A Greek Escape(31)
Kayla, as she stood there, captured by the powerful hold of his gaze, felt a skein of excitement unravelling inside her and knew that a watershed had been reached. That with one look and one inconsequential unfinished sentence a silent understanding had somehow passed between them. She had crossed a bridge that was already burning behind her and she knew there could be no turning back.
‘No rowing boat today?’ Kayla remarked, surprised when, after driving them to a beach further along the coast, Leon guided her towards a small motor boat moored alongside a wooden jetty. ‘I didn’t think you’d be seen dead in anything less than fifty years old!’ she said laughingly.
‘Didn’t you?’ he drawled, with a challenging and deliciously sensual gleam in his eyes as he handed her into the boat. ‘Contrary to your thinking, hrisi mou, I can…’ he hesitated, thinking of the words ‘…come good when circumstances demand.’
‘And do circumstances demand?’ she enquired airily, in spite of her pulse, which was racing from his nearness and his softly spoken endearment.
‘Oh, yes,’ he breathed with barely veiled meaning. ‘I think they do.’
It was a day of delight and surprises.
With effortless dexterity Leonidas steered the boat through the sparkling blue water, following the rocky coast of his own island to begin with, and pointing out coves and deserted beaches only accessible from the sea.
Having a field-day with her camera, Kayla lapped up the magic of her surroundings whilst using every opportunity to grab secretive and not so secretive shots of this dynamic man she was with: at the wheel, in profile, with his brow furrowed in concentration, or turning to talk to her with that sexy, sidelong pull of his mouth that never failed to do funny things to her stomach. She captured him looking out over the dark body of water they were cutting through, his T-shirt pulled taut across his broad muscular back, his black hair as windswept as hers from the exhilarating speed at which they were travelling.
She’d need to remember, she realised almost desperately, wondering why it was so important to her to capture everything about this holiday. This island. These precious few hours. This man.
Suddenly aware, he glanced over his shoulder and, easing back on the throttle, said challengingly, ‘Don’t you think you’ve taken enough?’ She was about to make some quip about it being her ‘fix’, but he cut across her before she could with, ‘What are you going to do? Put them on the internet?’
With a questioning look at him, not sure how to take what he’d said, she pretended to be considering it, and with a half-tantalising, half-nervous little giggle, answered, ‘I might.’
‘You do that and our association ends right now.’ His contesting tone and manner caused her to flinch.
‘If you’re that concerned, then keep it,’ she invited, holding the camera out to him. She hadn’t forgotten what a private person he was. ‘I promise I’m not going to publish them on the web, but take it if you don’t trust me not to.’
For a moment her candour made Leonidas hold back. How could he demand or even expect integrity from her when he wasn’t being straight himself?
Briefly he felt like flinging caution to the winds and telling her the truth. Only the thought of the repercussions that could follow stopped him.
She would be angry, that was certain. But he had come here seeking respite from all the glamour and superficiality that went hand in hand with who he really was, and he wasn’t ready yet to relinquish his precious anonymity. It didn’t help reminding himself that it was primarily because of trusting a woman that he had felt driven to take some time out. Because of being too careless and believing that a casual but willing bed partner would share the same ethics as he.
Not that this girl was in any way like the mercenary vamp with whom he had unwisely shared the weekend that had proved so costly to his pride and reputation. But his billionaire status and lifestyle still generated interest, despite his best attempts to keep it low-key—and never more so since his unfortunate affair with the media-hungry Esmeralda—and Kayla was only human after all. What a boost it would be to her bruised ego after being ditched so cruelly by her fiancé for news of her liaison with a man whose corporate achievements weren’t entirely unknown to filter back to the world press. One text home to this Lorna might be all it would take to bring the paparazzi here in their droves.
‘It’s stolen enough of your time from me for one day,’ he said, smiling. Yet he still took the camera she was offering and stowed it away in a recess beneath the wheel.