seemed to get him, because his hands curled into fists at his side and his face looked hewn from rock.
“You will not be staying with Helena and Sandros.”
“You said we’d be staying with family, at the villa.” As the words left her lips, an awful thought occurred to her. “You want us to stay at your villa on Evia Island? With you?”
His brows rose in sardonic challenge. “My mother is also staying at the villa. She will be sufficient chaperone.”
“Chaperone? I don’t need a chaperone. I need privacy. I need to stay in a hotel.”
“Relax, Savannah. There is no reason to shout about it. With two active children, you will find the villa much more comfortable than a hotel, I promise you.”
In that respect, she had no doubt he was right, but it wasn’t her daughters she was worried about at the moment. It was herself. She shuddered inwardly at the prospect of sharing living space with Leiandros.
“I suppose you still keep an apartment in Athens and spend most of your time there,” she said hopefully.
“Yes.”
She couldn’t quite stifle her sigh of relief.
“Of course, I’ve arranged to work from the villa for the next few days so I can spend time with my family.”
Savannah’s throat went tight in reaction to the threat in his voice, despite the innocence of the sentiments expressed.
“How long did you plan our visit to last?” It was something he’d refused to discuss on the phone.
If she’d been in her right mind, instead of riddled with worry over her aunt, Savannah would have forced the issue.
Leiandros looked at her as if trying to read her mind. “We’ll discuss that tomorrow.”
“I’d rather discuss it now.” She kept her expression purposefully blank.
“Very well.” He shrugged again, his face wearing a strangely watchful air. “Permanently.”
“Permanently?”
The grim line of his mouth went even more taut. “Yes. You’ve spent enough time running from your family. It’s time you came home, Savannah.”
Home? She wanted to shriek at him and pound her fists, but even with rage coursing through her veins like molten lava, she held onto her temper. She’d learned that lesson much too well to forget it, even with the current provocation.
She’d lost her control once with a Kiriakis male and opened herself to physical reprisal from her husband. She still had nightmares about her last meeting with Dion, the feeling of bruising male fists landing against her unprotected flesh.
“America is my home,” she said, spacing the words evenly, keeping her voice flat.
“It was your home before you married a Kiriakis, yes. But now Greece is your home, specifically my villa.”
“Your villa? You expect me to live in your villa permanently?” She was in a waking nightmare.
He reached out and opened the minifridge, pulling out a bottle of water, handing it to her before taking one for himself. “Yes.”
She stared at the cold plastic bottle in her hand, wondering for a second how it had gotten there. “I can’t.”
He didn’t bother to argue with her. In fact, he didn’t answer her at all. Instead, he pulled a buzzing cell phone from his pocket and answered it.
Savannah slowly regained consciousness, uncertain what had wakened her, and shifted in the cocooned warmth of her make shift bed. She burrowed her face into the pillow, which felt strangely hard against her cheek. Unsated exhaustion tugged at her, tempting her back into an unconscious state.
Her bed moved and the blanket pressed against her back in a soft caress. “Wake up pethi mou, we have almost arrived.”
Her eyes flew open. For the space of several seconds she couldn’t even breathe. The blanket caressing her back was in fact a large, male hand and her firm pillow, a muscular chest. Frozen into immobility by shock, she further discovered that her arms were wrapped tightly around his torso.
The subtle fragrance of fresh, clean male and expensive aftershave teased her senses. Familiar and yet unknown. She blinked, trying to focus, but her vision was clouded by crisp white silk and her mind could not quite come to grips with the first intimacy shared with a man in well over four years.
And not just any man.
She was wrapped up like an early Christmas present in the arms of Leiandros Kiriakis.
Reality so closely matched the dreams that had tormented her subconscious for seven long years that she spent several precious seconds trying to determine if she were still asleep.
“Eva, how come Mama is hugging that man?” Nyssa’s voice unlocked Savannah’s frozen limbs.
She was definitely awake. Her daughters had never played a role in the dreams she had had about Leiandros. Yanking her arms from their snug nest in his suit coat, she launched herself from Leiandros with such a violent movement she bounced against the opposite door and nearly fell off the seat.
He reached out to steady her and she recoiled violently from the possible touch. “I’m fine,” she all but snarled, her usual polite reserve a forgotten ideal.
“He’s our family,” Eva said, as if that explained everything. She had that much in common with her uncle.
Savannah couldn’t help but wonder if he had thought the familial claim justified the intimacy of their position as well.
“Mama?” Nyssa asked, her brown Kiriakis eyes wide with curiosity.
Savannah settled herself more firmly on the large limousine seat. Not caring what Leiandros thought of the action, she scooted as close to the door as she could get without sitting on the armrest. “Yes, sugar?”
“Why did you hug the big man?”
“I wasn’t hugging him.” She turned and glared at Leiandros. This situation was all his fault. “I was asleep.”
“Oh.” Nyssa turned her interested gaze to Leiandros and stared at him in silence for several seconds before turning back to her mother. “Were you sitting in his lap to sleep?”
The heat of embarrassment crawled over Savannah’s skin like ants on a picnic blanket. She couldn’t look at Leiandros. She had no idea how she’d ended up sleeping with her body plastered against his and feared finding out she had been the instigator.
The last thing she remembered was letting her head rest against the back of the seat. She’d closed her eyes in weariness as she tired of waiting for him to finish the latest of his numerous business calls on the cell.
She’d obviously fallen asleep. That she could understand. She’d been nearly comatose from exhaustion before the plane had landed. The last two weeks had been peppered with sleepless nights and emotionally draining days visiting her aunt.
Even so, she found it difficult to believe she’d allowed herself to get that close to a man, asleep or not. Her subconscious mind might crave Leiandros Kiriakis, but her conscious mind rejected even the hint of intimacy with any man.
The evidence, however, was irrefutable. Her skin still tingled from where she had touched him.
Before she got a chance to form a reply to Nyssa’s question that wouldn’t betray the rawness of her nerves, her daughter smiled at Leiandros. “Sometimes I sit on my mama’s lap for sleeping, but she says I’m getting too heavy. Isn’t she too big for your lap?”
Savannah wanted to groan out loud at her daughter’s logic. Nyssa’s nap had clearly been long enough to rejuvenate her mind as well as her spirits. Savannah wished she had been so lucky. Her mind felt too sluggish to deal