corporation to dominate his life.
The villa hadn’t been new. It had needed repairs and his father had enlisted Stavros to set fresh paving stones at the front entrance while his mother and sisters had potted the bougainvillea that now bloomed in masses of pink against the white walls.
The memories were so sharp and painful as Stavros sat there, he wanted to jam the truck in Reverse and get away from all of it.
But where would he go? Back to the blaming, shaming glint in his grandfather’s hard stare? Back to the understudy role he hated, but played because his father wasn’t there to be the star?
Cursing Sebastien afresh, Stavros glanced over his work order. He wasn’t cleaning the pool, but repairing the cracked tiles around it. Déjà vu with paving stones. The mistress of the house would direct him.
He blew out a disgusted breath. After two decades of bearing up under his grandfather’s dictates, and now facing a demand that he marry, he was at the end of his rope with being told what to do.
No one answered the doorbell so he let himself in through the gate at the side and went down the stairs into a white-walled courtyard that opened on one side to the view of the sea. His arrival didn’t stir Venus from her slumber.
Damn, but his tension wanted an outlet. He let his gaze cruise over her stellar figure once more. If she was a wife, she was the trophy kind, but she wasn’t wearing a ring.
The mistress of the place, his employer had said. He would just bet she was a mistress. How disappointing to have such a beauty reserved by his boss’s client.
In another life, Stavros wouldn’t have let that stop him from going after her.
This was another life, he recalled with a kick of his youthful recklessness.
Crouching, he scooped up a handful of water and flicked it at her.
* * *
The spatter of something against Calli’s face startled her awake—in the pool, where she reflexively tried to sit up and immediately unbalanced. She tumbled sideways, sunglasses sliding off her nose, arms outstretched but catching at nothing. She plunged under the cold water into the blur of blue. Oh, that was a shock!
Ophelia.
Calli caught her bearings and pumped her arms to burst through the surface, sputtering, “You are so grounded. Go to your room.”
But that wasn’t Ophelia straightening to such a lofty height at the side of the pool. It was a conquering warrior, tall and forbidding, backlit by the sun so Calli’s eyes watered as she tried to focus on him. His yellow T-shirt and shorts did nothing to detract from his powerful, intimidating form. In fact, his clothes clung like golden armor hammered across the contours of his shoulders and chest, accentuating the tan on his muscular biceps.
She couldn’t see his eyes, but felt the weight of his gaze. It pushed her back and drew her forward at the same time, making her forget to breathe, making her hot despite being submerged to her shoulders and treading water.
Heat radiated through her, that dangerous heat that she had learned to ignore out of self-preservation. This time it wouldn’t quash, which caused a knot of foreboding in her belly. He mesmerized her, holding her suspended as though in amber, snared into a moment of sexual fascination that seemed destined to last eternally.
He folded his arms, imperious, but his voice held a rasp of humor. “Lead the way.”
To his room, he meant. It wasn’t so much an invitation as an order.
She had the impression of a dark brow cocked with silent laughter, which made her feel vulnerable. Not threatened, not physically, but imperiled at a deep level, where her ego resided. Where her fractured heart was tucked high on a shelf so no one could knock it to the floor again.
Her chest prickled with anxiety and she wiped her eyes, trying hard to see him properly, trying to figure out who he was and why he had such an instant, undeniable effect on her. His T-shirt sported the pool man’s logo, but she’d never seen him before.
“I didn’t hear you come in.”
“Obviously. Up late?”
“Yes.” It struck her very belatedly that it couldn’t have been Ophelia to wake her. Calli had fallen asleep in the pool because she’d arrived home in the wee hours after leaving Ophelia at her maternal grandparents’ home in Athens. She had driven half the night, then dozed in the car as she waited for the ferry.
Takis wasn’t here. No one was except her and this barbarian of a man.
“I was traveling.” She skimmed toward the stairs at the shallow end. “I knew workers were coming and didn’t want to miss speaking to you by falling asleep inside. Where is Ionnes?”
“He gave me my assignment and told me I have two weeks.”
“Yes, there’s a party scheduled.” The roll of alarm wouldn’t leave her belly. It trebled when his shadow fell across her as she climbed the steps. He had plucked her filmy wrap from the chair and held it out for her like a gentleman.
He was no gentleman. She didn’t know what he was, but had the distinct feeling he was somebody. Not a normal plebeian like her.
She took the wrap and struggled to push her wet arms into the loose sleeves. Why was she shaking? Oh, Ophelia had misguided taste! Why wasn’t this wrap opaque? It was a birthday present and Calli had thought it delightfully feminine when she had opened it, but with the simple hook-and-eye closure over her navel, it was more provocation than cover, hanging open down her cleavage and parting in a slit over the tops of her thighs.
He noticed. He studied her from chin to toe polish, unabashed in the way he let his gaze move down and up, tightening her hair follicles inch by inch.
It wasn’t the first time she’d been eyed up, but the locals knew she wasn’t interested. Or considered her off-limits, at least. With tourists, she pretended she didn’t speak English if she wanted to reject an advance.
Either way, it was always easy to brush men off, but not today. She felt his gaze. She told herself it was the water trickling off her, but that had never turned her inside out this way.
Once again she was accosted by defenselessness. Why? She’d been inoculated against men who used their looks to devastate.
Nevertheless, that’s what he was. Devastatingly handsome. Standing on the same level with him didn’t make him any less intimidating. He was big and powerful and now that she could properly see his face, she caught her breath in reaction. He wore a day’s shadow of stubble and finger-combed hair, but those hollow cheeks and ebony brows were pure perfection. It wasn’t the sculpted beauty of his face that arrested her, though. It was the fierce pride and unapologetic masculinity he projected.
It was the undisguised desire that flared in his black-coffee eyes as their gazes locked. The arrogant assumption he could have.
Because he knew she was reacting to him? Knowledge made his eyelids heavy while smug anticipation deepened the corners of his mouth.
She couldn’t tear her eyes from his wide mouth, his lips brutally sensual, his jaw determined.
As he spoke, his voice lowered an octave to something that promised, yet warned. “Tell me what you want. I’m at your service.”
Her body stung with a renewed flood of heat, countering the chill of her damp suit. Please let him think the cold hardened my nipples. But it was him. She knew it and he knew it and it scared her.
She scrambled back a step, trying to escape his aggressively sexual aura, and nearly stumbled into the pool.
He caught her by the arms, saving her from falling onto the steps under the water. It was chivalrous, but paralyzing, leaving her shaken. What was wrong with her?
She tried to lift her chin and look down her nose at him. “Let me go.”
The amused heat in his brown eyes