which held precious little of either back in Athens. But, as he took the helicopter low on its descent to the villa, Luke cursed in angry frustration. A naked female was sunbathing on his private beach. Again.
He set the machine down on the helipad at the back of the house, switched off the engine and jumped out, crouching low until he was free of the rotating blades. He hurried past the pool to make for the trees lining the cliff edge, and scowled down at the figure lying motionless far below. Why, in the name of all the gods, couldn’t they leave him alone? He turned as his faithful Spiro came rushing to greet him, and exchanged affectionate greetings before pointing down at the beach.
‘Someone down in the cove again. Where the devil is Milos?’
‘He needed time off. Shall I take the boat?’
‘No; leave it to me.’ Luke collected his bags and strode past the palms and oleanders in the lush garden. Instead of going through his usual ritual of breathing in the peace and welcome of his retreat, he raced up the curving staircase, threw off his clothes, and pulled on shorts and T-shirt, thrust bare feet into deck shoes, smiling in reassurance at Spiro as the man began to unpack. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t hurt the woman.’
‘I know that!’ retorted the man, with the familiarity of one who’d known—and loved—his employer from birth. ‘Wear your dark glasses—and don’t drive too fast.’
Luke Andreadis collected two sets of keys, stopped in the kitchen for an affectionate greeting with Eleni, Spiro’s wife, then checked again from the cliff edge, his face grim when he saw the prone figure still frying down on the beach. The stupid woman was risking a bad case of sunstroke at the very least—but not for long.
He ran back through the garden, vaulted into the jeep parked behind the villa and drove up the cypress-lined drive and out on to the road, taking the twists and turns of the tortuous descent at a speed which would have given Spiro a heart attack. Forced to slow down as he reached the town, Luke drove more circumspectly through the main square and on past the tavernas and coffee shops on the waterfront, then parked well out of sight at his secluded private mooring at the far end. He leapt onto the deck of the Athena, cast off and switched on the engine and, once clear of the marina, sped across the water past the crowded beach and round the cliffs to his private cove. He moored the boat at a jetty hidden among the rocks, his eyes smouldering. The woman was still there.
‘You’re trespassing,’ he bellowed, storming across the shingle. But as he reached her he realised that the woman was unconscious. Sprawled at an awkward angle, she lay face down and utterly still, a mass of long fair curls streaming over her shoulders. He reached up to turn her face towards him, but dropped his hand when she opened pain-filled blue eyes which darkened in terror at the look of menace on the face close to hers.
‘You had a fall. What are you doing here?’ he demanded.
‘Sorry—don’t understand,’ she said faintly, shrinking from him, then stifled a moan, her face screwed up in pain as she tried to back away.
‘You fell. Your head is injured,’ he said in English, cursing silently as her move brought blood trickling from a gash on her temple.
‘Ankle, too.’ She swallowed painfully. ‘I slipped when you came roaring out of the sea at me on that Jet Ski—’
‘Jet Ski?’ Luke glared at her. ‘You are delirious from your fall, kyria. I do not own such a thing. I came by boat.’ Scowling, he examined the foot wedged tightly in a crack in the rock. ‘I must pull it out. But it will hurt.’
She clenched her jaw stoically and turned her head away.
Luke untied the laces on the blue sneaker but, as he tried to ease the foot out of it, she gasped in pain, beads of sweat rolling down her face.
‘Please. Just pull!’
He obliged, but as the foot came free the girl passed out cold again. With a savage curse he yanked his phone out of his back pocket. ‘Spiro, the woman’s had an accident. She’s unconscious. The clinic will be shut at this hour so I’ll have to bring her up to the house.’ He cut off Spiro’s exclamation. ‘Find Dr Riga, please. Tell him it’s urgent.’
Luke decided against trying to revive the girl. Better she stayed out of it while he manhandled her. Cursing because she was virtually naked except for scraps of pink fabric, he found a towel nearby and shook it free of sand to drape over the girl. He searched in a backpack lying at the foot of the rock, his lip curling as he found a notebook and pencils. But otherwise there was only a small purse with some currency, and a paperback novel in English. No identity. He hooked his arms into the straps but, as he bent to pick her up, her eyes flew open, wild with fear again.
‘You are perfectly safe,’ he snapped impatiently. ‘I shall carry you to my boat.’
Luke was as careful as possible as he carried his burden across the narrow beach, but she was unconscious again by the time he deposited her in the well of the boat. In a black mood, he cast off and set off across the water on the short trip back to moor the boat at the marina, thankful, not for the first time, that his berth was well away from the tavernas. He secured the boat, then, praying she hadn’t fractured her skull, Luke picked up his unconscious passenger who, though slender, was a dead weight. He braced himself, stepped up onto the quay and buckled her in the passenger seat of the Cherokee. Annoyed because he was breathing hard, he tucked the towel around her, shrugged off the backpack and drove back to the villa.
Spiro and Eleni hurried out to meet him, followed by Milos, the gardener, all of them exclaiming volubly over his unconscious passenger.
‘My apologies, kyrie,’ said Milos remorsefully. ‘My mother needed me. What happened to the lady?’
‘She fell on the rocks,’ Luke growled, jumping out.
‘Dr Riga is out on a call,’ reported Spiro, looking worried.
Luke swallowed a curse. ‘Will he be long?’
‘Alex Nicolaides is home, kyrie. I saw him this morning. I could go down and fetch him,’ Milos suggested.
Luke nodded grimly as he checked the girl’s pulse. ‘Get him here as fast as you can, please.’
‘The poor young lady!’ Eleni bent to mop the blood from the unconscious girl’s temple as Milos rushed off. ‘She has hurt her pretty face.’
‘Let me help carry her upstairs,’ offered Spiro, but Luke shook his head.
‘I can manage. But I need you with me, please, Eleni.’ As he released the safety belt the girl came round and struggled to sit upright, shrinking away from him in such terror that Luke’s patience suddenly ran out.
‘You are not in danger,’ he snapped. ‘I have brought you to my house.’
‘No, really—I must get back to my cottage,’ Isobel protested, horrified. Before he could stop her, she slid from the car, then gasped in agony as she put her weight on her injured ankle.
With a face like thunder, Luke scooped her up, ignoring Eleni’s protests when the towel was left behind. He strode up the curving staircase to a large airy bedroom and deposited his unwilling burden in a chair. ‘I will leave you with my housekeeper,’ he panted and stalked out of the room.
The woman smiled sympathetically. ‘I am Eleni. I speak
