One Night With Dr Nikolaides: One Night with Dr Nikolaides

Cailey reached out and gave his arm a squeeze. “I’m so sorry. How old is he?”

“Six.”

They all stood for a moment, weighed down by the ramifications. The weather wasn’t yet obscenely hot, but spring often saw the temperature gauge fly up unexpectedly, and the longer someone was trapped the more likely it was they’d suffer from severe dehydration. What happened next wasn’t worth considering.

“Fine.” Jacosta wiped her hands together as if she’d been behind the decision for Theo and Cailey to leave all along. “Off you go. Shoo! Get some rest. I’ll bring you some yoghurt and fruit in the morning.”

Cailey took a deep breath as if to protest, then clearly remembered it would do no good and surrendered to the hug her mother was drawing her into.

Another round of kisses were exchanged and then they were back on their way.

* * *

“Your mother is a force of nature.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Cailey replied dryly, then sucked in a sharp breath as first her spine and then her whole body responded to Theo’s touch when he replaced his hand on the small of her back to steer her onto a small tree-lined street that led away from the village’s main thoroughfare.

Who was this man?

He was much more comfortable with the villagers than she’d anticipated. No lofty heights. No clear social barriers up between him and them.

Had he really changed from that arrogant teen she’d overheard telling his friends about the heiresses his father had lined up for him to marry into this...this kind, generous-hearted, self-effacing man?

There weren’t any heiresses in sight now. And—not that she was obsessed or anything—but the pictures of Theo with some willowy blonde on his arm had dried up in the society mags of late.

She chanced a glance at him as he ruffled a child’s hair after the little one had run out to show him the bandage he’d applied earlier to her arm. He knelt down and gave it a studied look, then praised her for looking after it so well.

Crikey, that was sweet. He was sweet.

Just feeling Theo’s broad hand reassert itself on the small of her back relit a flame in her core she now knew had never really been fully tamped out.

As they continued walking she couldn’t stop the niggling thought that ten years ago she’d blown the whole “Nikolaideses don’t marry housemaids” thing out of proportion. Had she, a teen herself, taken umbrage for something she should’ve just laughed off? Or, better yet, should she have flounced out of the pool house she’d been cleaning, flicked a hip in his direction with a saucy follow-up that he didn’t know what he was missing?

Instead she’d been upset, hurt and offended. Leaving had been an easy way to protect her heart from feelings she’d thought would never be reciprocated.

Theo slowed his pace and dropped his hand from her back. She missed his touch instantly. How quickly she’d grown used to something she thought she’d never know.

He stopped in front of a large wooden gate and dug his hand round in his pocket, presumably for a key, his shaggy hair falling forward across his darkly stubbled cheeks.

Theo must have felt her gaze on him. He raised his eyes to meet hers and dropped a slow, dark-lashed wink in her direction as he pulled something out of his pocket with a flourish.

“Ta-da!”

She stared at the object in his hand. A mini-screwdriver?

“Man’s best friend.”

“A screwdriver?” she deadpanned.

“Absolutely.” Theo gave her a quick nod, then turned to the gate. “I lost the key about three years ago, and last winter it started jamming, so...”

He fiddled a bit with the screwdriver at an area on the doorframe that looked as if it had borne this routine more than a few times, then gave the door a swift kick. “Voila! Your boudoir awaits, mademoiselle!”

Trying to push aside images of Theo sweeping her off her feet and carrying her to said boudoir, she tried to wrangle her backpack off his shoulder.

“No, you don’t.” Theo swept his arm out, indicating that she should enter the small but incredibly lush garden where a smattering of golden sandstone slates led to a modest-sized whitewashed traditional home. “In you go.” He pulled the gate shut behind them as she entered the garden. “So. What do you think?”

What did she think? She thought it was the last sort of place a Nikolaides would live in. More to the point, she thought it was perfect.

The small house was precisely the type of a home she’d dreamt of living in before she’d left the island. Draped in bougainvillea, shaded by palms and...was that a pomegranate tree? It felt...cozy. It was about as far as you could get from the ostentatious steel beams, floor-to-ceiling glass and columns of the neo-classical mansion he’d grown up in.

There went a few more of her hypothetical conjectures about The Life of Theo.

“I think it’s beautiful.”

He squinted at her, the corners of his lips tweaking up into a quirky smile. “Excellent. And it looks like the chaps who did the stonemasonry all those years ago knew what they were doing.”

“What?”

“No cracks from the earthquake.”

“Haven’t you been—?” She stopped herself. Of course he hadn’t been home yet. He’d been at the clinic yesterday afternoon when the quake struck and hadn’t been home since.

In lieu of throwing herself at him and telling him how selfless and wonderful he was, she shifted her weight on her heels and gave the house a studied look.

“How old is it, exactly?”

“Hmm...” Theo drummed his fingers on his chin and stared at the house as if someone would pop out of the front door and tell him.

My goodness, he has a lovely jawline. Had she ever even noticed a man’s jawline before?

“Not very. Three hundred years old? Maybe four? Not dawn of civilization stuff.”

Cailey couldn’t help but laugh. She’d always held a deep affection for the neglected and often abandoned stone structures dotted about the island. How funny that Theo seemed to share the exact same level of enthusiasm. He took a few long-legged steps past her and opened the thick wooden door to the house.

“You have the key to this one?” she teased, feeling a strange new store of energy coming to the fore.

“Never locked.” He looked back at her and gave her another one of those butterfly-inducing winks. “Wait here for a minute while I check the structure. It would be a bit embarrassing if your bedroom had been swept out to sea.”

Double swoon!

There was no doubt about it. Theo was flirting with her and she was falling for it hook, line and sinker. Just as she’d warned herself not to.

Then again... If this whole “get some rest at my house” thing was leading where she thought it might, it could lay a few old demons to rest.

Yes. Definitely. They’d have their night of carnal bliss and then poof! She’d lend a hand for a few more days at the clinic, maybe throw in a bit of a showdown with Dimitri, then get back to her job in London, put an end to the evil glares of the gift shop lady every time she leafed through the society mags, and get on with the rest of her life.

And maybe monkeys wearing tiaras would fly out of her backpack.