A Greek Escape - By Elizabeth Power Page 0,65

that night, risking his own life in coming down here and carrying her out to the truck. She wasn’t going to think about that. Or anything else about him, she decided achingly, just as she had promised herself she wouldn’t when she had stepped off the ferry the previous day.

Josh hadn’t been able to leave the business, and as his in-laws were away on an anniversary cruise Lorna had been fully intending to come here and do the inspection herself. But that had been before her doctor had strongly advised that she was in no condition to travel, so Kayla had immediately allayed her friend’s anxieties by offering to come instead.

What she hadn’t anticipated was how unbearably being here would affect her. She had known it would be painful, but just how excruciating she hadn’t been prepared for. All she wanted to do now was lock up the villa, drive down and see Philomena, and then get the hell off this island before the last ferry left that day.

Now, to try and take her mind off the memories that were killing her, in a voice thickened by emotion she asked, ‘Is there any news yet on that contract?’

The business that Havens Exclusive were giving them had all been agreed in principle, but the company seemed to be dragging its heels, and the paperwork that would secure it still hadn’t come through. Josh and Lorna were on a knife-edge, waiting for the contract to arrive, and Kayla was secretly worried that it never would.

‘That’s why I’m ringing.’

The anxious note in Lorna’s voice told Kayla that it still hadn’t arrived.

‘I rang Havens yesterday, and they seemed to think it was sent to us two weeks ago. Then today someone else said they didn’t think it had been. I tried to ring Leonidas, to see if he knew anything about it, but his office said he was in Greece this week. I know you’re not seeing him any more, but as you’re already in the country, and as you said things between you only sort of…fizzled out…’

It had been the only way Kayla could describe her break-up with Leonidas to her friend without falling apart emotionally. ‘I was wondering…is there anything you can do to get hold of him from your end? To see if you can find out what’s happening?’

Lorna sounded in such a state that, although her nerves were already stretched to breaking point at the thought of calling him, Kayla agreed to help.

She knew he made regular trips between the UK and Greece, and with her heart thumping a few minutes later she got through to his Athens office.

‘I’m afraid Mr Vassalio isn’t here this week,’ a thickly accented female voice informed her in nonetheless perfect English. ‘You should be able to contact him on his mobile.’

‘Thanks,’ Kayla said, feeling deflated after it had taken so much courage to call in the first place.

It seemed too personal, ringing his cell phone number. Far, far too intimate… After a few moments, though, for Lorna’s sake, she forced herself to do it.

‘You have reached the voicemail of Leonidas Vassalio…’

Just hearing his deep tones sent fire tingling through her veins, but with her heart beating like crazy Kayla cut them off in mid-sentence. There was no way she could leave a message without her voice shaking uncontrollably. And then he’d know, wouldn’t he?

She’d try him again later, she decided, breathing deeply to steady her pulse-rate. In the meantime she would do what she’d planned to do before Lorna had rung and pop down to see Philomena.

The shutters were closed when Kayla pulled up alongside the cottage, which wasn’t that surprising as the late summer sun still burned fiercely here at this time of day, she thought. Even so, the flowers outside in their pots looked neglected and wilting, and there was an ominous air of emptiness about the place.

The door leading from the yard where she had sunbathed in the May sunshine looked securely closed, which was unusual, she realised, and there was no bread baking in the old clay oven, or any spotlessly clean washing hanging on the line.

As she came around the house, looking up at the shuttered windows, a man loading a cart called to her from a little way down the lane. He tilted his head, his weathered face sympathetic, and the expressive little gesture of his hands assured Kayla of what she dreaded most.

Oh, no!

As she wandered numbly around the side one solitary chicken ran clucking across the