women to bed.
And so many were so willing…
A caustic smile parted his lips. Demetria might volubly yearn for the day she saw him finally married, and berate him for his sexual lifestyle, but it was hardly a problem for him. The stream of women wanting him to desire them was endless, so even if he did tire of them—as he always did—it caused him no difficulty. He simply moved on to the next one.
There was always a next one.
And there would certainly be another one once he had finished with his brother-in-law’s mistress.
Irritated with himself for giving form to such pointless musing, he stabbed at the mouse button to open the first e-mail his PA had forwarded as worthy of his attention. In an instant his mind was preoccupied, diverted totally on to business matters.
By the time he had surfaced from his business affairs, the sun was setting. The room temperature was pleasantly cool, thanks to the background air-conditioning, but when he stepped out onto the wide balcony of his room the afternoon warmth enveloped him. Even without his jacket he was far too hot.
Returning indoors, he stripped off and donned a pair of swimming trunks, before reaching for a pair of crisply cut cotton shorts and a casual shirt. As he reached for a beach towel the image of Janine Fareham in her skimpy bikini wafted once more through his mind. She would be waiting for him by now, no doubt.
Time to go to work.
At the bottom of the flight of steps that cut into the rock between the gardens and the sea he paused, looking around him. To one side of the hotel beach and further out to sea the windsurfers were clearly in action, skimming and twisting over the surface of the water. Immediately in front of him were two rows of loungers and parasols, and a bar café was set back from the beach, to save guests having to go back up to the pool level.
Out to sea, the westering sun was turning the water to turquoise.
He could see no sign of the girl.
And then he spotted her.
She was out to sea, swimming offshore in a leisurely breast-stroke. Her hair, he could just tell at this distance, seemed to be knotted on her head, out of the water.
Casting around to see which lounger she had taken, he saw the beach bag she’d had up by the pool and walked across to toss his towel down on it. Then he undressed down to his trunks to wade into the water. It caressed him like silk, and, with a lithe movement, he dived forward, striking out to sea in a powerful, fast stroke.
He closed the distance between the shore and the girl in a few moments, and then went right on past her. He needed exercise after the inactivity of the day. Besides, the vigorous exercise would help to drain off that layer of submerged, persistent anger he had felt ever since Demetria had dropped her bombshell. It wouldn’t drain out completely, of course. Nothing could make it do that until the cause of his anger was removed. But he knew he had to keep his feelings under tight control—he must not, must not, let it show. Janine Fareham must get no inkling of it—not until it was far, far too late for her.
Just thinking of her, of the pain she was causing Demetria, the damage she was doing to Stephanos’s marriage, made the anger surge through him again. It flared through him, urging his muscles forward, pushing him past the pain barrier as he churned through the water at a punishing speed.
Only when he was several hundred metres out to sea did he finally slow, his burst of energy and aggression spent. He turned over onto his back, temporarily exhausted, floating on the swell of the sea for a while, letting his heart-rate slow and his muscles recover.
His anger seemed abstract now, far away. Demetria and her suffering seemed far away too. Another image formed in his mind. The image of a beautiful blonde with a sun-kissed body and softly rounded limbs.
The woman he was going to calculatedly and deliberately seduce—because she was his sister’s husband’s mistress.
For a few brief seconds another emotion surfaced. An alien one. Unwelcome.
Reluctance.
Reluctance at the task ahead of him.
And reluctance to question why he felt that way. What was wrong with what he was planning to do? The girl was threatening to destroy his sister’s marriage—he was simply trying to help Demetria, who had quite enough torment in her life coping with her infertility. She did not need her husband cheating on her with a younger woman!
And just because, he reminded himself tightly, the younger woman in question had turned out to be so incredibly desirable, that was no reason to flinch from what he had promised Demetria he would do. No reason to feel reluctant to pursue his carefully planned strategy of calculated seduction.
He put his reluctance aside. There was no reason why he should not do what he was setting out to do. The girl had got her claws into his brother-in-law—he was going to remove them. End of story. He had set out on this course and he would pursue it to the end. He would accomplish what he had set out to do—what he knew he had to do.
And use whatever it took to achieve that goal.
There was nothing else to be done.
He flipped over and headed back to shore with a steady, unhurried stroke, making for the girl who was his target and his mission. She too had circled round to head back towards the beach, still kicking with her leisurely breast-stroke, head held high out of the water. As he neared her he dived and swam underwater for some metres, emerging just in front of her in a shower of spray.
Janine’s breast-stroke stalled abruptly. She’d been miles away mentally, using the smooth, rhythmic movement of her body in the sea to let her mind drift miles away.
But not too many miles. Just as far as the memory of the man whose face had been burning into her retinas since she had laid eyes on him. Once he’d disappeared from view, heading back up to the hotel, she’d gone back to her pool lounger and scooped up her things, heading down to the beach.
She’d tried to sunbathe again, but it had been impossible. Impossible to relax. She’d been fizzing with electricity—electricity generated by Nikos Kiriakis.
She’d given up trying to relax and instead had knotted up her hair, retied her bikini straps firmly, and gone into the water. Here, cool blue satin slipping past her heated body, she had given herself to the indulgence of recalling every last detail of the most breathtaking man she’d ever laid eyes on.
And suddenly now here he was, in the flesh, beside her.
And such flesh…
They were both out of their depths, still treading water, but the translucent liquid did little to hide from her the power and perfection of his body. Broad, bare shoulders topped a muscled chest, fuzzed with hair, every ab and pec lovingly outlined. No wonder he’d been able to swim at speed! His body was in superb condition.
Just like the rest of him…
His dark, wet hair was slicked back from his face. Diamonds glittered on those lush, long lashes of his.
White teeth flashed in a grin.
‘If you swam any slower you’d go backwards!’ said Nikos Kiriakis to her teasingly.
Janine
