A Greek Escape. Elizabeth Power

Leonidas lobbed her own phrase back at her. Playing along with her whatever her game was, he thought with increasing annoyance. And suddenly he was fed-up with pussyfooting around.

      Slinging his plate onto the table, he stood up, thrusting his hands into his pockets, intimidation in his stance and every hard inch of him as he said grimly and with lethal softness, ‘OK, Kayla. This has gone far enough.’

      ‘What has?’

      He had to hand it to her. She looked and sounded perplexed. He might even have said shocked.

      ‘The charade is over, sweet girl.’

      ‘What charade?’ Kayla didn’t have a clue what he was talking about. ‘I don’t understand…’

      ‘Don’t you?’ He laughed rather harshly. ‘Do you think I don’t know what your little game is? Don’t know why you’re he re?’

      ‘No.’ She had leaped to her feet and stood facing him now with her hands on her hips, her eyes wide and contesting. ‘You’ve obviously got me mixed up with somebody else! I don’t know who you think I am, but whoever it is I’m not the person you were expecting.’

      ‘I was hardly expecting anyone—least of all another blood-sucking female with her own self-motivated agenda! Unless you’re going to tell me you’ve come all this way by yourself to slap a petition on me as well!’

      ‘No, I haven’t!’ Kayla riposted, wondering what the hell he was talking about. ‘And whatever your problem is—whoever it is you’ve come here to escape from—I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take it out on me!’

      She was gone before he could utter another word.