are you staying?”
Theo was as surprised as Cailey when the question popped out.
She glanced at him, and their eyes caught and held tight.
She was always more than your kid sister’s friend.
“I haven’t really organized things yet. My brothers are crazy busy with the rescue crews.” Cailey looked away, a slight flush blooming on her cheeks as she mumbled, “And I don’t really think there’s room at my mum’s now that—”
“What?” Theo took Cailey’s shoulders in his hands, forcing her to look at him. “Is Jacosta all right? Is her home intact?”
Cailey shrugged, tears filming her dark eyes. “She says so, but I’ve not seen the flat myself.”
“Flat? I thought you lived in a house?”
“We did, but...” Cailey looked away, a few poorly hidden tears falling from her eyes as she turned.
“But what?” His chest felt restricted against the strain of his lungs. “Has my father not been paying her retirement pension? Do you want me to speak to him?”
Bloody man! The most tight-fisted billionaire he’d ever come across. Not that he knew scores of them, or anything, but he knew enough to know that money made a man more of who he was at heart. Good, greedy, kind, cruel...it didn’t matter. Money was an enabler, and if he thought that for one second—
“No, it’s not that. When I left for London she sold the house.”
She swiped at her eyes, her expression one of pure defiance. There was a story there, but Cailey wasn’t pausing for him to ask any questions.
“The place she’s in now is diddy. But it’s fine. She’s fine. We’re all fine. The Tomaras clan is, as it always has been, perfectly happy. Earthquake aside.”
She quirked an eyebrow, adopted a faint smile and looked up at him, unable to hide the shadows of the past shifting across her features like a slow-moving storm.
Clearly not all of the Tomaras clan was happy.
“All right, then. If there’s no room for you to stay with her, you’ll stay with me.”
“What? No.” She took a step back and held up her hands. “No. Completely unnecessary. You’ve got—”
“Pish-tosh.”
He plucked the old-fashioned English expression from his days at medical school in London. Why had their paths never crossed there? She should have called him. Or Erianthe, who was still there.
He swore silently under his breath. He should have kept a closer eye on Cailey. From now on he would. “You’re my responsibility.”
“Er...and why is that, exactly?”
“Because I said so.”
Winning answer, Romeo.
Unsurprisingly, Cailey looked unconvinced.
What was he going to say? That he didn’t want his father to see her without him there to protect her? It was true. It was also true that he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he thought for one second Cailey’s family had been forced to downsize because of anything his father had done.
Somewhere deep inside that sinewy heart of his, he knew his father loved him. Even if he was “just adopted.” But he also knew Dimitri’s vow to make him pay for not becoming the son he’d wanted when they’d adopted him all those years ago still held strong.
Anyone might think the man would be proud that his son had become a doctor. Healing and supporting the very islanders who had helped make his family rich. But, no. He was meant to have followed in his father’s wake, taken up the helm at Mopaxeni Shipping and filled the family coffers even further.
“‘Because I said so’ doesn’t really cut it with me, Theo.”
He tipped his head back and forth. Fair enough. Cailey was a spirited, passionate woman. No surprise tht she wasn’t falling for the dominant male tack.
“You’ve worked hard, and tomorrow will be more of the same. Please. Come to mine and get some rest.”
Better.
“I’m not staying.”
He barked out a disbelieving laugh. How could he have forgotten how stubborn she was?
“Yes,” he ground out in a non-negotiable voice. “You are. My clinic. My rules. You work for me, and if you want to continue to do so you need some rest. I’ve got a spare room and a perfectly good bed for you to sleep in. As far as I’m concerned you need to be in it. Now.”
Cailey’s cheeks streaked with red. “Yeah, I don’t think so.”
Theo squared himself in front of her. Rolled his shoulders back. Pulled himself up to his full height.
What was he doing? Presenting himself like a prize stallion?
Idiot. She’s exhausted. So are you. Act normal.
He cleared his throat and started again. “Get your things. I’m taking you home.”
Way to go caveman. Real smooth.
“Theo, really. I’ll be fine.”
He smiled, caught by surprise at the way she’d said his name. It sounded like a...a verbal caress. Just the chink in her armor he needed.
“I’m afraid it’s non-negotiable, Cailey. Bed. Sleep. I can throw some hot chocolate into the mix, but that’s where I draw the line.”
What was he? Twelve?
Cailey pressed her feet to the ground, obviously gearing herself up to protest, and then, much to his surprise, suddenly wilted.
Raising her hands, she said, “Fine. You win.” She turned her surrendering hands into pistols, “But we need to stop by Stavros’s taverna so I can see my mother. And after that just a few hours’ sleep then I’m back here, just like everyone else.”
“Deal.”
He put out his hand, and when she placed hers in his to shake on it he stunned them both by raising her palm to his lips and giving it a kiss.
* * *
Cailey virtually ran to the changing room to get her backpack. She wouldn’t have been surprised if sparks were flying out of the soles of her trainers.
What was going on?
An earthquake wasn’t the only thing that had shaken up the island.
Theo was not the man she had decided he would be. In her head—and
