He always managed to find her.
Suddenly, the idea of being here alone was anathema to Mila, but she didn’t want to reveal as much to this man. To… “What’s your name?” She asked, belatedly.
“Leonidas,” he said the word in a heavily accented way, so it burrowed into her and spread little flames of fascination beneath her skin. “Everybody calls me Leo.”
“Leonidas,” she repeated icily, intentionally keeping things between them formal. “Last name?”
“Xenakis. Would you like my date of birth, too?”
She rolled her eyes. “You’ve turned up in the middle of my—holiday—,” the word was a misnomer; she was recovering and hiding, neither of them particularly recreational. “Don’t you think I have a right to know a bit more about you?”
“Okay. What else would you like to know?” He crossed his arms over his chest, which could have been a gesture designed to confuse her, because she looked down and found her eyes wouldn’t move away. His chest was broad and strong, his pectoral muscles emphasized by a sparse covering of hair, his strength so raw and vital that she could hardly focus.
“Or,” he drawled the word. “You could just stand there and objectify me.”
Heat bloomed in her cheeks and her lips gaped as her eyes sprung to his face. “I was not. I was just…thinking.”
“Sure you were,” his laugh was low and rough, and it succeeded in sending little darts of awareness all through her. Cheeks flaming pink, she turned away from him, and winced as her ankle sent up a yelp of complaint.
“What did you do to yourself?” He asked, coming around the kitchen quickly and putting a hand under her elbow. She’d regained her balance—her core strength was finely honed thanks to her training—but she didn’t shake him off.
“I fell,” she muttered, eyes closing as she remembered the pain of her collapse. “It was a stupid mistake.”
“Falls generally are.”
“Yes, but not like this.”
“What do you mean?” He gently moved her out of the kitchen, towards the sofa. There was no evidence that he’d slept here; it looked just as always.
“I’m too experienced to make that kind of mistake. I just…”Freaked out.“I lost my focus.”
“And fell. On the footpath? A step?”
“Oh.” She frowned, eyes skimming his face. “Right. Of course. You don’t know me. I’m a figure skater,” she said, skipping over her credentials as one of the UK’s youngest Olympic medalists, and her multiple world records since. “I fell on the ice, during training. I landed badly and my ankle splintered.”
“Ah.” He frowned. “This makes sense.”
“What does?”
“You reminded me of a ballerina last night, when I saw you.”When I felt you beneath me, she wondered silently, reminded of the way his body had pressed to hers.
She sighed softly. “Anyway, the ankle means I have to rest and recover, so I thought I might as well come here.” She bit down on her lip, keeping the rest to herself. But was that ethical? If he was going to stay here, didn’t he have a right to know she’d cast him in the role of her guard dog? Her first line of defense?
“There are other reasons,” she said, so quietly he had to lean closer to hear.
“Would you like to share them?” He prompted, sensing her hesitation.
“I’m not famous or anything,” she said after a beat, eyes downcast. “But I’ve competed at an international level for a long time. Within the sport, I’m—,”
“Benji’s mentioned you,” he said after a moment. “I remember now. You’re very successful.”
“It never feels like it,” she admitted, twisting her lips to the side. “One of the hardest things about being a professional athlete is how those goalposts keep shifting. There’s always something more to aim for.” But that wasn’t what she wanted to discuss. Focusing her mind, she continued slowly, “About two years ago, weird things started to happen.”
“Weird things? What does that mean?”
“At first, stuff went missing. Small things, so as you’d barely notice. Like one of the lanyards I wore to access the backstage area of a show I was in at the O2 Arena. That’s not a big deal; I was issued a new one. But the week after, it was one of my leotards—slightly more important as each one is hand crafted and hand stitched to size, they’re pretty irreplaceable, at least at short notice.”
“Another competitor?”