'Thank you,' said Isobel gratefully, smiling at both of them.
'Are you ready?' Luke tossed the crutch in the back of the Jeep, then installed Isobel in the passenger seat. His face was so grim as he took the wheel; the drive back to the villa was accomplished in silence so tense until Isobel felt obliged, at last, to break it.
'I'm very grateful for all your help, Mr Andreadis,' she said formally. 'Would you give me Dr Riga's bill, please?'
'I have settled it,' he said dismissively.
'Then I will pay you,' she persisted.
Luke Andreadis, accustomed to women who expected him to foot bills far more expensive than Dr Riga's, shot her a scathing look. 'I require no money from you, Miss James.'
Isobel had no energy to argue, even though the mere thought of owing this man anything at all acted like fire on her skin-which was hot enough already.
Once back at his house, Luke lifted Isobel out, then handed her the crutch. 'Welcome back to the Villa Medusa,' he said formally. 'You can manage with this?'
'Yes, thank you.' Even if it killed her. But, by the time they made it through the conservatory, Isobel felt too exhausted to protest when Luke handed Spiro the crutch and picked her up to carry her upstairs.
CHAPTER TWO
ELENI and Spiro hurried behind, listening closely as Luke reported in their own language on Dr Riga's treatment.
'Eleni asked when you last ate,' he reported, letting Isobel down in the armchair.
'This morning on your beach,' she gasped. No point in mentioning that grapes had been the only thing on the menu. Nor that she'd parted with them and everything else in her system in the guest bathroom, with an encore on the way down to the clinic.
'I bring food to you very soon, Isobel,' promised Eleni.
Relieved to have her catering arrangements decided for her, Isobel smiled wearily. 'Efcharisto, Eleni. But I'm not at all hungry.'
Luke took the crutch from Spiro and propped it against Isobel's chair. 'You have everything you need?'
Heartily sick of being heaved around by a man who made it so plain it was a tiresome chore, Isobel made no attempt at a polite smile. 'Yes. Thank you. I shan't trouble you again.'
Luke's smile set her teeth on edge. 'You were trouble from the moment I first saw you, on my flight over the beach.'
'Flight?'
'In my helicopter. It is my habit to scan the beach as I come in to land.'
'To scope out trespassers!' She looked him in the eye-or as well as she could with one of her own half closed. 'At the risk of boring you, I apologise once again for my intrusion, Mr Andreadis.' Her mouth twisted. 'Lord knows, I suffered such swift retribution I'll never do it again.'
'Even though you failed in your aim?'
Isobel frowned, her thought processes fighting a losing battle with her headache. 'I don't understand.'
Luke eyed the motionless Spiro, who obviously intended standing his ground until his employer was ready to leave. 'With your permission, Miss James,' continued Luke, 'I will return after you have eaten. I wish to talk to you.'
Isobel inclined her sore head gingerly. As if she could say no!
Alone, she sagged for a moment in relief, then pulled herself together and tried putting her crutch through its paces. To her intense satisfaction she found that, headache and sprained ankle or not, she was now mobile, if not agile. Hallelujah! After the talk with the hostile Mr Andreadis, a lift back to the cottage was all the help she would need from him.
When Eleni came in, followed by Spiro with a tray, Isobel smiled persuasively and pointed to the balcony doors. 'Could I eat out there, please?'
'It is dark,' said the woman, astonished.
'Not with the stars and the light from the lamps in here.'
'Whatever you wish, kyria,' said Spiro, and took the tray out to the small table on the balcony. He rearranged the chairs, opened the other door to make it easier for her and bowed to her, smiling.
'Efcharisto, Spiro,' said Isobel gratefully and limped out onto the balcony to sit at the table, smiling in such triumph at Eleni as she parked the crutch that the woman laughed and patted her shoulder.
'You are better. Good, good. Now, eat.' She took a silver cover from an inviting omelette and left Isobel to her solitary meal.
To her surprise, Isobel's taste buds sprang to life with the first mouthful. Once it seemed her stomach meant to behave, she ate all the omelette and some of the salad and bread that came with it, finding that eating alone, with only the stars for company, did wonders for her appetite. Isobel drank some water and then sat back to gaze out over the garden, her eyes fixed in longing on the floodlit pool. She'd love a swim in it before she went back to her cottage. But fond hope of that with Mr Congeniality on the premises.
A knock on the bedroom door brought her out of her reverie. She picked up the crutch and went slowly into the room, smiling at Eleni. 'It was a lovely supper. I've taken some pills and I feel much better now.'
'Good, good,' said the woman, beaming. 'I bring more yoghurt for face. Use before bed. I help you to bathroom now?'
'No, thank you. I can manage myself.'
The woman frowned. 'Then I come back later when time to sleep.'
'All right, Eleni,' sighed Isobel, knowing when she was beaten. 'Before you go, could you put the big chair near the veranda doors? Efcharisto poli.'
Isobel eyed her reflection critically in the large bathroom mirror. Her eye was ringed with interesting shades of plum, but at least it was now almost open again, and her sunburn had toned down, thanks to Eleni's yoghurt. Pleased with her new mobility, Isobel limped back into the room to sit in the big, comfortable chair, content just to look out into the night while she waited for her visitor.
'Come in,' she called later, in answer to the expected knock.
Luke strolled in, his eyes on her face. 'Kalispera. You look better. Eleni tells me you ate most of your supper.'
'Yes. It was delicious.' Isobel sat still and tense, wondering what he wanted to talk about.
'May I sit down?'
'Of course.'
Luke drew the dressing table stool nearer Isobel and stood by it for a moment. 'Shall I fetch your notebook? Since you suffered so much to achieve it, I have decided to grant your interview.'
Isobel stared at him blankly. 'Interview?'
'I collected your belongings on the beach,' he informed her. 'There was a notebook, also several pencils in your bag. Do you deny that you are a journalist, Miss James?'
Isobel took in a deep calming breath, then took the pad from the backpack on the floor beside her and handed it over. 'Look for yourself.'
Luke's mouth tightened as he turned over pages of drawings. 'What are these?'
'I would have thought that's obvious, Mr Andreadis. I drew the boats from the veranda of the cottage when I first arrived, and the other sketch this morning on the beach next to yours. Ideally, I would have used watercolour, but I had no way of getting the materials down such a steep path.' Isobel looked at him coldly. 'Other people take holiday snaps. I make sketches.'
'Which,' he said slowly, leafing through them again, 'are most accomplished.'
'Thank you.'
Luke ran a hand through his thick curls, then looked up, surveying her in silence for so long that Isobel grew restive. 'It is now I who must make apology,' he said at last, as though the words were drawn out of him with pincers.
'Accepted.' She eyed him curiously. 'You dislike journalists and guard your privacy very fiercely, Mr Andreadis, so are you some kind of celebrity here in Greece?'
He shook his head. 'No, just a successful businessman, Miss James. I am in shipping, but also much in the news lately, due to a successful takeover of a private airline.' His mouth turned down. 'And I have no wife. This also attracts interest from the press.'
'About whether you're gay?' she said, secretly delighted by the look of outrage on his face.
'Ochee! I may lack a wife, but it is common knowledge that I enjoy the company of women. Did you think I was gay?' he demanded.
'Not easy to tell on such brief acquaintance.'
His eyes narrowed to a glitter, which put her on the alert. 'Even though we have been in enforced physical contact from the first moment of our meeting?'
Isobel's face heated. 'I wasn't conscious for most of it. And, now that I am, no further contact is necessary. Not,' she added hastily, 'that I'm ungrateful for your help.'
He shrugged. 'I had no choice but to give it, Miss James.'
She eyed him in disdain. 'You made that very clear-but I'm grateful just the same.'
His eyes softened. 'It has been a bad start to your holiday.'
'It has indeed.' She pushed her hair away from her throbbing forehead. 'So, if you can spare the time to drive me to my cottage tomorrow to get on with it, I'd be very grateful, Mr Andreadis.'
'You cannot manage alone there yet,' he said dismissively.
'I most certainly can. There is absolutely no difference between getting myself around this room and doing the same at the cottage.'