chapter 36

Billie said nothing, for it was not within her power to make such a decision. She suspected that Alexei, who had great respect for island tradition and hospitality, would insist that the usual arrangements went ahead.

That night she slept in her new house for the first time, the smell of fresh paint and new furniture in her nostrils. She wakened very early, fed and dressed Nicky, who was squirming with morning liveliness in his cot, and decided to go for a swim before getting ready for work. Hilary didn't fancy swimming at that hour and prepared breakfast to eat out on the terrace.

The beach on the other side of the narrow coastal road was a stretch of pale golden sand. Billie shed her towelling robe on a rock and waded into the water, shivering at the chill of it. The water was colder than she had expected and she realised that she had been spoiled by the temperature of the Drakos swimming pool. After a vigorous swim to warm up, she had walked back up the beach before she realised that she was no longer alone.

Alexei, casually dresse

d in faded jeans and a black sweater, and with dark stubble outlining his stubborn jaw line and wilful sensual mouth, strode across the sand towards her. 'I saw you from the villa,' he drawled with a smile. 'England has made you hardier. That water is icy.'

'A little colder than I expected,' Billie conceded, her full attention welded to him for their first meeting in eight interminable months. And he did not disappoint her. Even fresh and unshaven from Calisto's bed, a thought that sent a sharp slicing arrow of pain through her, Alexei looked stunningly handsome. Furthermore, his aura of raw energy and white-hot sexuality hit her like a force field. A tingle of urgent heat speared between her legs and she came to a sudden halt, trying not to shiver from awareness as much as from cold.

Long before he had reached her, Alexei had noted the full lush silhouette of her breasts and hips in the swimsuit. Had her curves always been that pronounced, that spectacular? Surely not? With her Titian hair trailing in wet dark red ribbons against her white skin and her nipples protruding through the clinging fabric, she was intensely sexy, and as his body reacted his jeans grew tight. He didn't fight it either, but he was frantically striving to work out how she could have that effect on him when her hair was in a mess, she wore no make-up and her costume was as old as the hills.

Self-consciousness made Billie hurry on until she could grasp her robe, pull it on and turn back to him. Although she had lost almost all her pregnancy weight, her breasts had gained a cup size and her stomach, no matter how hard she sucked it in, now had a slightly rounded curve.

'You're never getting a career break again,' Alexei warned her. 'Things I took for granted have gone haywire without you.'

'I'll hit the ground running,' she promised him.

'Bring your aunt up to join Calisto and me for dinner tonight,' he told her. 'What do you think of your house?'