THREE
DIMITRI deposited her on a padded cane chair in the shadiest part of the vine-covered, granite-paved terrace. His heavy-lidded, lash-veiled eyes moved with lazy assessment over her body, taking in the tempting swell of her full breasts, tiny waist and voluptuous hips, resting finally on her wide, generous mouth.
Mistress material.
Quite definitely.
Yet as far as he knew—and he had tracked his enemy through the years with the dedication of a jungle cat stalking its prey—his father didn’t take high-maintenance mistresses. He’d come to know how the older man’s mind worked.
Too great an expenditure of time, effort and money was involved in establishing a mistress.
He would regard it as an unnecessary indulgence.
A wife was different. A wife could be safely ignored, treated as part of the furniture until he had need of her. His extra-marital adventures were furtive backstairs episodes, if his poor mother’s sorry experience was anything to go by.
This bimbo would be angling for a wedding ring. She was no wide-eyed innocent to be dazzled simply by the attentions of her lord and master—not the way she looked, she wasn’t!
Aware that he could be in danger of making assumptions, he mentally ran over the known facts. His father had been off the radar for several months, holed up in his luxurious villa. With this blonde?
Judging by that photograph, she had already got herself firmly embedded in his father’s villa, up close and personal, and an announcement in the press that Andreas Papadiamantis was to take wife number three would appear in the very near future. It was practically a certainty.
How his enemy would be congratulating himself that he had got such a luscious creature to warm his old bones and his bed, whenever he chose to avail himself of such comforts.
Unless he, Dimitri Kyriakis, stopped it.
And that could be fun, as well as turning the screw a little tighter.
Bonnie squirmed against the cushions. She could feel a blush spreading all over her. The way this Stavros guy was looking at her was seriously unsettling.
Everywhere his hot gaze wandered it felt as if he was actually touching her. Her heartbeat quickened and fire licked her skin, a languorous warmth spreading through her, hot and heady, making her breasts feel swollen and heavy, their tips standing to attention within the confines of her halter top. This rivetingly sexy guy could so easily make her forget she was a sensible adult woman, with her head firmly screwed on.
Once bitten twice shy, she reminded herself staunchly.
Though being nibbled by those strong white teeth would be no hardship at all!
Struggling to find something mundane to say, to break the spiralling sexual tension, Bonnie expelled a gusty sigh of relief when he came to her aid.
‘I’ll make that ankle more comfortable. Wait here.’ He disappeared through open, immense sliding glass doors into what she guessed to be his boss’s luxury home.
Stavros’s temporary absence gave Bonnie a much needed breathing space, and the opportunity to don her sensible hat again. So, OK, he was the most charismatic, sexy guy she’d ever come across. But better than that he was probably local, working for one of the island’s wealthy incomers. The chances were he would be able to tell her where to find the elusive Dimitri Kyriakis.
True, according to Andreas, his estranged son only used his island villa occasionally. But on the upside, in a small place like this everyone knew everyone else. It was a close-knit community, with the locals making a living as best they could from the sea and the land. The local grapevine would be buzzing with the doings, the to-ing and fro-ings, of the wealthy other half.
So her smile was radiantly expectant when he reappeared, carrying what appeared to be enough medical supplies to stock a medium-sized pharmacy.
‘I think you could help me,’ she opened, as he knelt in front of her and began to clean the cut on her ankle with cotton wool soaked in something really soothing.
Dimitri frowned. That smile of hers would light up a room. But what gave him pause was the complete lack of artifice. In his experience gold-diggers—and that included beautiful young women who would marry an old man for his money—had artifice oozing from every pore. ‘That is what I’m doing,’ he stated, dabbing the cut dry and applying a plaster.
‘No—I mean—yes. What I mean is—’ Bonnie tried quite desperately to ignore the fluttery feeling that had taken over her insides as soon as those long, cool fingers of his had touched her skin. Tried to stop wanting to run her fingers through the thick, silky black hair that fell in such intriguing disarray over his downbent head. She wanted to touch it so much it was almost a physical pain. ‘I mean—well, I’m trying to locate someone.’
‘Yes?’ Dimitri bound her ankle tightly, and deftly secured the bandage with a tiny pin. It seemed as if he was about to discover what his father’s woman was doing on the island. ‘That should support it adequately, though you’ll have to rest it for a couple of days. You were saying?’ he prompted coolly.
Bonnie blinked. Having this hunk kneeling at her feet took her breath away. No man, not even Troy—and she’d been on the brink of marrying him, for goodness’ sake!—had ever had this effect on her.
Wondering where her sensible hat had got to, she pushed on. ‘He’s got a villa somewhere around here. He doesn’t come often, but he’s here now. And, oh—how silly!—you don’t know who I’m talking about! His name’s Dimitri Kyriakis—have you heard of him? Do you know where his place is?’
Dimitri got to his feet, straightening his lean, powerful figure to its full six feet three inches. His narrowed eyes were darkly probing, and the shock of hearing his name on his father’s bimbo’s lips hardened his voice. ‘Why do you want to know?’
Very few people knew of his bolthole. No more than three. All of them were completely trusted, loyal employees who would die rather than disobey his orders. One of them being his manservant Stavros.
So it had to be down to his enemy. Andreas must have had his spies out, tracking him minutely even as he had tracked the older man through the years. It made sense. Dimitri’s brain clicked into overdrive. He didn’t like mysteries, and this one was solved in ten seconds flat.
He could think of at least two reasons why the old man had sent this woman to find him.
To push him over a cliff to get rid of him.
Or, and far more likely, to use every feminine wile and trick in the book to get close to him and learn of his future intentions via pillow talk.
Did the old man think he would be that indiscreet? That much of a sucker?
But it would be interesting to find out how far she was prepared to go…
Bonnie’s heart was busily sinking. For a moment there Stavros had looked really intimidating. And now draining disappointment had taken her over. Was he going to be the same as the other islanders? Button-lipped when it came to giving information about the revered wealthy part-time residents on whom a large part of the island economy depended?
