A Greek Escape(34)

He leaned back and crossed his arms, his muscles bunching, emphasising their latent strength. ‘And you don’t believe that everything is within your reach if you jump high enough?’

He made it sound almost credible, which seemed quite out of kilter, Kayla thought, with his laid-back attitude to life.

‘If you jump too high you usually fall flat on your face. Anyway, you’re one to talk,’ she commented, still hurt over his refusal to give her a glimpse into even the smallest area of his life. ‘You don’t even have a steady job.’

‘I get by.’

‘But nothing that offers real security or fulfils your potential?’

‘And why is it so important to fulfil my “potential”?’ he quoted. His eyes were dark and inscrutable, giving nothing of his thoughts away.

‘Because everybody needs a purpose. Some sort of goal in life,’ Kayla stressed.

‘And what is your goal, glykia mou?’

The sensuality with which he spoke suddenly seemed to emphasise the isolation of their surroundings, and with it the fundamental objective of each other’s existence.

‘To be happy.’

‘And that’s it? Just to be happy?’ He looked both surprised and mildly amused. ‘And how do you propose to achieve this happiness?’

Cynicism had replaced the mocking amusement of a moment ago. She could see it in the curling of his firm, rather cruel-looking mouth—a mouth she was aching to feel covering hers again.

‘By staying grounded and true to myself, and not ever attempting to be something I’m not,’ she uttered—croakily, because of where her thoughts had taken her. Afraid that she was in danger of sounding a little bit self-righteous, she added, ‘By appreciating nature. Things like this.’ She cast a glance around her at the wilderness of the island. At everything that was timeless. Untrammelled and free. ‘By creating a happy home. Having children one day. And animals. Lots of animals.’

‘And that’s all it’s going to take?’ Again he looked marginally surprised. ‘Setting up home and having babies?’

‘It’s better than being a drifter,’ she remarked, knowing she was overstepping the mark yet unable to stop herself, ‘without any ambition whatsoever.’

‘You think I don’t have ambition?’

‘Well, do you?’ she challenged, aware that she had no right to, as she pulled her hair out of her eyes again, yet driven by the feeling that he was mocking her values and finding them wanting.

‘You’d be surprised. But just for argument’s sake, what do you see me doing?’ How would you have me realise this ambition?’

‘You’re good with cars,’ Kayla remarked, ignoring the mockery infiltrating his question. ‘You could be a mechanic. You could even start your own business. With the prices they charge for servicing and repairs these days you could make a comfortable living.’

‘If I were a mechanic I wouldn’t be able to take time off to come to places like this for weeks at a time.’ His mouth compressed in exasperating dismissal. ‘And I certainly wouldn’t have met you.’

It was there in his eyes—raw, pure hunger. The same hunger that had been eating away at her ever since they had met and which now was taking every ounce of her will-power not to acknowledge.

‘You could save enough to be able to buy your own garage,’ she went on in a huskier voice. ‘Put a manager in. Then you could take time off once in a while.’

‘You think it’s that simple? A steady job? A mortgage on a business and—hey! You’re rich! That isn’t how it works, Kayla.’

‘How do you know if you don’t try? Anyway, it was only a suggestion,’ she reminded him, noticing how snugly his T-shirt moulded itself to the contours of his chest, the way his whole body seemed to pulse with unimpeded virility. ‘You have to have drive and determination too.’

He laughed. ‘And in that you think I’m sadly lacking?’

‘You said that, not me,’ she reminded him sombrely. ‘I was only trying to help.’

‘For which I’m very grateful,’ he said, with that familiar mocking curl to his lips. ‘But that sort of help I’m really able to do without.’

‘Suit yourself,’ she uttered, moving away from the ruin and gasping at the speed with which he leaped up and joined her as she came onto a plain of shorter grasses, interspersed with tall ferns and flowering shrubs.