CHAPTER THREE
FILLINGHERLUNGS deeply one more time for luck, Kate brought Helena’s face to her mind. Helena was the reason why she was here, in the home of a man who couldn’t stand her. Helena.
It had been a dream, that’s all. A vivid dream but still just a dream. It didn’t mean anything. She would shake it off and forget about it before the evening was done.
‘I take it I missed Elle,’ she said with determined breeziness as she reclaimed her spot on the sofa she knew perfectly well would be her bed for however long she ended up staying there. At least it was as comfortable as a real bed.
Leander didn’t look up from his book. ‘You missed all the fun.’
‘She can’t be that vocal if I slept through it all.’
‘I doubt you’d have heard anything over the noise of your snores.’
‘I don’t snore.’
‘How would you know? You were asleep. You sounded like a warthog.’
‘You say the nicest things.’
A buzzer sounded from the ceiling.
He closed his book with a snap. ‘That means my dinner is ready.’
‘Don’t let me hold you up.’
‘Moussaka.’
She refused to let her expression change in the slightest. Kate had never tried the dish before her trip to the Liassidises’ island and had fallen into raptures on her first taste. Leander had found this love for something that was so ordinary to him amusing, and they’d fallen into a long, detailed conversation about all their favourite foods.
‘Try not to choke on it.’
‘If I do, I’m sure you’ll perform the Heimlich manoeuvre on me—after all, a dead Leander is no good for Helena, is he?’
‘I’d be tempted to let you suffer a while first before saving you.’
‘Then I’ll make sure to chew thoroughly like a good boy.’ With a tight, sarcastic smile, he disappeared from the vast room.
There was hardly the time for Kate to compose herself into a picture of serenity for he quickly returned carrying a tray with a plate heaped with an enormous mound of food and a gigantic glass of red wine.
‘Not going to eat in your dining room?’ she asked, affecting boredom.
‘What kind of host would I be leaving my guest to her own devices while I eat?’ He sat back on his armchair, took a drink of his wine and then took his first mouthful.
‘Mmm...mmm,’ he said appreciatively after he’d tried a sample of everything. ‘You know, I think this might be even better than the moussaka we ate last week. And the lemon roasted potatoes...’ He smacked his lips together and forked another mouthful in.
There was nothing Kate could do to stop her stomach from rumbling. It had to be a good sixteen hours since she’d last eaten. She was thirsty too, having not drunk anything since the beer she’d pilfered on the pool terrace.
The smile Leander gave proved without him having to say a word that he’d heard the rumble. He put his knife and fork on the plate, held a finger up to indicate he had something to tell her, then expertly held the tray with one hand as he stood and pulled a bottle of water from his shorts pocket.
‘For you,’ he said once he’d sat back down, and lobbed the bottle to her. ‘Can’t have my guest getting dehydrated.’
She caught it and smiled. ‘Oh, you’re just too kind.’ Then she noted it was sparkling water. ‘Just too kind,’ she repeated, unscrewing the lid and putting it to her dry lips. Deliberately keeping her stare on his, she drank half the contents and tried not to let her aversion to the carbonated taste show on her face. Leander knew perfectly well that she hated sparkling water.
She watched him eat every last scrap, and when he’d finished and the empty plate was replaced with a pasta bowl of hot chocolate fudge pudding with whipped cream, she gave not the slightest reaction, not even when her stomach betrayed her hunger for the fourth time.
‘There’s a great restaurant two miles from here,’ he confided as he steadily demolished a portion large enough to feed four people. ‘It’s in a cove and serves fresh seasonal seafood but it’s the desserts it’s famous around here for. They make a key lime pie that is out of this world.’
‘Sounds great.’
‘It is.’ He pulled a face as if something had just occurred to him. ‘You like key lime pie, don’t you? I seem to remember you couldn’t make up your mind what your favourite dessert is. Hot chocolate fudge cake with whipped cream or key lime pie.’ He drank some more of his wine before holding up his glass. ‘They also serve great wine. I’m told even the house red is palatable.’
‘I’ll be sure to pay it a visit if I ever return to this part of the world.’
‘It closes at eleven if you want to try it now.’
‘I’m good,’ she said, even as her stomach betrayed her yet again.
His smile was knowing. ‘Most Marina Sands’ restaurants stop serving food by ten but there’s a couple of twenty-four-hour drive-throughs on the outskirts. I’ve heard one of them serves food that doesn’t taste like cardboard. I’m quite sure they all sell still water too.’
She pulled a shocked face. ‘Still water? Wow. That’s certainly something for me to think on.’
‘My driver is at your disposal. Dial one on the intercom and you will be taken anywhere you wish to go.’ His dessert finished with, he disappeared again, this time returning with a coffee that smelt so good Kate had to clench her buttocks to stop herself from jumping off the sofa to snatch it out of his hand.
Revenge was soon hers when Leander reclined his chair and turned the television on and found a film clearly designed to bore as it was a spy thriller without any thrills, and she proceeded to annoy him by chattering away about everything from the protagonist’s impractical shoes to the implausibility of the plot line, not giving her mouth a rest long enough for him to take any of it in.
He thought she was annoying? Well she was delighted to prove just how annoying she could be.
It took less than thirty minutes for him to jump up from his recliner and announce he was going to take a walk on the beach.
‘Sounds like fun,’ she immediately enthused. ‘I’ll join you...’ And then she caught the glint in his eyes and instinct told her that the moment she left the glass walls of his home, all the doors would be locked to her. ‘Actually, I think I’ll stay here.’
His smile as tight as his clenched jaw, he walked out without another word and disappeared into the darkness.
Leander filled his lungs with the salty ocean air and cursed himself for not thinking to put shoes on. Or a sweater. The breeze from the ocean kept the daytime temperatures in Marina Sands temperate all year round but the evenings were often much cooler. When he stepped onto the sand at the foot of his private path to the beach, his toes curled in protest.
He supposed it was a good thing Kate had resisted walking the beach with him. The temptation to throw her into the ocean might have proved too much. To throw her into the ocean would have meant having to touch her, and a memory flashed of her dancing in his Athenian apartment, one hand clutching a cocktail, the other waving above her head as she sang along loudly to the track playing, and Dimitri sidling up to slip a hand around her waist and palm her flat stomach over her pretty summery dress, Kate’s scream of laughter and—
Leander upped his pace.
She’d be gone soon, he told himself grimly. He’d locked all the rooms so she was confined to the main living room which turned chilly overnight and all she had to wear were those shorts and that top that only reached her elbows. Opening the external doors had already driven out the residual heat. She was already hungry. Come the morning—if she lasted that long—she’d be freezing and starving. Even Kate, with all her tenacity and stubbornness, would have to admit defeat and leave.
By the time Kate figured out how to close the external doors of the living room that was twice the size of her parents’ entire home, all the warmth had escaped. A search of the house for something warm to drape over herself ended in failure. Of the internal doors, only the downstairs bathroom was unlocked. The only fabric she’d found to warm herself with was the hand towel in the bathroom.
Back in the living room, she had another look at the central fireplace. Stumped at how to turn it on, she called out for Leander’s staff—she knew there had to be staff around seeing as his dinner hadn’t cooked itself. Her shouts went unanswered so she dialled one on the intercom. It was answered before the first ring had finished.
‘Where would you like me to take you?’ a feminine voice on the other end of the line asked.
‘Actually, I was hoping you or another member of staff could turn the fire on for me,’ Kate said. ‘It’s freezing in here.’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but I’m not authorised to do that. I am only authorised to drive you to any destination of your choice.’
‘Would you drive me to England?’
‘If that’s what you asked of me. It might take some ingenuity to manage it but I would do my best.’
‘So you can drive me to England but can’t turn the fire on?’
‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but we have our instructions.’
Kate sighed. ‘Thanks anyway.’
Ramming her hands into her shorts pockets, she took stock. She was cold and hungry but not defeated. For all Leander’s bull-headed determination, her very presence was an aggravation to him. And the good thing about being cold meant the heat of her dream had finally disappeared.
She just wished the dream itself would vanish. Forget the current circumstances and the not insignificant fact that he couldn’t stand her, she had no right allowing Leander into her dreams. He was as off-limits as off-limits could be and it didn’t matter that Helena had no romantic feelings towards him or that their marriage was a sham and probably not even legal considering the wrong twin had made the vows and signed the certificate; in Kate’s mind he belonged to Helena.
In her almost twenty-six years on this earth, Kate had never dreamt about a man, not even Euan, her two-week university fling that hadn’t even been a real fling but which she’d ended abruptly when—
Outside lights came on.
Heart suddenly thumping, she hurried back to her original sofa and curled up on it, warming her feet as best she could under her bottom, and turned her phone on.
The glass door slid open.
Her heart thumped harder.
Leander’s gaze zoomed straight to her. The instant his dark brown eyes locked onto hers, Kate’s thumping heart stopped and her breath caught in her throat.
Barely moments passed before her heart kick-started itself with a roar, sending hot blood pounding in every direction.
A slow blink and then Leander’s huge shoulders rose and a tight smile pulled against his set features. ‘Still here I see.’
She had no idea how she was able to summon a quip through the loud pulsing in her ears. ‘Your powers of observation are astounding.’
‘Nearly as astounding as your capacity for self-torture.’ He slid the door shut. ‘I’ll keep this unlocked so you can see yourself out. I’m going to bed.’
‘Not going to call one of your pleasure vessels to keep you company?’ She had no idea where that remark came from either, knew only that it was a remark that should have gone unsaid because the last thing she wanted to think or talk about in that moment was Leander having sex, not when she was already feeling so...aware of him. Her only comfort was that her tone had been pithy rather than bitchy.
The tight smile pulled a tiny bit wider. ‘The call’s already been made. I’ll keep my bedroom door open so you can watch.’ The sensual lips pulled wider still. ‘If you get too cold my bed’s big enough for three.’
Even though she knew this was just another mind game that she’d been stupid enough to leave an open goal for him to score in, a hot flush crawled through her, enflaming her bones, her skin...enflaming everything.
Somehow she managed to retain the pithiness to say, ‘I’m sure I’d much rather freeze.’
‘A night in here without the heating on and no blankets and you will do just that.’ The smile dropped. ‘Remember, dial one on the intercom and my driver will take you anywhere you want to go.’
It had been many years since Leander had gone to bed so early and the first time he’d slid under the blankets with fury snaking through his veins. Anger was only ever a fleeting emotion in him. His twin held onto it enough for them both. Leander had been the one to cut the invisible umbilical cord conjoining them as identical twins but Leo had been the one to sever it in its entirety. For five years Leo had acted as if he had no brother, every message Leander had sent him remaining unanswered, although not unread. He hadn’t even RSVP’d the wedding invitation.
Leander had known though, that Leo would never refuse a direct request for help just as he would be unable to refuse Leo if the roles were reversed.
Theós, it had been surreal hearing his own voice down the end of the line after so long, even if it was only a short invitation for the caller to leave a message.
At the time he’d made the call, Leander’s only thought had been getting as far from Greece as quickly as possible, but since then he’d thought of his brother more than he’d done in years. He’d kept tabs on him through family and news reports just as he knew Leo kept tabs on him, but he hadn’t consciously thought about him. If he was being truthful, he’d actively avoided thinking about Leo. To think of his twin was to acknowledge the wound in his heart.
When he’d told Leo his decision all those years ago he’d known it would hurt him. He would have hurt too if the roles had been reversed. What he’d had no way of knowing was that things would deteriorate so badly and culminate with Leo cutting him from his life.
All of Leander’s thoughts during that first contact in five years had been clouded by the woman currently sleeping on the ground floor below his bedroom. She couldn’t know it but the sofa she’d made herself at home on lay directly beneath his bed.
Damn her. Damn her for treating her invasion of his home as one big game. Damn her for being so... Kate.
His wired brain refused to shut down. His heart refused to settle into a natural rhythm. His unwanted houseguest refused to remove herself from his mind’s eye.
Midnight chimed and she was still there.
How could she be so stubborn? If she didn’t leave soon she was going to give herself hypothermia.
He turned over and angrily punched his pillow. So what if she gave herself hypothermia? It would be her own damn fault. He’d given her every means to leave. One call and she could be driven in a heated car to a drive-through and then on to the airfield. There was no need for her to put herself through this unnecessary suffering.
Kate had huddled as deep into the sofa as she could go, knees hugged into her chest. The hand towel was draped over her feet but still goosebumps scored her flesh. She couldn’t stop shivering. So cold was she that even the hunger pangs had gone into hibernation.
At least she wasn’t thirsty. After leaving the living room, Leander had returned with two bottles of water for her, which he’d placed silently onto a sideboard before disappearing again without looking at her. Naturally, they were sparkling water.
As much as it pained her to admit it, she didn’t think she could endure this for much longer. It was two a.m. and despite her long sleep that afternoon, she was still exhausted but sleep refused to come. She was just too cold. There were hours more to suffer before the sun rose and warmed the vast room.
But it wasn’t just the coldness driving sleep away and making the thought of pressing one on the intercom ever more tempting.
Her brain was torturing her too.
Every time Kate closed her eyes the terrible dream was right there, dancing before her eyes, making her pulses accelerate and a terrible fever break out on her freezing skin. The deeper her exhaustion, the worse it all got, and her only successful attempts at driving the dream away were a failure of a kind because to replace them her mind filled with memories of all the fun and laughter they’d shared before he’d turned against her.
What had she done to provoke the change? In the stillness of the cold night, it was the one question that loomed larger than anything.
She must have done something because, for all his talk of her being an annoyance, his coldness had been too sudden for that excuse to be credible. Her last concrete memory of Leander and that night in Athens was shimmying over to where he was making cocktails. Leander had shimmied with her, shaking the cocktail maker in time to the beats pumping loudly through the whole apartment, the joy of good music and the excellent atmosphere flowing between them, and then he’d filled a glass with his creation and passed it to her with a mock bow. She’d shimmied away, blowing him a kiss that he’d caught with a huge grin and slapped to his stubbly cheek. Barely ten hours later she’d found him slumped over his kitchen island and he’d been cold with her ever since.
Leander punched his pillow for what had to be the fifteenth time and then something in him snapped.
Throwing the duvet off, he stormed down the winding stairs and into the living room.
Kate must have heard the heavy tread of his angry feet because he could see through the silvery light dancing through the windows that she’d lifted her head.
‘Do you have some kind of damned death wish?’ he demanded as he slammed his hand against the switch that turned on the soft up-lights rather than the main lights that would have blinded them both.
Immediately she turned her face into the sofa with the rest of her curled-up body. She was pressed so tightly into it she was close to being a part of it, but it was the small hand-towel wrapped around her feet that ripped through him the hardest.
‘Why won’t you leave?’ he shouted into the unnerving silence. ‘Why put yourself through this? What are you trying to prove? Do you think giving yourself hypothermia is going to make me soften and let you stay? Do you think Helena would want you to make yourself ill for her sake?’
But still she didn’t answer. Still she kept her stubborn little back turned to him.
Cursing in Greek at her sheer bloody-mindedness, Leander stormed back up the stairs.
Kate heard a distant door slam and stuffed her fist into her mouth to stifle the sob that wanted to break free.
She’d wanted to shout back at him, remind him of the promise she’d made to Helena but her heart had been pounding so hard the beats had rippled in her throat.
It was seeing him emerge from the darkness that had set the reactions off. The silvery light had magnified his demonic beauty. Just like in her dream. He’d been wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, as little as he’d been wearing in her dream.
But in her dream he hadn’t used his mouth to be cruel to her.
She took a long shuddery breath and turned over. Annoying Leander into submission was one thing but the way he’d just shouted at her...
She’d been right that his attitude towards her ran deeper than mere annoyance, but she’d underestimated the depths to which his dislike had reached.
Leander didn’t just dislike her. He hated her.
What had felt, in part, like a game, a battle of wills between them, now tasted very different under the weight of his visceral loathing.
Heavy footsteps crashed back down the stairs.
If his demonic beauty had struck her dumb before, now it was the bundle he held in his arms.
He dumped it on the end of her sofa, snatched the top item and threw it onto her lap. ‘Put this on,’ he said roughly.
It was a black long-sleeved brushed cotton top.
He pressed his huge hand onto the rest of the bundle. ‘Duvet and pillow. I’ll leave you to make yourself comfortable.’
He stalked across the living room and disappeared.
Stunned at the unexpected gesture, Kate spent an age gazing at the duvet and pillow until her shivering flesh forced her into action.
Shaking the duvet out...oh, it was so wonderful and heavy...she hauled it over herself then stuck the pillow where her head rested and slipped the lounging top over her head. It smelt of fabric softener. It smelt clean.
Lying down, she huddled under the heavenly duvet and, while she waited for her body to accept the warmth and defrost, became aware for the first time that her bra was digging into her shoulders and ribs, and the button of her shorts was pressing into her belly.
Sitting back up, she took the lounging top and her own top off, then, while keeping the duvet around her shoulders for warmth by trapping it beneath her chin, unclasped her bra. The relief was so immediate that she wondered how she hadn’t noticed the pain it had been causing her before. With the duvet still trapped between her chin and neck, she slid the straps off and scrambled again for the clean lounging top. There was a shock of cold against her breasts when she released the duvet to pull the top over her head and it flumped down to her waist, but then, once her arms were in, tugged it down, untucked her trapped hair and...
And noticed Leander as still as a statue by the fireplace, holding a crystal tumbler filled with a dark liquid.
Suddenly Kate found she didn’t need the top or duvet for warmth. The flush that crawled through every inch of her was hot enough to generate heat for the whole of Marina Sands.
Time stood suspended. She couldn’t drag her stare from Leander, could do nothing to stop the flush deepening and pulsing as the perfectly sculpted tanned torso fully etched itself into her paralysed brain, all the tiny details she’d never allowed herself to acknowledge before, from the dark hair covering the defined pecs and washboard abdomen to the indentation of his navel. All the tiny details that saturated her heated brain even while her eyes remained trapped in his stare.
His throat moved—how had she never noticed how strong it was before?—and his shoulders—broader than she’d ever recognised—lifted before his strong Roman nose flared and his lips compressed into a line so tight they disappeared.
A moment later he crossed the room to the archway that led to the stairs and the whole of him disappeared.