A Greek Escape(16)

‘Who did you think I was when you accused me of playing some game with you yesterday?’

‘It isn’t important,’ he intoned, moving back to the stove.

‘It seemed to be very important at the time,’ Kayla commented, still put out by the names he had called her. ‘The things you said to me weren’t very nice.’

‘Yes, well…we can all make mistakes,’ Leonidas admitted, adding freshly chopped herbs to the sizzling frying pan and beginning to accept that he might have made a gross error of judgement in treating her so unjustly. ‘I came here to relax. I didn’t expect some uninvited young woman with a camera to be taking secretive photographs of me. When you realised I’d seen you on the rocks and you ran from me I decided that you must definitely be up to no good.’

So he had charged at her like an angry bull, Kayla thought, wondering what he’d thought she was hiding that had incensed him so much.

‘Yesterday,’ he went on, ‘when I invited you to lunch, it was to try to find out why.’

‘You accused me of spying on you,’ she reminded him, folding her arms in a suddenly defensive pose as she bit back the urge to remind him that she hadn’t been trying to photograph him on that beach. ‘What did you imagine? That I was some sort of secret agent or something?’ she suggested with an ironic little laugh. ‘Or a private investigator, hired by a jealous wife—?’ She broke off as a more plausible possibility struck her. ‘A wife who’s taken you to the cleaners and who’s still hoping to uncover the hidden millions you haven’t told her about that you’ve got stashed away somewhere? Gosh! Is that it?’ she exclaimed, when she saw the way his dark lashes came down over his unfathomable eyes, wondering if she’d hit the nail on the head. ‘Not about the millions. I mean…’

‘About the wife?’

She nodded. Why else would he have referred to her as a blood-sucking female yesterday? He must be licking his wounds after a very nasty divorce.

‘Nice try,’ he said dryly, the muscles in his wonderfully masculine back moving as he worked. ‘I’m sorry to have to shoot down such a colourful and imaginative story, but I’m not married. And since when did a man simply wanting to protect his privacy mean there’s an avaricious and avenging wife in tow?’

‘It doesn’t,’ Kayla answered, wondering why the discovery of his marital status should leave her feeling far more pleased than it should have. ‘It just seemed a little bit of an overreaction, that’s all,’ she murmured, feeling her temperature rising from the way he was looking at her—as though he knew what baffling and unsettling thoughts were going through her head.

‘So how did you know about this house?’ she asked, since it was apparent now that it wasn’t just a deserted building he’d happened to stumble across.

‘I was born on this island,’ he said, in a cool, clipped voice. ‘I have the use of this place when I want it.’

‘Who owns it?’ she enquired, looking around.

‘Someone who is too busy to take much interest in it,’ he answered flatly, suddenly sounding bored.

‘What a pity,’ Kayla expressed, looking around her at the sad peeling walls. ‘It could be nice if it was renovated. Someone must have treasured it once.’

Once, Leonidas thought, when its warm, welcoming walls had rung with his mother’s beautiful singing. When he hadn’t been able to sleep for excitement because his grandfather was taking him fishing the following day…

‘Obviously the current owner doesn’t share your sentimentality about it,’ he remarked, and found it a struggle to keep the bitterness out of his voice.

‘You said you were born on this island?’ Kayla reminded him, feeling as though she was being intrusive again, yet unable to stop herself. Even less could she envisage him as a helpless, squalling infant. ‘It’s idyllic. What made you leave?’

His features looked set in stone as he tossed two slices of bubbling halloumi cheese onto slices of fresh bread, topping them with rich red sun-dried tomatoes before he answered, ‘I believed there was a better life out there.’

‘And was there?’

Again he didn’t answer.

But what sort of satisfaction was there in never settling anywhere? Kayla wondered now. In just drifting around from place to place?

‘Eat your breakfast,’ he ordered, putting the meal on the table in front of her. ‘And then we’ll go down and inspect the storm damage.’