opened his eyes and glared at her.
She blinked again, but met his gaze determinedly.
Just how determined was she? He couldn’t imagine. He could bet, though. And he was willing to bet he could run her off in less than twenty-four hours.
A corner of his mouth tipped up slightly. Did the old man think he was just going to roll over and give up his wicked ways without a fight?
Well, if he did, he’d vastly underestimated his older son.
Whatever he was paying Miss Mari Lewis, it had better be a bundle. She was damned well going to earn it.
“You don’t have the wrong cottage,” Nikos told her.
“But you said—” She looked around, puzzled. “But... where’s Nikos?”
He smiled. It was a hard smile. There was nothing pleasant about it. “I’m Nikos.”
She gaped at him.
“Welcome to your new job, Ms. Lewis. Apparently my father has hired you to babysit me.”
He was obviously a madman.
But he was the most stunningly handsome madman she’d ever seen. He had dark brown eyes and tousled black hair, a lean face with high cheekbones and a wicked-looking dimple just to one side of his mouth that deepened when he gave her that bitter smile of his.
And he kissed like—
Mari didn’t want to think about what he kissed like! She’d never been kissed like that in her life!
A lesser woman—many lesser women, she was sure—would have fallen panting at his feet,
Mari Lewis was made of sterner stuff.
She had a job to fulfill, a reputation to uphold, a magazine ad and article to live up to, and a pair of lovable, impractical, dangerously gullible aunts to support.
And despite the fact that her heart was still hammering and her head was still spinning and her lips were still tingling, she needed to find Stavros Costanides. And she needed to do it fast.
But how? When Mr. Whoever-he-was was sitting next to the door, looking as if he would pounce on her if she made a move in that direction.
“Look, Mr....” She paused.
“Costanides,” he said helpfully. He smiled again. The same humorless smile he’d smiled before. However heart-stopping it was, his smile wasn’t meant to be friendly. It wasn’t even, she was fairly sure, meant to be attractive. Unfortunately it was. The dimple deepened again.
She wanted to touch it, To touch him. Again. Help! Determinedly Mari looked away and forced herself to say in a level tone, “Mr. Costanides, then. I don’t know why you’re doing this, but—”
“You’d do better wondering why my father is doing this.”
“Your father?”
“The well-known despot, Stavros Costanides. You know? Older than me. Mustache.” He parroted back her description. “The man who hired you.”
“To take care of his little boy.”
“To take care of Nikos,” her fully-grown, very masculine nemesis agreed. He poked his chest. “Me.”
“But that’s ridiculous!”
“You’re telling me,” he muttered. His smile faded and suddenly he rubbed fiercely at his forehead. “Damn.”
Mari frowned. Maybe he wasn’t totally mad, after all, she thought. Maybe he was suffering from concussion—a head injury that made him think he was someone else. He certainly looked as if he’d recently done battle with something formidable—and lost.
His left leg was in a cast; he held one arm close to his body, as if he was protecting his ribs; he had a fresh scar on his jaw, and his very handsome face still showed the lingering signs of bruising beneath the left eye and temple.
“Are you all right?” she asked quickly.
He lifted his gaze to meet hers. “Would you be?”
The very bleakness of his tone startled her. It also stopped her cold, having the effect that his words hadn’t had. It made her think that he wasn’t talking only about his physical condition at all.
It made her worry that he might be telling her the truth. Mari swallowed. Pushed the notion away. Tried not to think about it.
Stavros Costanides had hired her to be a nanny to his son. His little boy! She knew he had a little boy. She’d glimpsed a picture of him on the credenza in Stavros’s office.
“Is that Nikos?” she’d asked him.
He’d smiled a proud papa smile and had picked up the picture, saying proudly, “That’s my son.”
Nikos, she’d thought
But he hadn’t actually said, “That’s my son, Nikos,” she realized now. He’d just agreed, “That’s my son.”
And the devilishly handsome man sitting across from her now was...?
“You’re Nikos?” she asked faintly. “You’re not... kidding?”
Deep brown eyes met hers. Slowly he shook his head. “I’m not kidding.”
Outside in the distance Mari could hear the gabble of cheerful women. Overhead a jet engine droned. A bird twittered.
“But...but it doesn’t make sense. I mean, why would he—?” she faltered. “You’re not—” She broke off. “I understood he had a four-year-old. He showed me a picture of a four-year-old!” She gave him an accusing look.
“He does have a four-year-old. My half-brother. Alexander.”
“Then it’s obviously a mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake.”
“But—”
“It’s his way of making a point. He thinks I’m wasting my life. He thinks I don’t take things seriously enough, that I haven’t accepted my responsibilities as heir to his damned empire, that I’m shirking my duty to follow in his footsteps as the eldest son.” His tone became more and more bitter as he spoke. His dark eyes flashed, and it was all Mari could do not to flinch under his gaze.
She didn’t, because as a nanny she knew that the slightest crack in her armor could do her in. Don’t let them intimidate you, was the cardinal rule of dealing with one’s charges.
One of her charges?
She wasn’t seriously thinking she was this man’s nanny, was she?
It was a joke. Any minute now Stavros Costanides
