hell!
She felt cool fingers press against the pulse point at the base of her throat, then a hand, the same one presumably, slid under her chin and began to firmly tilt her head back.
Her watering eyes shot open; embarrassingly it seemed that Nikos had wrongly attributed her sudden inertia to a loss of consciousness. She was ashamed that for a spilt second she had actually considered letting him try to revive her—her curiosity was purely of the scientific variety, of course.
‘Will you stop that?’ In her head her voice had been strong and defiant, but annoyingly what actually emerged from her dry lips was a weak croak.
‘Well, that’s a relief, you don’t require mouth to mouth,’ said the big figure who was straddled over her body as he settled back on his heels.
Though his face and clothes were blackened and soot-stained, he still managed to looked as incredibly handsome as ever, Katie noted despairingly.
‘Imagine your relief and quadruple it,’ she croaked.
‘I did not expect gratitude for saving your life, but civility would have been nice…’
‘Saving my life!’ she squeaked, struggling to sit up. ‘My life didn’t need saving, I had everything under control until you got all Neanderthal.’ Panting and unable to rise, she grabbed onto the first available solid support to provide leverage, which happened to be his thighs, which were clamped either side of her waist.
The iron-hard firmness she encountered made her pause and caused her sensitive stomach muscles to tighten; escape somehow seemed less urgent as her splayed fingers explored a wider area and discovered no give in the bulging contours.
Then she came to herself and was deeply ashamed. It was unforgivable under the circumstances that she’d wasted precious seconds.
‘Thanks to you,’ she snarled, ‘Alexander is probably frying in there,’ she informed him, sliding out from between his legs and struggling to her feet. She got to them when, unaccountably, her knees gave way.
Nikos, a startled expression on his face, had also got to his feet, but with considerably more agility and athletic grace than she had. He caught her as she slid to the floor, which cushioned the impact of her contact with the bare wood.
With her head thrust between her knees, Katie batted blindly with her hands connecting only with empty air. It was only after she stopped fighting that he let her up.
‘You stupid, stupid man!’ she quavered, wiping with the back of her hand angry tears that coursed down her filthy face leaving paler tracks in the grime. Nikos, who was kneeling beside her, did not look particularly chastened by her attack. ‘Alexander is still in there.’ She gestured towards the door.
Nikos looked grim. ‘I heard you. Stay calm—hysteria will achieve nothing.’
‘I am calm!’ she bellowed.
‘Why on earth didn’t you tell me what you were doing earlier? Surely this was not the time to preserve your image?’
Katie’s brow creased in impatient bewilderment—image, what image? As for staying calm, the part of his recrimination she did understand was not only unjust, but would, if she’d been the type given to throwing wobblers, have set her off again. Katie was rendered speechless—but only temporarily.
‘Like you gave me a chance!’ she yelled. Or would have yelled if she hadn’t been coughing so much.
‘Katie…oh, Katie! You’re all right, thank goodness!’ A sobbing Sadie gasped as she reached the top of the staircase. ‘Oh, my, I really should lose a couple of pounds,’ she moaned, clutching her chest. ‘I’m signing into that fat farm next week…’
Nikos was looking with some bewilderment at Sadie, who was babbling wildly on about the detox therapies guaranteed to shed the pounds.
It seemed likely to Katie he was about to make one of his nasty sarky remarks.
Katie elbowed him hard, wanting to protect her friend from his nasty tongue. ‘She’s terrified, it’s her way of coping,’ she hissed at him. God, the man had the empathy of a brick.
Nikos seemed to take her explanation on board. Nodding, he left her side with a terse instruction to stay put!
‘Just take some deep breaths.’ Katie watched in astonishment as, with a smile of incredible charm and gentle manner, Nikos bent over Sadie.
The sound of Nikos’s voice seemed to calm Sadie, who nodded and looked up at him gratefully. Katie saw her do a double take and then an appreciative grin spread over her face.
‘Are you asthmatic?’ Nikos asked.
‘No, just fat and unfit.’ Sadie laughed shakily. ‘I ran all the way from the gate,’ she explained. ‘I think the fire brigade are coming. I heard them in the distance. Shall I go back and wait for them…?’
‘Take Katerina downstairs, and leave the house immediately.’
I suppose, Katie thought numbly, that people like Nikos come into their own in situations like this—situations that require someone to take charge and make decisions. Not even his worst enemy—which might be me—can accuse Nikos of having a problem with decision-making, she conceded wryly.
‘I’m not going anywhere until Alexander—’
‘I will get Alexander and you will leave the building,’ Nikos announced in a lordly fashion. ‘How old is he?’ he asked, advancing towards the door from which smoke was now billowing.
‘You can’t go in there,’ Katie said positively, as convenient as it might be, she couldn’t let the rat die for her cat, who might still have a few of his lives left.
‘Concentrate.’
Katie was, on the amazing silver flecks in his eyes. She was stressed, exhausted, terrified, and frankly there couldn’t be a worse time to admit that you were sexually attracted to a person, and had there been any other conceivable explanation for the way her mind disintegrated and her body came to life around him Katie would have plumped for it.
‘How old is he?’ Nikos asked as though she hadn’t spoken.
The relevance of this escaped Katie, but she recognised she wasn’t totally immune to the indefinable something Nikos possessed that inspired compliance, no matter how silly the question or request.
‘Threeish, I think.’ That was what the vet had estimated when he’d given the ginger tom his injections. ‘I think we’ll sedate him next time,’ he’d said drily as he’d disinfected the scratches on his arm.
Nikos stopped in his tracks. ‘Three!’ he ejaculated, his lips twisting in a grimace of appalled disgust. His chest lifted. ‘You left a three-year-old child alone?’
Katie’s jaw dropped. He thought…he actually thought she…! Words failed her. God, she’d known he had a low opinion of her, but she hadn’t thought it was this low!
Sadie, who was supporting Katie, came to her aid. ‘Child?’ She looked
