It's All Greek to Me Read Online Free PDF Page A

going.”
    “Your little buzzes are going to land you in the hospital with liver failure if you don’t cut back. Or jail if you ever again try a stunt like the one you pulled tonight—don’t bother protesting that you didn’t attack that girl. I know you didn’t. You still shouldn’t have had her in your room.”
    Theo gave him another smile that oozed with charm. “Come on, Jake,” he said, using the Anglicized nickname that made Iakovos’ lips thin. “All Papaioannou men have to do is smile, and women fall all over themselves to crawl into our beds. It’s not like you haven’t ever succumbed to a sweet little thing.”
    “There’s such a thing as fouling your own nest, and I most certainly haven’t succumbed to the temptation of any woman in Elena’s set. I’d rather not be known as a cradle robber.”
    Theo made a rude face. “You’re thirty-nine, Iakovos, not eighty-nine. There’s nothing wrong with Elena’s friends. Some of them are—” He stopped speaking, the smug look on his face swiftly changing to one of horror. “It’s the she-devil! I’m getting out of here before she attacks me again.”
    Iakovos turned to watch the woman who was marching down the narrow hallway of the hospital toward him, her long legs eating up the distance, her hair rippling behind her like a banner. She looked exactly like the personification of a summer storm at sea, one that was about to descend upon him. For a moment he wondered if he’d be the same once the storm hit, but dismissed it as a fanciful thought, one not worthy of consideration. Especially, he noted to himself as he allowed his gaze to roam over the approaching woman, as there was such a better use for his attention. The woman—he couldn’t bring himself to think of her by that appalling nickname—what did she say her name was? Rose? No, the French version of that word, Eglantine . . . an unusual name, an old-fashioned name, one that suited her.
    She was tall, almost as tall as he was, and plentifully formed, not at all his usual type. She was dressed simply in neutral linen pants and a sleeveless tunic that might have hid her form from other men, but his sharp eyes picked up the alluring curve of her hip when the bottom of the tunic fluttered back momentarily. Her breasts were decently covered, but nothing could disguise their abundance, or the soft sweep of her upper arms, covered lightly in freckles. Her face wouldn’t be considered beautiful by the standards held by the women he usually dated, but he found it pleasing nonetheless. She had a round little stubborn chin, that glorious wide mouth that his gaze returned to again and again, a short nose with freckles, and two eyes that were at this moment looking as if nothing would make her happier than to see him drop dead on the spot.
    “Eglantine,” he said, acknowledging her when she stopped in front of him, her hands on her hips.
    Her nostrils flared. “Yacky.”
    He closed his eyes for a moment. “My name is Iakovos. If you are unable to remember that, you may address me as Mr. Papaioannou.”
    She looked incredulous. “You’re not serious.”
    “I am. It is my name. It is not that difficult to say. I’m sure that you could master it with little effort should you put your mind to it.”
    “Yeah, and monkeys might fly out of your butt, but since neither is likely to happen, we’ll just move on, shall we?”
    “ What did you say?” he asked, outraged to the tips of his toes. Delightfully irreverent as she was, he had the desperate sense that if he did not take control of the conversation, he would be lost in the storm that seemed to accompany her.
    “I said we should move on, and I—”
    “You said—” He breathed heavily through his nose for a moment. “You said something about monkeys flying out of my ass. That is the second time you have mentioned that in conversation.”
    “Your ass? So?” Her eyebrows rose. “Do you have a problem with your butt?”
    “No, I do not