The Best Man's Guarded Heart. Katrina Cudmore

a living by ‘playing with flowers’ had her saying in the politest voice she could muster, ‘I appreciate your offer, but tomorrow morning I have over a thousand flowers being delivered to the island. It’s essential that I’m there to coordinate their arrival. I take my job very seriously, Mr Petrakis. That’s why I’ve spent the past month planning the designs, sourcing the flowers and organising support florists from nearby islands. I’m not going to walk away from my commitments now to go on holiday.’

      His jaw tightened and he fixed her with an intense stare. ‘My island is secluded. There is only my villa. No shops or bars to entertain you.’

      She could not help but give a light laugh. ‘I’m not here for shopping or the nightlife.’

      ‘I’m concerned that you will be bored in the evenings, when the wedding planner and her team have left the island. Apart from my married housekeeper and a gardener, who live in a separate villa, there will be no other people around.’

      His eyes, filled with a masculine heat, held hers and a surge of tense energy passed between them.

      He came a little closer and in a low growl added, ‘It will only be you and me.’

      For a crazy moment something primal, something beyond comprehension, crackled in the air between them. Heat flared in every cell of her body. Her breath caught as a wave of longing...of desire...rippled through her.

      His eyes grew darker as he held her stare, and a slash of heat appeared on his cheeks.

      He looked away abruptly, his jaw tightening as he cleared his throat. ‘I’ll be working late each evening, so I won’t be available to entertain you.’

      Grace blinked. And blinked again. She felt dizzy with the desire to move towards him, to inhabit his space, to inhale his scent, to feel the heat of his body. What was happening to her?

      For the past month she had been so excited about this trip—at the prospect of finally establishing her name as a florist, of finding her freedom. And now her bubble of happiness had truly burst.

      Should she take up his offer? The prospect of spending nights alone with him in the seclusion of his island with virtually no one else around was daunting. A strange tug of war of deep attraction and irritation was raging between them...and she wanted to run away from it. And, after years of dealing with her father’s unforgiving attitude, did she honestly want to spend time with a man who would be happier if she wasn’t there?

      But this wedding was about celebrating Sofia and Christos’s love. She wasn’t going to let Andreas Petrakis stand in the way of her making sure they had the perfect flowers to represent that love and commitment. There was no way he was stopping her from creating Sofia’s bouquet—which she intended to do by weaving all her love for her best friend into the design. And she had to remember the importance of this wedding in establishing her career.

      So she gave him a brief smile and tried to inject a brusque, no-argument tone to her voice. ‘Thank you, but I’m perfectly fine with my own company. I’m here to ensure that the flowers are spectacular on the wedding day, so I’ll be extremely busy and certainly won’t get in your way. And please don’t worry about me missing out. I plan on touring Greece once the wedding is over.’

      With that she stood, lifted her weekend bag up and grabbed her heavy pull-along suitcase.

      ‘Now, if it’s okay with you, I would like to leave.’

      * * *

      Grace was standing at the edge of the clifftop path that led from the helipad down to Andreas’s villa, her weekend bag at her feet. As he neared her the helicopter lifted off to return to Athens, and her hands rushed down to capture the billowing material of her dress as it rose up to expose even more inches of her legs—legs that he had spent the past hour trying not to stare at.

      They weren’t the longest legs he had ever seen, but there was something about those toned but full thighs and cute dimpled knees that had him fantasising about her in incredibly inappropriate ways. Even as he had stared out into the night sky as they had been flown here images of his fingers trailing along the smooth creamy skin of her thighs had plagued him.

      They had barely spoken on the journey, and her quietness surprised him. At the airport she had seemed such an overexcited chatterbox. Had his welcome been too brusque? After all, it wasn’t her fault that earlier that night at a charity gala ball in the Hotel Grande Bretagne he had been only too aware of the other guests’ deliberate avoidance of discussing Christos’s upcoming wedding with him. And then Christos had rung to explain that the chief bridesmaid had missed her flight. Asked would he mind rescuing her.

      Why on earth had he agreed to host the wedding in the first place? It was getting more complicated by the day...and bringing back humiliating memories he had spent the past two years burying.

      Yes, he had vaguely agreed to Grace Chapman’s early arrival, but he hadn’t expected her to be so elated about the wedding or so distractingly beautiful. Her excitement had brought home just how much he hated the prospect of this wedding. And, unbelievably, this was her first time abroad on her own. He didn’t have time to babysit her—not with the serious issues complicating the construction of his new resort on the Cayman Islands. He urgently needed to resolve them to stop further haemorrhaging of the project’s finances. Having her on the island was a headache he didn’t need right now.

      Unfortunately she had other ideas.

      ‘This view is absolutely stunning.’

      She didn’t turn to him when she spoke, but continued to gaze towards the lights of Naxos in the distance. The sky was a never-ending celestial ocean of stars. Beneath them, far below the cliff-face, the Aegean Sea crashed onto the shore.

      She gave a light shiver and rubbed her hands against her bare arms. A silver bracelet jangled at her wrist. He instinctively shrugged off his jacket. When he held it out for her to put on she jerked back in surprise. In the darkness he could just about see the violet-blue depths of her eyes. Eyes that had swallowed his soul for a foolish few seconds at the airport.

      Initially she looked as though she would refuse his offer, but then she gave a nod of acceptance. She turned around and pushed her arms into the sleeves. When he pulled it up to her slim shoulders she moved at the same time to sweep up the long length of her golden blonde hair trapped beneath the jacket. Her hair fell against his hands like the gentle weight of silk, her floral scent carried with it. His gut tightened. And when she turned those huge eyes to him they were full of questions, of awareness of the chemistry sizzling between them. He itched to touch the smooth line of her jaw, to run his thumb over the sensual plumpness of her lips.

      He took a step away.

      She twisted back towards the sea, her shoulders sagging faintly before she went to pick up her weekend bag, but he whipped it up, along with her suitcase.

      ‘The path down to the villa is well lit, but still be careful—it’s steep. Ela. Come. I will lead the way.’

      On the way down the path he paused a number of times, to allow her to catch up and to ensure that she was following him safely. As they rounded the corner that opened up the villa to their view he heard her gasp. He turned in alarm. Grace stood staring at the villa, its walls bathed in the light from the terraces.

      ‘What a stunning building—it’s like a stack of sugar cubes perched on the mountainside! How absolutely beautiful.’

      Memories of the last woman he had brought here stirred at her words. He pushed them away. ‘Thank you. I’ll show you to your room as it’s getting late. In the morning you can look around the villa and the gardens.’

      Instead of following him Grace moved to the furthest reaches of one of the terraces and leaned on the balustrade.

      ‘Now I understand why Christos was so eager to marry here. It’s an idyllic wedding location. Sofia showed me some photos, but I had no idea it was so lovely. I can just imagine how incredible it will look on the night of the wedding, when everyone is dancing out here on the terrace, candles lit...’

      It