Читать книгу Greek Affairs - Кейт Хьюит - Страница 16

LUCY’s heart froze like ice in her chest as the words registered. Was Helen afraid that their affair was more than just a fling? She had to swallow back a semi-hysterical cry, putting a hand to her mouth. Well, Ari had certainly reassured her of that.

The next words from Helen were indistinctly shrill, and then Ari’s voice came again. Lucy stood rooted to the spot in some kind of sick, paralysed fascination, and heard him say something along the lines of, ‘… useless waste of space of a brother …’

There was an awful silence, and then the sharp crack of what could only be a hand across a cheek.

Knowing that it wouldn’t have been Ari, and acting on a surge of adrenalin that was pure primal instinct, Lucy pushed open the door and flew into the room, aiming herself straight at Helen, who still had her hand raised, her eyes glittering almost feverishly.

Lucy was unaware of their shocked looks. She saw only Ari’s proud stance, the livid handprint and the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. She saw red, and for the first and only time in her life considered striking another person. It was only Ari’s quick reflex action, pulling her back behind him, that stopped her.

Helen lowered her hand and her eyes took on a malevolent glow. She smiled cruelly. ‘Well, well—if it isn’t the quiet little secretary, come to save her lover.’ The woman’s obsidian eyes flicked up and down and she added cuttingly, ‘Or perhaps I shouldn’t say little.’

Lucy made to move again and Ari held her firm, glancing back with a hard expression, ‘Leave it, Lucy.’

He turned back, and Lucy could feel the ice in his gaze even though he wasn’t looking at her.

‘She wouldn’t balk at striking you too. After all, you never had any qualms about striking a five-year-old—did you, Helen?’

Helen’s focus moved back to Ari, and Lucy could see the older woman’s face grow mottled with anger. Abruptly Ari turned and pulled Lucy with him, and within a blur of minutes they were sitting in the back of his car, leaving the house behind.

Lucy was still shaking, a mixture of powerful anger and shock coursing through her. She glanced at Ari. He was looking resolutely out of the window. When she saw his mouth her heart lurched painfully.

‘You … you’re bleeding.’

He turned abruptly, and the dead look in his eyes scared her. He smiled harshly. ‘Want to kiss it better for me, Lucy?’

He flicked out a handkerchief nevertheless, and dabbed at the blood. Overcome with an emotion she couldn’t name, Lucy reached out and put her hand to his cheek, where it still felt warm.

‘How could she have hit you when you were so small?’

A surge of emotion so powerful that it made him tremble caused black spots to dance before Ari’s eyes. His breathing grew shallow. The feel of Lucy’s hand like a cooling balm on his hot cheek, the look on her face … He’d never, ever had someone rush to his defence so unreservedly. He’d felt the fine vibrating tremors of her anger as he’d held her back, and he didn’t doubt that if he hadn’t stopped her she might very well have struck Helen. The realisation was cataclysmic, earth-shattering.

A hardness entered him. He certainly wasn’t going to shatter along with it. Everyone wanted something out of him—especially women. Lucy was just taking advantage of a vulnerable moment.

Lucy’s wrist was gripped and pulled down. Ari’s eyes glittered at her, but at least some life had come back into them. ‘Quite easily,’ he bit out. ‘I was an easier target then.’

He kept hold of her wrist, almost painfully, but Lucy didn’t say anything.

‘Don’t pity me, Lucy Proctor. I don’t need anyone’s pity.’

The fierce pride on his face nearly made Lucy weep. She shook her head and managed to pull her hand back, cradling it with her other one. He saw the movement and sighed deeply, raking his hair with barely concealed anger.

Lucy looked away for a long moment. The rest of the evening was coming back—what had happened just before she’d gone to the bathroom, and then the words she’d heard. What was wrong with her? Sitting here mooning over a man who quite patently needed no one and was biding his time with her until he flitted to the next woman.

She started hesitantly, ‘I didn’t mean to … I was just passing and heard her …’

‘How did you know it wasn’t me hitting her?’ came the sardonically amused question.

Lucy turned around, a fierce expression on her face. ‘Because I know you would never do anything like that.’

His belly clenched. It was harder not to touch her than to touch her and risk that emotion rising again, so Ari reached out and tugged a resisting Lucy onto his lap. He felt an unusual peace steal over him. He buried his head in her neck and after a moment felt her relax, her curves softening into him with delicious inevitability.

But then he felt her tense again, and he looked up and said with a growl, ‘Stop it. Relax, Lucy, mou.’

She was biting her lip and avoiding his eye. He turned her jaw so that she had to face him, and she said, almost defiantly, ‘I saw you with that woman. I won’t … won’t be some substitute. If you’d prefer to be with her, then please … just go back.’

The thought of going back to that house made Ari shudder. He’d known it would be a mistake to go at all, and hated the fact that he had done so. Hated the fact that after all these years there was still a tiny sliver of yearning left for something he’d never experienced. Harmony. Even as that thought materialised in his head he blocked it ruthlessly, focused on the woman on his lap, reducing his world to the here and now.

He shook his head, amazed that Lucy could have seen him and Pia together and not have known that he’d all but itched to go back across the room to her. Then he remembered the moment before Helen had come into the room and asked to speak to him. Lucy had been with Anatolios, looking at him and laughing gaily. Anatolios had been practically sitting in her lap.

Dark anger surged. ‘From what I saw of you and my brother, you looked very cosy also … Are you sure it’s not you who wants to go back to him?’

Lucy couldn’t help the shudder of disgust run through her as she said quickly, ‘No. I was just—we were just … talking.’

The relief that surged through Ari made him feel weak. He pressed a kiss to Lucy’s bare shoulder and she shivered again, but this time he recognised desire and it was heady.

‘Then, please believe me, I too have no desire to go back to that house. Pia Kyriapoulos is a woman who is looking for her next wealthy protector. She thinks I could be it, but this evening I told her in no uncertain terms that I have no interest in signing up for the job. And anyway …’ Ari brought Lucy’s hand between them to his lap, where she could feel the stirrings of his growing arousal. ‘She doesn’t have this effect on me.’

Ari felt Lucy’s fingers flutter over him and held back a low groan as his arousal soared. In that second he had a flash of an idea. Without stopping to consider what he was doing, he said, ‘When we get back to the hotel, pack some things for the weekend. We’re getting out of Athens …’

When Lucy woke the next morning she knew immediately that she was alone in the strange bed, but she was too deliciously lethargic and sated to worry about it. She heard nothing except beautiful stillness and the gentle lapping of water nearby.

They had travelled here, to this island, which Ari had told her was called Paros, by helicopter last night. It had all been a little overwhelming to Lucy. When they’d arrived Ari had driven them in a Jeep to this place, which Lucy hadn’t been able to make out in the dark.

Now, without opening her eyes yet, as if superstitious for a moment that it might disappear, Lucy knew that there were doors open nearby. She could feel the warm breeze, could smell the tang of the sea and feel the bright sunlight.

Finally she opened her eyes. They took a second to adjust, and then as if in a dream she got up, blindly threw on a T-shirt and walked to the open French doors and the tiny balcony. She simply could not take in the beauty of her surroundings for a moment. The balcony seemed to be perched right over the Aegean Sea, which stretched out in glittering blue before her, other islands visible as shapes in the hazy distance under a clear cerulean sky.

The modest house was whitewashed and all but clinging onto the rocky coast, nestling alongside equally bright houses either side. Lucy frowned slightly. She’d seen Ari’s portfolio of extensive properties around the world, and knew he had a luxurious villa on Santorini, but she’d never seen pictures of this house. She looked around. Admittedly, it was more humble than anything she might have expected of him. And all the more intriguing.

She heard a sound behind her and turned to see Ari, shouldering his way in through the door with arms full of supplies. Her breath snagged at remembering how he’d stripped her bare last night and taken her to heaven and back on the modest double bed. He was wearing long shorts and a faded T-shirt, and looked impossibly young and handsome at that moment—a million miles from the proud, successful, arrogant billionaire.

He pressed a lingering kiss to her mouth and proceeded to spread out a veritable feast of a breakfast on an ancient wrought-iron table. Bread, jams, fruit … Then he disappeared, presumably to the tiny kitchen downstairs, and came back with steaming fragrant coffee in two cups.

‘Cat got your tongue?’ he asked lightly as they sat down and Lucy still hadn’t said a word.

She shook her head and tried to communicate with him what she was thinking, feeling. She made a half-gesture around them, encompassing the view. ‘It’s so beautiful … I can’t even begin to describe …’ She looked at him then. His face was shuttered, dark glasses shielding his eyes. ‘This property isn’t listed with your other ones …’

Ari’s jaw clenched. He looked out towards the glittering Aegean. When he’d made the decision to come here he hadn’t stopped to consider Lucy’s reaction to the basic nature of the house. He knew very few women who wouldn’t have turned up their noses and shuddered disdainfully. A ridiculous feeling of disappointment ran through him and he drawled, ‘You’d prefer to be on Santorini? The villa there certainly is … larger.’

Shock coursed through Lucy. ‘No! That’s not what I meant at all. I’d much prefer to be here …’ She hated that he’d jumped to that conclusion. ‘I just mentioned it because I hadn’t seen it. That’s all.’

Ari flicked her a glance. ‘It’s not listed because I’ve deliberately kept it private. It was my mother’s house—where she grew up.’

‘Oh.’ There didn’t seem to be anything more to say, and Lucy could feel a wall spring up between them. Clearly he wasn’t going to elaborate. It seemed important to make him believe so she leaned across and took his hand. ‘Ari, I’m glad you brought me here. Really.’

After a long day in the sun, exploring the island’s beaches and eating a basic picnic, drinking sparkling wine in the shade on an empty beach, making love until their bodies seemed boneless and sated, Ari couldn’t stop thinking about Lucy’s words and expression from that morning. She’d seemed sincere. He’d believed her to be sincere when she’d professed to liking the place.

He held her hand in his now, as they wandered through the ancient winding streets of his mother’s birthplace. He repressed the urge to ask her if she’d really meant what she’d said—if she really loved this humble little place as much as she seemed to—because he hated how important it felt to him that she did.

A little later Ari sat back in his chair in the small taverna he’d brought her to, and Lucy’s belly flipped over at his expression. He was looking at her so intensely she had to ask, ‘What …? Have I got something on my face?’

He shook his head and smiled, and her heart turned over. She had once thought he was incapable of smiling, but the younger-seeming, softer side of this man was altogether far too enticing.

‘Just a lot of freckles. Who would have known you’d freckle so easily?’

Lucy grimaced. ‘I have celtic ancestry.’

He smiled wider, lounging back, cradling a half-empty wine glass. ‘They’re cute.’

Lucy scowled at the word. ‘Unfortunately we can’t all go a deeper shade of bronze in the sun.’

She tried to stop her eyes roving over his powerful form but couldn’t resist. His T-shirt strained over broad shoulders and clung to that lean torso; low-slung jeans were so low slung that she could see a sliver of taut dark flesh just above the button, the dark shading of hair making her heart trip.

‘Stop devouring me with your eyes, or I’ll carry you back to bed over my shoulder, Lucy Proctor.’

She looked up again and blushed. He leant forward and captured her hand.

‘It’s amazing that you can blush when you’re so incredibly sensual … when you wear such decadent underwear …’

Lucy groaned.

‘… and have a body to put the Venus de Milo to shame …’

‘I don’t … Stop.’ Lucy glanced around, mortified, in case someone had heard him. He laughed out loud.

‘Yes, you do—and it’s entirely appropriate that we’re here, because this is the island that supplied the Parian marble for the sculpture.’ He kept her hand and asked then, ‘Tell me, Lucy, why is it that you have these two different sides? And why did you fight not to fall into my bed? Was it all a game?’

His voice had hardened, his hand had tightened, and Lucy looked at him and felt nervous. It suddenly seemed very important to be honest with him.

Even more so when he added, ‘And how is it that you speak at least two other languages fluently and can hold your own in the snobby dining rooms of Athens?’

Lucy was silent for a long time. She looked out of the window that they were seated beside and saw the dark ocean, and fishing boats twinkling under a moonlit sky. And then she said haltingly, ‘My mother was one of the most celebrated burlesque performers in the world …’

And before she knew it she was telling him everything, and he was listening, as rapt as she’d ever seen him. She told him about living in Paris, and before that Rio de Janeiro, New York … London. The ever-changing schools, the nomadic nature of their lives.

Lucy wrinkled her nose. ‘Her real name was Mabel Proctor, but she changed it to Maxine Malbec.’

Ari frowned. His thumb stopped making little circles of sensation in her palm.

‘The Maxine Malbec?’

Lucy nodded, feeling slightly sick. Was he going to judge her now or, worse, judge her mother? She started to pull her hand back, but he gripped it again.

He was shaking his head. ‘Lucy, that’s an amazing story … The picture I saw in your flat—I thought there was something familiar about her.’

She smiled wryly. ‘That’s what I was afraid of. And it’s not a story—it was my life.’ She shrugged, feeling self-conscious. ‘Having a mother who was so overtly … sexual made me wary, I think, of that side of me.’ Her mouth tightened. ‘It’s also why I have an aversion to expensive jewellery … trinkets … Seeing my mother fobbed off by so many rich men over the years … My father was one of those men, married with his own family. He had no desire for a love-child.’ Lucy’s voice trailed away. She was shocked she’d revealed so much so quickly.

She didn’t elaborate on how precarious her life had been until she’d grown older and taken control of herself and her mother. She also didn’t elaborate on the fear she still had of becoming dependent on a man, on how her father’s rejection had fostered a deep feeling of insecurity she was only just beginning to let go of.

Ari winced inwardly when he recalled her reaction to his asking her to buy something for Augustine Archer, and then dragging her around that jewellery shop. He remembered the innately sexy way Lucy had stripped for him that first night. ‘You’ve obviously inherited her natural sensuality—that’s all. She sounds like she was an amazing woman, and it must have been hard, raising a daughter on her own.’

Lucy was struck somewhere very vulnerable by his easy understanding. She nodded and smiled weakly, feeling emotion rise. ‘She was … is an amazing woman.’

Ari frowned. ‘She’s still alive?’

Lucy nodded. ‘Yes, but …’ She told him about her mother’s illness and the home that she was now in.

He said quietly, ‘It must be hard to see her like that … diminished.’

Lucy just nodded, terrified she might start crying. ‘It is.’

To her relief he seemed happy to let it drop there, and discreetly paid the bill before tugging her up and leading her back down the quiet winding streets to the humble little house.

A few hours later Ari lay on his back, his arms around Lucy’s sleeping form, her breasts rising and falling gently against his bare chest. Even though he was recently sated, that subtle movement made him hard again. He shifted minutely and bit back a groan when Lucy moved too, and he felt her nipples against his side like two hard berries.

For the first time in his life he’d put himself in a situation where he couldn’t just get up and leave a woman behind—after all, where could he go? And for the first time it wasn’t sending that usual feeling of suffocating claustrophobia into his belly.

The following evening Lucy was changing while Ari had a shower in the small bathroom downstairs. The house was tiny, and rustic and beyond basic, but she loved it. Ari had told her earlier of how his mother had grown up there with her sister and her mother, his grandfather having died when they were small.

She went to the balcony and smoothed the plain dark red sundress over her hips. Her skin tingled from being in the sun, and she felt freer than she’d felt in a long time. She’d called her mother’s home earlier, and she was obviously having a good day—although Lucy had had to explain again why she wasn’t able to visit for another week. It seemed as if her mother was making friends with some of the other residents, and the matron had assured her again that she was being well cared for. The relief was enormous.

A sound made her whirl around from where she was leaning against the balcony rail, watching the sun go down over the sea. Ari stood in the doorway with just a towel around his lean hips.

She looked up, throat dry, and met his eyes. They glowed with dark, decadent promise. He put his hand to the towel and with a flick of his wrist it was gone. Lucy’s body flamed.

‘Come here …’ he said softly.

Lucy tried to resist the feeling of hot insanity. ‘Ari, I’ve just changed …’

‘Come here.’

On shaky legs and bare feet Lucy walked over and said, ‘Has anyone ever told you that you’re extremely bossy and arrogant?’

He shook his head and pulled her right into him, reaching for her dress and pulling it up, at the same time pulling her pants down. Excitement made Lucy shiver uncontrollably.

‘Only you seem to have the nerve to say these things …’ he growled, mock angrily.

And then talking stopped for a long, languorous moment.

Much later, when the moon had risen and the stars were out, they headed out for dinner. Lucy had put on a light cardigan as the late spring evening had a slightly cool edge. Her eyes drank Ari in as she trailed him, her hand firmly clasped in his. She never would have imagined him to be so tactile, but he was always reaching out to touch her, to take her hand, rub the back of his hand down a cheek … She sighed inwardly. He was wearing black trousers and a snowy white shirt, and he was more gorgeous than any one man had a right to be.

This part of northern Paros was a sleepy fishing village. The summer hordes hadn’t descended yet, but in the distance Lucy heard music and recognised a traditional Greek tune as they rounded the corner into an idyllic little square where a taverna was all lit up. A mad profusion of flowers erupted from every windowsill and around the door.

Lucy heard shouts and laughter, and as they went in Ari ducked his head to avoid hitting the doorframe. An even bigger shout went up, and suddenly a crowd was thronging around them and a huge man was dragging Ari’s face down and kissing him soundly.

When he could, Ari pulled Lucy forward, feeling an incredible lightness in his chest. He’d missed coming here. A gut-wrenching sense of homecoming nearly floored him with its intensity. London and the merger and Athens and Helen all seemed to be light years away from this moment.

But as if he couldn’t hold it down the thought rose up like a spectre: the emotion … The threat of it was rising up to swallow him whole. That was why he hadn’t been back.

He felt for Lucy’s luscious curves and let her distract him from those dark thoughts, introducing her to his mother’s old friends and even to some distant cousins. He could see a few of the young bucks eyeing her up, but with one warning look from him they retreated, shamefaced. Ari kept her close when they were seated in the corner with Costas, the owner, who pulled up a chair and ordered a veritable feast on their behalf.

Lucy sat back a while later and groaned, wiping her mouth with a napkin, ‘I’ve never eaten as much as I have these last two days. And I do not need any extra padding.’

Ari looked at Lucy from under hooded lids, his eyes drifting down to that delectable cleavage in her red dress. It made him remember taking that dress off her only hours before, unhooking her bra and letting those voluptuous mounds spill into his hands. His body tightened and grew hot with annoying predictability. She turned him on with such ease …

She caught his eye and smiled and leant forward, crossing her arms so that her breasts were pushed together and forward. ‘See something you like?’

Ari’s green gaze glittered and darkened. He leant forward too and said softly, ‘Witch. I’ll punish you for that.’

They looked at each other, everything fading into the background for a long intense moment, until Costas came over and pulled Ari up, breaking the spell. It was only then that Lucy saw the tables and chairs had been pushed back, the volume of music had been raised and Ari stood now with Costas, arms high, as they started to do a mesmeric Greek dance.

Lucy’s breath caught in her throat. It was so beautiful. It should have made Ari look effeminate, but it did the opposite. A couple of the older ladies dressed in black got up and danced with the men, their steps in sync as the music started to increase in tempo. As more people, young and old, joined in and linked arms, the music got faster and faster. The next thing Lucy knew she was being hauled up to join in.

She hissed at Ari. ‘Don’t you dare.’

But he didn’t listen, just drew her into the melee, and Lucy found herself laughingly trying to keep up with everyone else. The women were showing her the complex steps, it was frantic and captivating, and as the last evocative chords died away she stumbled right into Ari’s arms.

Something potent and silent was vibrating between them, and without further ado Ari grabbed Lucy’s cardigan and they left, a silent intensity surrounding them all the way until they returned to the small house. Barely had the door closed before their mouths were fused, hands seeking desperately to touch bare flesh. They didn’t even make it up the stairs. Ari took her there and then, fast and furiously.

It was only later, after they’d made it to the bed and made love again, that Lucy woke from a tangled dream to a strange sound. She was curled close to Ari’s big body and she looked up to see that he had an arm flung over his face. His breathing was fast and shallow and he was speaking in Greek.

Lucy put her hand on his arm, tried to draw it down, and it was only when she did that she saw the tracks of tears on his face. Her heart turned over.

At her light touch, he was awake in an instant, eyes alert, straight on hers. Lucy’s voice was incredibly husky. ‘You were …’ She faltered, nearly saying crying but instinctively stopping herself. ‘You were having a dream … you sounded upset.’

He did nothing for a moment, and then his face closed over and became so cold she nearly shivered. His expression was quite clear in the bright moonlight streaming in through the open doors.

In an instant he’d jackknifed off the bed to go and stand with his back to her at the balcony railing, looking out to the dark expanse of the sea. He was naked, and his physique was so gloriously powerful that it took Lucy’s breath away for a moment. He was also extremely tense.

She got up and pulled on a T-shirt, went over silently to stand next to him. She noticed that his hands were wrapped so tight around the railing that his knuckles shone white.

Instinctively she put her hand over his nearest one, and he flinched minutely as if he’d been unaware of her presence. When Lucy looked up at his face it was unbearably harsh, and she knew instantly that this man was worlds apart from the one-dimensional playboy tycoon she’d first believed him to be.

She didn’t say anything, just kept her hand on his, and after a long moment he said, so quietly that she had to strain to hear, ‘I remember being here … in this house … with my mother and father on holiday, just before she died. Ya-ya was still alive too, and my aunt … and we were happy. Really happy.’

Lucy didn’t interrupt.

‘My father had met my mother when he’d come here on a day-trip with some friends. They were typical Athenians—cocky, arrogant, rich … But he saw her, and within a month he’d taken her back to Athens to be his wife.’

‘He must have loved her a great deal.’

Ari jerked his head to look down at Lucy. She felt tension spike in his form as if he’d just realised that he’d spoken out loud and had a witness.

‘Loved her so much that after she died he married again within the year? Please. My father left me here with my grandmother, and the next time I remember seeing him he had Helen Savakis with him. His new wife.’ His lip curled. ‘She convinced him to send me to boarding school, where I was conveniently out of the way, so that she could have her own son and raise him to be my father’s golden child.’

Lucy’s shock at Helen’s cold-hearted ruthlessness was palpable. ‘But your father left everything to you …?’

Ari nodded, looking back out to sea. ‘Which is why Anatolios hates me and Helen despises me even more now than she did when I was a child. She hates the fact that she needs me for her security. She hates the fact that I’m not in Athens, where she can try to make me marry a woman of her choosing to control me even more …’

Lucy winced reflexively at his mention of marriage and remembered his caustic response to Helen’s obvious fear that what was between them might be serious. She guessed in that moment that Ari’s memory of this place and that time when his parents were together ran deep for a reason. If they’d had a halcyon time here, only for his mother to die so suddenly and his father disappear, it must have been heartbreakingly confusing for a small child. How would someone so tiny make any sense of loving a place when it was also the scene of such sorrow?

But from the sounds of it, if his father had been a successful young man, with the world at his feet, it must have been love for him to marry Ari’s mother, who would have been very poor.

‘I can only imagine how hard it must have been for your father to leave you behind … perhaps that’s why he married again so soon …’

Ari turned then, and looked down at Lucy properly. She felt very exposed in the face of his deep hurt and unmistakable cynicism.

‘Yes—and why he found it no chore to send me away to school on his new wife’s recommendation.’

‘Ari, I’ve seen the way a woman can enchant a man. Maybe he was just—’

Just enchanted the way you’re being enchanted right now? The revelation made Ari’s voice harsh. ‘What, Lucy? Please don’t try and feed me some psychobabble nonsense. This subject is closed for discussion.’ His eyes flashed a warning in the silvery light. ‘And you’re far too overdressed.’

Ari picked Lucy up with an intensity that sent a flutter of fear through her. Instinctively her hands tightened on his shoulders. And then something happened. Almost instantaneously she sensed a different intensity run through him. The mood altered. He looked down at her and she could see feral desire mixed with something almost like confusion in those dark green depths, and her heart ached with a mirror emotion.

The fact that she could sense his need to dilute the emotion he’d just revealed with physicality made her reach up and touch her mouth to his. She felt him tremble slightly, and as she wrapped her arms around his neck and deepened the kiss he responded.

He took her over to the bed and laid her down with a gentleness Lucy would have bet he hadn’t been feeling just moments ago. The fact that she was so aware of him, aware of what was going on inside his head, made her reel anew. His body covered hers with a delicious weight and Lucy brought a shaky hand to his face. When he turned to press a kiss to her inner palm she felt another flutter of fear—but this time it was because she knew for certain that she’d fallen in love with this complex, proud man who presented one face to the world and another here with her.

When Lucy woke the next morning she wasn’t surprised to see Ari up and dressed and sitting on the balcony. Dark glasses shielded those amazing eyes. There was a stillness to his body and a sternness to his features that told her the sensual cocoon they’d inhabited last night was gone. The revelation of admitting she’d fallen for him made her feel intensely vulnerable in the harsh light of day. She pulled the sheet up over her body and Ari’s head turned. Her skin prickled when she imagined the slow appraisal he was giving her from behind those shades. She came up on one arm and pushed her heavy mass of hair back, feeling very rumpled and lethargic. Ari had been ruthless in his pursuit of pleasure last night, hers and his, surprising her with the depth of passion he’d incited within her. It had seemed as if their lovemaking had gone to another place, and Lucy cringed inwardly now to remember that she’d been moved to tears after one shattering climax after another.

Now Ari just uncoiled that long lean body from the chair and said coolly, ‘We need to get back to Athens. We’ve got work to do and a heavy week coming up.’

Lucy felt as if he’d slapped her. Her body went cold. Boss/assistant. Back to work. Back in her place. The intense vulnerability made her feel slightly sick.

‘Of course,’ she said through numb lips, when she felt like saying something like, I never asked for this, you know, and I certainly never expected to be brought here to this idyllic little hideaway where you couldn’t contain your emotions.

When Lucy stood under the shower a short time later her belly clenched painfully. She could see exactly why he’d brought her here now: no possibility of paparazzi catching them out, no one who knew him apart from the locals he’d known as a child … no chance for her to be getting any ideas.

There was a knock on the door that made her jump, and Lucy heard a curt, ‘The helicopter is on stand-by. As soon as you’re ready we’re leaving.’

‘Fine,’ Lucy called casually, belying the unsteady beating of her heart and the sick feeling gripping her gut. His words and cool manner were an all too mocking confirmation of her fears and her own stupidity. He was hustling them out of here as if there had just been some kind of dire weather warning, making it patently obvious how much he regretted bringing her there in the first place.

As she switched off the shower and stepped out, she knew that she would have to start distancing herself. She couldn’t go on like this. She was being served a timely reminder of what she could expect out of this relationship—which was nothing but a very bruised heart.

That evening, when they returned to the hotel from Ari’s Athens office and Lucy felt Ari take her arm as they stepped out of the lift, she drew on all her strength to pull away from his touch.

They approached her hotel room door and she prayed silently that he wouldn’t try to come in. She sent him a quick glance, while swiping her door open at the same time, thanking God that her hands were steady.

‘I’m tired. I’m going to go to bed …’

Her door opened and she heard a drawling, ‘Not a bad idea.’

Lucy turned in the door and looked up. ‘Alone. As you said yourself earlier, we have a heavy week. And I—I am tired.’

Ari looked down at Lucy and felt the knot of frustration which had started the minute he’d left their bed earlier this morning intensify. Every moment he spent not touching this woman meant dealing with a level of frustration he hadn’t experienced before. He looked at her properly for the first time. He’d tried to avoid looking directly at her all day—if he was honest since last night, when she’d—His belly flipped over and he ruthlessly quashed the memory of such weakness. He still couldn’t believe it had happened …

But now she did look tired, with faint circles of violet under her eyes. She also looked a little strained, and a dart of guilt struck him when he remembered the urgency he’d felt to get off Paros and back here, bringing them straight to the office and working them both like dogs.

Lust was a force within him, crying out for satisfaction … but he would not admit to that. She wanted to go to bed alone? Well, he was damned if he was going to let her see that the notion of that went against every clamouring instinct to throw her over his shoulder and carry her to his own bed.

So he backed away, and did not like the visible look of relief that crossed her face. He almost stopped and gave in to his primal urges—had to clench his fists not to.

‘We leave for Parnassus’ villa at nine a.m. I’ll see you in the lobby.’

She nodded and then disappeared into her room, shutting the door between them with a firm click that seemed to resonate all the way through Ari’s body right to his feet.

On Thursday evening Lucy thought back to the gentle exhaustion she’d felt the previous Sunday and could have laughed. Since then it had been like the first week—a frenetic blur of work, whizzing from Parnassus’ villa, back to Ari’s office, and back to the hotel. Ari had been out late nearly every evening, having private meetings with Parnassus and their legal teams, and much to Lucy’s relief hadn’t thought it necessary for her to be there too.

She’d carefully locked the interconnecting door on her side each night, even though all she’d fantasised about was slipping naked between Ari’s sheets and awaiting his return.

Instead, as she’d thumped her pillow, she’d told herself that this was the best way. Nip it in the bud now, and when they got back to the UK she’d calmly inform him that this brief moment of madness was over. Her mind froze at the thought of calling women for him, arranging dates, seeing him come in in the morning with that satisfied look on his face, slight shadows under those amazing eyes from not sleeping—

‘Lucy, what are you doing hiding over here? Has Ari told you to stay out of sight in case people realise he’s sleeping with his PA?’

It took a moment for Lucy’s focus to return to the room and realise that Anatolios was standing in front of her, with a smarmy look on his face. She could almost feel sorry for him now that she knew he’d been rejected in the end, despite his mother’s vast efforts to secure him number one place in his father’s affections.

‘I’m not hiding.’ She felt defensive. She had been guilty of hiding, hoping to get a glimpse of Ari and compose herself before going over to him. ‘I’ve just arrived and I was looking for Ari.’

They’d come separately to this, another charity ball which was being held in their hotel in honour of Parnassus’ contribution to helping the homeless in Athens. It was going to be the precursor of the announcement of the merger, which would be made the following morning, with the papers being signed at a press conference.

Lucy felt a prickle of unease skate up her spine when she saw how Anatolios’s eyes were all but devouring her breasts, and she realised she was hemmed in between him and a wall. She moved to try and edge past him, but he moved too, surprising her with his agility.

He came and stood close, effectively blocking her from the room, and Lucy was very aware of how intimate it might look. She was plastered against the wall behind her now, could feel Anatolios’s breath, smell the alcohol. Her belly spasmed.

‘Anatolios, I have to go and find Ari. Would you excuse me, please?’

He laughed, and it was nasty. He didn’t move. ‘You English, you’re always so polite—please and thank you. You’re not going anywhere until you tell me what Ari is cooking up with Parnassus.’

Lucy flushed, and her eyes were immediately caught by Anatolios’s. He couldn’t hide his look of triumph.

‘I knew it. I knew there was something big going on.’ He grabbed Lucy’s arm then, making her wince.

‘Tell me what it is right now, I have a right to know what my brother is—’

Abruptly Anatolios was moved out of the way bodily, and then Ari was standing there. Lucy felt weak with relief.

He gestured with a hand for her to come with him, and she went gratefully, her legs feeling like jelly. She didn’t look back, and when Ari said to her, ‘What was going on there?’ she avoided his eye and shook her head, saying, ‘Nothing. He just … we were just chatting, that’s all.’

The whole scene, with its air of menace, was making her feel sick, but she didn’t see the point in rising Ari’s ire now, when the deal was all but done.

Lucy made sure to stick close to him after that, figuring the devil she knew was better than dealing with Anatolios or Helen, who she’d also seen in the distance.

Just before everyone started to disperse Ari pulled her aside and took a sheaf of folded documents out of his inside jacket pocket. He handed them to her and they were still warm from his body heat. Even that made her tremble.

‘Put these up in the safe in my room, would you, please? They’re the official merger documents for tomorrow.’

She just nodded, avoiding his eye, and hurried out of the ballroom, glad of the respite and a chance to get herself back under control.

Ari watched Lucy leave the room, his eyes drawn helplessly to her glorious body in the figure-hugging strapless dress. His hunger for her was like a wild thing within him—a beast clawing to get out.

He rationalised it: it had to be because she’d been holding him at arm’s length all week, her door firmly closed by the time he’d come back each evening. His mind had been helplessly distracted, despite the fact that he’d told her not to come to those late-night meetings, but now—His body tightened unbearably. The thought of her right now, in his room … He glanced around and knew he wouldn’t be missed for a few moments. His blood surged at the thought of tumbling her onto his bed and sating this demon desire inside him.

Lucy was walking over to where the safe was hidden in the wardrobe of Ari’s bedroom when she heard something at the door. She turned and went back, thinking it might be the turn down staff. When she saw Anatolios slipping into the room she froze.

‘What are you doing here? How did you get in?’

He smiled nastily, and she saw his eyes take in the documents in her hand. She hurriedly put them behind her back.

He kept coming towards her, and she started to back away into the bedroom.

‘Oh, let’s just say I’m in Athens a lot more than Ari these days, so I have my contacts. Now, why don’t you show me what you have hidden behind your pretty back?’

He was coming straight at her and Lucy froze for a second, fear gripping her like a cold, clammy hand. He was almost on her before she turned and stumbled, making for the safe before he could get the documents from her.

She felt her arm grabbed in a merciless grip and cried out, tipping off balance. Anatolios jerked her back painfully.

‘Let me go.’

He was reaching around her, trying to get the papers, his face red and flushed. In a bid to get away, though his arms were wrapped tight around her now, Lucy dropped the papers behind her and used her hands to try and push him off. He saw the papers and lunged, knocking them both to the ground. He fell as a heavy weight on top of her, reaching underneath her for the papers.

Lucy was struggling in earnest now. She could feel her dress riding up her leg, her chest being squashed by his heavy weight. ‘You … Get off me. I can’t … breathe …’

‘What the hell is going on here?’