Page 23 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

Should I have told him who I was?

Her expression hardened. It would have made no difference, though, would it? Not in the end...

The car drove through electronically controlled gates, crunched along a driveway and pulled up. The driver came round to open Calanthe’s door. She got out, murmuring her thanks, feeling the heat hit her after the air-conditioning of the car. The driver was getting her bag, hefting out another one too—Nikos’s, she assumed—and then taking the car away to wherever the garages were. The front door of the grand villa was opening, and a member of staff was welcoming them in.

Saying not a word to Nikos, Calanthe hurried forward, eager to gain the sanctuary of her own room. Eager, above all, to be nowhere near the man she wanted absolutely nothing to do with.

‘Calanthe! Darling! Wonderful to see you here!’

Marina, who had always been the exuberant type, sailed forward, her red and gold kaftan billowing in the breeze that lifted up from the beach to reach the wide marbled pool terrace already thronged with arriving guests gathering for afternoon cocktails.

Calanthe, having finally reluctantly emerged from her room, knowing she could not hide there for ever, was gushingly embraced, and then Marina stood back, her dark eyes gleaming with blatant curiosity.

‘So, darling, tell me all about that absolutely gorgeous hunk of a man you’ve brought with you! Theo tells me he invited him—but it’s you he arrived with! So, tell all!’

Calanthe stepped back from Marina’s embrace, feigning indifference. ‘We just came in the same car, that’s all. He’s a business acquaintance of my father—that’s how I know him.’

Marina’s gleam intensified. ‘Playing it cool, are you? Well, no change there, then! Except...’ her voice became conspiratorial ‘...the absolutely gorgeous Nikos Kavadis is in a league of his own compared with all your usual boyfriends!’

‘He is not my boyfriend!’ The words snapped from Calanthe. ‘I told you—I hardly know him.’

‘Hardly know him yet,’ Marina amended. ‘And tonight will be the perfect time to remedy that. Mind you,’ she added, ‘you’ll have to move fast. He’s already being sized up by every predatory female here!’

‘They are totally welcome to him,’ Calanthe informed her. ‘Marina, please... Don’t try and...well, you know.’

Her friend threw her hands up. ‘You’ll fall one day, darling! Even you! Little Miss Cool will melt eventually... I warn you!’

Calanthe remained expressionless, but emotion knifed inside her. Marina’s warning was far too late. Eight years too late.

Involuntarily, her eyes went to the far side of the swimming pool. Nikos was there, talking to Marina’s husband and several other people. Talking as easily as he’d talked to the driver on the way up here. Quite at home in these wealthy surroundings. Just as he’d been quite at home in Athens’ most expensive hotel, where her father had held his birthday celebration.

And he was looking as devastating as he always did.

Always had.

Whether he was in his rough work clothes on the construction site or, as now, in the kind of eye-wateringly expensive designer label casual clothes suitable for a high society villa party in the Aegean. And Marina was right—many female eyes were going his way. Eyeing him up. Wondering if he was available...

A sour expression crossed Calanthe’s face.

Help yourself, ladies! You’ll be doing me a favour.

Marina was asking her what she’d like to drink, and beckoning a circling member of her staff.

Calanthe shook her head. ‘Actually, what I’d really like to do is catch a swim,’ she said.

‘Darling, of course! There’s the pool!’ Marina gestured expansively.

‘Oh, no—I was thinking of the beach. The sea looks so inviting. I’ll just run down...’

She slipped away. Under the sundress she’d changed into in her room she’d put on a one-piece swimsuit. Towels would be supplied at the beach, she knew. She could hide there until it was time to come in and dress for the evening.

The path down to the beach zigzagged through the garden, opening up eventually onto clear pebbled sand. Sun loungers had been set out under parasols, each with a bale of towels. There was a little changing room as well, to one side, as well as a small and pretty blue-shuttered beach house, set back from the beach.

But all Calanthe had to do was pull off her sundress, and head for the water. It was cool and refreshing and she gave a sigh of relief as it embraced her. Slowly, she swam out to sea, wanting to calm her ragged nerves. She was stuck here till tomorrow morning at the earliest. If she cut and ran now Marina would want to know why, and that would cause yet more of the speculation that was the last thing Calanthe wanted to encourage.

Please, please, let Nik pair off with someone else! Let him accept I won’t have anything to do with him again and find consolation elsewhere.

There would certainly be women ready to offer that consolation. And Nik could pull any of them.

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