Crack teams of guards were employed to keep rubber-neckers, journalists and ex-lovers at bay. Frogmen would swim silently in reconnaissance missions around foreign jetties, before their luxury yacht was given the all-clear to sail into harbour. When he was growing up, Alek didn’t know what it was like not to be tailed by the shadowy presence of some burly bodyguard. And then one day he had escaped. At fifteen, he had walked away, leaving his home and his past behind and cutting his ties with them completely. He had gone from fabulous wealth to near penury but had embraced his new lifestyle with eagerness and hunger. No longer would he be tainted by his father’s fortune. Everything he owned, he would earn for himself and that was exactly what he’d done. It was the one thing in life he could be proud of. His mouth hardened. Maybe the only thing.
He realised that the waitress was still waiting for an answer to his question and that she no longer seemed to be in any hurry to get off duty. He smiled, expectation making his heart beat a little faster. ‘Because I grew up on a Greek island where there were no trains and few buses.’
‘Sounds idyllic,’ she said.
Alek’s smile faded. It was such a cliché. The moment you said Greek island, everyone thought you were talking about paradise, because that was the image they’d been fed. But serpents lurked in paradise, didn’t they? There were any number of tortured souls living in those blindingly white houses which overlooked the deep blue sea. There were all kinds of dark secrets which lay hidden at the heart of seemingly normal lives. Hadn’t he found that out, the hard way? ‘It looked very idyllic from the outside,’ he said. ‘But things are rarely what they seem when you dig a little deeper.’
‘I suppose not,’ she said. She transferred the tray to her other hand. ‘And does your family still live there?’
His smile was slow—like a knife sinking into wet concrete. His family? That wouldn’t be his word of choice to describe the people who had raised him. His father’s whores had done their best, with limited success—but surely even they were better than no mother at all. Than one who’d run out on you and never cared enough to lift the phone to find out how you were.
‘No,’ he said. ‘The island was sold after my father died.’
‘A whole island?’ Her lips parted. ‘You mean your father actually owned an island?’
Another stab of lust went kicking to his groin as her lips parted. If he’d announced that he had a home on Mars, she couldn’t have looked more shocked. But then, it was easy to forget how isolating wealth could be—especially to someone like her. If she didn’t even own a car, then she might have trouble getting her head around someone having their own island. He glanced at her hands and, for some reason, the sight of her unmanicured nails only intensified his desire and he realised that he hadn’t been entirely honest when he’d told her he wasn’t planning to drag her away to a dark corner. He thought he’d like that very much.
‘You’ve been standing there so long that you’ve probably come to the end of your shift,’ he said drily. ‘You could have had that drink with me after all.’
‘I suppose I could.’ Ellie hesitated. He was so persistent. Flatteringly so. She wondered why. Because he’d been almost friendly since he’d helped with the little boy who’d cut his knee? Or because she’d displayed a degree of reluctance to spend time with him and he wasn’t used to that? Probably. She wondered what it must be like, to be Alek Sarantos—so sure of yourself that nobody ever turned you down.
‘What are you so scared of?’ he taunted. ‘Don’t you think I’m capable of behaving like a gentleman?’
It was one of those life-defining moments. Sensible Ellie would have shaken her head and said no thanks. She would have carried the tray back to the kitchen, unlocked her bike and cycled home to her room in the nearby village. But the moonlight and the powerful scent of the roses were making her feel the opposite of sensible. The last time a man had asked her on a date—and you couldn’t really call this a date—was over a year ago. She’d been working such unsociable hours that there hadn’t been a lot of opportunity for down time.
She looked into his eyes. ‘I hadn’t really thought about it.’
‘Well, think about it now. You’ve been waiting on me all week, so why not let me wait on you for a change? I have a fridge stocked with liquor I haven’t touched. If you’re hungry, I can feed you chocolate or apricots.’ He rose to his feet and raised his eyebrows. ‘So why don’t I pour you a glass of champagne?’