Playing the Playboy

Laurel Grayson had a Master Plan.

She’d spent weeks researching the ruthless Damon family and calculating every detail of her strategy for saving the inn they were trying to steal from her.

Unfortunately, she hadn’t calculated this.

Two elderly Greek men were standing far too close to her on the side of the winding road out of Oia, Santorini, arguing over which of them would get the privilege of changing her flat tire.

She was desperate now to get rid of both of them since Andrew Damon, the nephew of the CEO of Damon Enterprises, would be driving by at any moment.

He was the one who was supposed to help Laurel change the tire she’d flattened an hour ago on purpose.

A friend who worked at the airport had told her what time his private plane was scheduled to arrive on the island. If her timing was correct, he should be passing by on his way to her inn within the next half hour. His appointment with her wasn’t scheduled until tomorrow, but she’d discovered the Damons had a habit of arriving a day early so they could catch property managers unaware.

She wasn’t surprised by the offers of help since Santorini was a laid-back, Old World island, but she’d thought they would be easier to dismiss. She’d already run off two other Good Samaritans who had stopped to help the damsel with tire distress, but she couldn’t get rid of these last two.

They were shouting at each other now with the passionate ferocity she’d discovered was common among the Greeks who lived on Santorini—for whom arguing was a recreational activity.

“Thank you,” she interrupted loudly in Greek, flustered and glancing back in the direction from which Andrew’s rental car would approach. “Thank you. I am fine. I am fine.”

After living for seven years on Santorini, her Greek was passable, although nearly everyone she interacted with could speak English. “You are both very kind to help, but I would rather do this myself.”

They didn’t believe her, evidently, since one of them knelt down with the wrench he’d requisitioned from her and started turning the nuts.

The wrong way.

“Hey,” she exclaimed in English. “You’re going to—”

Her words were drowned out as the second man tried to wrest the wrench from the other’s hand.

Laurel had been changing her own tires since she was sixteen, so she could easily have changed the tire herself.

She’d always done everything on her own since she was raised by her grandparents in a rural county of West Virginia. They were kind but dirt-poor, so she’d worked every day of her life doing whatever she needed to do to make enough money, including getting a job at a sleazy bar with a fake ID since she could make more money there than anywhere else.

She was only playing the helpless female now out of desperation. Damon Enterprises was a billion-dollar international conglomerate of hotels and restaurants spread out across four continents. Laurel was a twenty-nine-year-old widow with nothing to her name but the inn on Santorini that her husband, who’d died bankrupt, had given her as a wedding present.

She was so frustrated she was almost in tears as she tried to get rid of the two men, who were now arguing enthusiastically about the proper method of removing her flat tire.

All her work. All her planning. Everything she had in the world. All of it rested on one first step—Andrew Damon’s stopping to help her.

The four Damon nephews were well-known for being handsome and chivalrous. Laurel was sure Andrew would stop if it looked like she needed help.

But he might not stop if she had two other willing knights-errant at her disposal.

She tried to talk over their shouting, half in English and half in Greek since she couldn’t concentrate enough to remember all the correct Greek words.

Then she gave an embarrassing jerk of surprise when a mild male voice came from behind her. “Do you need any help?”

Laurel whirled around and was stunned speechless by the sight of Andrew Damon looking casually handsome in khakis and a white dress shirt. He eyed her with raised eyebrows and barely suppressed amusement.

She hadn’t even seen his car approach.