One Night With Dr Nikolaides. Annie O'Neil
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