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CHAPTER ONE
ELENA KALATHES SURVEYED the small, unnamed Jamaican island in the middle of the Caribbean with some annoyance. All green jungle and white sand beaches, the water a crystal-clear turquoise, it was certainly picturesque. Idyllic almost and untouched. That was what the people in Kingston had told her. Off grid, they said. He has supplies delivered once a month, they said. Sometimes he visits Port Antonio but only rarely and never on a schedule, they said.
No one knows where he lives, they said.
Well, no one apart from the three Kalathes Shipping staff members she’d already sent to Jamaica to find her adoptive brother. And herself.
Not that he was her brother, not in any real sense. She hadn’t grown up with him and hadn’t seen him since he’d rescued her from the rubble of her home in that tiny Black Sea nation devastated by an earthquake sixteen years ago, bringing her back to the Kalathes Greek island estate, and left her there.
So no, not a brother. A fairy tale, more like. A myth, even.
Atticus Kalathes. Head of the global charity Eleos, and who ran the whole massive enterprise from his off-grid nameless island that he never left. Or only sometimes, though no one could be entirely sure. His movements were a mystery.
The skipper had cut the engine to the boat she’d hired to get to Atticus’s island and had leapt out onto the small jetty that stuck out into the clear blue sea. Once the motor died there was no sound apart from the waves lapping against the rocks and the sand, and the occasional cry of seabirds.
Sweat trickled down Elena’s spine. Stupid to wear a suit in the tropics, but she’d wanted to present a strong, professional front. She’d thought the lightweight cream jacket wouldn’t be too hot considering she was going to be on a boat, and the cream silk blouse she wore underneath would help keep her cool.
A mistake. The sweat was going to stain the blouse and what had possessed her to wear the matching cream skirt, God only knew.
The heels were a mistake also.
Elena glanced down at the cream kitten heels she’d brought to match her cream suit. Yes, definitely a mistake. She just...well. She liked expensive clothes. She liked to look nice. She was here as Aristeidis Kalathes representative—his adoptive daughter—and it mattered that she look the part.
The skipper tied off the boat and held out a hand to her. Elena took it and gingerly stepped onto the jetty. There were already water stains on her shoes, dammit.
‘Thank you,’ she said to the skipper. ‘Give me an hour.’
He nodded and leapt back into the boat, already getting out the first of what would no doubt be many cigarettes.
Elena turned and glanced down the small jetty then over to the beach beside it, the water lapping gently against the pristine white sand. The heat was punishing, the sun fierce even at this time of the afternoon, and the humidity was making every item of clothing she wore stick uncomfortably to her body.
She hoped an hour would be enough. The others she’d sent had lasted only ten minutes. Then again, none of them were her. None of them were the little eight-year-old Atticus had rescued from the rubble of a destroyed town, before taking her to Greece and then abandoning her at his childhood home.
She would use that abandonment if she had to. She wasn’t above a bit of emotional manipulation, not when it came to fulfilling her adoptive father’s dying wish.
Aristeidis wanted to see his son one last time, to heal the breech between them, and Elena would do anything to help him. Aristeidis had given her a home, given her his name, given her security that the traumatised child she’d once been had lost after her entire family had been killed.
He’d given her everything and for the past few years, over the course of his illness, she’d been giving back. Including bringing his estranged son home.
Atticus Kalathes was going to return to Greece, whether he wanted to or not.
She smoothed her skirt, adjusted her jacket, and walked purposely down the wooden jetty. Not far from the beach, crouched beneath the palms and tangled jungle, was a sprawling house constructed of dark wood. It seemed to be a series of boxes connected by wooden walkways, with large floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the beach and the ocean.
A sandy path bordered by discreet solar lighting and covered in crushed shells led from the jetty to the house. Elena started along it, only to come to a stop as a movement from the direction of the beach caught her eye.
A man walked across the sand. He’d clearly come from the rocks at the end of the beach and carried something over one muscular, tanned shoulder.
One very bare, muscular, tanned shoulder.
Elena frowned then squinted.
It wasn’t just his shoulder that was bare, she realised. He didn’t appear to be wearing swimming trunks of any kind.
He was completely naked.
A flush of embarrassed heat washed through her, making the sticky feeling of her clothes even worse, and she looked hurriedly away.
Of course, he would be naked. It was his island. He must think he had complete privacy and yet here she was, charging in unannounced. Well, almost unannounced. She’d sent him numerous emails and voice messages informing him of her visit, none of which he’d responded to, and she’d thought that maybe he hadn’t received them. He did live off grid after all.
