Nikos was not sorry that the royal ball was drawing to an end. He had flown to Aristo from Dubai after a week of intense negotiations, and the eighteen-hour days he’d spent in the boardroom were catching up with him. He liked and admired Prince Sebastian, but he was bored of the other guests’ endless, inane chit-chat, the gossip about who was sleeping with whom, and the unsubtle hints from a number of women that they were willing to go to bed with him.
Maybe he was simply tired of blondes, he mused as he stepped out onto the terrace, a half-full bottle of champagne in one hand and his dinner jacket looped over his shoulder. All evening he had been frustrated by his inability to dismiss the waitress, Rina, from his mind. He hadn’t seen her again after their confrontation in the banqueting hall but he knew he hadn’t imagined the chemistry between them. She intrigued him more than any woman had done for a long time, and he had found himself scanning the ballroom for her, irritated by his disappointment that she seemed to have disappeared.
He strolled through the shadowy gardens. The palace was as amazing as his mother had led him to believe many years ago when she had recounted tales of the time she had worked here before he had been born. As a child he had listened in awe to her description of the huge rooms and opulent décor, and as he’d looked around the cramped, run-down apartment block where they had lived it had seemed impossible that such a grand place existed.
He walked to the far end of the garden and was about to turn back when he recalled a distant memory his mother had told him of a gate in the wall, and a path that led from the palace to the beach. With a faint, self-derisive smile on his lips at his curiosity Nikos took one of the Chinese lanterns that illuminated the path and held it aloft as he walked back to the wall. The gate was tucked into a corner, and well disguised by the rose bushes that grew around it. He pushed it, expecting it to be locked, but when it opened he was sufficiently intrigued to follow the path that led from it.
The ground sloped steeply down until it disappeared between an opening in the rocks. Nikos had to duck his head as he entered the cave. It was dry inside, he noted, when he swung the lantern from side to side. Obviously the tide never came up this far. The air smelled faintly of seaweed and through the cave he could see the sea shimmering silver in the moonlight, but as he emerged onto the beach he stopped abruptly, and his heart kicked in his chest. For a moment he wondered if his mind was playing tricks on him, but the woman standing a few feet away from him was undoubtedly real, and her hourglass figure was instantly recognisable—even without her clothes.
Kitty swam right across the bay and back again with clean, strong strokes and then flipped onto her back and stared up at the moon, and the crystal stars that studded the midnight sky. She felt bold and empowered—as unashamedly naked as Eve had been in the Garden of Eden. There was something wickedly sensuous about the silken slide of the water over her bare limbs. She loved swimming and in the water she felt as light and graceful as a water nymph—at peace with her body instead of hating it for not conforming to the model slender form she had tried, through numerous diets and exercise regimes, to acquire.
Vasilis wouldn’t be so ready to taunt her about her supposed sexual hang-ups if he could see her now, she thought as she turned onto her front and allowed the waves to carry her back to the shore. The beach was shadowed and mysterious in the moonlight. The huge boulders that stood guard at either end of the cove loomed like faceless giants, but despite the darkness and her short-sightedness Kitty could distinctly make out the figure of a man, and her heart almost leapt from her chest.
Dear God! Had Vasilis followed her? Fear uncoiled in the pit of her stomach, a wave caught her unawares and dragged her under, and she bobbed back to the surface gagging from the salt water she’d swallowed but desperate not to cough and attract the attention of the intruder. It had to be Vasilis. Few of the other guests at the ball were aware of the path leading from the palace to the beach, but Vasilis knew about it and had come here several times with her brothers.
The prospect of meeting her tormentor on the secluded beach sent a shiver of trepidation down Kitty’s spine. She had seen the way he’d looked at her on the terrace, his lecherous grin that had changed to anger when she’d made it clear that she wanted nothing to do with him. Vasilis would not have dared lay a finger on her outside the ballroom, but here there was no one to help her— or hear her scream.
Clouds drifted across the moon, blotting out its brilliant gleam and plunging the beach into pitch blackness, and, seizing her chance, Kitty tore up the sand and crouched behind a rock. Her breath came in shallow gasps and her heart was pounding when the figure strolled down towards the water’s edge.
‘Hello, Rina,’ he drawled. ‘This is the second time tonight I’ve caught you playing hooky. Shouldn’t you be busy at work at the ball?’
For a few seconds shock rendered Kitty speechless. ‘You!’ she spluttered at last as the clouds above them parted and moonlight danced across Nikos Angelaki’s sculpted features. Attack seemed the best form of defence and although her nakedness forced her to remain behind the rock her voice was sharp when she snapped, ‘Do you know you’re trespassing? This is a private beach.’
‘Indeed it is. It belongs to the royal family, and I have express permission from Prince Sebastian to be here,’ Nikos replied coolly. ‘The only trespasser is you—unless the prince has suddenly opened up the beach for use by the palace staff. Do you have permission to be here, Rina?’
Kitty stared at him wordlessly, not knowing how to answer without revealing her true identity. She was agonisingly aware that she was naked, and she wished a hole would appear at her feet and swallow her up. ‘The party hasn’t finished yet. What are you doing here?’ she mumbled in a voice thick with embarrassment.
In the pearly light cast by the moon she saw Nikos shrug. ‘It was hot in the ballroom, and I decided to walk down to the beach for some fresh air. I could hardly believe my eyes when I came through the cave and caught sight of you.’
‘You should have said something. I believed I was alone,’ Kitty said miserably, burning up with mortification when she recalled how she had stripped out of her clothes. She prayed Nikos had arrived after she had run into the sea, but he swiftly shattered her tenuous hope.
‘I was afraid I’d startle you,’ he drawled. His voice dipped and the amusement in his tone was mixed with something else. ‘Besides, what red-blooded male would have spoken out and risked spoiling the show? I was so careful not to make a sound that I barely drew breath.’ He paused for a heartbeat and then said quietly, ‘Watching you slowly reveal your body was the most erotic experience I’ve ever had.’
In a corner of her mind Kitty registered that the teasing note had disappeared from his voice, and the undisguised sensuality in his deep tone sent a quiver of reaction down her spine. But the idea that she had unwittingly revealed her curvy figure, which she so despised, to him, made her want to weep with shame. ‘You are disgusting!’ she choked. ‘I can just about swallow the line that you didn’t want to scare me, but if you were a gentleman you’d have shut your eyes.’
Nikos’s rich laughter swirled around the empty beach. ‘Ah, but I have never professed to be a gentleman, Rina. I am a pirate, an opportunist who answers to no one, and I do what I please.’ His voice lowered to a sexy growl, ‘And I promise you, agape, you pleased me very much.’
Kitty did not know how to react to that startling statement, and she hugged her arms around herself and peeped warily over the top of the rock.
She was as tempting as a siren from Greek mythology, Nikos owned as he stared at bare shoulders and her mass of dark hair that fell in damp tendrils down her back. But he was not about to admit that he’d been so turned on when he had watched her remove her clothes that he’d almost embarrassed himself.
