One night...

That could change her life forever!

In this Hot Greek Docs story, when an earthquake hits the Greek island of Mythelios, nurse Cailey Tomaras rushes to help—only to encounter childhood crush Dr. Theo Nikolaides! As the trauma fades, they find comfort between the sheets... But when Cailey realizes the consequences of that night, she must prove to lone wolf Theo that he’d make the perfect dad.

ANNIE O’NEIL spent most of her childhood with her leg draped over the family rocking chair and a book in her hand. Novels, baking, and writing too much teenage angst poetry ate up most of her youth. Now Annie splits her time between corralling her husband into helping her with their cows, baking, reading, barrel racing (not really!) and spending some very happy hours at her computer, writing.

Also by Annie O’Neil

Her Knight Under the Mistletoe

Reunited with Her Parisian Surgeon

Italian Royals miniseries

Tempted by the Bridesmaid

Claiming His Pregnant Princess

Hot Greek Docs collection

One Night with Dr Nikolaides Tempted by Dr Patera by Tina Beckett

And look out for the next two books

Back in Dr Xenakis’ Arms by Amalie Berlin A Date with Dr Moustakas by Amy Ruttan Available July 2018

Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk.

One Night with Dr Nikolaides

Annie O’Neil

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07513-8

ONE NIGHT WITH DR NIKOLAIDES

© 2018 Annie O’Neil

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

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Version: 2020-03-02

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This book is dedicated, for the rollercoaster ride of creativity, to Amalie, Amy and Tina. You’re all amazing. xx A

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

THEO’S EYES FOLLOWED the wheeled supplies trolley as it rolled past the exam bed. The moan and creak of concrete against steel shot his senses to high alert.

When his fingers were unable to gain purchase on the delicate needle he’d been reaching for he knew what was happening.

“Up you come!” He pulled the little boy he’d been treating from the exam table to his chest, careful to mind his freshly sutured knee. “You too.” He beckoned for the boy’s mother to stand in the doorframe, grateful for the modern reinforced framework they’d insisted on for the clinic.

She stood frozen with fear. Pragmatism demanded he pull her close to him, certain it was the safest place to be. Earthquakes weren’t common in the Greek islands, but the archipelago had been subject to more than its fair share over the past few years.

“I know it’s frightening, but you must stay here!” He held the terrified mother, a young woman he’d gone to school with, close to him. “Alida, please.”

He tightened his grip, fighting the urge to cough as the shift and strain of drywall released chalky clouds of gypsum into the air.

“The clinic is the safest place to be.”

His voice ended up sounding harsher than he’d intended. Harsh for the voice of a schoolfriend and a doctor. But the clinic had never borne the test of an actual earthquake, and as the seconds ground and rasped into minutes he knew the uncompromising deal he’d made with his father had been the right one. Pride for money.

An infinitesimal wince crossed his face as he remembered the handshake that had sealed his fate.

“What is happening?”

He held the pair of them tight, the toddler clinging to his shoulders, soft whimpers of fear vibrating along his small chest into Theo’s.

Alida tried to take her son and run. A natural instinct, he presumed. To care. Protect. Put one’s own life on the line to save that of your child.

His lips thinned. That wasn’t a childhood he’d known. And what had followed in its wake wasn’t worth thinking about. Not anymore.

Waves splashed up against the back of the clinic...the secure dock had been rendered invisible. The normal gentle hum and buzz of the clinic had been replaced by a cacophony of tightly issued instructions. Phones. Alarms.

Theo lifted his eyes to the invisible heavens in thanks for the emergency training they’d insisted upon for all the staff. He and his “brothers” had never wanted anyone to feel any unnecessary pain or fear when they entered the doors of the Mythelios Free Clinic. The Malakas of Mythelios. His best friends. The closest thing he had to a real family after his own had proved to be nothing more than a mirage.

He’d get on the phone to them as soon as possible. His gut told him that whatever was happening beyond these sheltered walls would demand all of them this time. If he could even track them down...

Ares was usually in the world’s latest hellhole, doing his best to put a dent in its need for medical care. Deakin’s specialist burn treatment skills were in demand worldwide. Heaven knew where he was now. And Chris, a neurosurgeon, could usually be found in New York City. If he wanted to be found, that was. More often than not he didn’t.

Not that it had stopped him from posing for that insane calendar of local island men that had been organized to raise funds for the clinic. Ooopaa! Theo’s eyes followed that very calendar’s trajectory across the room as it slid to the floor behind the reception desk. It was his month anyway. No great loss.

Again Alida tried to pull her son away from him and run. “It’s gone on too long!”

“It’s nearly over now,” he soothed. As if he knew. Earthquakes could last for seconds or minutes. There’d been tremors on the island before, but nothing like this. The Richter scale would be near to double digits. Of that he had no doubt.

He tuned in to the chaos, breaking it down and putting it back together into some sort of comprehensible order. Rattling. Sharp cries of concern. Sensory discord.

As much as Alida struggled against him, pleaded with him to free her and let her run from the building, Theo’s instinct was to stay put and work through it. These were his patients. His clinic. He’d promised them solace and care from the moment they entered the bougainvillea-laced doors and he’d meant it with every pore in his body.

The need to launch into action, preparing for the storm bound to follow in the earthquake’s wake, crackled through his body like electricity. It was likely only seconds had passed—a minute or two at most—but each moment had shaken the island to its core.

He heard a woman cry out in pain.

“Get in a doorway!” he shouted, his broad hands cupping the child and Alida’s heads.

Not being able to control what was happening made Theo want to roar with frustration.

“Is it over?” Alida’s voice was barely audible amidst the rising chaos of human voices.

Theo shook his head, tightening his grip so that she didn’t leave until he was positive it was safe.

How soon were aftershocks? Immediate? The next day?

This was the cruelty of nature. You simply didn’t know.

The same way you didn’t know if the parents who gave birth to you would act like Alida—protectively—or like his—abandoning him at the first opportunity.

He shook his head clear of the thought. They didn’t deserve one second of his attention. The people here did. The people he’d vowed to care for.

He shouted out a few instructions. Their clinic was a small one, but there must be at least fifty people there. Doctors, nurses, patients, a few older patients who needed more care in the overnight wards.

Another crash of waves and the howl of the earth fighting against the manmade buildings upon her surface filled his senses.

Please let the clinic be spared.

He tightened his grip on the mother and child, wondering for just an instant what it would be like to hold his own wife and child. What lengths would he go to for them?

Another tremor gripped the ground beneath them.

All thoughts other than survival left him.

Theós. Let us be spared.

CHAPTER TWO

FOLD, FOLD AND TUCK.

Just the way her mother had taught her.

Perfect.

Cailey gave a satisfied grin at her swaddling handiwork, popped a kiss onto her finger, then onto the baby’s nose, all the while imagining her mum giving her a congratulatory smothering hug before pulling out a huge plate of souvlaki for them to share. Or bougatsa. Or whatever it was she had magicked up in her tiny, tiny kitchen. Miracles, usually.

She ran her finger along the infant’s face. “Look at you, little mou. So perfect. You’ve got your entire life to look forward to. No Greek bad boys breaking your heart. That’s my lesson to you. No Greeks.”

“Are you trying to brainwash the babies again, Cailey?”

Cailey looked across, surprised she hadn’t even noticed that her colleague Emily had entered the nursery. The more time she spent with the babies, the more she was getting lost in cloud cuckoo land!

“Yes.” She grinned mischievously, then turned to the baby to advise her soberly, “No Greeks. And no doctors.”

“Hey!” Emily playfully elbowed her in the ribs. “I’ve just started dating a doctor, and I won’t mind admitting it’s a very welcome step up in the world.”

Wrong answer!

“And what, exactly, is wrong with being a nurse?”

“Not a thing, little Miss Paranoid.”

Emily’s arched eyebrows and narrowed eyes made her squirm.

“Looks like someone’s had her heart broken by a doctor. A Greek doctor, to be precise.”

“Pffft.”

Emily laughed. “All the proof I needed.”

She moved to one of the cots and picked up an infant who was fussing.

“C’mon. Out with it. Who was the big, bad Greek doctor who broke our lovely Cailey’s heart?”

“No one.”

Someone.

“Liar.” Emily laughed again.

She shrugged as casually as she could. Maybe she was a liar, but leaving her small town, small island, and archaically minded country behind for the bright lights of London had been for one purpose and one purpose only—to forget a very green-eyed, chestnut-haired Adonis who would, for the purposes of this particular conversation, remain anonymous.

Cailey lifted the freshly swaddled infant, all cozy in her striped pink blanket, and nuzzled up close to her. Mmm. New baby smell.

Life as a maternity nurse was amazing, but rather than mute her urges to hold a child of her own it had only set the sirens on full blast.

Twenty-seven wasn’t that old in the greater scheme of things. And Theo wasn’t the only man in the universe. Definitely not her man. So...

“Cailey?”

The charge nurse...what was her name again? Molly? Kate...? Heidi? There had been so many new names and faces to learn since she’d started at this premier maternity hospital she’d become a bit dizzy with trying to remember them all... She ran through the names in her mind again...

High on the hill was the highest nurse... Heidi!

She squinted at her boss’s name tag.

Heidi.

Ha! Excellent. The memory games she’d been playing were paying off. She knew she’d battle her dyslexia one way or another. She’d done enough to get this far in her medical career, though it would never take the sting out of the fact that she’d most likely never become the doctor she’d always dreamt of being.

“Sorry to interrupt, love, but I think you might want to see this.”

Cailey gave the infant—Beatrice Chrysanthemum, according to her name card—a final nuzzle before settling her back into the tiny bassinet and following Heidi along to the staffroom, where a television was playing on a stand in the corner of the room.

It was a news channel. The ticker tape at the bottom of the screen was rolling with numbers...casualties? Cailey’s eyes flicked back up to the main news story. There were familiar-looking buildings—but not as she was used to seeing them.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Emily walk in, reach for the remote and turn up the volume. At first the English words and the images of a Greece she didn’t quite recognize wouldn’t register. They were a series of disconnected phrases and pictures that weren’t falling into place.

“Isn’t that the island you’re from?” Emma prompted. “Mythelios?”

Cailey nodded in slow motion as everything began falling into place.

An earthquake. Fatalities. Ongoing rescue efforts.

Her heart stopped still. The pictures of devastation had switched to a live interview being conducted outside the clinic in the fading daylight.

Of course it was him. Who else could command the world’s attention?

There, front and center, more breathtakingly gorgeous than she’d allowed herself to remember, was Dr. Theo Nikolaides, appealing for any and all medical personnel who could help to come to Greece in its time of need.

She tried not to morph his entreaty for help into an arrogant call for “the little people” to come and do the dirty work while he took the glory. This was a crisis and all hands were helping hands—not rich or poor, just hands.

She stared at her own hands...her fingers so accustomed to work...

“Cailey?” Heidi touched her arm. “Are you all right?”

She turned her hands back and forth in the afternoon light as the news sank in. People were hurt. Her mother could be hurt. Her brothers...

A flame lit in her chest. One she knew wouldn’t abate until she was on a plane home.

No matter how much she hated Theo, hated the wounds his words had etched into her psyche, she would have to go home. Islanders helped one another—no matter what.

“I’m fine. But my island isn’t. I’m afraid I’m going to need some time off.”

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS ALL Cailey could do not to jump off the ferry and swim to shore. Flights to the island had been canceled because of earthquake damage to the runway, but it hadn’t put her off coming. The same way a childhood crush gone epically wrong wouldn’t stop her from helping. Not when her fellow islanders needed her. And this time she would be able to do more than help with the clean-up.

Ducking out of the wind, she pulled her mobile out of her pocket and dialed the familiar number. She wanted to hit the ground running—literally—but if her mother found out she’d come back and hadn’t checked in first it would be delicious slices of guilt pie from here on out.

“Mama?”

Static crackled through the handset. She strained to listen through the roar of the ferry’s engine’s.

“...seen Theo?” her mother asked.

Theo?

Why was her mother asking about him? She’d come back to the island to help, not answer questions about her teenage crush. Surely ten years meant she’d moved on enough in her life for people to stop asking if her heart had mended yet?

“Mama. If you’re all right...” she parsed out the words slowly “...I’ll go straight to the clinic.”

“Go...clinic... Theo...love...brothers...getting by...”

Cailey held out the handset and stared at it. She’d spoken briefly to her mum before she’d boarded her flight last night, so she knew her brothers were unhurt and, of course, already out working. As was her mother who—surprise, surprise—had already gathered a brigade of women to feed the rescue crews and survivors at the local taverna.

A Greek mother, she’d reminded Cailey time and again, was nothing if not a provider of food in times of crisis.

But...love and Theo in the same sentence?

Had her mother gone completely mad or was the dodgy reception playing havoc with her sanity?

“See you soon, Mama. I love you,” she shouted into the phone, before ending the call and adding grumpily, “But not Theo!”

She glared at the handset before giving it an apologetic pat. It wasn’t its fault that everyone on Mythelios was trapped in a time warp. But she’d moved on, and working at the clinic was as good a time as any to prove it.

She moved back out to the ferry’s deck and squinted, trying to make out the details of the small harbor she’d once known like the back of her hand. By the looks of all the blinking lights—blue, red, yellow—it was little more than a construction site. Deconstruction, more like, she thought, grimly stuffing the phone in her bag and shouldering her backpack.

The news footage she’d seen at the ferry terminal in Athens had painted a pretty vivid picture. Some people’s lives would never be the same. Two tourists had already been declared dead. Scores injured. And the numbers were only expected to rise as rescue efforts continued.

The second the boat hit the shoreline Cailey cinched the straps on the backpack she’d so angrily stuffed with clothes she’d hoped would suit the British climate all those years ago, and took off at a jog.

Some buildings looked untouched, whilst others were piles of rubble. There was a fevered, intense buzz of work as the dust-covered people of Mythelios painstakingly picked apart the raw materials of the lives they had been living just twenty-four hours earlier. Window frames. Cinder blocks. Stone. It was clear the earthquake had been indiscriminate, and in some cases brutal.

“Cailey!”

She stopped and turned. Only three voices in the world made her feel safe, and this was one of them.

Kyros!

Before she had a chance to give voice to her big brother’s name she was being picked up and swirled around.

“Cailey mou! My little starfish! How are you?”

Despite the gravity of the situation, Cailey laughed. She never would have believed hearing her childhood nickname would feel so good. Or simply smelling the island, her brother’s dusty chest and, miraculously, the scent of baking bread.

Together she and her brother looked across the street to the bakery. All that was left was the building’s huge and ancient stone-built ovens. And there, undeterred by the open-air setting, was Mythelios’s top baker, pulling loaves out as if working amidst rubble was the most normal thing on earth.

Cailey’s brother smiled down on her. “I’m so glad I saw you. We’re just about to go up to the mountains—see what we can do up there to help the more isolated houses.” He squeezed her tight. “How is the family success story? Does that London hospital know how lucky it is to have you? Have you seen Theo?”

Cailey did her best not to let her smile falter as Kyros held her at arm’s length and waited for answers. What was it with her family and all the Theo questions?

Kyros’s eyes narrowed. “You don’t look like you eat enough over there.”

“I’m fine!” She batted away his concerns. She ate plenty. There was no keeping her curves at bay no matter how often she ate like a rabbit. “You must be boiling in that suit.”

“This?” He did a twirl in his firefighter’s gear. “I suit it well, don’t I?”

“Still the show-off, I see.”

“Absolutely!” He winked, then just as quickly his expression turned sober. “And now I’d better show off how good I am at helping. There are still a few dozen people unaccounted for. Tourists, mostly.”

“Is it as bad as they say on the news?”

He nodded. “Worse. The more we dig, the more fatalities we find. There are a lot of injuries.” He tipped his head down the street. “The clinic was heaving when I was there last. Have you spoken to Theo yet?”

She ignored the question. “How’s Leon? I tried to ask Mama a minute ago but the line went—”

She stopped talking as a very large, very exclusive, four-by-four, outside just about any mortal’s price range, pulled to a stop beside them. The back window was rolled down centimeter by painstaking centimeter to reveal silver hair, icy cold blue eyes...

Oh, goodness. Theo’s father had aged considerably since she’d seen him last. One of the most powerful men on the island seemed to have been unable to hold back the hands of time.

Just about the only thing Dimitri Nikolaides couldn’t do, Cailey thought bitterly.

“Ah! Miss Tomaras. How...interesting to see you back here.”

Shards of ice shot through her veins as her brain tumbled back through the years to that day when he’d made it more than clear what he and the rest of his family thought of her.

Nothing but a simple house girl. That’s all you’ll ever be.

Her brother leaned in over her shoulder. “Cailey’s here to help, Mr. Nikolaides. She’s a Class-A nurse now.”

“Oh?” A patronizing smile appeared on the old man’s face. “You’re planning on going to the clinic?”

“To help, yes.”

She caught her knees just as she was on the brink of genuflecting and stopped herself.

What was she doing? Was her body trying to curtsey? Good grief! The man wasn’t a king and he certainly didn’t run the island. Even if he behaved as if he did. And yet there was a part of her that still worried she would never be smart enough, good enough, talented enough to come home and do anything other than fulfil the fate Dimitri Nikolaides had outlined for her.

“I’m sure there’s some little corner you’ll be able to help out in. Plenty of cuts and scrapes to tend to.”

Mr. Nikolaides eyes scanned the length of her, as if assessing a race horse. Working class mule, more like. That was how he viewed her family and it was how he always would.

Cailey’s spine stiffened as she forced her static smile not to waver.

“Maternity, wasn’t it?”

“S-s-sorry?” Noooooo! Don’t stutter in front of the man.

“I heard through the grapevine that you help other women with their children. Sweet.”

Coming from his mouth, it sounded anything but. Not to mention bordering on pathetic. Women on Mythelios were expected to do nothing less. Cook. Clean. Bow. Scrape. Sometimes she wondered if the island had ever been informed that the twenty-first century had arrived—an era when women were allowed to be smart and have opinions and love whomsoever they chose!

She stared at the lines and wrinkles carved deeply into his face. Saw the cool appraisal of his unclouded eyes. What made you so mean?

Once he’d successfully bullied her off the island the man should have had all he wanted. A son to matchmake with the world’s most beautiful heiresses. A daughter at an elite medical school. No doubt he knew exactly who she’d marry, too. The daughter of his housekeeper was safely out of the picture, so as not to sully his daughter’s circle of friends or, more importantly, his son’s romantic future.

She forced a polite smile when the silence grew too awkward. “My family usually bundles in wherever help is needed. Leon’s police squad is out saving lives this minute.”

“You don’t look too busy,” Mr. Nikolaides glanced at Kyros. “And your mother? Is she doing anything or simply enjoying her retirement?”

Cailey almost gasped at his effrontery. Her mother had earned her money at the Nikolaides mansion just as she had earned her retirement. And Kyros? Why wasn’t he saying anything? Why wasn’t she saying anything?

She’d never let anyone speak to her like this in London. Not after the years of work she’d poured into becoming a nurse. And definitely not after her years of living away from the island to “protect” a billionaire’s son. As if Theo needed protection from all the European heiresses she’d seen dangling off his arm in the society magazines she might have read accidentally on purpose at the hospital gift shop. On a regular basis.

“Oh, yes. You know us, Mr. Nikolaides,” she eventually bit out. “We Tomarases love helping clear up other people’s messes.”

Mr. Nikolaides blinked. Then smiled. “Yes, we do miss your mother’s deft touch up at the house. I trust she’s well?”

“Couldn’t be happier,” Cailey snapped.

“Mama’s very well, thank you Mr. Nikolaides.” Kyros’s hand tightened round Cailey’s arm. “We’re just off now, sir. Glad to see you weren’t hurt in the quake.”

He turned his sister around and frog-marched her away from the dark-windowed four-by-four, now weaving its way through the rubble strewn along the harborside road as if it had been thrown down by a petulant god.

“What was that all about?” Kyros growled.

“Nothing.”

He wasn’t to know Dimitri had all but packed her bags himself all those years ago. Demanded she never enter the Nikolaides house again. Not as a friend to his daughter Erianthe. Not as a “helping hand” to her mother. And especially not as anything whatsoever to do with Theo, his precious son who was prone to develop “a bleeding heart for the less fortunate.”

She launched herself at her brother for a bear hug. It was the easiest way to hide the lie she was about to tell. “I’m just tired after the overnight flight. Once I get to work I’ll be fine. It’s just weird seeing the island like this.”

“I know, huh?”

She could feel his voice rumble in his chest and cinched her arms just a little bit tighter around him. Once she let go of him she’d have to go and face the other Demon of Mythelios.

Full points to Dimitri for pipping her to the post. But she wouldn’t have been surprised if he was stalking the harbor for interlopers. Huh.

He looked old. The worn-out kind of old that came from emotional strain rather than physical. Proof he was human? Somewhere in there?

Besides, he’d only put a voice to what Theo and his mates had already been thinking, and no doubt Erianthe too, who hadn’t even had the guts to say goodbye to her before winging her way off to her fancy boarding school...

Bah! Enough of putting blame at other people’s doors. She’d believed everything Dimitri Nikolaides had said about her because there had been some truth in it. She wasn’t as smart as the others. She did have to work twice as hard to understand things. Finally figuring out she was dyslexic had helped. A bit. But it hadn’t made all the medical terminology easier to read. She’d just had to face facts. She wasn’t up to Nikolaides standards and no amount of teenage flirtation would change that.

A siren sounded and shouts erupted from a fire truck as it pulled to a stop beside them.

She gave her brother a final squeeze. “Go out there and save some lives.” She went up on tiptoe and gave each of Kyros’s ruddy cheeks a kiss.

“Same to you, Cailey.” He scrubbed a hand through her already wayward hairdo, if you could call stuffing her curls into submission with an elastic band a hairdo. “Welcome back.”

She smiled up at him, praying he wouldn’t see how their run-in with Dimitri Nikolaides had shaken her to her core. “It’s good to be here.”

* * *

“Is that enough?” Theo was impatient to get back to work. Yes, the media could help. No, he didn’t have a moment to spare.

The look on the reporter’s face acknowledged the question was rhetorical.

He undid the microphone and began to walk away, ignoring the pleas of the other reporters. They’d be better off showing footage of the rescue crews hard at work while he figured out how to help patients and simultaneously order the urgently needed helicopters to get the worst cases over to Athens.

He could call his dad.

He could also saw off his own hand. Lifting up that phone would come at a cost. It always did.

“Dr. Nikolaides?”

“I’m sorry, I don’t have time for any more interviews—”

“No! I’m not with the press. I’m a doctor. My name is Lea Risi.”

He stopped and turned. The woman was wearing holiday clothes. Chinos. A flowery top. Her accent was not local, but she spoke flawless Greek. Useful, considering there was a heavy mix of tourists and locals pouring into the clinic.

For just a nanosecond he rued the appeal of this gorgeous port town that drew holidaymakers from all around the world. If only they were on a rocky outcrop with a diminished population...

“Dr. Nikolaides!” A paramedic was calling him from the hastily put-together triage area off Reception.

He beckoned to Lea. “Come along, then.”

“Don’t you want to know my credentials?” She ran a few steps to catch up with his long-legged strides.

“Not particularly.” He scrubbed a hand through his hair, then pulled the shoulder-length mane back under control with an elastic band he’d picked up somewhere during the course of the day. He didn’t know when, exactly. Sixteen hours’ straight trauma work did that to a man. The details blurred.

“I’m a psychiatrist.”

He nodded. Fine. That meant she had medical credentials. “What do you want? Old or young?”

“Sorry?”

“We’ve got patients coming in from a care home and a school. Both were hit hard. We’re triaging on site and transporting to hospital with limited resources.”

He stopped and wheeled round, holding out his hands to steady her when she lost her balance trying not to collide with him.

“Apologies.” He shook his head. “I’m a bit short on manners today.”

“I totally understand. I just want to help.”

Theo put out a hand. “Good. Help is what we need. Theo Nikolaides.” They shared a quick handshake as he rattled off the necessary facts. “I run the clinic. With the help of some friends. Doctors.”

He silently reeled through the cities in the world where they might be. Was Deakin in Paris or Buenos Aires this month? And Christos...? New York. Definitely New York. Ares? Only heaven knew.

Burn specialist.

Neurosurgeon.

Miracle-worker.

If only they were all pilots. He needed them here. But they’d come...they would come.

“Put me wherever you think I’ll be best placed—”

Lea was about to say something else when his eyes latched on to a set of unruly curls weaving its way through the crowd jamming up the entryway into the clinic.

Christos!

A jolt of lightning would have affected him less.

What was Cailey Tomaras doing here? The last time he’d seen her—

“Doctor?”

“Sorry. I’m a bit frazzled.” He tapped the side of his head. “What did you say your name was again?”

“Leanora Risi. Lea. Just call me Lea.”

Her empathetic smile spoke volumes. She could see he was busy, but she wanted to help—and at this juncture he needed all the help he could get.

His eyes slipped past Lea again. Cailey had left the island to become a maternity nurse, hadn’t she? Good for her. He knew she’d always been interested in medicine—

“If there’s someone else you’d rather I speak with...” Lea put a hand on his arm.

“No. I’m your man. Apologies. There’s just someone I—”

Someone I should’ve kissed ten years ago. Someone I should’ve taken on a proper date. Someone I never thought I’d see again.

He looked down at Lea’s feet and saw strappy sandals not wholly suited to working in a chaotic clinic.

“Here on holiday?”

“I was.” Lea tipped her head and tried to capture his attention. “But now I’m here to help. I don’t have any equipment but I have these.” She lifted up her hands and twisted them as if they were freshly washed for surgery.

“Perfect. Good.”

Wholly distracted, he let his attention shift past Lea yet again.

Cailey face had grown...not thinner...just... Well, even more beautiful, obviously. She’d had quite a lead in that department. Her cheekbones had become more elegantly defined...her lips were still that deep red, difficult to believe it was real and not painted on...

Had she finally come home?

“Dr. Nikolaides...?” Lea’s expression shifted to one of grim determination. “You obviously need to be elsewhere. Now, I haven’t practiced emergency medicine in a while. But I’m definitely up to the cuts and bruises variety of injury—if you’ll just point me in the right direction I can get on with helping patients.”

“Yes. Of course.”

He gave himself a sharp shake. He wasn’t here to ogle ghosts from the past. There were very real, very urgent medical cases that needed help. Now.

“Why don’t you go grab a notebook from Petra? She’s the loving but steel-hearted battleax working the main desk. She’ll give you everything you need to work your way through the queue and categorize people. We’ve got a couple of doctors working just through that archway. It’s makeshift, but we aren’t really kitted out for intensive care. I’ll be there shortly. There are a couple more volunteer doctors from the mainland seeing less urgent cases.”

He looked up to the skylight above them as a medical helicopter flew overhead.

“And a medevac. If we’re lucky, we’ll soon have one very talented nurse on board as well.”

Lea gave his arm a quick squeeze, then headed toward Reception to start work. If she’d said something to him, he wouldn’t have known. All he wanted to know was what had brought Cailey back to the island she’d sworn never to set foot on again.

CHAPTER FOUR

“WELL, LOOK WHO we have here. If it isn’t Little Miss I’m-Going-to-Make-a-Difference.”

Theo Nikolaides. As she lived and breathed...barely.

She opened her mouth. She’d prepared for this. Spent hours of her life thinking about what to say when and if she ever saw him again.

Fffzzzzttt! There went her ability to use actual words.

“Come to help out at our little backwater clinic, have you?”

“I...uh...”

Kaboom! An explosion of fireworks she was clearly powerless to resist went off in her chest, then her belly, then her... Well, everywhere, really.

“Cailey? Are you all right? You haven’t been hurt, have you?”

Crrrrassssh! Down came the defenses she’d worked so hard to build up.

She batted away his hand as he reached toward her. She wasn’t ready yet. For that voice. Those words. His kindness.

Her cheeks burned at the memory of their heated exchange all those years ago. She forced herself to swallow the array of comebacks she could’ve spat back, and instead shifted the infant she’d been cuddling back into the arms of his mother.

Prove you’ve grown up. Prove you’ve made something of yourself!

“It looks like a superficial wound to me. Cuts always bleed a lot. Just keep the pressure on and I’m sure the good doctor here will get to you as soon as possible.”

“Absolutely.” Theo gave the mum a quick nod in Lea’s direction. “Dr. Risi will be down in a minute to log the case, and we’ll get someone to see you and this little one as soon as possible.”

Cailey watched, transfixed, as Theo ran his index finger along the infant’s face. How could someone so incredibly caring leave his father to do his talking for him?

Pffft. They’d both been young and stupid. At least she had been. On too many fronts.

Didn’t mean they could kiss and make-up, though.

A vivid image of Theo pulling her roughly to him for a hot, heated kiss swept through her body. And then she crushed it. That was all in the past.

“How funny—you remember my goal.” She turned on her brightest smile. “Mission accomplished. I am here to make a difference, thank you very much. A good one. So, if you don’t mind putting one of the ‘little people’ to work, I’ll happily get out of your way.”

Sea-green eyes bored into her from a face featuring the strong, evenly planed cheekbones she’d dreamt of tracing with first a finger...then her lips...

He was looking at her curiously. She shifted under his gaze, not enjoying the intense scrutiny.

“Here I was, thinking an earthquake would’ve reminded you that we’re all born equal,” he said blandly.

It would’ve been a hell of a touché if she hadn’t known for a fact he thought she was in an intellectual league well below him.

She held her ground, arched an eyebrow that might have looked defensive but was in fact proud and resilient and completely without insecurity. She hadn’t knuckled down for years of painstaking study, work and paying off student loans to get this far only to feel belittled again.

“I think you would probably be most useful working alongside me. C’mon.” He scooped up her backpack, turned and signaled for her to follow him. “Let’s get you some scrubs and then you can show me what you’re made of.”

He put his hand on the small of her back and began steering her through the crowd, using his own body as a shield against the push and surge of people desperate to see a doctor.

While her infuriated brain shot off in one direction Cailey’s body was actively registering Theo’s on a much more primal level. All six-foot-something, long-legged, trim-waisted, white-coated package of complete and utter male perfection kept brushing up against her as if...as if they had already shared an intimacy beyond that one perfect kiss...

“I think I can get scrubs on my own, ta.” She shot him her best I’m-a-big-girl-now look, eyes sparking as they landed on his amused expression.

“No, you can’t. You’ve never been here before.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Yeah, but nothing.” He grinned down at her. “You can quit the ‘city girl’ act, Cailey. You’re home now. Time to see what my little kouklamou of Mythelios is made of.”

It certainly wasn’t sugar and spice. Not these days, anyway.

Despite her rising fury, something in her softened as she stomped alongside him to get kitted out in scrubs.

Beautiful doll. He’d always called her that back then. Sure, she’d just been his kid sister’s friend. Daughter of his family’s housekeeper. But even though they’d never put words to it there’d been something... Something magic between them.

She’d been absolutely sure of it right up until the moment she’d heard him tell his friends that a Nikolaides would never end up with a cleaner.

And that had been that.

Rage at the memory did nothing to stop her insides from fluttering as his hand shifted on the small of her back. How on earth she’d thought she would be immune to him even after all this time was beyond her.

She stole a glance at him as he stepped to the side to avoid a gurney being wheeled through the packed corridor at high speed.

Theo might not be everybody’s cup of tea. He had his flaws. A tiny scar by his eye acquired from daredevil antics in one of his father’s olive groves. Hair that always looked as if it could do with a cut. Another small scar just below his nose that only seemed to add to the strength of his unbelievably sensual mouth. Sensual, but male.

Everything about him screamed alpha. Masculine. It had since they were young—as if he’d been born vividly aware of the world’s mysteries and was just biding his time until the rest of the world caught up. Take it or leave it—that was his attitude. Not cavalier. Or haughty. Simply knowing. As if he’d made a deal with the universe to do his part and in exchange...

That was the mystery. She’d never seen him take anything. Not one single solitary time. That was the Theo enigma.

He might talk the talk of a rich, privileged so-and-so, but she’d always thought the shadows that crossed those sea-green eyes of his betrayed greater depths. Hidden sorrows he’d rather keep secret. He’d never bare the heart behind that insanely touchable chest of his.

He turned back to her with a smile still playing on his lips. Trust him to be all calm and relaxed amidst a level of mayhem that would have rendered any sane person tearing out their hair.

“There’s no need for a tour of the clinic. Shall we just get to work?”

“I think you’re going to want to get out of that top first.”

“I...uh...” She looked down at the white top she was wearing that had somehow magically acquired a layer of grime and rolled her eyes. Kyros. Her brother had been filthy.

Oh, good grief. Where’s your spine? Your vocabulary? Use them!

“It’s not—I’m here to...”

What is wrong with you?

A nurse skidded to a halt beside Theo and put a hand on her chest to stop him. Lucky minx.

“Dr. Nikolaides, we’ve got five patients coming in the next ambulance.”

“Five!”

Two pairs of eyes snapped to her.

“There are only two ambulances on the island. We bring in as many people as they can carry,” Theo explained.

There was nothing in his voice beyond passing on information. Where was the derision? Why was he taking his time with her? When had he become so...so...extra-perfect?

Her eyes fixed on Theo’s lips as he spoke to the nurse. On the tip of his tongue as it touched and retreated from the smooth run of teeth save one crooked one just to the left of center that she’d always liked. Yet another slight imperfection that made him mysteriously even more perfect.

His tongue swept the length of his lower lip before his teeth snagged that lip and pressed down on it while he thought for a moment when the nurse asked where he wanted the patients. It was like being in a slow-motion version of her teenaged fantasies...before the kissing began.

She watched, still mesmerized, as he released his lip and rattled off a list of updates.

A Mrs. Carnosi with a broken arm needed to go to Cubicle Three while her plaster set. A man was in Recovery on the first floor after a heart attack—could someone find his wife down at the harbor? She was helping the baker, he thought. A four-year-old with a head wound could probably do with some crayons to pass the time as the televisions weren’t working. All the children, in fact. There were some in a storage locker along with some paper. He was sure of it. Oh, and he’d organized a water delivery so everyone who entered the clinic could be given a two-liter bottle to see them through their waiting time.

Was there nothing the man hadn’t thought of? All this while also seeing patients? Where was the young man she’d last seen? Arrogant. Elitist. The one who’d turned against her as easily as kicking a door shut. The one who’d compelled her to scrimp and save and study and learn. To leave her homeland pushed by the towering wave of shame that she would never be good enough for a man like him.

She couldn’t have been wrong about him after all of this time. Could she?

Theo reached back and gave her shoulder a little pat and a squeeze as another doctor took the nurse’s spot and asked him to run his eye across some X-rays. A compound fracture. Were they up to performing the surgery the patient would require?

Vividly aware of Theo’s fingers on her shoulder, Cailey was barely capable of lucid thought. Her insides were behaving like electricity cables cut loose in a storm. Sparks flying everywhere. Nothing behaving the way it should.

She squeezed her eyes tight against the warm olive color of Theo’s skin. His toned physique. The perfect, capable hands touching her.

Just imagining the man holding a child, helping a yiayia to cross the street with her shopping or explaining to a daredevil teen that he couldn’t go swimming while his arm was still in a plaster made her insides turn into liquid gold.

Which was all very irritating because she was meant to have become immune to Theo Nikolaides.

She forced herself to open her eyes and meet the mossy hues of his irises whilst trying her level best to ignore the fact that the man was in possession of the longest, darkest lashes she’d ever seen. He also had more than a five o’clock shadow, but that indicated he’d been working hard and—surprise, surprise—made him look more like a rock star than an unkempt layabout.

No doubt about it. As a grown man Theo Nikolaides was a living, breathing example of a mortal embodying the majesty of the Greek gods of legend. Zeus, Adonis, Apollo... Eros...

“Shall we get you out of these things?”

Theo was looking pointedly at her filthy top, but her thoughts and his tone suggested anything but an innocent need to improve her hygiene.

Was he...flirting with her?

This was taking being cool in the eye of a storm to a whole new level.

Just one lazy scan of her dust-covered body and—poof!—just like that she felt naked. Each sweep of his eyes drew her awareness to the cotton brushing against her belly, her breasts, the tingling between her legs that was really, really inappropriate seeing as she’d vowed to remain immune to the Nikolaides effect. Not to mention the scores of patients waiting.

Seeing him looking at her the way he was...hungrily...she felt a brand-new array of fireworks light up her insides and actual electricity crackle between them.

This was all wrong. There was a crisis happening not inches away. People needed help. Patients needed his attention. Her attention.

He’d never looked at her like this before. As if she were an oasis and he’d crawled in from the desert desperate for one thing and one thing only.

The sun abruptly lit up the clinic’s central glass dome, its rays filtering down to them through a tumble of rooftop wisteria like film lighting. Dappled. Hints of gold and diamonds.

When Theo tilted his face, green eyes still locked with hers, it was all she could do not to reach into her chest and give him her heart. It had always been his. He’d just never wanted it.

Before she could say anything, though, he held out his arm to clear a path for her toward the rear of the clinic.

Of course the crowd parted. Things like that happened for the Theo Nikolaideses of the world. And the Patera and the Xenakis families. Not to mention the Moustakas family. The four families who commanded the bulk of the island’s wealth thanks to their business savvy.

Mopaxeni Shipping. The glittering star of the Aegean Seas and beyond. All those businessmen’s sons would inherit untold millions—if not billions. So what on earth was Theo doing here in this small town clinic when the world was his oyster?

“Aren’t you meant to be—?”

“Right.” Theo cut her off, directing her to a green door at the far end of the corridor. “In here.”

She turned and tried to take her bag from him.

He shook his finger—tick-tock, no, you don’t—in front of her lips. “I’m coming with you.”

Great. Just what she’d always dreamed of. Death by proximity to the unrequited love of her life.

She pushed open the swinging door to the changing room. Might as well get it over with.

* * *

Theo had absolutely no idea where this cavalier Jack-the-lad attitude he was trying on for size had come from.

He was exhausted. Running on adrenaline. He needed food, coffee, and yet... Was this—? Was he trying to flirt? Was this what stress did to him? Or was this what all-grown-up Cailey Tomaras did to him?

There’d been that one time as teens, when they’d all been running around the pool, messing about. He’d grabbed her, and she’d slipped on the grass, and they’d fallen in a tangle of limbs on top of one another and there’d been a moment...a kiss...

Μakapi!

There were a thousand other things Theo should be doing besides going down memory lane to find hints of a romance that had never been. A restorative fifteen minutes of sleep. Walking the small wards, filled to bursting wards, and diving in where an extra pair of hands were needed. Helping with rescue efforts.

Not staring at a pretty girl from the past.

She looked good. A far cry from the reedy teenaged girl who had seemed to all but live in the shadows of his father’s ridiculous mansion. A full cherry-red mouth. Inky black hair. A deliciously curvy figure he could almost feel—as if he’d already tugged her close to him for a passionate embrace.

He scrubbed a hand through his long hair, hearing his father’s distinctive voice in his head.

“If you’re going to slum it as the island medic, the least you can do is maintain the family reputation. I’ll not have you gallivanting round the island with a halfwit cleaner’s daughter.”

His eyes flicked to Cailey’s. Dark. Full of passion and empathy. And, if he wasn’t wrong, the smallest dose of fear.

His heart cinched. That she should feel that way around him... His father was a cruel man. Why he couldn’t see that kindness, understanding and empathy were far more effective tools for so-called “people management” was beyond him.

Theo had grown immune to Dimitri’s tendency to cut a person to the quick, but Cailey...? He’d never subject her to the ego-lashings his babbo had dealt out without a second’s thought. And for some reason his father had always had it in for the girl. He’d need to keep her close to him. Far easier to keep her out of harm’s way then.

“Are you ready to go straight to work?”

Smooth. Nice way to make a woman who’s flown overnight to come and lend a hand welcome.

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not going to stand there while I change my clothes, are you?”

Cailey’s sharp tone brought him back to the present.

He ran his eyes down the length of her. Long legs. Sensually curved hips making a nice dip at the waist. A tug of desire unexpectedly tightened in his groin. What the hell? He was supposed to be exhausted, not horny.

“I’ll sit with my back turned.”

“Yeah.” Cailey’s hands landed solidly on her hips. “I don’t think so. Say what you need to say and then...” She swirled her finger around in an out-you-go gesture.

“Fair enough.” Despite himself, he grinned. She was setting parameters. The old Cailey would’ve been too shy to be so feisty. This new Cailey was becoming more appealing by the minute.

Another tug below his belt line broadened his smile. Quite an impact for an unexpected reunion. One of the earthquake’s silver linings, he supposed. Maybe she was strong enough now to stand up to his father.

She pursed her lips and tipped her head from side to side in a when-are-you-going-to-get-going? move.

Fine. He got the message. “Right. Here’s the story. All hell’s broken loose. As you probably know, the quake was strong. It hit this side of the island hardest. A lot of old buildings weren’t up to the magnitude. It hit in the afternoon—”

“I know. I know all that,” interrupted Cailey impatiently. “I saw the news. Late lunch. Quiet time. Lots of people taking naps... Only the Brits mad enough to go out in the sunshine. You should probably know I specialize in pediatrics and maternity nursing, so if it’s—”

“You’ll be working with me in urgent care,” he cut in. He didn’t care how bolshie she was. He was going to look after her, and the easiest place to do that was in his trauma unit.

“I haven’t done trauma for over a year.”

“But you’ve done it. And that’s where I need you. Case closed,” he said firmly before she could protest.

Her shoulders shot up, her mouth opened, but when she saw his stance go rock-solid she dropped the challenge with a flick of a shrug.

“Casualties? Any idea of the scope yet?” she asked.

“Hundreds.” Theo shook his head. “I don’t know. Several hundred at the very least. The island’s got...what?...fifteen or twenty thousand people on it, so it could be more. Patients are presenting with injuries hitting every level of the spectrum, from cuts and bruises to...well...” His mood sobered at the thought of the older gentleman who’d had a fatal heart attack earlier in the day. “Worse than cuts and bruises.”

Unexpectedly, Cailey reached out and took his hand. “Are you sure you don’t need some rest? You look awful.”

“Ha! Thanks. Don’t beat around the bush anymore, do you, Cailey?”

She gave him a sad smile. One that said, I think you might know why.

The door to the locker room swung open and with it came the chaos and mayhem of the quake’s aftermath.

“Dr. Nikolaides?” The nurse was halfway out through the door already. “There’s a helicopter on approach to collect a couple of patients. We need you to sign off on them. And the ambulance is pulling up now.”

“Of course.”

He brusquely pointed toward a cabinet. “There are spare scrubs in there. All sizes. Report to trauma when you’ve changed. You’re working with me. And that’s an order.”

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