Page 18 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

She cut off her thoughts. No point giving room to them. No point doing anything but what she was doing now: having the semblance of a civil, social picnic with a man who was all but a stranger, who had obviously invited her out because she was Georgios Petranakos’s very attractive daughter.

And his heiress.

The word tolled in her brain. With all its implications.

She shook them from her. They were irrelevant. Nikos Kavadis would not even get to first base with her, let alone meet whatever aspirations he might be contemplating giving house room to.

But what, exactly, was he after?

She felt the question in her head...felt herself shy away from it. Eight years ago he’d romanced her, not knowing whose daughter she was.

Now he did.

Again, her thoughts pulled away.

No, above all, she mustn’t go there.

He was peeling a peach, then cutting it for her, offering her a slice. Carefully, she took the succulent fruit and slipped it into her mouth. There had been something unnervingly intimate in the way Nikos had offered it to her.

She swallowed it down, then reached for her water, nearly finishing it off. She poured the rest over fingers that were sticky from the peach. Then she got to her feet.

‘I haven’t been to Sounion for a while—I might as well see the temple up close now I’m here,’ she announced.

She kept her tone cool...impersonal.

Nikos stood up too.

‘Do you want to stay for the sunset?’ he asked. ‘If so, I’m sure we can get a coffee at one of the hotels by the beach to while away the time.’

Calanthe shook her head. It was hours till sunset—the famous ‘show’ that tourists came to see, watching as it set behind the ancient ruins of the temple starkly outlined on the promontory.

‘I’m going out this evening,’ she said. ‘I don’t want to be back too late.’

‘Who’s the lucky man?’ Nikos’s enquiry was casual as he stooped to pack away the picnic things.

‘A girlfriend,’ Calanthe answered without thinking. Then she was cross that she hadn’t said her evening out was to be with a man. ‘A concert,’ she added for good measure. ‘Schubert.’

She watched as Nikos swung up the picnic box. Another memory darted into Calanthe’s head—how he’d so effortlessly hefted a sack of dry cement into a waiting wheelbarrow on the construction site next to the dig. Georgia’s eyes had gone to the ripped torso on display as he had done so and she’d given a sigh.

‘Oh, for your looks, Cal!’ she’d said. ‘He only has eyes for you, you know.’

Her expression changed. Hardened. In her head she heard again his declaration—that he had come back.

For her.

She felt a shiver go through her. A shiver that should not be there. Yet there it was, all the same. A shiver of awareness...of vulnerability.

Nik—back in my life. Wanting me again.

She felt the power of his declaration—the declaration he’d so shamelessly, arrogantly made to her—and yet for all his shamelessness and arrogance she could feel its power....

He held out a hand as if to guide her as they headed back to the car. She ignored it. That was the only sane thing to do. Ignore it. Ignore everything about him. Shut him out.

I’ve said what I came here to say. Made it crystal-clear that I want absolutely nothing to do with him, ever again!

And now she needn’t.

That was all she must hang on to. Anything else was far too dangerous.

---