‘That you are,’ he agreed. ‘And you look beautiful doing it. Are you happy with the clothes selected for you?’
Her spoon, which had been adding a little yogurt into the bowl she’d taken for herself, hovered in her hand. ‘Yes. Thank you. Although… I thought I would be given more…practical clothing.’
Poor Carrie. How disconcerting it must have been for her to open her wardrobe and find there was no uniform to hide behind, no means to slip unobtrusively into the shadows of his life.
‘Practical clothing has no place in such a beautiful setting.’
‘Well, it’s very generous of you. I’m amazed you were able to get it all here before we arrived,’ she said lightly.
‘It’s a bespoke Internet service my niece uses. She holidayed here during her Christmas break but flew over on a commercial flight and lost her luggage. Twelve hours later she had a whole new designer wardrobe delivered.’ He gave a rueful laugh. ‘I did wonder if Natalia lost her suitcase deliberately just so I could buy her new clothing.’
Carrie’s face pinched in on itself as he spoke his niece’s name but only briefly. If he hadn’t been watching her so closely he would have missed it.
It was good to know she was squirming inside.
‘Anyway, with all this talk of clothes, I should tell you that you will need to change after we’ve eaten,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘The current on my beach is too strong to swim in at this time of year but there’s a cove on Tortue Island that’s perfect. We will take my boat out there and swim and get to know each other better. Doesn’t that sound good?’
Her throat moved before she nodded and smiled. ‘I can’t think of anything I’d like more.’
CHAPTER FOUR
IF THE WIND CHANGED, Carrie was quite sure her face would freeze with this pathetic smile stuck on it for ever. Her cheeks ached with the effort of it and all she wanted was for the slave-driving Greek egomaniac to let her go to bed and get away from him for some respite.
She’d thought the day before had been long… It had nothing on the day she’d just endured, which, despite being late evening, showed no sign of ending soon.
Tortue Island had been the tiny green island paradise she’d spotted from her balcony, a mere five-minute hop on Andreas’s speedboat. He’d taken her to a secluded cove surrounded by enormous palm trees and drenched in sunlight. That was where paradise had ended.
Violet as a toddler had been easier to take care of than this overgrown infant. Practically the only thing she hadn’t had to do for Andreas was towel him dry after his frequent swims. She’d kept him supplied with constant refreshments, opened his bottles of water, peeled his fruit, fanned him when he’d decided he was too hot, even read news articles off his tablet for him, which had been financial articles and as exciting to read as it was to watch paint dry.
And she’d had to do it all with a cheerful demeanour!
The only thing that had kept her cheerful was imagining his smug face when he discovered her true identity. He’d mentioned that they would be flying back to London before heading on to Frankfurt and she couldn’t wait to get going. Both of those homes had proper offices set up for him to work from—he was so lazy she was surprised he bothered having offices outside his homes—and she just knew it wouldn’t take her long to discover his illegal secrets.
She couldn’t get over how spoilt and lazy he was. If someone had told her the rugged Andreas Samaras liked to have his grapes peeled for him as if he were a Roman emperor, she would never have believed it, and she had applied for a job with him with the lowest expectations of the man. It just didn’t fit with what she thought she knew of him. But, no, he clearly adored being waited on, a wolfish smile near enough constantly playing on his lips.
Once he’d grown bored of Tortue Island, they’d returned to his peninsular where Carrie had waited on him some more while he’d sunbathed by his swimming pool.
She had never imagined a man like Andreas could do so much sunbathing!
Her duties at the pool had consisted mostly of sitting by his side with a handheld fan aimed at his face in between runs to his fully stocked poolside bar for ever more refreshments for him. Then it had been time to prepare his clothing for dinner and take a super-quick shower herself before they went to sit out on his veranda for their evening meal. Other than her shower, she hadn’t had a minute to herself, had only been able to check for a phone signal as she’d chucked a clean dress on after her super-quick shower. No magical signal had been found; her text message still sat pending.