Page 38 of Virgin's Night with the Greek

Her gaze dipped to his mouth and lingered. ‘That a siesta in the cabin would be a good idea?’

‘No,’ he replied, resisting the temptation she presented because to take her down below when he was so on edge, his self-control unnervingly shaky, would be mad, bad and incredibly dangerous. ‘What I’mthinking is, it’s time to go back.’

Leo wasn’t the only one with a lot going on in his head. His confession occupied Willow’s thoughts for every one of the nautical miles that sped by.

How on earth had he coped with the stress of doing a job he didn’t feel equipped for all these years? The internal struggles he’d had to have faced, the tough decisions he’d had to have made... She couldn’t imagine it, although she did now understand his need for control and order and his desire for privacy.

The suppression of his true self to get the job done and protect others, however, didn’t sound very healthy at all. But then who was she to judge? She was hardly a model of rational thinking. She was avoiding the operations she’d been told would help alleviate the symptoms of her endometriosis because of a fear that she knew logically was unlikely to materialise. She was as trapped by events of the past as he was.

It was a shame he’d put an end to the day because she’d been having a fabulous time, but she got it, just as she got why the smiles had vanished and Leo was now tight-jawed and anything but relaxed at the wheel. She’d prodded him into talking when he hadn’t wanted to and he wasn’t happy about it.

So she’d back off and give him some breathing space, the way he’d done for her when she’d needed it. It would be no bad thing for her either, come to think of it. Because now she’d had a glimpse of the man beneath the facade she wanted to know more. She wanted to know everything, which was not an option, so she could do with some time alone to shore up her defences against the threat to the emotional distance she was determined to maintain.

‘What’s the plan for tomorrow?’ she asked once they’d made it back to the villa, needing to know so she could figure out how to get out of it.

‘There isn’t one,’ came the blunt reply, which meant, she thought with some relief, that she could make her own.

Leo woke up gritty-eyed and grouchy, too unsettled by the events of the day before to have slept well. His dreams had been fractured and disturbing. The one in which he’d stretched out on a couch, his head in Willow’s lap, and told her everything while she gently stroked his hair and murmured soothingly at regular intervals had been particularly alarming.

Discovering that he was alone in the bed didn’t help his mood at all. Where was she? Had the brooding sullenness into which he’d descended yesterday afternoon driven her away once again? Had she had enough of the monosyllabic grunting that he’d been reduced to, left in the dead of night and gone back home? At the thought of it, something unpleasant slithered into his stomach, until she emerged from the bathroom in a towel and a cloud of rose-scented steam, at which point it slithered right back out again.

‘Good morning,’ he said, his voice gruff with sleep, although other parts of his anatomy were rapidly waking up.

‘Good morning,’ she replied absently, reaching for her clothes.

She ditched the towel, which gave him hope, but then she started dressing, which dashed it. Sightseeing might be no longer an option, but he hadn’t put a stop to anything else.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Getting dressed.’

‘I can see that.’ He frowned. ‘But why?’

‘Because my taxi will be here any minute.’

Leo sat bolt upright, fully awake now, his pulse pounding and his mind racing. What the hell? Shewasleaving? ‘Where are you going?’

‘I thought I’d start with the Three Bells of Fira,’ she said, fluffing out her glorious hair then pushing her sunglasses into it. ‘And see what I felt like doing after that.’

He blinked. Shook his head to clear it. ‘What?’

‘I’m going sightseeing,’ she said. ‘I told you I wanted to see more of the island. So that’s what I’m going to do.’

‘On your own?’

‘Yes.’

‘I’ll join you,’ he said, flinging back the sheet and swinging his legs round to surge to his feet.

‘There’s no need for that,’ she countered, alarm flickering across her face as he pulled on his shorts and grabbed a T-shirt. ‘We’re not joined at the hip.’

There was every need for that. Forget his decision of yesterday to confine them to the villa. He wasn’t having her wandering around the place on her own. What if something happened to her? It didn’t bear thinking about. She was a guest in his home. She was his responsibility. And that was all there was to it.

While she slipped her feet into flats, he racked his brains for arguments to convince her to see things his way. ‘You don’t speak the language.’

‘I have an app. I’ll manage.’

‘You don’t know where you’re going. You could be taken for a ride.’

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