him on the terrace below, she knew that every single thing about Nikos Karellis eclipsed every single thing about every other man she’d ever met. Back and forward he paced, like a general pacing in front of his army. In the calm, silent night his voice carried to where she stood, switching from the Greek she barely recognised, to Italian and then back to his deep, drawling Australian English—he was orator, statesman and king all in one.
She knew she should be thinking about her presentation, but she simply couldn’t make her mind focus. Yet. As long as she had an early night, she’d be up at dawn and get back into the zone.
‘Hey up there! Juliet! Coming to join me?’ said Nikos. He had walked to the end of the terrace and was almost underneath her.
‘Yes, Romeo, just coming,’ she laughed. She lifted her fingers to her lips to blow him a kiss, and then stopped—what was she thinking? She drew her hand back as if she had been intending to tuck her hair behind her ear.
But the look in his eyes told her he knew. He knew she was attracted to him. She was useless at hiding it. From the way she’d drooled as he’d dried himself down, to the way she’d been caught, open-mouthed, watching him just now.
Of course she was attracted; who wouldn’t be? The question was, what was she going to do about it?
She slipped silently along the hallway, her feet slipping on the marble, her silver bracelets jangling. She caught sight of herself in the mirrored doors that led out to the terrace.
You’d better be careful, Jacquelyn, she told herself. You’re almost out of your depth. Don’t spoil it all now…
She walked across the lamp-lit terrace. Nikos walked towards her, and her heart leaped in her chest. She breathed, she smiled. She took the cheek he offered, right, then left, and she kissed him quickly, ignoring the swirl of musky male scent and the smooth warmth of his skin.
‘You look very beautiful,’ he said. ‘That coral colour suits you. The cut of the dress—really nice.’
She knew it did. The soft jersey draped over her figure, hugging her curves, the coral pink toned with her skin. She was lucky.
‘Thank you,’ she replied as he showed her to her seat at a round table, tucked in the corner of the trailing rose arbour, lit by candles and strings of little lamps.
‘Are you hungry?’ he asked as he settled himself beside her and speared a bit of melon, watching her carefully.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, looking at the plates of appetisers. But she wasn’t. She wasn’t hungry in the slightest.
He nodded, still watching, and she lifted some food to her plate.
‘Your room OK?’
‘Oh, yes. Thanks. Very comfortable.’
He nodded. ‘I’ve been busy, but that swim did me the world of good. Unfortunately it was all waiting for me when we got back from the beach.’
‘I guess you’re always on call.’
‘Aren’t you? As head of a business, there never seems to be a moment when someone doesn’t want an instant solution to some problem or other.’
‘I’m not quite in your league. My issues are more around being taken seriously.’
He raised a sharp eyebrow.
‘Not by my staff. But by men. Bank managers usually.’
‘You feel objectified in the business world?’
‘Objectified. Patronised. Demoralised. Take your pick. I’m sorry if I sound bitter, but the number of times I’ve heard “Oh, isn’t your father coming?” Honestly. It would never happen if I were a man.’
‘People make judgements in less than a second. It takes a lot to change a preconceived idea, but I bet you can do it if you want to.’
It was the thing that upset her more than anything else. Taking over from her father, and feeling that sense of disappointment every time it was she alone who walked into meetings. It was fine when she was just there as window dressing, but as soon as she was running the whole show she knew she’d been judged and filed before some of them had even read past the first line of her accounts.
‘I don’t imagine anyone has ever told you you’re far too handsome to be getting all mixed up in business before?’
‘No,’ he said, scathingly. ‘And I honestly can’t believe in this day and age that anyone would doubt your credentials because you’re a woman.’
‘It happens,’ she said, taking a sip of wine, feeling it slide warmly into her stomach.
‘If it’s any consolation, you wouldn’t begin to imagine what’s been said to me. The question is, do we let what other people think affect our decisions?’
‘Is this about to turn into my second piece of business advice?’ she asked, smiling as she took another little sip of the very delicious wine.
‘Life advice,’ he countered.
‘So why exactly does Mister Seventy-Sixth-on-the-Forbes-List feel so maligned?’
‘I don’t. But what I’m trying to get across is that people paint pictures in business. And in life. The perfect world you think you see here…’
He jerked his fork around the space. Lamps were now glowing softly right along the lines of the terrace, highlighting clumps of sleeping flowers nestled in their bushy beds. Further on, the blue glimmer of the pool and the solid lines of pale loungers stretched out expectantly under the watchful hillside, and the bright-faced moon above.
‘This paradise and every other paradise like it will be hiding all sorts of cracks and holes and heartache.’
As she stared up at him lazily spearing watermelon and letting it slide down his throat, she recalled another article she had read, about his early childhood and humble beginnings.
‘You had it tough at one point in time, didn’t you?’
He raised an eyebrow, continued to munch melon and she watched in a hazy trance now as his muscled forearms flexed with each movement of his fork, and the thick column of his throat constricted with each swallow. It was poetry in motion, dark and male and utterly magnetic.
‘No tougher than any other kid growing up in an abusive, dysfunctional family. All things considered, I had it pretty easy.’
‘I’m sure you could take care of yourself,’ she said, a trifle dismissively. He might have had humble beginnings but he had it all laid out at his feet now. He had no idea how she’d had to struggle.
‘Well, you see, that’s where you’re wrong, Jacquelyn. I couldn’t. So that’s how I ended up here.’
He sounded so different, so quiet. He glanced down at the plate where a few glistening pink cubes of melon remained, but then he put his fork down, stared at it for a moment.
‘I ran away. I met my wife at the side of the road when she was still someone else’s wife. I knew what
