He’d agreed she could be in control.
She wasn’t even close to being in control.
She went back into the bedroom, and she started to shake.
She’d just agreed to move into the royal retreat with Nikos.
Nikos, the sexiest man in the known universe. The people’s prince. A fisherman, a businessman. A man who ordered security, who’d saved her life this morning, a man who knew how to protect his own.
She took a couple of deep breaths and tried to steady herself.
Was she overreacting? Maybe she should stop being a drama queen, she told herself. She’d be moving under the umbrella of his protection, for as long as it took to defuse the threat. That was all. Then she’d go back to Manhattan and start her life again.
She looked over to the bed. Her small version of Nikos was still fast asleep.
She wasn’t overreacting. The threat this morning had been real and dreadful.
Nikos had saved their son as well.
She closed her eyes-and then suddenly she opened the door again. She flew down the corridor. Down the great marble staircase. Past the two burly fishermen on the stairs. Nikos was already at the grand entrance, striding down to the forecourt.
‘Nikos?’
He paused and turned. ‘Thene?’
She stopped. He was maybe twelve stairs down from her. She wasn’t going any closer.
But she’d run after him for a reason and that reason still held.
‘I didn’t say thank you,’ she said. ‘You saved our lives.’
‘You saved your own lives by diving.’
‘If you and your men hadn’t been there…we couldn’t have stayed under for ever.’
‘Don’t think about it,’ he said gently. ‘Put it behind you.’
‘I will,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t mean…it doesn’t mean I don’t feel…’
‘I don’t think we’re supposed to feel,’ he said dryly. He raised his hand in a mock salute and turned again, striding down the remaining steps two at a time.
And then he stopped. He swung round to face her.
‘Hey,’ he said suddenly. ‘Come with me and see my mother. We need to tell her what we’re planning, and you haven’t seen her since we got back.’
‘I don’t think…’
‘Don’t think,’ he said. ‘She’s not so scary.’
‘I know. I…’
‘Nicky’s asleep. He’s likely to stay that way. My cousins are here watching over him. If you like, you can ask Mrs Lavros to sit with him and phone you the moment he wakes up.’ He held out his hand and smiled. ‘So Nicky’s safe. I promise. And you know my mother would love to see you.’
She looked at his outstretched hand. The urge to take it was almost irresistible.
The urge to trust him was irresistible.
‘Why wasn’t your mother here last night?’ she asked.
‘She stayed home and cared for Christa. And she was putting baklava into the oven when I left her this morning.’
Baklava. Nikos’s mother’s baklava.
‘I shouldn’t,’ she whispered.
‘Got you.’ He was grinning. ‘No one can resist my mother’s baklava.’
‘For an hour, no more.’
‘Excellent,’ he said and his hand stayed outstretched.
She walked slowly down the steps towards him. She spent most of the time on the way down staring at that hand.
She shouldn’t. She should not.
This was Nikos, taking her to his mother’s to eat baklava as he’d done a thousand times before. The temptation to slip back into that time-that life-was irresistible.
‘I’ll…I’ll talk to Mrs Lavros.’
‘Already done,’ he said, and called to one of his relatives, who was watching from the top step. ‘Joe, can you ask Mrs Lavros to watch over Nicky-ring me the moment he wakes?’
‘Consider it done,’ the man said and disappeared.
‘Are you sure you can you trust Joe?’
‘He’s my cousin,’ he said and grinned. ‘My father had eight siblings. Half the islanders are my blood relatives.’
‘You should so be the prince here.’
‘I don’t need to be. Not if you stay.’
And his hand was still outstretched. He was still waiting.
Trust wasn’t black and white, she thought. Christa’s birth meant that on a personal level she couldn’t trust this man. But as guardian of this island…as someone she’d hand over the mantle of rule…Yes, she did trust him.
His hand was still outstretched.
Trust…It was a relative thing. She could trust a little. Just a little. Starting now.
Okay. She would.
She stepped down towards him and put her hand in his and he led the way out of the palace grounds.
He hadn’t brought a car so they walked as they’d walked so many times before, along the cliff path leading from the palace to the tiny hamlet where Nikos had lived all his life.
Apart from their disastrous attempt to swim, this was the first time she’d been out of the palace grounds since her arrival. She’d forgotten how beautiful the island was. Or maybe she’d blocked it out, too painful to remember.
It was picture-postcard perfect. Houses clung precariously to the cliff face. The cliffs seemed to be almost stepped down to the sea, with tiny jetties jutting out into the water at their base. Boats swung at anchor; there were a couple tied up at the jetties. Fishermen were tossing their catch to brawny helpers, loading it into trucks for the local market.
‘We should be exporting,’ Nikos said conversationally as they reached the cliff path. She was so aware of his hand holding hers that she could think of nothing else, but he seemed perfectly at ease. ‘This place is alive with fish-we could make a great case for a cannery. As it is, most of the fishermen only catch what the local market can absorb.’
‘So what about you?’ she managed. She should tug her hand away. But it felt too right. It felt too…good.
‘My boats are bigger. We can take our catch directly to the mainland.’
‘Which made you independent of Giorgos?’ His hold was doing strange things to her. She was slipping into the skin of the girl she had once been-the girl she thought she’d left behind for ever.
‘Almost,’ he said. ‘Though he was always a threat.’
That shook her out of her preoccupation. She knew Giorgos’s threats only too well. Should she tell him why she’d left the island all those years ago? Should she share the terror that had made her run?
Why?
If she told him…maybe it would make him feel better about her, but it could never alter what she felt in return.
He was silent beside her. They’d always been able to do this, she thought. Talk when there was a need to talk but otherwise relax with each other so words weren’t necessary.
Comfortable in each other’s company.
‘I do need to get to know Nicky,’ he said finally into the silence, as if this was simply an extension of his thoughts. ‘You realise he’s heir to the throne.’
She hadn’t thought this through. ‘I guess he is,’ she whispered, and the thought of a grown-up Nicky taking control of these islands was almost overwhelming.
