Czytaj książkę: «One Night With Dr Nikolaides»

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS ALL Cailey could do not to jump off the ferry and swim to shore. Flights to the island had been canceled because of earthquake damage to the runway, but it hadn’t put her off coming. The same way a childhood crush gone epically wrong wouldn’t stop her from helping. Not when her fellow islanders needed her. And this time she would be able to do more than help with the clean-up.

Ducking out of the wind, she pulled her mobile out of her pocket and dialed the familiar number. She wanted to hit the ground running—literally—but if her mother found out she’d come back and hadn’t checked in first it would be delicious slices of guilt pie from here on out.

“Mama?”

Static crackled through the handset. She strained to listen through the roar of the ferry’s engine’s.

“...seen Theo?” her mother asked.

Theo?

Why was her mother asking about him? She’d come back to the island to help, not answer questions about her teenage crush. Surely ten years meant she’d moved on enough in her life for people to stop asking if her heart had mended yet?

“Mama. If you’re all right...” she parsed out the words slowly “...I’ll go straight to the clinic.”

“Go...clinic... Theo...love...brothers...getting by...”

Cailey held out the handset and stared at it. She’d spoken briefly to her mum before she’d boarded her flight last night, so she knew her brothers were unhurt and, of course, already out working. As was her mother who—surprise, surprise—had already gathered a brigade of women to feed the rescue crews and survivors at the local taverna.

A Greek mother, she’d reminded Cailey time and again, was nothing if not a provider of food in times of crisis.

But...love and Theo in the same sentence?

Had her mother gone completely mad or was the dodgy reception playing havoc with her sanity?

“See you soon, Mama. I love you,” she shouted into the phone, before ending the call and adding grumpily, “But not Theo!”

She glared at the handset before giving it an apologetic pat. It wasn’t its fault that everyone on Mythelios was trapped in a time warp. But she’d moved on, and working at the clinic was as good a time as any to prove it.

She moved back out to the ferry’s deck and squinted, trying to make out the details of the small harbor she’d once known like the back of her hand. By the looks of all the blinking lights—blue, red, yellow—it was little more than a construction site. Deconstruction, more like, she thought, grimly stuffing the phone in her bag and shouldering her backpack.

The news footage she’d seen at the ferry terminal in Athens had painted a pretty vivid picture. Some people’s lives would never be the same. Two tourists had already been declared dead. Scores injured. And the numbers were only expected to rise as rescue efforts continued.

The second the boat hit the shoreline Cailey cinched the straps on the backpack she’d so angrily stuffed with clothes she’d hoped would suit the British climate all those years ago, and took off at a jog.

Some buildings looked untouched, whilst others were piles of rubble. There was a fevered, intense buzz of work as the dust-covered people of Mythelios painstakingly picked apart the raw materials of the lives they had been living just twenty-four hours earlier. Window frames. Cinder blocks. Stone. It was clear the earthquake had been indiscriminate, and in some cases brutal.

“Cailey!”

She stopped and turned. Only three voices in the world made her feel safe, and this was one of them.

Kyros!

Before she had a chance to give voice to her big brother’s name she was being picked up and swirled around.

“Cailey mou! My little starfish! How are you?”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Cailey laughed. She never would have believed hearing her childhood nickname would feel so good. Or simply smelling the island, her brother’s dusty chest and, miraculously, the scent of baking bread.

Together she and her brother looked across the street to the bakery. All that was left was the building’s huge and ancient stone-built ovens. And there, undeterred by the open-air setting, was Mythelios’s top baker, pulling loaves out as if working amidst rubble was the most normal thing on earth.

Cailey’s brother smiled down on her. “I’m so glad I saw you. We’re just about to go up to the mountains—see what we can do up there to help the more isolated houses.” He squeezed her tight. “How is the family success story? Does that London hospital know how lucky it is to have you? Have you seen Theo?”

Cailey did her best not to let her smile falter as Kyros held her at arm’s length and waited for answers. What was it with her family and all the Theo questions?

Kyros’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t look like you eat enough over there.”

“I’m fine!” She batted away his concerns. She ate plenty. There was no keeping her curves at bay no matter how often she ate like a rabbit. “You must be boiling in that suit.”

“This?” He did a twirl in his firefighter’s gear. “I suit it well, don’t I?”

“Still the show-off, I see.”

“Absolutely!” He winked, then just as quickly his expression turned sober. “And now I’d better show off how good I am at helping. There are still a few dozen people unaccounted for. Tourists, mostly.”

“Is it as bad as they say on the news?”

He nodded. “Worse. The more we dig, the more fatalities we find. There are a lot of injuries.” He tipped his head down the street. “The clinic was heaving when I was there last. Have you spoken to Theo yet?”

She ignored the question. “How’s Leon? I tried to ask Mama a minute ago but the line went—”

She stopped talking as a very large, very exclusive, four-by-four, outside just about any mortal’s price range, pulled to a stop beside them. The back window was rolled down centimeter by painstaking centimeter to reveal silver hair, icy cold blue eyes...

Oh, goodness. Theo’s father had aged considerably since she’d seen him last. One of the most powerful men on the island seemed to have been unable to hold back the hands of time.

Just about the only thing Dimitri Nikolaides couldn’t do, Cailey thought bitterly.

“Ah! Miss Tomaras. How...interesting to see you back here.”

Shards of ice shot through her veins as her brain tumbled back through the years to that day when he’d made it more than clear what he and the rest of his family thought of her.

Nothing but a simple house girl. That’s all you’ll ever be.

Her brother leaned in over her shoulder. “Cailey’s here to help, Mr. Nikolaides. She’s a Class-A nurse now.”

“Oh?” A patronizing smile appeared on the old man’s face. “You’re planning on going to the clinic?”

“To help, yes.”

She caught her knees just as she was on the brink of genuflecting and stopped herself.

What was she doing? Was her body trying to curtsey? Good grief! The man wasn’t a king and he certainly didn’t run the island. Even if he behaved as if he did. And yet there was a part of her that still worried she would never be smart enough, good enough, talented enough to come home and do anything other than fulfil the fate Dimitri Nikolaides had outlined for her.

“I’m sure there’s some little corner you’ll be able to help out in. Plenty of cuts and scrapes to tend to.”

Mr. Nikolaides eyes scanned the length of her, as if assessing a race horse. Working class mule, more like. That was how he viewed her family and it was how he always would.

Cailey’s spine stiffened as she forced her static smile not to waver.

“Maternity, wasn’t it?”

“S-s-sorry?” Noooooo! Don’t stutter in front of the man.

“I heard through the grapevine that you help other women with their children. Sweet.”

Coming from his mouth, it sounded anything but. Not to mention bordering on pathetic. Women on Mythelios were expected to do nothing less. Cook. Clean. Bow. Scrape. Sometimes she wondered if the island had ever been informed that the twenty-first century had arrived—an era when women were allowed to be smart and have opinions and love whomsoever they chose!

She stared at the lines and wrinkles carved deeply into his face. Saw the cool appraisal of his unclouded eyes. What made you so mean?

Once he’d successfully bullied her off the island the man should have had all he wanted. A son to matchmake with the world’s most beautiful heiresses. A daughter at an elite medical school. No doubt he knew exactly who she’d marry, too. The daughter of his housekeeper was safely out of the picture, so as not to sully his daughter’s circle of friends or, more importantly, his son’s romantic future.

She forced a polite smile when the silence grew too awkward. “My family usually bundles in wherever help is needed. Leon’s police squad is out saving lives this minute.”

“You don’t look too busy,” Mr. Nikolaides glanced at Kyros. “And your mother? Is she doing anything or simply enjoying her retirement?”

Cailey almost gasped at his effrontery. Her mother had earned her money at the Nikolaides mansion just as she had earned her retirement. And Kyros? Why wasn’t he saying anything? Why wasn’t she saying anything?

She’d never let anyone speak to her like this in London. Not after the years of work she’d poured into becoming a nurse. And definitely not after her years of living away from the island to “protect” a billionaire’s son. As if Theo needed protection from all the European heiresses she’d seen dangling off his arm in the society magazines she might have read accidentally on purpose at the hospital gift shop. On a regular basis.

“Oh, yes. You know us, Mr. Nikolaides,” she eventually bit out. “We Tomarases love helping clear up other people’s messes.”

Mr. Nikolaides blinked. Then smiled. “Yes, we do miss your mother’s deft touch up at the house. I trust she’s well?”

“Couldn’t be happier,” Cailey snapped.

“Mama’s very well, thank you Mr. Nikolaides.” Kyros’s hand tightened round Cailey’s arm. “We’re just off now, sir. Glad to see you weren’t hurt in the quake.”

He turned his sister around and frog-marched her away from the dark-windowed four-by-four, now weaving its way through the rubble strewn along the harborside road as if it had been thrown down by a petulant god.

“What was that all about?” Kyros growled.

“Nothing.”

He wasn’t to know Dimitri had all but packed her bags himself all those years ago. Demanded she never enter the Nikolaides house again. Not as a friend to his daughter Erianthe. Not as a “helping hand” to her mother. And especially not as anything whatsoever to do with Theo, his precious son who was prone to develop “a bleeding heart for the less fortunate.”

She launched herself at her brother for a bear hug. It was the easiest way to hide the lie she was about to tell. “I’m just tired after the overnight flight. Once I get to work I’ll be fine. It’s just weird seeing the island like this.”

“I know, huh?”

She could feel his voice rumble in his chest and cinched her arms just a little bit tighter around him. Once she let go of him she’d have to go and face the other Demon of Mythelios.

Full points to Dimitri for pipping her to the post. But she wouldn’t have been surprised if he was stalking the harbor for interlopers. Huh.

He looked old. The worn-out kind of old that came from emotional strain rather than physical. Proof he was human? Somewhere in there?

Besides, he’d only put a voice to what Theo and his mates had already been thinking, and no doubt Erianthe too, who hadn’t even had the guts to say goodbye to her before winging her way off to her fancy boarding school...

Bah! Enough of putting blame at other people’s doors. She’d believed everything Dimitri Nikolaides had said about her because there had been some truth in it. She wasn’t as smart as the others. She did have to work twice as hard to understand things. Finally figuring out she was dyslexic had helped. A bit. But it hadn’t made all the medical terminology easier to read. She’d just had to face facts. She wasn’t up to Nikolaides standards and no amount of teenage flirtation would change that.

A siren sounded and shouts erupted from a fire truck as it pulled to a stop beside them.

She gave her brother a final squeeze. “Go out there and save some lives.” She went up on tiptoe and gave each of Kyros’s ruddy cheeks a kiss.

“Same to you, Cailey.” He scrubbed a hand through her already wayward hairdo, if you could call stuffing her curls into submission with an elastic band a hairdo. “Welcome back.”

She smiled up at him, praying he wouldn’t see how their run-in with Dimitri Nikolaides had shaken her to her core. “It’s good to be here.”

* * *

“Is that enough?” Theo was impatient to get back to work. Yes, the media could help. No, he didn’t have a moment to spare.

The look on the reporter’s face acknowledged the question was rhetorical.

He undid the microphone and began to walk away, ignoring the pleas of the other reporters. They’d be better off showing footage of the rescue crews hard at work while he figured out how to help patients and simultaneously order the urgently needed helicopters to get the worst cases over to Athens.