantaros. They’ve set a beautiful table on your terrace. Can you feel that breeze? You can smell the scent of pine in the warm air.”
“I don’t smell it.”
“Then come here, where I’m standing. It really is lovely. You can get a whiff of the herbs in your garden, too. Rosemary, and lemongrass.”
But he didn’t roll forward. He rolled backward, retreating back toward the shadows. “It’s too bright. The light makes my head hurt.”
“Even if I replace the bandages?”
“Even with the bandages.” His voice grew harsh, pained. “And I don’t want lunch. I already told you that but you don’t listen. You won’t listen. No one does.”
“We could move lunch inside—”
“I don’t want lunch.” And with a hard push he disappeared into the cooler library, where he promptly bumped into a side–table and sent it crashing, which led to him cursing and another bang of furniture.
Tensing, Elizabeth fought the natural inclination to hurry and help him. She wanted to rush to his side, but knew that doing so would only prolong his helpless state. She couldn’t become an enabler, couldn’t allow him to continue as he’d done—retreating from life, retreating from living, retreating into the dark shadows of his mind.
Instead, with nerves of steel, she left him as he was, muttering and cursing and banging into the table he’d overturned, and headed slowly across the terrace to the pretty lunch table, with its cheerful blue and white linens and cluster of meadow flowers in the middle.
And while she briefly appreciated the pretty linens and fresh flowers, she forgot both just as quickly, her thoughts focused on one thing and only one—Kristian Koumantaros.
It had cost her to speak to him so bluntly. She’d never been this confrontational—she’d never needed to be until now—but, frankly, she didn’t know what else to do with him at this point. Her agency had tried everything—they’d sent every capable nurse, attempted every course of therapy—all to no avail.
As Elizabeth gratefully took a seat at the table, she knew her exhaustion wasn’t just caused by Kristian’s obstinance, but by Kristian himself.
Kristian had gotten beneath her skin.
And it’s not his savage beauty, she told herself sternly. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t so superficial as to be moved by the violence in his face and frame—although he had an undeniably handsome face. So what was it? Why did she feel horrifyingly close to tears?
Ignoring the nervous flutter in her middle, she unfolded her linen serviette and spread it across her lap.
Pano appeared, a bottle of bubbling mineral water in his hand. “Water, ma’am?”
“Please, Pano. Thank you.”
“And is Mr. Koumantaros joining you?”
She glanced toward the library doors, which had just been shut. She felt a weight on her heart, and the weight seemed to swell and grow. “No, Pano, not today. Not after all.”
He filled her glass. “Shall I take him a plate?”
Elizabeth shot another glance toward the closed and shuttered library doors. She hesitated but a moment. “No. We’ll try again tonight at dinner.”
“So nothing if he asks?” The butler sounded positively pained.
“I know it seems hard, but I must somehow reach him. I must make him respond. He can’t hide here forever. He’s too young, and there are too many people that love him and miss him.”
Pano seemed to understand this. His bald head inclined and, with a polite, “Your luncheon will be served immediately,” he disappeared, after leaving the mineral water bottle on the table within her reach.
One of the villa’s younger staff served the lunch—souvlaki, with sliced cucumbers and warm fresh pitta. It wasn’t the meal she’d requested, and Elizabeth suspected it was intentional, the cook’s own rebellion, but at least