Smitten in santorini, p.1
Smitten in Santorini, page 1
Smitten in Santorini
Romancing Europe Book Two
Kat Mizera
Copyright © 2018 by Kat Mizera
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Also by Kat Mizera
The Las Vegas Sidewinders:
Dominic
Cody’s Christmas Surprise
Drake
Karl
Anatoli
Zakk
Toli & Tessa
Brock
Vladimir
Royce (Fall 2018)
* * *
Inferno:
Salvation’s Inferno
Temptation’s Inferno
Redemption’s Inferno
* * *
Romancing Europe:
Adonis in Athens
Smitten in Santorini
* * *
The Alaska Blizzard:
Defending Dani
Holding Hailey (2018)
* * *
Stand Alone:
Special Forces: Operation Alpha: Protecting Bobbi (Susan Stoker Kindle World)
Brotherhood Protectors: Catching Lana (Elle James Kindle World)
Contents
Also by Kat Mizera
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Epilogue
Excerpt from Defending Dani
1
Melina Lakkas was having the mack daddy of bad days. She’d quit her job after getting yet another pay cut, her car was in the shop needing major repairs, and her sister had left an ominously cryptic voice mail for her. She was almost afraid to call her back. The way this day was going it couldn’t possibly be good news.
Once she got home, she sank onto the couch and pulled out her phone. It was probably better to get this over with.
“I’m getting a divorce,” her sister Sophia said in greeting.
“You’re what?” Lena froze, her heart sinking.
“Everyone has been thinking I should do it for years and now it’s time.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“There’s nothing to say, but I wanted to let you know.”
“Are you moving in here?” Lena lived with their parents and paternal grandmother. They had a guest room, but that meant Sophia and her three-year-old son would have to share it.
“Short-term, I don’t have a choice,” Sophia said quietly. “Giorgios doesn’t have any money and although I’ve gotten a job, I can’t afford to rent an apartment on my own without digging into our dividends from the company.”
“What kind of job did you get?”
“At a café,” she responded. “Just on the weekends. I can make a hundred Euros in a weekend, maybe 400 a month, enough to pay for my phone and contribute a little to the household. The payouts we get from Lakkas will keep me going and until the economy turns around, and anyway, what choice do I have?” Lakkas, International was their family shipping company and both she and Lena got quarterly payouts.
Lena swallowed hard, a million things running through her mind as she tried to process what her sister’s divorce might mean. “Will Giorgios keep his mouth shut?”
Sophia sighed. “I don’t know. He hasn’t said anything yet, but you know it’s going to get nasty once I contact a lawyer.”
Lena started to pace, the phone at her ear. “What are we going to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You can’t work it out?” Lena hated how pathetic she sounded.
“You know I love you, but I can’t be married to him anymore. He’s always been a little bit of an asshole, but his outbursts used to be rare. Now it’s almost all the time and…” She hesitated, taking a breath. “He hit me.”
Lena gasped. “He hit you? Oh my God.”
“That’s what pushed me over the edge. I heard the usual nonsense about how it won’t happen again, but I know it will, and I won’t live that way.”
“No, of course not.” Lena paused. “Did you tell Apollo?”
Sophia snorted. “No. Why would I? So he can go to jail? And you’d better not either—that won’t help any of us. Apollo runs the company and is probably going to wind up supporting us, so keep what I told you to yourself.”
“I’m so sorry, Sophia. You never would have married him if…”
“I would have married him,” Sophia said impatiently. “We were together for years and it was comfortable. I was never brave enough to truly take a chance on someone else, no matter how much I wanted to.”
“This means we’re going to have to tell the truth,” Lena groaned.
Both women were quiet for a few minutes, ruminating the different possibilities. Before they could say anything, however, the front door opened and their brother Apollo was calling out to Lena.
“Lena? Are you home?”
“In here!” Lena called back. “I’ll call you back,” she told her sister, disconnecting.
“Kalispera!” Good afternoon. Apollo’s wife, Paige, had only been living in Greece a few weeks but was taking the task of learning the language seriously.
“Kalispera!” Lena smiled at her, glad to see her brother and his pretty wife so happy.
“I need a favor,” Apollo said after kissing her on both cheeks.
“What’s going on?” Lena asked.
“It’s Mick—he needs our help.”
“Mick?” Lena tried to keep her voice neutral.
“There’s been a fire at the construction site and he needs someone who speaks Greek to help with translation. He doesn’t trust his foreman and after being gone for over a month, I can’t take any more time off. Can you go? I know you quit your job, so you have the time, and he’ll pay you.”
“He…what?” Lena’s heart hammered painfully in her chest.
“He needs your help. Will you go?” His eyes met hers intently. “It would mean a lot to me. I’d go myself but…”
“Don’t worry about it, of course I’ll go.” Lena sighed, accepting her fate and wondering how she’d survive being around the only man she’d ever truly loved for any extended period of time.
“Look, I’m not stupid,” he said softly. “I know you two had a thing, but no matter what happened, it couldn’t have been such a big deal that after all this time you can’t be friends again?”
Lena didn’t respond as she turned and headed towards the kitchen. “Tell him I’ll be there tomorrow. I’ll book a trip on the ferry—the airport is a hassle.”
“Thanks, Lena!”
She barely heard him as she shut her eyes and tried to breathe. Damn, her day had definitely gotten a whole lot worse. Being around Mick wasn’t going to be easy. In fact, the whole thing was going to be a nightmare. She’d barely been able to keep her distance from Mick at Apollo and Paige’s wedding last month—how could she possibly do it while working for him? There was no way to gracefully get out of this because short of telling the truth, she had no excuse. She was unemployed, vocal in her desire to have something to do other than work retail, and the money would be welcome.
Apollo had figured out there had been something between them, which surprised her. Shit. Her carefully constructed world was slowly crumbling and she had no way to keep the pieces from scattering. Things were going to go south quickly and she needed a plan; the problem was that she’d been trying to come up with a plan for almost four years and still didn’t have one that was viable. She was pretty sure she wasn’t going to come up with one overnight either.
2
Lena stared out at the Aegean Sea feeling about as melancholy as she’d felt in a long time. Beautiful azure waters, bright sunlight, not a cloud in the sky and all she felt was an impending doom. She usually loved being on a boat of any kind, and the ferry from Athens to Santorini was delightful. Unfortunately, this trip had so many different layers of strife, she wasn’t sure what to address first. It had been close to four years since she’d walked away from the only man she’d ever loved and now she’d agreed to work for him. Being together day in and day out would be problematic, of that she was sure. Keeping her secret would be almost impossible with them in such close proximity, but there’d been no graceful way to refuse when her brother suggested she help his closest friend.
As the ferry pulled into Athinios Port on Santorini, she spotted him instantly. Six feet five inches of blue-eyed handsomeness, she would recognize him anywhere. He’d shaved his head since college, and she wasn’t fond of the look, but because it was him, she still thought he was one of the best-looking men she’d ever known. Those eyes were hypnotizing up close and she couldn’t count how many times they’d haunted her dreams. How much she’d missed him since they’d been apart.
“Lena!” He was waving, a smile on his face, and she stiffened when she saw the woman beside him
Yeah, right, the devil on her shoulder whispered in her head.
“Hi!” Lena waved and moved her feet forward. Mick leaned over to kiss her cheek, taking her suitcase from her.
“Thank you for coming!” he said, meeting her eyes. “You have no idea how much this means to me.”
“Apollo said it was a bad situation,” she said quietly, averting her gaze so she could smile at Raegan. “Hey, Raegan.”
“Hi!” Raegan threw her arms around her and hugged her tightly, making Lena feel bad that she’d initially been unhappy to see her.
“Let’s get you settled at the villa,” Mick said, heading towards a truck. “Then we can order food and I can get you up to speed.”
“Of course.” Lena followed, slowing her steps to keep pace with Raegan, who was on crutches. She’d been in a terrible car accident eight weeks ago that had almost killed her. She’d broken two ribs that punctured and collapsed one of her lungs, her spleen had to be removed and she’d broken her right leg. The cast had come off just a week ago, after Raegan had promised the doctor that her boss would make her take it easy. They probably hadn’t anticipated a fire at the site of the resort Mick’s architecture firm was building, though. The authorities suspected arson and Mick had told Apollo he had a feeling they were jerking him around since he didn’t speak Greek and the foreman who was translating was acting a little squirrely.
If she was honest with herself, Lena hadn’t wanted to refuse. This project was extremely important to Mick’s career and the idea that someone was trying to sabotage it bothered her. Besides, he would be paying her—and all her expenses—which was nice. She had a Bachelor’s degree from Brown University but couldn’t find a job in her field. Jobs were scarce in Greece right now and though she could always draw money from her share of the family business, she hated doing that. She helped out at the shipping company as needed, but it wasn’t the same as having a career of her own. This, at least, felt like something she could put on a resume.
“Why didn’t you fly?” Raegan was asking as they got in the truck. “Doesn’t it take all day to take the ferry?”
“It can but this was the high-speed ferry, so just five hours. I love being on the water; it’s relaxing for me and I don’t get the opportunity to do it very often. It takes an hour to get to the airport and about an hour in the air, plus retrieving your luggage and all that. It winds up being almost the same amount of time and I got to enjoy the view this way.”
“Sounds about right,” Mick nodded, getting behind the wheel.
“Is this yours?” Lena asked, climbing into an old pick-up truck beside Raegan.
“No, it belongs to my foreman. He let me borrow it so we could come get you. I rented a four-wheeler to use while I’m here.”
“Nice.” Lena chuckled.
“The villa’s gorgeous,” Raegan said, her pink hair flapping in the wind. “Four bedrooms, a hot tub, a pool and the most gorgeous view…I’ve never stayed any place this beautiful.”
“Santorini is nice,” Lena admitted. “I’ve been here several times, though there are so many wonderful islands in Greece, we always have a hard time choosing.”
“You and your boyfriend?” Raegan asked.
Lena shook her head. “Not anymore. Kosta and I broke up last year.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Were you together a long time?”
“Since we were 15 and 16, but we’d broken up a dozen times over the years. We called it quits before I went away to college but somehow wound up back together when I got back. It took forever for us to end it for good, but I think he understands it’s over this time.”
“That’s a long time to be with someone,” Raegan said.
“It’s hard to make big changes when you’re comfortable,” she admitted. “But now that it’s really over, I feel free. It’s nice.”
“I thought you two were in it for the long haul,” Mick said, his eyes on the road ahead so she couldn’t see if his face looked as grouchy as his voice sounded.
“Things fell apart a long time ago,” she murmured in response. “But it’s easy to go back to someone when it’s comfortable.”
“No kidding,” Raegan nodded, launching into a story about one of her ex-boyfriends.
Lena was grateful for the distraction.
3
Mick Laughlin stood on the edge of the precipice and observed the view with satisfaction. From where he stood, the swirling waves rolling up onto the picturesque mountainside were absolute perfection, and patrons who would be staying here at the resort that was being built would probably be as mesmerized by it as he was. Of course, he was responsible for the whole damn project, so he didn’t have a lot of time to enjoy it, but this had become his thinking place. The property ended here, and when the resort was finished there would be a low cement fence to keep people from tumbling over the cliff and into the sea.
Until then, he planned to sneak out here any morning he was free so he could be alone, get ready for his day and think. Thinking was sometimes problematic, he thought with a half-hearted smirk. God knows, he didn’t do much deep thinking if he could help it. Unless it had to do with work, of course, but that wasn’t what was on his mind the last two days. Right now there was a woman on his mind, and it wasn’t his spunky, pink-haired assistant, either.
Being in Greece hadn’t been good for him so far. Professional issues aside, it had also rubbed his nose in the memory of the only woman he’d ever loved and how she’d dumped him for no apparent reason. He’d been forced to be casual and polite with her during her brother’s wedding a few weeks ago in Las Vegas, but he’d hated every minute of it. It didn’t help that her brother was his closest friend. He and Apollo had been inseparable in college and the thousands of miles between them since graduation hadn’t altered that. Mick was 26, a year older than Apollo, and they’d met when Apollo had been a freshman and he’d been a sophomore.
Mick had been attending Yale University on a basketball scholarship but his focus had always been architecture. Since he’d already had a job waiting for him at his family’s architectural firm as soon as he finished his undergraduate degree, he’d been working full-time while finishing his Master’s and simply hadn’t had the time or energy to chase after Lena. That was probably his only regret. That and not coming clean with Apollo, who’d undoubtedly suspected something anyway.
Yeah, nothing about this situation had been good for him. Professionally, this was the biggest project of his career and he was letting his personal life completely overshadow it. It needed to stop but he couldn’t seem to focus on anything else. Being away from her for almost four years hadn’t dulled his feelings; if anything, they were more acute. He didn’t get it. He wanted to move on. He was a decent looking guy, came from a wealthy family and there was no shortage of women available to him. He just didn’t want any of them beyond a romp in the bedroom; sometimes, not even then.
The sun was getting higher in the sky and he had a lot to do today, so he reluctantly started back towards the road. He ran this route almost every morning, both for exercise and because it was relaxing, but he didn’t know how much longer he could continue. The early phase of the project was done, the foundations of the buildings had been poured, and things would be ramping up when they actually started putting up walls. This was a huge undertaking, and he was essentially in charge of making sure the construction company did the right things, the inspectors and legalities involved were handled correctly, and that they didn’t go over budget. He was scheduled to be here for approximately two years, and while it had sounded exciting in theory, now he wasn’t so sure.
