Eligible Greeks: Sizzling Affairs: The Good Greek Wife? / Powerful Greek, Housekeeper Wife / Greek Tycoon, Wayward Wife

‘And n-now?’

‘Ohi.’

A shake of his head emphasised the denial.

‘So how—?’

Hastily Penny caught herself up. What was she doing? Had she actually been about to ask him what had happened, how he had come by the injury? She must be crazy. Here she was alone in the darkness with a dark, powerful and clearly unwelcoming stranger and she was pushing him for answers he clearly did not want to give.

And why, why, was she even remotely interested? What was it about this stranger that had so unsettled her that she had actually wanted to know what had caused the injury that had marked him so badly? Wasn’t the fact that it was so evidently the result of some terrible violence enough to clamp her foolish mouth shut?

‘So many questions,’ the fisherman mocked now, and the low voice carried over the silence to where she sat on her rock, some dark edge in it making her spine tense, her stomach twisting in sharp apprehension. ‘Why so curious?’

‘I…’

She was halfway to her feet, but the need to keep her eyes on the big, bulky figure silhouetted against the setting sun meant that she didn’t dare to move too fast or too obviously for fear that she would show him how keen she was to get away.

‘You…?’ he queried, that disturbing note in his voice deepening worryingly. And he took a step forward, towards her. Pushing her to her feet in a rush.

‘Penelope?’

Another voice broke in on them, coming out of the darkness along the shoreline. A male voice; a voice she knew and recognised.

‘Penny?’

‘Jason!’

She would actually have welcomed the arrival of any member of those she privately labelled The Family at this stage of things. But Jason was the only one of Zarek’s stepbrothers who was actually kind to her. Closer to Penny in age than any of the rest of the family, and startlingly handsome—conventionally good-looking where Zarek had been dark and devastating—he had been approachable, even warm and sympathetic from the moment she had arrived on Ithaca as a young, naïve bride.

And it had been Jason who had warned her that Zarek’s marriage plans had been the cold-blooded hunt for a wife who would give him an heir. A fact that Zarek himself had confirmed when she’d challenged him, asking why he’d proposed to her.

‘Isn’t it obvious? I couldn’t keep my hands off you,’ her husband had said. ‘And I knew we would make beautiful babies together—and that’s all that mattered.’

‘You OK, agapiti mou?’

The term of affection was new, but it was what she needed. It was enough to have her on her feet and swinging round to him, nervous steps taking her towards him in a rush that had her almost tripping over herself on the slipping sand. Like a bird winging home to its nest, she ran straight for Jason, unthinking, hands reaching out to him.

Jason opened his arms too so that she ran into them, almost collapsing up against his hard length and burying her face in the crisp cotton of his shirt. Long arms came round her, holding her tight.

And that was when second and then third thoughts forced themselves into Penny’s whirling brain, taking the instinctive, mindless fear that had pushed her into movement and pushing it aside, replacing it with a sudden feeling of having made a terrible mistake. Fear of the stranger was one thing, but from Jason’s reaction he had taken her response to mean much more than she had meant. He was holding her too tight, too close.

Too close for what she really wanted.

‘Penny…’

And that tone had altered, putting something new into the use of her name, a thickness she had never heard and certainly wasn’t meaning to encourage. The fisherman might have spooked her, twisting her nerves into fearful response, but a sudden slow crawl of unease down her spine gave her the unwanted sense of out of the frying pan and into the fire.

‘Jason…’ she tried experimentally, aiming to lift her head from where it was pressed against his chest, ease herself away from the limpet grip he had on her.

As she had feared his arms tightened round her, holding her still. Already unsettled by her encounter with the fisherman, and painfully aware of the fact that he must still be watching her, she felt as if her head was about to explode with stress. She didn’t want this and if Jason thought he had found the perfect time to make a move…

Suddenly she knew she had had enough. Enough of this situation, this family. She didn’t belong here and she never had. She had always been second best, unwanted and unpopular with Zarek’s stepmother and stepbrothers. And second best to Zarek too.

So why was she so determined to stay here where she wasn’t wanted? To cling onto memories that had never really been true, no matter how much she might wish they had. Perhaps if she escaped, she could leave, go home. She could be by herself and try to find another way of living. She could always take Zarek with her in her heart.

And that gave her the perfect way to distract Jason, to turn his thoughts onto other, more important things—more important to Jason, anyway. Even if Hermione’s aggression was not Jason’s way, he was every bit as hungry for control of Odysseus Shipping as his mother.

‘I want to call a board meeting for tomorrow,’ she said, raising her voice so that she could be heard over the crash of the waves.

It worked. She felt the change as soon as she spoke, the new and different tension in Jason’s body, the gleam in his eye that he couldn’t disguise as he looked down at her. He even loosened his hold on her so that she could step back away from him. ‘Why?’ he asked, not sounding at all as if he believed there was any reason other than the one she knew he was hoping for. ‘I’m sick and tired of this whole business, Jason.’ The tension that had gripped her earlier pushed the words out in a rush, giving them far more emphasis than she had planned.

‘I want to get away from here, start living again. I’m tired of treading water. It’s more than time this whole business was sorted out and everything finalised so that we can get on with our lives. I can’t inherit unless we have Zarek’s death declared and legalised. So let’s do that. Let’s put it all behind us—’

‘I’ll get onto it right away,’ Jason broke in on her, his tone revealing only too clearly how much her words had pleased him. He even gave her another hug but thankfully it had lost the sexual overtones of the earlier one. His ambition and greed were a more powerful force—or perhaps, more likely, the sexual flirtation had only been used with the hope of bringing things to this point. Another reason to be glad that she had made her decision.

‘Exactly how do you want to play this?’

But Penny had had enough. Painfully aware of their silent watcher, the unsettling atmosphere he had created, she just wanted to get back inside, seek the privacy of her room.

‘Not now, Jason. Not here. He—’

‘Who?’ Jason questioned sharply. ‘Who’s “he”?’

‘That man…’

Flinging out her arm, Penny gestured wildly in the direction of the harbour and the spot where the fishing boat was tied up.

‘What man?’

‘He…’

But Penny’s voice died away as she turned in the direction she’d indicated and saw only the boat bobbing at its mooring, the water lapping against the harbour side and the lamp illuminating an empty and silent space where the mysterious man had once been. He had gone silently and secretly, and she had no idea just what he had heard or seen or why it should bother her that he had overheard any of their conversation. But all the same, something uncomfortable and uneasy nagged at her mind at the thought that he had been there at all, and the rapid, uneven beat of her heart was the lingering effect of her unnerving and unsettling encounter with him.

Chapter Two

HE WOULD need to be more careful in the future, the fisherman told himself as he headed away from the harbour and towards the small, single-storey, white-painted house that he had made his home since he had arrived on the island a few days before.

He had almost given himself away there, speaking English—speaking at all when it was so possible that Penny might recognise his voice and know that he was alive. Alive and back on Ithaca for the first time in over two years.

And he didn’t want her to know that. Not yet. Not until he had had a chance to check the lie of the land, see just how things were. It might only have been two years—just twenty-four short months—since he had been on Ithaca, and a much shorter space of time since he had realised that the place even existed, but to him it felt so much longer than that. It seemed as if it were a whole lifetime since he had set foot on the island. Then he had thought that he would be back within the week. He had never anticipated that it would be years before he saw his home and his wife again.

But now he was back. And not before time it seemed, he told himself as the door to the cottage slammed shut behind him and he marched into the single, cramped living room. It appeared that the reports he had been hearing were true. His stepmother and her family were moving in on the business. Hermione had always had her eyes set on Odysseus Shipping and now it seemed that his absence had given her the encouragement she needed to make a play for control. And he knew just how that control would be won. Through one of Hermione’s sons.

And Penny had run straight into Jason’s arms. She had been planning having him declared dead with his detested stepbrother. And the wild fire of fury that had flared inside him at the sight had been a struggle to bring under control. It was fierce, it was unthinking, it was irrational, but the sight of the woman—the wife—he had come back to find enfolded in the arms of the man he knew had been scheming his downfall for all of his adult life had had him fighting with himself not to react in anger. Unable to stay and watch, he had turned on his heel and marched away before the urge to declare himself there and then had got the better of him.

Shaking his head, he fixed his eyes on the now moonlit sea as it lapped against the edge of the beach below the cottage, the slow, dark swirl of the waves suiting his mood completely.

Jason had already taken the first steps towards acquiring what he and his mother had always wanted. His elder stepbrother had barely waited for Zarek’s disappearance to be confirmed before he had been trying to apply for power of attorney to run Odysseus Shipping. He hadn’t hesitated to make his move as soon as the opportunity had presented itself. But of course the legal control rested with Zarek’s wife.