Michelle Reid Collection

‘The journey was too much,’ he hissed. ‘I apologise.’

Again? Nell thought. ‘I just want to go to bed.’

At any other time Xander would have jumped on such an appealing statement. But not right now, when it was clear she was totally wasted and he was worried and feeling as guilty as hell for putting her through such a journey before she had recovered her strength.

Reaching between them, he unbuttoned the lightweight blue summer jacket and slid it carefully from her shoulders then tossed it aside. The white blouse was silky, the tiny pearl buttons more difficult to negotiate from this position and he frowned as his fingers worked, the frown due more to her silent acquiescence. It was a good ten seconds before he realised that she’d actually fallen asleep.

The blouse came free and landed on top of the jacket, working by stealth, he gently laid her down against the pillows then shifted his attention to removing her shoes then the slippery silk-lined skirt and lace-edged stockings that covered her slender legs. Leaving her dignity intact with her lacy bra and panties, he was just grimacing to himself because this was as naked as he had ever seen his wife of a year—when he saw what he had missed while he’d been busy undressing her and it straightened his spine with a stark, rigid jerk.

She was so badly bruised he could not believe the doctor had dared to say that she was fit to travel! One whole side of her ribcage was a mass of fading purple and yellow, and he just stared in blistering horror at the two thick seat-belt lines, one that ran from her left shoulder diagonally across her body to her waist, where the other took over, strapping straight across her hips.

What the hell kind of speed had she been doing when she hit that tree to cause such bruising?

Had it been deliberate?

His blood ran cold at an idea he dismissed instantly. But the cold shock of the thought lingered much longer than that. And the guilt he had been feeling at the rough way he’d handled her on the plane grew like a balloon in his chest.

Someone tutted beside him. ‘Oh, poor wounded child,’ Thea Sophia murmured. ‘What kind of man have you become, Alexander, that you bring her this far in this state?’

It was not a question he cared to answer. He was struggling enough with it for himself. Setting his mouth, he bent down to gather Nell into his arms again with as much care as he could manage.

‘Pull back the covers, Thea,’ he instructed gruffly. Ten seconds later he was resettling his wounded bride against the cool sheets of their marriage bed.

Did she but know it, he thought as he straightened a second time and stepped back to allow Thea to gently fold the covers back over Nell’s limp frame. Her hair lay in a thick braid beside one of her cheeks and she had never looked so pale—or so vulnerable.

God give me strength, he thought grimly, glad that only he knew what plans he’d made for the beautiful Helen involving this island, some serious seduction, this room and this bed.

Shelved plans. He turned away, grim face mask-like as he watched Thea fuss around picking up Nell’s discarded clothes and folding them neatly on a chair.

He made a decision. One of those quick-thinking, businessminded decisions he was more familiar with. It was called a tactical retreat.

Nell slept on through the sound of rotor blades stirring up again, slept through the whooshing din the helicopter made as it took off. She had no idea at all that while she slept Thea Sophia sat in the chair beside the bed, quietly working her lace with gnarled, nimble fingers while a maid just as quietly unpacked and put away Nell’s clothes. The afternoon sun slowly turned the room golden. She only stirred when the sound of rattling crockery made her dry throat and her empty stomach demand she take note.

Opening her eyes, she took several long seconds to remember where she was, and a few more seconds’ sleepily watching the old lady in black as she fussed around a table by the window across the room. Then the old lady turned.

‘Ah, you are awake at last!’ she exclaimed and came across the room with her crinkly face full of olive-toned smiles. ‘My name is Sophia Theodora Pascalis,’ she introduced herself. ‘I am Alexander’s great-aunt. You may call me Thea Sophia and I will call you Helen—such a proud Greek name.’

Was it? Nell had never given much thought to her name’s origin.

‘Of course, if Alexander were here he would have made the formal introductions,’ Thea Sophia continued. ‘But welcome—welcome to our beautiful island and our beautiful home, Helen.’ Nell found her face being clasped between two hands in a warm, affectionate gesture, and released again.

‘Th-thank you. I’m very happy to meet you, Thea Sophia,’ Nell returned politely and it was impossible not to smile back in response.

‘Ah, it is I who is happy to see you here at last.’ The old lady stood back to beam a very satisfied smile then turned to walk back to the table by the window. ‘We will become very good friends, you and I, ne? You will like it here,’ she promised. ‘When that stupid boy Alexander decides to get his priorities right and come back here you will makes lots of babies between you in that bed as is Pascalis tradition and we shall be a very happy family, ne?’

The baby part floated right by Nell, pushed out by the much more disturbing part of Thea Sophia’s chatty speech. ‘Xan—Alexander has…gone?’ she prompted unsteadily.

‘He took one look at your poor bruised body and took to his heels,’ his aunt informed her in disgust. ‘You would not believe that such a big strong man could be so squeamish, but there you go.’ She added a very Mediterranean shrug. ‘It will be his guilty conscience taunting him, of course. He was brought up to protect his loved ones. In this, with you, he failed. He will come back when he has come to terms with his…’

Nell had stopped listening. She was pushing the covers away from her body and staring down at her near-naked flesh. Hot colour poured into her cheeks then paled away again when she saw what Xander had seen.

‘W-who undressed me?’ ‘Alexander, of course.’ ‘Then he left…’ ‘Ne.’ China chinked against china.

Nell sat up with a jerk and drew her knees up to her chin so that she could hug herself. Tears were burning, hurt tears, angry tears.

Xander had brought her to this island to seduce her—he’d left Nell in no doubt whatsoever about that. One glance at her miserable body and he’d seen his plans thwarted so he’d done what he always did.

He’d walked away. Left her. Marooned her on this tiny island with this sweet but old, old lady, while he returned to his busy, important life, the seduction of his wife shelved—again.

‘You ready for a nice cup of English tea now…?’

CHAPTER FOUR

NELL stepped barefooted onto the sand, dropped her book and her sunglasses down at her feet then removed the wide-brimmed straw hat Thea Sophia had insisted that she wear to shade her face from the fierce rays of the sun.

Using the hat as a fan, she wafted it to and fro as she stood looking around the small cove she’d found during her first week here and since then made it her very own. It meant a stiff climb up and down the tree-covered hill to get here but it was worth it. The sand beneath her feet was sugary soft and hot, the sea a crystal-clear, smooth as glass, glistening blue, and in between the two lay a strip of cooler damp-silk sand kept that way by the flow and ebb of a lazy tide.

It was the stillest day since she had arrived here two weeks ago. Hot, breathlessly calm, exotically pine-scented and so exquisitely hush-quiet you could hear an ant move a leaf fifty feet away.

A wry smile played with her mouth as she stooped over again to place the hat over the book and sunglasses, paused long enough to scoop up a handful of warm sand then straightened again, green eyes fixed thoughtfully on her fingers as she let the sand filter through them while she tried to decide what she was going to do.

She was being watched. Not only was she very aware of that pair of eyes fixed on her, but she also knew to whom they belonged. She’d heard the helicopter fly overhead as she’d been strolling up the path that led over the pine-shaded hill on her way here. She also knew how he had found her so quickly. Yannis, the bluff, gruff odd-job man on the island and her latest guard would have told him where to look.

It made her curious as to whether it had ever occurred to Xander that having her watched for every waking hour of the day meant that Yannis often saw what he was seeing right now as he stood beneath the shade of one of the trees that edged the little cove.

If her instincts were sending her the right messages, that was, and she knew that they were. Only one man had ever filled her with this tingling mix of anger, resentment and excitement just by looking at her.

There were two things she could do next, she pondered thoughtfully. She could turn round and confront him or she could ignore him and continue with what she’d come here to do.

The smile on her lips stretched wider. It was not a pleasant smile. The first option had never been a real contender, Nell had known it from the moment she’d heard his first footfall on the woodland path behind. There was no way that she was going to turn and let him know that she knew he was standing there.

It did not suit her purposes because she was about to show him just what it was he had been consistently rejecting for the last year. Show him how she looked without the bruises he’d turned his back on in favour of Athens and probably Vanessa’s perfect, unblemished, willing charms.

Her fingers shook a little, though, as she began to untie the knot holding her sarong in place across the warm rise of her breasts. Her heart pumping a bit too thickly as she let the fine white Indian cotton slide away from her body to land softly on the top of the hat.

Underneath the sarong the new honey-gold tan she had been carefully cultivating shone softly beneath a protective layer of high-factor oil. Exercising three times a day by swimming in the pool or here in the sea had toned her up quite impressively—not that she’d been a slouch before the accident, but physical injury had taken a toll on her weight and her muscles.

Now, as she stood looking down at herself, a lazy finger absently rubbing in a previously missed smear of oil across the flat slope of her stomach, she was quietly impressed with how she looked even if it was vain to think it about herself. Whoever it was who’d packed her clothes for her in England must have been in romantic mood because they’d more or less picked out everything she’d bought for her non-starter honeymoon, like this bikini for instance, bought along with several others to seduce a husband who should have been her lover by the time she’d worn one of them.

The bikini consisted of a tiny white G-string that made only a scornful play at covering what it should, and a skimpy top made of two tiny triangles of silky fabric held together by two bootlace straps, one knotted around her neck and the other around her back. If she swam too energetically she came out of the top but—who cared? she thought with a large dose of defiance. She felt slinky and sexy and the G-string wasn’t going to go anywhere because of the way it was held in place in the tight cleft of her buttocks.

So eat your heart out, Alexander Pascalis, she told him as she tilted her face up to the sun. Because here stands the unbattered version of the woman you turned your back on two weeks ago. And on that rebellious thought she moved into a long, slow, sensual stretch that accentuated every slender line of her figure from arms to spine to smoothly glossed buttocks and long, slender legs, held the pose for a few seconds then released it and began running lightly down to the sea.

In the shade of the tree, Xander watched the start of her little exhibition from a lazy, relaxed stance with one shoulder resting against the tree trunk.

She knew he was here, he was almost certain of it. She had to have heard his footfall on the path on such a still day. So, what was she thinking about as she stood there sifting sand through her fingers? Was she contemplating how he would react to a handful of the sand thrown in his face?

He knew she was angry with him. He knew she felt dumped and deserted when he’d left her here the way that he did. But what other choice had he had at the time? He had a wife who was not yet a wife and a marriage bed that was not yet a marriage bed that his aunt fully expected them to share.