Tempted By Her Greek Tycoon

He reached for the croissant with a hint of a smile and broke it into two. ‘It’d better be good to make up for having me believe I had a burglar.’

She held her breath as he took a bite. He nodded his head and took another bite.

He raised the remaining small piece of pastry in his hand. ‘You’re safe...this is really good.’

She tried to hide just how pleased she was that he liked her baking and said, ‘I worked for a while as a trainee pastry chef in a restaurant in Lyon.’

He took a bite from the other half. ‘Why did you stop when you’re obviously so talented?’

She shrugged and said, ‘I wanted to move on to something else...to a new city.’

He folded his arms and considered her for a moment. ‘Like dog-walking?’

Annoyed by his judgemental tone, she answered instantly. ‘I was a dog walker when I was eighteen. After Lyon I moved to Lisbon and worked in a theatre there as a stagehand.’ Unable to stop a defensive edge entering her voice, she added, ‘I hate being confined. I like change.’

He popped the last remaining piece of croissant in his mouth and chewed, eyes narrowed as he considered her words. Eventually he said, ‘Having no responsibilities?’

The croissants she had baked were plump and a dark golden colour. She eyed them for a few seconds before darting her gaze back to him. This time she did not bother with a smile. ‘You sound critical.’

He looked at her in silence for the longest while before saying, ‘We’ve a long day ahead of us. We’d better go and get some sleep.’

She stood, her feet stinging a little. She bit back a grimace. Not wanting them to part with the tension that was between them right now, she said, ‘I really am sorry that I woke you. And thanks for looking after me tonight, for allowing me to stay. You have a wonderful home...the tall ceilings, the décor, the courtyard garden...it’s all so beautiful.’

His expression relaxed and his gaze moved from her to the kitchen and dining area beyond. ‘My father and mother loved this house but they didn’t have time to invest in it. It was comfortable, but pretty ramshackle when I was growing up—nobody had seriously invested in it for over a hundred years. I renovated it a few years back.’

She swallowed and tried to find the right words, knowing just how painful it was to lose a parent. ‘Angeliki told me about your parents dying. I’m sorry...it must have been a difficult time.’

His gaze briefly met hers, and there it was again, that something between them—a connection, a recognition despite the tension between them. Was it the silence of the house, the darkness outside, that was causing them to talk like this?

‘We got through it.’ He looked away and said with the hint of a sigh, ‘My siblings didn’t want the villa renovated. Maybe they were right.’

The tension lines around his eyes were back in force, as though he was burdened by that admission.

Puzzled, she asked, ‘Why do you think that?’

‘I thought that if I renovated the villa Marios and Nikos would realise that life had changed...that we all needed to move on and that they needed to start living differently and assume more responsibility. For Angeliki I wanted to create new memories. But they resented it that I’d changed so much about the family home. There were a lot of arguments over it.’

She went and stood next to him, where he was standing by the dishwasher. He clearly blamed himself for the arguments.

‘It sounds like you were doing it for the right reasons...because you care for them.’

He shook his head. ‘They don’t see it that way. Anyway, it’s time we called it a night. Can I help you upstairs?’

Had she gone too far? Why was she risking her job by talking on such a personal level with her boss? Would he regret everything that had passed between them tonight?

‘I’ll manage by myself.’ She gave him a smile. ‘I think my tap-dancing career is still in the bag.’ Her smile faded at his bewildered look. ‘I’ll... I’ll just get myself a glass of water. See you tomorrow.’

At the door, he turned and watched her for a long moment, as though unhappy to leave her there by herself. She deliberately strode to the glasses cupboard, forcing herself not to wince.

She grabbed a glass and waved it towards him. Reassuring him that all was well.

Eventually he said, ‘Come into the office whenever you’re ready in the morning.’

She appreciated the gesture, but there was no way she was going to give him any excuse to find fault with her performance. ‘I’ll be there at seven. I’m looking forward to it.’

* * *

The following morning the rising sun daubed thick smears of burnt orange fading to red on the sky as Loukas left for work. Across the harbour the island’s lighthouse beam flickered and dimmed in the growing daylight.

He had been born and raised on Talos. Had stood at his father’s side as a six-year-old when he had laid the first foundation stone for The Korinna. Had listened to his father’s plans and ambitions to open a hotel on Talos that would become world-renowned for its beauty and hospitality. A hotel that would bring employment and prosperity to the island. The first of many planned hotels.

His father had dug a trench in the hard and resisting earth of Talos, sweat on his brow, his back bent as his shovel sent shock waves through the parched soil, and his words had been the passionate dream of a man who had come from nothing.

‘Loukas, we must work hard, you and me. We need to look after the family. We are Christous, and we will never fail.’

His father’s dream had come true. For almost two decades he had never ceased working, never taken even a single day off. He had pushed himself relentlessly. And pushed his family just as hard.

Within ten years the Christou Group hotel chain had had twelve other properties in the Argo-Saronic Gulf and five years later twenty-one hotels spread throughout Greece, with plans in place to purchase more in Italy and Croatia.

But then Loukas’s mother had been diagnosed with terminal cancer. And for once his father hadn’t been able to change the future by sheer will and determination alone. It had broken him. And two months after the diagnosis he had died from a heart attack.

Loukas closed his eyes for a moment, remembering his mother’s shouts for help. Remembering how he had run to his father’s office and found him unconscious on the floor. He hadn’t known what to do. Blind panic had immobilised him for crucial seconds. He remembered his feeble attempts to perform CPR, his screams at Nikos to call the emergency services, Nikos pressing the wrong numbers...having to try again.

He had failed his father that day. He should have saved him. He had failed his brothers and his sister. Because a year later when his mother had died they’d been left parentless.

At the age of twenty-three he had inherited not only the majority ownership of the family business but also responsibility for all three of his underage siblings.

From the moment his father had died in his arms he had sworn that he would do everything in his power never to fail him again, that his focus would only be on protecting the business and the family.

And now, eight years on, the business had survived the worst recession in Greek history. But the family had grown more and more fractured as the years had passed, and Loukas knew he was failing as the family’s head.

The family and the business were firmly interlocked. Each needed to function well for the other to survive. His siblings all owned a percentage share in the business, and were able to veto any of his decisions—which they did on occasion. Not on the basis of any business rationale but just to remind him of their power, that they had a voice.

The garden’s cobbled mosaic pathway came to an end at the pale blue garden door, where the track running through the orchard took its place. This was where, when they weren’t working in the hotel he had hung out with his siblings as children. Their parents would try to send them home for a siesta, but instead the four of them would climb the trees, and when the fruit was ripe sit in the shade, sometimes drowsily falling asleep, sugar-drunk on the sweet juices of the peaches.

But now that closeness had disappeared, and the most frustrating thing about this broken family was that he could see that all three of his siblings were brimming with potential. They just refused to co-operate with him and remained too relaxed in their roles. Why couldn’t they assume their responsibilities without fighting him on everything? Why couldn’t they worry like he did? Even break a sweat on occasion?

And now he had this new PA Georgie Jones to contend with too. Last night, being with her in the kitchen, had been bewildering. Taking care of her, touching her, had felt so right. When in truth it had been all wrong.

He inhaled a deep breath. He was overthinking this. Georgie was a temporary PA. The next week would pass in a whirl of work and deadlines and then she would be gone. Georgie Jones was inconsequential. Opening The Korinna and finding himself a wife. Those were his priorities.

He grimaced at the idea of marrying. But he had no choice. His father might no longer be here to fulfil the promise to his mother to buy the Convento San Francesco, but he was and he would do everything in his power to acquire it.

‘Loukas—wait up!’

He turned to Georgie’s call. She waved to him and jogged up the hill towards him with small measured steps. In the daylight she was even more beautiful without the wig, her natural hair colour more in keeping with her lightly tanned skin, the smattering of freckles on her cheeks and her hazel eyes.

She came to a stop beside him and smiled. ‘Morning.’ Then, with an embarrassed grimace, she added, ‘I hope you managed to get back to sleep.’