‘I worked it out a long time ago. That’s why he gave you the building plot next door—’
‘Billie!’ Anatalya called.
Relieved by the excuse to move, Billie slid past her mother to answer the older woman, whose plump smiling face was set in an unusual expression of discomfiture as she returned a mobile phone to her pocket. ‘What is it?’
‘Thespinis Calisto has just phoned me to say that she would like to see you immediately.’
Billie swallowed hard. As Lauren broke into rude comment Billie gave her mother’s arm a warning squeeze. ‘She’s probably going to be my boss’s wife, so although I don’t start back to work officially until tomorrow I had better show willing.’
‘I’ll soon find my way around. Nicky and we’ll be fine,’ Hilary declared.
Billie got into Anatalya’s beat-up old car. Alexei was heading home from Australia and not due back until later that night. And here Billie was finally heading for the meeting she had managed to avoid for months. ‘Do I address her now as Miss Calisto or Mrs Bethune?’ she asked the older woman.
‘She told us all to call her the first. We all find her difficult,’ the housekeeper admitted heavily. ‘She has new ideas about the way we do everything at the villa.’
‘Well, that’s to be expected,’ Billie quipped with determined good cheer. What can’t be cured must be endured had become her personal mantra in recent months.
Calisto elected to see her in Alexei’s office. She was still gorgeous, all blonde hair, white teeth and long legs displayed to advantage by a fluorescent pink dress.
‘So you’re Billie,’ the statuesque blonde pronounced, treating her husband’s employee to a head-to-toe unimpressed appraisal, her lips curling with scorn. ‘There’s loads of things going wrong at Alexei’s properties because you’ve taken too much time off.’
‘I’m sorry. It’s unfortunate that my replacement didn’t work out.’
‘You’re very lucky to have a job to come back to.’ Calisto lifted a sheet of paper and extended it in a regal gesture of command. A whiff of her expensive perfume engulfed Billie. ‘I’ve made a list of the most important things you need to take care of. I hope you’re planning on working late tonight.’
‘No, not tonight. I’ve been travelling since early this morning. But I’ll make a start now,’ Billie declared equably, glancing down at the entries on the paper. It was not a factual list of tasks, rather a long list of complaints that appeared to range from a poorly maintained swimming pool to impertinent domestic staff and finally colour and furnishing schemes that Alexei’s consort wanted changed. ‘I’ll soon get it all sorted out.’
‘See that you do. Alexei likes things to run like clockwork. He has no patience for cock-ups and neither do I. He says you’re very efficient and this is your chance to prove it.’
Billie nodded and went to the door that led through to her own office space.
‘I believe you organise things here for Agios Georgios day,’ Calisto remarked in sudden addition. ‘Do you think you could cancel the open house reception here at the villa?’
‘It became a tradition when Alexei’s father was a boy.’
‘Yes, well, we’re the new generation and I like my privacy. I don’t fancy the local fisherfolk marching through our home. Make sure it doesn’t happen.’
Billie said nothing, for it was not within her power to make such a decision. She suspected that Alexei, who had great respect for island tradition and hospitality, would insist that the usual arrangements went ahead.
That night she slept in her new house for the first time, the smell of fresh paint and new furniture in her nostrils. She wakened very early, fed and dressed Nicky, who was squirming with morning liveliness in his cot, and decided to go for a swim before getting ready for work. Hilary didn’t fancy swimming at that hour and prepared breakfast to eat out on the terrace.
The beach on the other side of the narrow coastal road was a stretch of pale golden sand. Billie shed her towelling robe on a rock and waded into the water, shivering at the chill of it. The water was colder than she had expected and she realised that she had been spoiled by the temperature of the Drakos swimming pool. After a vigorous swim to warm up, she had walked back up the beach before she realised that she was no longer alone.
Alexei, casually dresse
d in faded jeans and a black sweater, and with dark stubble outlining his stubborn jaw line and wilful sensual mouth, strode across the sand towards her. ‘I saw you from the villa,’ he drawled with a smile. ‘England has made you hardier. That water is icy.’
‘A little colder than I expected,’ Billie conceded, her full attention welded to him for their first meeting in eight interminable months. And he did not disappoint her. Even fresh and unshaven from Calisto’s bed, a thought that sent a sharp slicing arrow of pain through her, Alexei looked stunningly handsome. Furthermore, his aura of raw energy and white-hot sexuality hit her like a force field. A tingle of urgent heat speared between her legs and she came to a sudden halt, trying not to shiver from awareness as much as from cold.
Long before he had reached her, Alexei had noted the full lush silhouette of her breasts and hips in the swimsuit. Had her curves always been that pronounced, that spectacular? Surely not? With her Titian hair trailing in wet dark red ribbons against her white skin and her nipples protruding through the clinging fabric, she was intensely sexy, and as his body reacted his jeans grew tight. He didn’t fight it either, but he was frantically striving to work out how she could have that effect on him when her hair was in a mess, she wore no make-up and her costume was as old as the hills.
Self-consciousness made Billie hurry on until she could grasp her robe, pull it on and turn back to him. Although she had lost almost all her pregnancy weight, her breasts had gained a cup size and her stomach, no matter how hard she sucked it in, now had a slightly rounded curve.
‘You’re never getting a career break again,’ Alexei warned her. ‘Things I took for granted have gone haywire without you.’
‘I’ll hit the ground running,’ she promised him.
‘Bring your aunt up to join Calisto and me for dinner tonight,’ he told her. ‘What do you think of your house?’