Back in England, she’d never thought about breathing, and she knew that the air she was breathing here must be the same mix of oxygen and nitrogen. Only how could that be? Had it been washed in the sea? Was that why it was as soft and clean as freshly laundered sheets? There was salt and thyme and rosemary... It was as if the island itself was breathing—
Her head was spinning. It was too much.
But then should she be surprised, given who owned the island?
A shiver, not of cold but of heat, that had nothing to do with the quivering white sun, ran down her spine. Too much. That was what she had thought about Achileas in the car when he had looked over at her and everything had stopped. Then dissolved.
Her bones, her breath.
Her sense of self-preservation.
But locking eyes with him had been a warm-up act. His kiss had knocked the world off its axis and sent it spinning into space and she was still scrabbling to get back on her feet. And now she was here with him on this island—his private island—surrounded in every direction by a sea as mesmerizingly blue as his gaze.
She stared fixedly at the horizon, using it as a spirit level to steady herself.
Over the last few days, she had refused to let herself think about that moment in the flat, concentrating instead on practicalities. Like packing and getting a passport.
She hadn’t told anyone what she was doing. Not the official version and certainly not the truth.
At work, it had been easy to let Emily and Janine and Mark believe that she was leaving to start her business. Which was sort of true. But when it had come to her mum, she had said nothing about that. As far as Sam was concerned, she was taking a well-deserved holiday.
Her hands curled at her sides. She didn’t tell lies, and lying to people she cared about—to her mum in particular—was horrible. More horrible still was knowing that she could do it with such ease. Remembering how effortlessly the lies had spilled from her father’s mouth, she felt her stomach knot. She didn’t want to be a chip off that particular block.
But in spite of the lies, and the quivering, slippery panic she felt whenever she thought about being alone with Achileas, it would be worth it in the end. Picturing the rows of bottles in her yet to be opened flagship store, she felt a sudden, unfiltered upswing of happiness. It was going to be all right.
First, though, she had to get to know her husband-to-be.
In fact, she was supposed to be doing that now, she thought, a prickling panic darting over her skin as she realised the time.
Turning, she began to walk back along the path, quickly at first, and then more hesitantly. Distracted by the light and the sea and the air, she hadn’t been paying much attention to where she was, and now she wondered if she had gone the wrong way.
She was on the verge of retracing her steps when a breeze from the sea whipped at her hat. Reaching up, she snatched at it, laughing, feeling a rush of exhilaration rising inside her at the absurdity and newness of it all.
And then suddenly, just as her fingers curled around the rim, he was there.
Blue-eyed, dark-jawed, even darker scowl.
Achileas.
They almost collided again. Just in time she took a hurried step sideways and—
She gasped, her eyes widening, her exhilaration switching to fear as the ground seemed to be cut away beneath her and she felt herself starting to fall.
And she would have kept on falling if Achileas hadn’t caught her arm, clamping his hand painfully around her elbow to jerk her to safety.
Although safety was relative where he was concerned, she thought a moment later, her pulse twitching out of time.
Looming over her, his face was starkly furious in the daylight. And he was swearing more than she had ever heard anyone swear in her life. Not that she understood what he was saying as she didn’t speak Greek, but she didn’t need to.
Only it wasn’t his anger that was making her pulse stumble. It was the jewelled brilliance of his eyes and the hard heat of his very male body. It felt so intimate, even though there had been no intimacy between them.
Except for that kiss, she thought, remembering his hard, insistent mouth and the surge of devastating, irrational hunger that had swept through her body to pool deep in her core. She felt goosebumps rise along her arms as his gaze locked on hers, eyes narrowing as if he too was reliving those frantic, feverish moments—
Abruptly, he let go of her arm.
‘Do you ever look where you’re going?’ he demanded, swapping to English with a fluency that, despite her panicky heartbeat, she found herself envying.
‘Do you?’ she countered.