A Vow to Redeem the Greek
Autore
Jackie Ashenden
Letto da
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Capitoli
12
CHAPTER ONE
ELENA KALATHES SURVEYED the small, unnamed Jamaican island in the middle of the Caribbean with some annoyance. All green jungle and white sand beaches, the water a crystal-clear turquoise, it was certainly picturesque. Idyllic almost and untouched. That was what the people in Kingston had told her. Off grid, they said. He has supplies delivered once a month, they said. Sometimes he visits Port Antonio but only rarely and never on a schedule, they said.
No one knows where he lives, they said.
Well, no one apart from the three Kalathes Shipping staff members she’d already sent to Jamaica to find her adoptive brother. And herself.
Not that he was her brother, not in any real sense. She hadn’t grown up with him and hadn’t seen him since he’d rescued her from the rubble of her home in that tiny Black Sea nation devastated by an earthquake sixteen years ago, bringing her back to the Kalathes Greek island estate, and left her there.
So no, not a brother. A fairy tale, more like. A myth, even.
Atticus Kalathes. Head of the global charity Eleos, and who ran the whole massive enterprise from his off-grid nameless island that he never left. Or only sometimes, though no one could be entirely sure. His movements were a mystery.
The skipper had cut the engine to the boat she’d hired to get to Atticus’s island and had leapt out onto the small jetty that stuck out into the clear blue sea. Once the motor died there was no sound apart from the waves lapping against the rocks and the sand, and the occasional cry of seabirds.
Sweat trickled down Elena’s spine. Stupid to wear a suit in the tropics, but she’d wanted to present a strong, professional front. She’d thought the lightweight cream jacket wouldn’t be too hot considering she was going to be on a boat, and the cream silk blouse she wore underneath would help keep her cool.
A mistake. The sweat was going to stain the blouse and what had possessed her to wear the matching cream skirt, God only knew.
The heels were a mistake also.
Elena glanced down at the cream kitten heels she’d brought to match her cream suit. Yes, definitely a mistake. She just...well. She liked expensive clothes. She liked to look nice. She was here as Aristeidis Kalathes representative—his adoptive daughter—and it mattered that she look the part.
The skipper tied off the boat and held out a hand to her. Elena took it and gingerly stepped onto the jetty. There were already water stains on her shoes, dammit.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the skipper. ‘Give me an hour.’
He nodded and leapt back into the boat, already getting out the first of what would no doubt be many cigarettes.
Elena turned and glanced down the small jetty then over to the beach beside it, the water lapping gently against the pristine white sand. The heat was punishing, the sun fierce even at this time of the afternoon, and the humidity was making every item of clothing she wore stick uncomfortably to her body.
She hoped an hour would be enough. The others she’d sent had lasted only ten minutes. Then again, none of them were her. None of them were the little eight-year-old Atticus had rescued from the rubble of a destroyed town, before taking her to Greece and then abandoning her at his childhood home.
She would use that abandonment if she had to. She wasn’t above a bit of emotional manipulation, not when it came to fulfilling her adoptive father’s dying wish.
Aristeidis wanted to see his son one last time, to heal the breech between them, and Elena would do anything to help him. Aristeidis had given her a home, given her his name, given her security that the traumatised child she’d once been had lost after her entire family had been killed.
He’d given her everything and for the past few years, over the course of his illness, she’d been giving back. Including bringing his estranged son home.
Atticus Kalathes was going to return to Greece, whether he wanted to or not.
She smoothed her skirt, adjusted her jacket, and walked purposely down the wooden jetty. Not far from the beach, crouched beneath the palms and tangled jungle, was a sprawling house constructed of dark wood. It seemed to be a series of boxes connected by wooden walkways, with large floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the beach and the ocean.
A sandy path bordered by discreet solar lighting and covered in crushed shells led from the jetty to the house. Elena started along it, only to come to a stop as a movement from the direction of the beach caught her eye.
A man walked across the sand. He’d clearly come from the rocks at the end of the beach and carried something over one muscular, tanned shoulder.
One very bare, muscular, tanned shoulder.
Elena frowned then squinted.
It wasn’t just his shoulder that was bare, she realised. He didn’t appear to be wearing swimming trunks of any kind.
He was completely naked.
A flush of embarrassed heat washed through her, making the sticky feeling of her clothes even worse, and she looked hurriedly away.
Of course, he would be naked. It was his island. He must think he had complete privacy and yet here she was, charging in unannounced. Well, almost unannounced. She’d sent him numerous emails and voice messages informing him of her visit, none of which he’d responded to, and she’d thought that maybe he hadn’t received them. He did live off grid after all.
Or maybe he had received them, he just hadn’t wanted to answer. He was famously rude, according to the various Kalathes people who’d tried to make contact with him. Though the people in Kingston had said that the rare times he did venture to the mainland, he was very charming and everyone liked him.
Elena didn’t know which version of him she was going to get—she suspected the rude one—but her coming upon him naked wasn’t going to endear her. Perhaps she should go back to the boat and wait until he’d got dressed.
She turned towards the jetty and the boat, and took a step.
‘Stop,’ a deep, masculine voice ordered.
Elena thought of herself as a modern woman, definitely a strong woman, and she didn’t take kindly to being told what to do by anyone who wasn’t Aristeidis, but she found that she’d obeyed the command before she’d even thought about it.
Annoyed, she turned to tell him that she wasn’t a dog to be ordered around, only for the words to die unsaid on her tongue.
Atticus Kalathes stood not far away, bathed in the Caribbean sun like a male version of Botticelli’s Venus, minus the long blonde hair and the shell.
He was very tall, very broad, and his olive skin was darkly tanned and glistening with water. Every line of him was hard, every muscle exquisitely chiselled as if out of a dark amber marble. His hips were narrow, his legs long, his thighs powerful. And between them...
Elena flushed even deeper and tore her gaze away and up to his face.
But quite frankly that wasn’t any better.
She knew what he looked like, of course—Aristeidis had many albums full of photos of a laughing boy with coal-black hair and even blacker eyes. A smiling teenager with hints of the man he’d become in his strong jaw and proud blade of a nose. And she had her own memories, too, of that day so long ago now, when she’d gripped the small pocketknife she’d found in the rubble of her home, her only weapon as a crowd of looters surrounded her. They’d seen an opportunity in the lone, vulnerable child, armed with only a tiny knife.
She’d been living in the rubble for at least a week, scrounging what food she could find, not wanting to leave the ruins of her apartment building and her family lost somewhere beneath it. She’d been terrified, blood from a cut she hadn’t even realised she had running down her face and getting into her eyes. But one thing surviving in the rubble for a week had taught her: the roaming packs of looters were predators and they could sense fear, so if she was caught out in the open, she mustn’t ever show she was afraid. Mustn’t ever look like prey.
So she’d stood there, fear like acid in her throat even as she’d gripped her knife, trying not to let any of it show. Then he had come out of the dark, a tall figure armed to the teeth. He’d worn a helmet and fatigues and he’d lifted his weapon, firing two shots into the air and shouting at the looters in a language she hadn’t recognised. The men had scattered and then it was only her and him, and she could see his face, all stark lines and sharply cut angles, and eyes blacker the sky above her head.
A handsome man, she’d thought. A prince maybe. Because he wasn’t one of the looters or the opportunists, she’d known that instinctively. He was here to save her, she’d been certain, so she’d dropped her little knife and held out her arms to him.
The eyes that looked at her now were still as black as that long ago sky, as were the uncompromising lines of his face. But she was looking at him now as an adult, not a child, and she could see how beautiful he was. Apollo come down to earth to seduce mortal women.
She’d known that though. She’d seen photos of him in the media, had read avidly all the interviews he’d given. In fact, she knew them all by heart. She could recite them in her sleep. He’d given all of four, the last one two years ago, and hadn’t been in the public eye since.
Her heart thumped hard beneath the cream wool and silk of her clothing. The sun glistened in his inky hair, still wet from the swim he’d apparently just had, and there were drops caught in his long, sooty lashes.
She’d seen pictures of naked men before. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t. In the books in the Kalathes library, photos of paintings and sculptures and other forms of art. She’d peeked, too, on the Internet, looking at various sites out of interest, but she’d privately wondered what all the fuss was about.
Now she knew. Now she understood.
A living, breathing man, glistening in the sunlight, all damp skin, hard muscle, and glittering black eyes. He was the fuss.
He didn’t seem the least bit embarrassed or bothered by his nakedness. In fact, he stood there as if he weren’t naked at all or carrying some freshly caught fish still attached to a line over his shoulder. He might as well have been wearing a three-piece suit and a crown for all the notice he paid.
She really needed to say something, perhaps the little speech she’d already prepared about how his father was dying and that it was time for him to come home, but the words got jumbled up in her head and all that came out was, ‘Um... I...well...’
‘You don’t have permission to land here,’ he said, his deep voice hard.
Elena’s mouth had gone dry and her cheeks felt hot. In fact, her whole body felt hot, and it wasn’t only the sun or the humidity, she suspected. ‘Oh, well, you possibly don’t recognise me. I’m—’
‘I know who you are, Elena.’ He flicked an impersonal glance over her. ‘You still don’t have permission to land on my island.’
An electric shock went through her and she blinked. He’d recognised her, which she hadn’t expected since the last time he’d seen her had been sixteen years ago, when he’d delivered her to Aristeidis and Kalifos, the Greek island where the Kalathes family lived.
She swallowed, reflexively straightening her jacket as if that would make her any cooler. ‘I sent you a number of emails, and I called—’
‘Yes, and did you at any point get a response from me indicating I would be pleased for a visit?’
It annoyed her that, not only did he not seem to care about his nakedness and its effect on her, he apparently hadn’t cared about her emails either. ‘No. But I thought they might have gone astray.’
‘They did not.’
‘But you—’
‘My silence should have indicated my preference,’ he went on as if she hadn’t spoken. ‘Which is to be left alone.’ Despite the sun gilding his skin, his expression was cold.
It seemed she was going to get rude Atticus Kalathes.
Well, no matter. She was here on a mission for Aristeidis and she wasn’t going to let anything get in the way of her goal, not even one beautiful naked man. She was determined if nothing else.
‘I’m afraid I can’t do that,’ she said crisply, pulling herself together. ‘I’m here on behalf of your father. He’s dying, Atticus. He wants you to come home.’
Atticus had known exactly who the little boat carried when he’d spotted it motoring steadily towards his island not half an hour earlier. He’d been out in the water catching his dinner for the evening and the sight of the boat had put him in a foul temper.
He’d purposefully ignored Elena’s emails and calls because the last thing he wanted was to have to deal with anything related to his father. He’d thought his silence would be enough to deter her. Apparently not.
Honestly, what was the point in living off grid, on an unnamed island that he’d made sure wasn’t on any maps, if people could find you so damn easily?
He hadn’t bothered with the niceties. If she was so insistent on coming here, to his territory, she could take him as she found him, which was naked, his preferred state on the island when he was catching his own dinner.
She was invading his home and she didn’t have an invite, and he’d be damned if he stopped fishing and got dressed to accommodate her.
At least, that was what he’d thought when the boat had pulled up to the jetty at last, and he’d seen her small figure, dressed in an inappropriate cream suit, picking her careful way along the shell path to his door.
Then he’d got a closer look and hadn’t been able to think of anything at all.
Sixteen years ago, she’d been a ragged little eight-year-old covered in blood, holding a knife in one small fist against the five men who had certainly meant to do her harm. Her clothes had been torn, her rich blonde hair in braids, her brown eyes full of fury.
He’d been in charge of a private army that helped governments during times of civil unrest or disaster, and had been searching the rubble for survivors. He’d spotted her immediately and the danger she was in, and had sensed that, despite the determination in her posture and the fury in her eyes, she was terrified. As she should have been, considering she was a child surrounded by looters.
He’d fired a couple of warning shots in the air to scatter the men around her, and he’d thought she might run after that because, in fatigues and carrying weapons, he was only likely to frighten her further. Yet she’d taken one look at him, her face bloody from the cut on her forehead, had dropped her knife and held out her little arms to him as if he weren’t a hardened mercenary, but her knight in shining armour instead.
He’d never forgotten that. Never forgotten the way his dead heart had given a shudder in his chest at the sight of her.
He hadn’t forgotten it now as she stood in front of him, flushed and damp with perspiration in a suit that was more appropriate for the boardroom than the beach of a tropical island.
She’d changed. She’d changed completely.
That rich blonde hair wasn’t in braids, but a neat bun on the back of her head, and her face had lost the roundness of childhood. She had a firm chin, a surprisingly lush mouth, a proud nose, and feathery blonde brows a shade lighter than her hair.
That tough, ragged little girl had grown up into a stunningly beautiful woman. A woman who was clearly suffering from the heat and also, he couldn’t help but notice, flustered by his nakedness.
That would have made him feel satisfied if she hadn’t been who she was, and he hadn’t taken a lover in so long he could barely remember the last time he’d touched a woman. His libido was as dead as his heart and he felt no need to resurrect it.
Besides, she wasn’t just any woman. She was the girl he’d rescued and left with his father. His father who was dying.
No, he hadn’t read any of the emails she’d sent him, but, despite his anger at her arrival, he’d known deep down as soon as he’d seen her boat that if she’d come all this way to find him, it was probably about something serious.
He hadn’t spoken to Aristeidis for sixteen years, and had planned on never speaking to him again, yet something unfamiliar stirred deep inside him as soon as the words ‘he’s dying’ were out of her mouth.
Atticus ignored it.
‘So?’ he asked, a heartless response, which made sense considering he didn’t actually have a heart.
Her warm brown eyes narrowed, making it very clear that she didn’t approve of his lack of concern. ‘What do you mean “so”? You heard what I said, didn’t you?’
‘That my father is dying and I need to come home? Yes.’ He hefted the fish on his shoulder. ‘One, I don’t care, and two, I’m not going anywhere, so why don’t you trot off back to where you came from?’
She blinked in surprise, golden lashes fluttering, and for a moment he thought she might indeed turn on one of her pretty heels and trot off back to the boat. But then those feathery brows arrowed down and that rounded chin got a distinctly determined look to it, and once again he was reminded of that eight-year-old girl, standing in the rubble, facing off five adult men as if she could fight all of them and win.
‘No.’ Her voice was cool and crisp as a winter frost. ‘One, I promised your father I’d bring you home and two, I’m not “trotting” anywhere.’
A pulse of unwelcome electricity arrowed down his spine.
People did not talk back to him. He was head of the largest charity in the world and had a great deal of power and social standing, and he ran Eleos like a military operation. There was a strict hierarchy and he expected his staff to follow orders without question, and they did.
They certainly didn’t stand there flushed and sweaty, ignoring a direct command to leave and surveying him with the most intensely disapproving look, as if he were in the wrong somehow.
‘It was not a request,’ Atticus bit out.
She straightened, a stubborn glint igniting in her dark eyes. ‘And I’m not one of your employees. I don’t have to do what you say.’
‘You are, however, on my property. If you don’t leave, I’ll have you removed.’
She looked around in an exaggerated fashion. ‘And who exactly is going to be doing the removing? I don’t see anyone else here.’
There was no one else here. He lived alone, which was how he liked it.
‘Then I’ll remove you myself.’ And he went to unhook his fish from over his shoulder as if to put it on the ground in preparation for grabbing her.
It was almost a bluff. Because he’d remove her if he had to. She’d turned up here unwanted and unannounced and so she’d have to deal with the consequences.
She must have believed him though, because her hands came up. ‘Wait,’ she said in a breathless voice. Perspiration glistened in the soft hollow of her throat and, as he watched, a drop slid slowly down over her skin, following the curve of one full breast. ‘I’m not here to fight you.’
For a second he didn’t hear her, distracted by that tiny, glistening drop as it slid further down into the shadowed valley of her cleavage, before abruptly realising what he was doing and jerking his gaze back up to her face.
‘Then why are you still here?’ he demanded. Annoyance had sharpened his voice, but he didn’t care. He didn’t want her here and a curious heat was running through him. A heat he hadn’t felt for a very long time and one he didn’t like, not one bit. His body was a machine he kept well oiled and in peak condition, and his command over himself was total. Physical desire was an indulgence and one he didn’t permit himself, so he shouldn’t be reacting to her like this, not even a flicker.
‘I promised him, Atticus,’ Elena said firmly. ‘I promised him I wouldn’t come home without you and so I’m not.’
His father, Aristeidis Kalathes. Head of the Kalathes family. Owner of a multimillion-dollar shipping company. Ex-military. Proud. Arrogant. And rigid as iron.
Aristeidis, a widower left to bring up his two boys after his wife had died far too young, hadn’t been any kind of father to Atticus for years, and even when he’d been a child, his father had always been about Dorian, Atticus’s beloved older brother.
Dorian who’d died when Atticus was sixteen.
Still grieving his wife, his father had never got over Dorian’s death either, and had never forgiven Atticus for being the reason Dorian had died, and Atticus had long since accepted that, because it was true. He was the reason Dorian had died, and Aristeidis had been punishing him for it for years.
His father had the right, that was clear. Yet that didn’t mean Atticus was going to stay and take it either, so he’d left Kalifos for good. His father had hated him for that too.
No, if Aristeidis wanted him home, it wasn’t to reconcile, no matter what he’d told Elena or what she believed herself. Atticus had no doubt the old bastard wanted to punish him some more, in which case he would be destined for disappointment. Atticus had paid for Dorian’s death. He’d paid for it a hundred times over, and he was done.
He was never coming home and that was final.
‘In that case—’ Atticus turned towards his house ‘—it looks like you’ll be in for a long holiday in Jamaica.’
Then he strode past her without another word.
