Stranded with Her Greek Tycoon Page 9

‘I understood that,’ she said. ‘You blame the modelling career for what went wrong between us. In some part, I agree.’

  ‘That’s when things changed between us.’ He spoke the words leadenly.

  ‘Not in the beginning. It was amusing then, a novelty. The parties were fun too, places we’d never been, people we would never have met. A lifestyle neither of us could ever have imagined. But the more popular you got, the more I got left behind.’ She turned so he could only see her in profile. ‘I got to hate your job. But I never wanted to tell you that. You loved it and it was so very well paid.’

  Cristos abruptly turned from her, then swung back. ‘You got to hate it? Not half as much as I hated it.’

  Her eyes widened in disbelief. ‘What do you mean? I thought you loved being the man of the moment? A star.’

  ‘I loved the money being a model brought us. The opportunities it gave us. In the beginning, some of the jobs were a buzz. But much of it I found demeaning. Not to mention just plain boring. I was a commodity. The director and photographer discuss you as if you’re not present. On a shoot they push and pull you into place as if you’re some kind of store mannequin, not a person. If I didn’t know my nose cast the wrong kind of shadow before, I sure knew it after. And to my traditional family to be a model means a man must be gay—’

  ‘Do you remember my parents asked me if you were gay when I told them what you were doing?’ she asked. ‘And how I laughed at the idea of it.’

  ‘Constant slurs on my masculinity got more difficult to laugh off.’

  ‘I didn’t realise,’ she said.

  ‘You can imagine what my grandparents thought. Having their grandson splashed over billboards in his underpants was not, in their opinion, a worthy job for a Greek man with my education. If my yia-yia could have got a can of black paint and got up on a ladder to mask me out of those adverts she would have. Of course I heard all this after I came home—their disappointment in me spelled out in excruciating detail.’

  ‘I’m so sorry to hear that. But forgive me for smiling at the thought of your grandmother with her bucket of paint, scrambling up the buildings in Times Square in New York with her paintbrush.’

  ‘She would have been very busy. The posters were everywhere.’

  ‘You looked darn good on those billboards,’ she said. ‘Mr Sexiest Man in Europe all right. At the time, your agent told me sales of those underpants rocketed all around the world.’

  ‘The underwear people weren’t happy when I refused an encore performance. They couldn’t believe I would walk away from such a lucrative contract.’

  ‘So why did you walk away?’

  ‘Without you there, what was the point? I was fed up with some of the temperamental people I was forced to work with. The pressure to stay in peak form. Living in Italy and not able to eat what I wanted. All those hours at the gym keeping in shape. No wonder so many of the models—male and female—had eating disorders.’

  ‘Those hours at the gym weren’t a bad thing.’

  He was aware of her not so covert inspection of his body, fitter and stronger even than when she’d last seen him. He liked to keep active. At first he’d pounded through the gym out of anger and despair and frustration. Forcing his body into submission to banish thoughts of Hayley. Back here on the islands, he’d found again the things he’d loved like swimming and running, hitting the gym for enjoyment rather than punishment. He had to counteract with physical activity the long hours he spent at a desk managing his wide-ranging investments.

  ‘Modelling was a means to an end,’ he said. ‘I never saw it as a career. Rather a way to get some money together before we started our real lives.’

  ‘I thought that was your real life. And that there was no place in that life for me.’

  How could he have allowed her to think that? So maybe he had been dazzled by the so-called glamour of it all to start. He’d been so young, fresh out of uni. And there had been good times. But nothing could have made up for going home to the empty apartment. When he’d cleared it, he’d found tucked away in the back of a drawer a little knitted yellow hat Hayley must have bought in anticipation of the baby. For a long time he had stood with it held to his face. Only when he’d gone to put it away had he found he had wet it with tears he hadn’t known he had shed.

  He cleared his throat. ‘You couldn’t have been more wrong. I did it for you. For our future. Once you were out of the picture there was no incentive to keep on pushing myself in a role I’d grown to loathe.’

  And by then he’d found a more lucrative way to make money, one that satisfied him intellectually and fed his gambler’s soul. He couldn’t deny the rush when a gamble paid off—but unlike his father he had weighed up risks with an acute business brain. The apps had kicked it off. Then he’d gone on to invest in property, industry, even a successful West End musical.

  ‘I was surprised when I heard that you came back to your childhood home. I thought you might have gone to Athens. Got a job there.’

  ‘I was in no frame of mind to do that. Not when all my efforts were directed into finding my wife. I hunted for you, Hayley. But met a dead end everywhere I looked.’

  ‘When did you give up?’ she asked in a very small voice.

  ‘When your mother decided to take one of my regular but usually unanswered calls and informed me that you were perfectly healthy, perfectly happy and did not want to see me ever again. After two years I talked to my lawyer about divorce.’

  ‘I’m sorry. About my mother, I mean. She was overly protective. I’m also sorry you didn’t get to use your business degree.’

  He gave a short bark of laughter. ‘Don’t be sorry about that. I’m my own boss. I like it that way.’

  Her forehead pleated into a frown. ‘Is ferrying people on your boat enough? You’re a very smart man, Cristos.’

  He should tell her now how wealthy he was. But then he would have to tell her about the secrets buried in his past, the risks he had taken, his fears, the insecurities he had never wanted to admit to her. ‘The boat is a hobby. Relaxation. If I can help people out with a ride between islands that’s good too. But I don’t earn my living as a boatman.’

  ‘How you earn your living isn’t actually any of my business now. But you got used to a certain standard of living with what you earned. I’d hate to see you go backwards.’

  ‘My investments make me a more than good enough living. That’s what the business meetings in Milan were about. I’d made some good contacts. I was looking to the future.’

  Their future.

  * * *

  Hayley was more relieved than she could have imagined to hear that Cristos was doing okay. They’d had such a struggle at the start. The modelling career had seemed like a godsend.

  But she was astounded to discover how much he’d hated it. Why hadn’t she known that? Had she really listened when he’d come home exhausted and complaining about some tyrannical fashion director? She’d wanted so much to be a support to him, as her mother had never been to her father, yet it seemed she had failed. Even before her pregnancy had brought on its problems and changed everything.

  ‘What about you?’ he said.

  ‘Sydney is an expensive city to live in. But I’m sharing an apartment with a very nice girl and doing okay. I really like my job. People only know me there as Hayley Clements. Not as the appendage of a dominant male.’

  His face contorted with what looked like real concern, pain and a good dose of anguish. But, Cristos being Cristos, he only looked more handsome. Dark and brooding suited him. Dark and brooding had brought him a lot of work. Although she’d loved him most when he was laughing, those fabulous white teeth against his warm olive skin, his green eyes sparkling with good humour.

  ‘I’m gutted you thought you were in any way lesser,’ he said now. ‘I blame myself entirely.’ A bleak shadow darkened his eyes. ‘If I cou
ld turn back the clock I would. Especially to the night we lost our baby.’

  Hayley tensed. ‘I told you I didn’t want to talk any more about that.’

  To talk further about her miscarriage meant having to reveal more of her life afterwards. The deep, dark depression that had overwhelmed her. That had worried her parents so much they had admitted her to a clinic. The long struggle back from those black depths.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry too,’ she said. ‘Looking back, I didn’t realise the pressures on you. My only excuse is that I was young, inexperienced and maybe not ready to be a wife.’

  ‘I wasn’t much older. Maybe neither of us was ready. Maybe we—’

  ‘Should have got to know each other better before we—’

  ‘Dived into that shark pool of the modelling world.’

  ‘It was a shark pool, wasn’t it? Seething with vicious creatures, jaws open and snapping with razor-sharp teeth. Your agent, some of those bookers, even the clients. They were predators.’

  ‘And we were naïve, fresh prey,’ he said.

  ‘Now, a few years on, I wouldn’t put up with being made a secret wife hiding in your shadow. Not for a moment.’

  ‘I wouldn’t have allowed it. I didn’t want to allow it then. I should have trusted my instincts.’

  Hayley’s instincts were begging to be heard right now. Go to him. Put your arms around him. Hold him close.

  Don’t let him go again.

  But her instincts had seen her give up her life for him. Her intellect told her to hang on to her independence.

  She yawned. A genuine yawn. But she exaggerated it. ‘Bed time,’ she said, then immediately regretted her choice of words. ‘I mean...well, I don’t mean—’

  ‘Bed time for you. Sofa time for me. I get it.’

  She clutched her robe closer to her. ‘Uh. Okay. Do you need to use the bathroom?’

  ‘No. You go,’ he said.

  When she came back into the room, he had changed out of his jeans and shirt, and was wearing his boxers and a white T-shirt. He’d pulled a sheet, blanket and a pillow from the closet and was throwing them across the sofa.

  Her mouth went dry at the sight of him in so little clothing. He was cut, every muscle honed. In even better shape than when she’d last seen him like this. For some of his jobs he’d had to wax away all his body hair. She’d never liked it. Now he had just the right amount of dark hair on his chest, his legs, that she had found so exciting.

  How could one man be so perfect?

  ‘I...well, I’ll say goodnight.’

  He looked up. ‘Goodnight, Hayley.’

  For a long moment their gazes met. ‘Does this seem seriously weird to you?’ she said.

  ‘Yeah. It does. This morning I had no idea I’d ever see you again. Now we’re sharing a room. But I’m glad you’re here. Happy we could talk.’

  ‘Me too.’ He had not been with another woman.

  He lay down on the sofa, pulled the blanket over him and rolled away from her. He pummelled his pillow into place—as he had always done. Only that had been after they’d made love and she’d snuggled beside him and used his chest as her pillow. Now all she could see was his broad shoulders and the back of his dark head. ‘You can turn the lights off from the switches by the bed,’ he said.

  She made her way over to the big, empty bed. Slid into the cool sheets. Resisted the urge to pummel her pillow because that was what he’d done. Reached over to fumble for the light switch. Then lay on her back and stared at the ceiling. Sleep would never come.

  But it must have.

  She awoke with a start. Didn’t know where she was for a moment. Saw by the light from the bedside clock it was past midnight.

  The bed seemed very big and empty. She’d barely made a bump in the bed linen. Outside the wind had dropped completely and it seemed utterly quiet and perfectly still. So still, it felt scary. As her eyes adjusted to the gloom she could see Cristos, illuminated by the faint light from the clock and the glow from the standby light on the television, as he lay on the sofa just steps away from her bed.

  She could hear the rustling of the sheet as he turned. Then turned again. His breathing was too loud for him to be asleep. He bashed the pillow with his fist and crashed back onto the sofa as if he were diving into a belly flop. Definitely awake.

  Hayley sat up, resting on her elbows so she could better see him. One long, muscular leg was hanging off the sofa from under the covers. His arm trailed the floor. He turned again but it was obvious the sofa was much too small for him to be comfortable. Or rather he was too big. She was so much smaller than him. She would fit better. The sofa should be hers.

  She swung her legs to the floor. Made her way over to him. ‘Cristos,’ she whispered. He pretended to be asleep and didn’t reply. ‘I know you’re awake,’ she said in her normal voice.

  ‘I’m trying to sleep,’ he mumbled.

  ‘You’re never going to get to sleep on that sofa,’ she said. ‘It’s too small. You take the bed. Let me take the sofa.’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he protested.

  ‘You’re not.’ She pulled the sheet off him. Gasped. His T-shirt had ridden up to show his hard chest, his perfect six-pack. ‘Give me the sofa.’

  He snatched back the sheet. ‘No.’

  She sighed. ‘This is ridiculous. Neither of us is going to get any sleep.’

  He dropped his guard momentarily as he lifted his head to face her. She took her chance and grabbed both sheet and blanket from him. ‘You’ll freeze without them.’

  ‘A gentleman takes the sofa,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know in what guidebook to chivalry that’s written,’ she said.

  ‘You wouldn’t know—girls don’t read them,’ he said. ‘Besides, my copy is written in Greek. Ancient Greek. In Cyrillic script.’

  She smiled and rolled her eyes, even though he couldn’t see her. ‘So we’ll share the bed.’

  ‘Not a good idea,’ he said.

  ‘It’s the size of a tennis court,’ she said. ‘You stay your side and I’ll stay mine. We could put a barricade of pillows down the middle if you’d like. Now get up, please. I can’t sleep knowing how uncomfortable you must be on that sofa. You’ve got a big day ahead of you tomorrow ferrying people over to Nidri.’

  ‘You always were a bossy little thing,’ he said with a mock groan.

  Not bossy enough, she thought. Knowing what she now knew about their time in Milan she might have done things differently. If she’d asserted herself more she might not have grown so insecure about her husband. Might not have constantly compared herself to the beautiful women he worked with and found herself lacking.

  ‘Come on,’ she said. ‘I need my sleep too.’

  He rolled off the sofa. Stretched. Her heart stopped at the splendour of him. Could she really sleep in the same bed as him and not want to jump his bones? Ill-advised as that might be? He staggered towards the bed, pretending, she thought, to be drowsier than he was.

  She’d always slept on his left. Nearer to his heart, he’d said as he’d pulled her close. Now they fell into the marriage-allotted sides of the bed without question. Only he was as far to the edge as possible on his side and she the same on hers. He turned his back to her. She did the same. Was he thinking the same jumping-the-bones thing she was?

  ‘That’s much more comfortable for you,’ she said. ‘Goodnight.’

  ‘G’night,’ he said, in a voice that already sounded half asleep. But she knew he was feigning sleep and she was glad. It made the awkward situation so much easier. Maybe she should wait until he fell asleep and then creep over to the sofa.

  Stay where she was and she would probably lie there rigidly unable to sleep, conscious of his presence in her bed for the first time in two and a half years. But it happened the opposite way.
Just knowing she wasn’t alone in the bed, that Cristos was there, made her relax and she was asleep before she’d even had a chance to worry about not being able to fall asleep.

  The next time she woke, it was very early morning, a hint of grey pre-dawn light creeping through the shutters. For a moment she didn’t know where she was. A warm, male familiar body was spooned against her back, his arm flung around her waist, his hand resting on her hip. Cristos.

  She stilled. Breathed in his scent, felt the warm whisper of his breath on her skin, the subtle scratch of his beard. Cristos was right. It hadn’t just been about sex with them. After they’d had sex they would lie like this to go to sleep. It had also been about comfort, reassurance, love.

  Why had they let it go?

  It was dangerous to stay here like this. It would be too easy to turn in his arms, to wake him with kisses, to slide off his clothes—and hers. To open her body to him—and risk opening her heart. What if he were to plant tiny kisses on the sensitive nape of her neck? What if his hand slipped upwards to cup her breast? In the past they had indulged in a morning delight whenever they’d had a chance. But it couldn’t happen. She should edge away from him and hit that sofa. But she would allow herself just one more minute with him. And another. Until she couldn’t bear to leave his embrace and drowsiness overwhelmed her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HAYLEY WOKE TO a cold morning light flooding through the open doors of the balcony. And a cold morning breeze wafting towards the bed that made her shiver and tug the duvet over her shoulders.

  The glass doors to the balcony had been flung open. Cristos stood framed by the doorway, looking out to sea with his back to her and his arms outstretched, as if making a homage to the morning. He wore just his T-shirt and boxers. Broad shoulders tapered to a narrow waist and the best butt she had ever seen on a man. Not that she had ever actually seen another man’s butt clad in just underwear—knit cotton boxers that emphasised hard male buttocks and muscular thighs—to compare but she could not believe any other man could compete. It was a fine view to wake up to.