Читать книгу The Royal House Of Karedes Collection Books 1-12 - Кейт Хьюит, Шантель Шоу - Страница 52

SHE hadn’t counted on being dumped unceremoniously in the kitchen with Deefer, but that was exactly what happened.

The crowd parted as Andreas left with his wife. At the last minute he swept her up in his arms and they left behind a crowd cheering and wishing them the best. She lay submissive in his arms—what else was a bride to do, after all? But then instead of carrying her triumphantly up the grand central staircase to the royal bridal chamber—or wherever palaces accommodated newlyweds—he shoved door after door open, carrying her down into the rear of the castle to the servants’ quarters. Finally he swung open a last door and set her on her feet.

She almost staggered. The dress was a dead weight around her—she’d been carrying half a ton all day. She’d been too dazed to notice. When Andreas in his fabulous royal regalia was carrying her she didn’t care, but set down unceremoniously in the royal kitchen she found she did care. A lot.

The kitchen had vast, ancient flagstones, a range that took up half a wall, a table that could seat twenty or so—and little else. It was deserted, apart from Deefer who peered sleepily from a dog bed by the stove, gave his tail a perfunctory wag and then finally decided it did behove him to raise himself to welcome his mistress.

She bent to greet him and Andreas was already backing out the door. What the …?

‘Um… is the Cinderella thing over?’ she asked uncertainly. ‘Is it midnight yet? My gown’s still a gown.’

‘Stay here,’ he growled. ‘I didn’t expect… I have things to organize.’

‘You didn’t expect what?’ she demanded.

‘A wife,’ he said and paused, stepped forward, hauled her close and kissed her. One harsh, demanding and possessive kiss—and then he was gone. ‘Wait,’ he said over his shoulder as he strode away down the corridor. ‘Go nowhere.’

And where was a girl to go after that? Nowhere. Even if she could find her way back to her apartments through the corridors. Which she couldn’t.

So she sat by the stove in her ridiculous bridal gear and waited for her husband and tried to make herself think of something other than how she was married and she didn’t know what was going to happen and she was… scared?

Scared of something happening?

Um… no. Scared of something not happening.

What would happen if someone came in and found her here? The servants would come eventually, she thought. There she’d be when they came in to cook breakfast, the royal bride hugging her dog, looking ridiculous.

‘We’re in over our heads,’ she told Deefer, but Deefer was one tired pup and he simply curled up into a ball on the crazy lace confection covering her knees and slept again.

Lucky Deefer.

Fifteen minutes. Twenty. The clock over the vast mantel ticked like a bomb. Tick tick tick.

She was going nuts.

The door swung open again. Andreas. Still in his ceremonial bridal toggery. Still looking absurdly handsome.

Still her husband.

‘We’re ready,’ he said and she suddenly had a ghastly vision of the royal brides she’d heard of in history—a dozen witnesses clustered around the bed waiting for evidence of her virginity.

‘Um… we?’ she whispered, and he chuckled and strode forward, lifted Deefer from her arms and pulled her lightly up to stand beside him.

‘Georgiou.’

‘Oh, goody,’ she whispered. ‘My favourite person.’

‘My favourite helicopter pilot,’ he said. ‘I’ve had too much wine to fly myself. Not that I’m drunk but there’s zero alcohol tolerance for flying. Besides, I wish to concentrate entirely on my bride. So what say Georgiou takes us away from all this? Back to our island.’

Her eyes widened in shock. ‘We can just… go?’

‘That’s just what I think we should do,’ he said. ‘We’ve done the honourable thing, my love. The rest of the night’s just for us.’

‘And Georgiou.’

‘As you say,’ he said and grinned. ‘But I’m thinking the island’s big enough for all of us.’

This was ridiculous. She should have insisted on changing clothes, Holly thought as she sat on the opposite side of the helicopter to Andreas and hugged Deefer. To travel in her wedding gown—she still had the tiara in her curls!—seemed crazy. As did the fact that Andreas was still wearing his royal regalia. He was leaning back in the luxurious leather chair that served as the helicopter seat, his eyes almost closed, as if in meditation. What was he thinking? He had a bride?

What was he going to do with her?

In days of old she’d be a trembling virgin, terrified of what lay ahead. Bolstered by maternal advice… Don’t be frightened, there’s nothing to it. Lie back and think of England and it’ll soon be over.

She bit back a nervous giggle and Andreas turned.

‘So what are you thinking?’

‘Of England,’ she said and bit her bottom lip and thought the tension was going to kill her. What was she doing? A kid from Munwannay, in the royal helicopter, in full bridal toggery, being carried to an island hideaway with her prince.

Her husband.

If he thought he was going to…

Of course he thought he was going to, she told herself. He’d gone to all this trouble to get them alone. And they were married, in the sight of God and before such a congregation…

‘England,’ he said blankly.

‘It’s what all brides think of on their wedding night.’

‘Really?’

‘Absolutely,’ she assured him, trying hard not to sound breathless. ‘I’m trying to sort out the English mountains. Ben something… Isn’t that the biggest? And what’s the capital of Sussex? Don’t distract me.’

He didn’t distract her. He simply grinned, turned back to his window and let her be. By the time they landed she’d not only had time to think about England’s biggest mountain, but she’d had time to reach a point where her nerves were threatening to snap. What did she think she was doing? She hadn’t agreed to this. It was a marriage in name only.

No. It wasn’t. Not when Andreas looked as he did, when she felt as she did and it had been ten long years. Holly’s life on a remote cattle station had been very remote indeed. In a few weeks she’d be back there and this was all she’d have to remember.

Except… Except.

‘I can’t get pregnant,’ she said suddenly into the stillness as the helicopter landed and the roar of the motor died to nothing. The thought had hit her as a vicious slap. What was she risking? The whole nightmare happening all over again?

‘It won’t happen,’ Andreas said gravely.

‘I believe that’s what you said last time.’

‘I’ve taken precautions.’

‘Like you’ve had a vasectomy?’

He smiled, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. ‘No,’ he said, ‘though Christina wanted me to.’

‘Your wife wanted you to have a vasectomy?’

‘She didn’t want children.’

‘Did you want children?’

‘More than anything in the world,’ he said simply and she knew he was speaking a fundamental truth. ‘But you needn’t worry. Not with you. Not this night.’

‘So you’ve brought the odd condom.’

‘Or six,’ he said and the gravity went from his eyes. ‘Or more if we need.’

‘You’re acting on a huge presumption.’

‘Which is?’

‘That I’ll go to bed with you.’

‘You put your ring on my finger.’

‘So that means…’

‘You want me as much as I want you.’

‘Andreas, you and I…’

‘I understand,’ he said softly. ‘No, Holly, I’m not asking you to join the royal entourage. I will keep my word and let you go. But for tonight… I’m hoping tonight can just be for us. A night out of frame. So I’ve brought you here.’

‘And I’ve come,’ she whispered. ‘But, Andreas, if I were to get pregnant…’

‘I’d take care of it this time,’ he said, strongly. ‘I’d take care of you.’

‘You’d take care of… it?’ The joy had gone out of the night. Reality, cold, hard, appalling, had raised its ugly head. This wasn’t a fairy tale. This was real.

He’d take care of… it? What, abortion?

‘I’ll do nothing you don’t want,’ he said.

‘Like I believe that. Bringing me all this way…’

‘I’ll take no unwilling bride to bed,’ he said, sounding suddenly stern. Royal even, and the thought almost made her smile. He might be her Andreas, the Andreas she loved with all her heart, but try as he might, he was still a prince. Her prince.

‘It’s not that I’m unwilling, Andreas,’ she whispered, trying to make him see. ‘God help me, I’ve wanted you for years.’

‘That’s wonderful,’ he said, and he smiled that gut-wrenching smile she loved so much.

‘But there are consequences,’ she managed.

‘There are,’ he said gravely. They were strapped into separate seats, separated by three feet of open space. He reached across and touched her hand, fleetingly, a feather touch of something that was obviously supposed to be reassurance. And stupidly, insensibly she was reassured.

But not enough. Not enough.

‘It’d be crazy to go to bed,’ she said miserably. ‘When this marriage is only for a few weeks.’

‘The marriage is for as long as we want it to be,’ he said.

‘Right. You need a commoner for a bride like you need the plague, and I need to go home.’

‘Do you really need to go home?’

‘Yes,’ she whispered, thinking back to that tiny grave.

I’ll take care of it. The words had brought Adam’s loss flooding back. Her mother, visiting her fleetingly, saying ‘Never mind, dear. He was never going to marry you. Losing it is for the best. Now you can get on with your life.’

She’d never got on with her life. She’d worked hard, she’d tried to live her life to the full, but a part of her had been buried the night she’d buried Adam. To get it back…

‘This is wrong,’ she whispered, miserably, and Andreas reached out again and took her hand strongly in his.

‘It isn’t wrong,’ he said. ‘Not now. But we’ll take this as it comes. Don’t look like that, my love. I will not force myself on you.’

‘But you’ve brought six condoms.’

‘Just in case,’ he said and he quizzed her gently with his teasing smile. ‘Just on the chance you decide I’m not so bad after all. I am your husband, Holly.’

‘You’re saying you have rights?’

‘No rights,’ he said. ‘Let’s just play this night as it comes.’

Okay. She wasn’t going to sleep with him. That was the sensible course, and she knew enough of her… her husband… to know he wouldn’t take her against her will.

So it was only her will that was the problem, she thought, and her will had to be cast-iron. She’d walk into the pavilion from the helicopter, she’d bid Andreas a civil goodnight—maybe she’d even apologize because just possibly she’d given him the wrong idea—and then she’d go to bed. In her bedroom. With the door locked.

Sophia would be here. That steadied her. She could do this.

But there was the first hiccup in her plans. The pavilion was deserted. There was no Sophia and Nikos to meet them. Georgiou escorted them to the entrance from the helicopter pad and then faded into the darkness. Wherever the staff were tonight they weren’t here. It was Andreas himself who flung open the huge doors—and when she saw what was inside Holly gasped in shock.

Candles. Candles as far as the eye could see.

The huge central courtyard with its magnificent pool was a glittering mass of flickering candlelight. There were even tiny tealights floating on the water of the pool, their flames reflecting over and over in the depths of the still water.

The fireflies were at work as well, seemingly encouraged by such a mass of flickering light. Last time she’d been here she’d seen and loved them, but there surely hadn’t been as many as there were this night. Their tiny moving glows brought the whole place alive with light, alive with the warmth of the flames.

‘So many fireflies,’ she whispered.

‘I paid ‘em to come,’ Andreas said and looked smug.

What else had he paid to have done?

The big table had been removed. There was one small table right by the water, set for two. A path of candles led to it.

Right by the door—in a pool of light created by a sweep of graded candles—was a pile of pillows. Huge. Soft.

In the middle of the central pillow was a bone. One vast marrowbone, with a central section carefully carved out so a small dog could reach the marrow. If he tried hard enough. If he didn’t succumb to the pure luxury of the down-filled cushions beforehand.

‘You’re even trying to seduce my dog,’ she whispered, awed, as Andreas took the sleepy Deefer from her arms and plopped him on the pillows. Deefer looked adoringly up at Andreas as if to say if this was seduction then thank you very much, he’d take it every time. He put his small mouth round his very big bone, he snuggled into the cushions, he put two paws possessively over the bone—and he went back to sleep. Clearly he was in doggy heaven and he intended to stay there for a very long time.

‘I don’t think I had to try very hard,’ Andreas said and smiled. ‘I suspect Deefer considers himself seduced. And now, my love,’ he growled and took her by the waist. ‘Now for us.’

‘Andreas…’

‘Meal only,’ he said, sounding innocent. ‘I swear.’

‘When did you set this all up?’ she whispered, awed.

‘I didn’t.’ His dark eyes gleamed in appreciation as he surveyed the scene beforehand. ‘I’d anticipated spending this night at the palace. Only then… it seemed important. So I rang Sophia and said we’d be here.’

Sophia must have done all this before, Holly thought, trying not to think it, but thinking it all the same.

‘She hasn’t done it before,’ Andreas growled, his hold on her tightening.

‘How did you know …?’

‘I could feel it. Holly, despite how this appears, this is no practised seduction scene.’

‘N… no?’

‘I brought Christina here early in our marriage,’ he said. ‘Years ago. She loathed it. No shops. No jet-setting friends. She never came again and I brought no one else.’

‘You’ve never brought a woman here?’ she demanded, not believing him. ‘Don’t tell me there was only Christina.’

‘I won’t tell you that. I won’t lie to you,’ he said. ‘But I’ve brought none of my mistresses here. Until you.’

‘I’m not your mistress,’ she said sharply and he nodded, as if in courteous acknowledgement.

‘Maybe that’s why you’re here. You’re my wife,’ he said and his hold on her tightened, until suddenly it seemed that tight wasn’t enough, he was forced to sweep her up in his arms and hold her against his heart. ‘You are my wife, and this night I intend to take you. Or…’ he amended as he felt her stiffen, ‘I intended to take you. Until I heard your very reasonable reservations about why six condoms won’t necessarily work. But let’s not worry about that now. I believe Sophia has left a meal for us. I haven’t seen you eat all day. For what I have in store for you tonight I want no wilting bride.’

So they ate. To her amazement she was hungry. Sophia must have half expected this. She’d surely planned it. But still Sophia remained invisible. It was Andreas who did the serving, disappearing and appearing again like a genie producing his magic.

He was still dressed in full dress uniform, his tunic buttoned high to his throat, his scarlet sash and medals emblazoned on his chest. He’d removed his dress sword but that was his only concession to casual. His high leather boots gleamed like jet-black mirrors. And his tight-fitting pants… There should be a law against them, she thought. For a man to wear such things… For a prince to wear them as he served her…

He was a prince serving his bride. And with food fit for the bride of such a man. Course after course, each small, each tantalizing, each delicious.

Kotosoupa Avgolemono … A chicken and rice soup, with egg and lemon…

He’d made this for her before, she remembered, once when her parents had left them alone together for the evening. ‘I’ll cook,’ he’d said, and she’d scoffed but he’d simply smiled his fabulously sexy smile and made her a soup she’d remembered ever since.

She’d watched him make it. For years after he left she’d tried to make it again, but it had never tasted the same.

It did tonight.

She raised her spoon to her mouth and he was watching every move; a hawk watching his prey, she thought.

‘You like?’ he said and she closed her eyes and savoured the taste of it and the memories and she couldn’t lie.

‘It’s magic. You cooked this for me years ago…’

‘I did,’ he said and smiled. ‘You remembered. I’ll cook it for you again. Whenever you want, my heart.’

She almost choked. She looked across the table and he was smiling at her and she thought of those six condoms and she thought, No, no, no.

‘Leave me alone,’ she managed, sounding virtuous. ‘I need to concentrate.’

‘There’s plenty to concentrate on,’ he agreed gravely. ‘You keep concentrating, my heart, and I’ll keep feeding you.’

So she kept eating. There was no choice—and in truth she had been hungry.

There was no way she was leaving this table hungry. Andreas was already leaving, to return with what came next. Tiny vol au vents, made with flaky, buttery pastry that melted almost as it touched her lips, filled with ingredients she couldn’t identify and didn’t need to—the combination of flavours was just right. Just perfect. Tiny and exquisite.

Then there was a modest medallion of rare fillet beef, served with baby mushrooms and a rich burgundy sauce. There were slivers of young asparagus, oozing butter. A tiny pile of creamy mashed potato. With truffle? Surely not. But, yes, she’d tasted truffle once in the distant past, and here it was again, unmistakable.

They didn’t talk. She couldn’t talk. She was saying a mantra over and over in her head.

Sensible. Sensible. Sensible.

How could she stay sensible? She was achingly aware of his every movement, of every flicker of those dark, dark eyes. He was watching her as she ate, devouring her with his eyes. She should object. She should…

Just eat, she told herself. Just watch him. Maybe even relax a little? Just take every moment of this magic meal as it came. The time for making things clear they were going no further was for later.

The steak was gone, the plates cleared by her prince, her waiter, her husband. He poured her a glass of dessert wine, a botrytis-affected Semillon. To her amazement it was Australian, a winemaker she knew, a wine she’d loved for always.

‘How …?’

‘I remembered,’ he said and smiled. ‘I had Georgiou find this wine. Just for tonight.’

She drank and her resolutions grew hazier. This was only her second glass. She was hardly drunk. She was just… entranced?

Seduced?

No!

But he’d remembered her wine.

And then there were sweets—tiny, bite-sized eclairs oozing with rich, dark chocolate and creamy custard. There were strawberries tasting how strawberries should and never did, but this night how could they help but taste like this? Andreas watched her as she put each red fruit between her lips, and he smiled and they might as well be making love. The candles were flickering, burning to stubs. They were going out, one by one, and the light was fading.

The night was ending.

She was half expecting Sophia to appear, to clear the table, to bid them goodnight, but there was still no one in sight. Just the two of them. She and her husband.

She took her last sip of coffee. ‘I need to go to bed,’ she said, a little unsteadily, and Andreas was behind her, drawing out her chair, helping her to her feet, his hands holding hers with strength and desire and absolute surety of what was to follow.

‘I believe we’ve missed our bridal waltz,’ he whispered into her ear and suddenly it was all she could do not to chuckle.

‘You have some set-up here.’

‘I knew I built it for something. I believe I built it for tonight.’ He was whispering into her ear, his breath warm on her skin, his touch sending heat surging to every part of her body. He deliberately unfastened the top two buttons of his tunic, loosening the garment as a non-royal would shrug off a tie. Then before she could respond, before she could haul her resolutions into line again, he swept her up into his arms and strode to a central panel. Still holding her in his arms, he pushed discreet buttons and on came a waltz, slow and soft and dreamy.

Wordlessly he carried her back to the side of the pool, he set her to her feet, he drew her into his arms and started to dance with her.

This was the most perfect seduction scene. And she was being perfectly seduced.

She should fight. She should push away and leave.

How could she do such a thing when Andreas was holding her in his arms?

So she danced.

With the social ambition of her parents she’d been taught to dance almost before she’d been taught to ride, but it was years since she had. Like riding a horse, though, you never forgot. And she’d never forgotten dancing with Andreas. The first night he’d arrived in Munwannay her parents had put on a dance to welcome him. He’d asked for the waltz, she’d been swept onto the floor—and her life had changed.

Not one thing had changed since then, she thought dazedly. She was falling in love all over again. She was being swept around the floor with her lovely bridal gown looped up and held, the rich folds of silk swaying around her. Andreas’s arms were holding her as if she were the most precious porcelain; as if she was the most desirable woman in the world.

As he was her most desirable man. Her prince.

She was melting into him. Her face was against his breast. His opened tunic meant that her face was brushing his chest. He felt… irresistible. He smelled irresistible. Strong and male and… her husband.

No. This wasn’t sensible. This marriage was for a few weeks only and if something happened…

But she wanted him so badly it was like a searing, physical ache. A void that had to be filled and only he could fill it. He was holding her closer, closer. Their feet moved in perfect unison; he was anticipating her every move, or maybe she was anticipating his. Who knew?

Her husband.

‘Andreas,’ she whispered and she heard him groan softly into her hair.

‘My love?’

‘Enough already with the seduction scene,’ she whispered unsteadily.

‘You don’t like it?’

‘I said I’ve had it with the set-up,’ she whispered back and her hands came up and gripped his head and tugged his face down so his mouth met hers. ‘I can’t wait. Damn the risks. Oh, Andreas, I know this is crazy, but I want you so much.’

‘I wanted you to want me,’ he said, and she could practically see his smile.

She gave a little gasp and pulled away. He was laughing. Laughing! With those dark, dark eyes that glowed with desire.

‘And do you want me to want you?’ he asked, and suddenly the laughter was gone. The look in his eyes was deadly serious. ‘Holly, I’ve said I’ll take no unwilling bride. I want you more than life itself but you come to me willingly or not at all. Do you want me as much as I want you?’

And there was only one answer she could give. There was only one answer in the world. Sensible or not.

It wasn’t sensible. It was dumb, dumb, dumb but she didn’t care.

‘I do,’ she said simply, and then gasped as he swept her up into his arms again. And then there was no room for anything. There was no room for any words at all.

The night was warm and starlit. His bedroom was open to the night, the shutters pushed far back so it seemed that his vast bed was on a platform overlooking the moonlit sea. He carried her there triumphantly, tenderly, and she lay back in his arms and smiled up at him and thought, this is where I should be. This is my husband. This is my heart, my home.

My Andreas.

There was no going back now. He was setting her down by the bed and she could barely stand. Her body was on fire and if he’d put her away she would have fought her way back to him. He was hers. Her body was aching for him, throbbing its want. She gazed up at him and saw her hot, desperate need reflected in the eyes of the man she loved.

Andreas.

‘Holly,’ he whispered, his voice husky with passion. ‘My wife.’

And then… How was she suddenly without clothes? How was she so soon lying on silken sheets with nothing between herself and the man she loved but sheer, raw desire?

Had he undressed her? He must have, while she was concentrating on ridding him of unwanted garments. But she hardly saw his clothes. All she thought of was his body. All she wanted was him. Years ago she’d known and gloried in this man’s body and tonight it felt as if she was coming home.

‘You’re beautiful,’ she whispered, awed, as they sank onto the bed together, and he laughed, a soft, throaty chuckle as he laid her on the silken sheets, following her down and gathering her naked body into his arms.

‘You… To say that to me, my heart…’

And then he was kissing her, not just on the lips but everywhere, toes to forehead and back down again, slowly, tenderly, while she writhed and moaned with pleasure. She was alive under his hands, under his touch. Her body felt as if it were waking after a long, long sleep, every nerve-end aware, alight, afire.

She was touching him too, running her hands through his hair, feeling his nakedness, glorying in the hard arrant maleness of his body. She was alive as she hadn’t been alive for long, barren years, awaking after a too-long sleep to this all-consuming blaze. Her body was melting into him with a fierce heat she’d forgotten she was capable of feeling. The touch of him… He was hers. Hers, she thought fiercely.

For years she’d thought it was a fairy tale. She’d thought her memories of the way Andreas had made her feel were a figment of a girl’s romantic yearning; her first love with a prince, a time out of frame, the full fairy story.

There’d been the odd guy she could have started something with. Neighbours. Stock and station agents. Other teachers. But she’d looked at them and internally she’d lined them up against Andreas and thought, who was she kidding? She’d had the romantic fairy tale and to go back to the real world seemed impossible.

So she’d hung onto a fairy tale, knowing it was just that, imagination and nostalgia.

Only it wasn’t. For the way Andreas made her feel…

He was everything she remembered and more. Demanding, aristocratic, overwhelming in his sheer masculinity. But still tender at core, wanting her to share his exultation—no, demanding that she share his exultation. He gloried in her body, tasting her, touching her, exploring every inch of her with wonder and languorous pleasure and wanton delight—but he expected the same of her. That she know him as he wished to know her. That she give pleasure as he intended to give pleasure. That she take this coupling slowly, savouring every last moment of its wonder.

And she did. She did. The feel of his body in her arms was close to overwhelming.

And when finally, blissfully the moment came when he was entering her… taking her, demanding she follow where he led… she felt herself cry out with sheer joy. They merged, and the night exploded in a mist of white-hot desire. And then they lay, sated but still linked, still loving, until the heat built again and raw need took over from the blissful afterglow of consummation.

For this was no one-coupling night. It was as if their bodies were demanding that they make up, in part, for all these years they’d missed. This night was too precious for sleep. She’d dreamed of this man for ever and sleep was for the barren years, for another time, something to be put away as irrelevant.

All that mattered now was Andreas.

He’d changed, she thought wonderingly during this long, languorous night. His was no longer a boy’s body, but a man’s, hard and muscular. Royal or not, this wasn’t the indulged body of a playboy prince. He’d loved working on the farm, she remembered, savouring the hard physical requirements of axing tree stumps, of hauling out rotten fence posts, of heaving bales of hay for hungry cattle. Somewhere in the last years he must have found an alternative to farm work, for his body was all muscle, hard and sinewy and fabulous.

Fabulous. The word whispered over and over in her mind as she lay with him through the night, her fingers exploring, her tongue discovering, her legs holding him possessively in between couplings. Skin against skin on the silken sheets of Andreas’s vast princely bed, still they weren’t close enough.

But they could be. Over and over, each time striving to be closer, closer. The night wasn’t long enough. By rights they should be exhausted but there was no way this night could end with them asleep.

‘You’re so much more beautiful than I remembered,’ he whispered, awed, at some time during the night and she thought, so are you, so are you. ‘My beautiful Holly. My magical outback princess.’

Like young lovers they clung, holding to each other in the dark, exploring, exulting, wanting more, more, until dawn finally came, a tangerine flush appearing softly over the horizon, and a kind of peace that was deeper than she’d ever felt before fell over the pair of them. They lay naked and entwined and she felt seventeen again, beloved, with the world at her feet, her prince in love with her, her man in her arms and nothing could go wrong with her world ever again.

‘Can I take you for a swim, my love?’ Andreas whispered into the dawn, and she thought she must be dreaming.

‘I believe you can take me wherever you want,’ she managed.

He smiled, then swung himself up and over her, so he was smiling down at her. He kissed her on the tip of her nose. ‘Then a swim it is.’

‘I don’t believe I’m capable of moving the tip of my smallest finger,’ she whispered, cautious.

‘But you’d like a swim?’

‘Maybe a soak?’ she whispered, tugging him back down to her.

‘Then a soak you shall have,’ he said, and before she knew what he was about he’d rolled off the bed and swung her up into his arms. She gave a squeak of surprise and he grinned down at her, his smile pure mischief. And then he was striding towards the door and she was too stunned to even struggle.

‘We’re naked,’ she managed and her voice came out an even higher squeak.

‘Are we?’ He stopped dead, as if such a thought hadn’t occurred to him. He looked down at her, and his dark eyes gleamed with laughter. ‘So we are,’ he said on a note of wonder. ‘How wonderful.’ He kissed her on the top of her head and then as she twisted he found her lips and kissed her more deeply still. But he’d reached the door and pushed the handle down with his elbow, and was striding out. Past the pool. Through the entrance hall. Out into daylight, to the open world where the beach lay before them in gold and turquoise wonder.

‘Andreas, we’re naked,’ she squeaked again, half laughing, half shocked. The feel of his bare skin against hers in the warm morning wind was almost unbearably erotic. But she had to be sensible. Someone had to be sensible. Dear God, he was gorgeous. Her big, naked prince. Her Andreas.

Her husband.

But: ‘Sophia…’ she whispered desperately. ‘Georgiou…’

‘Sophia will have the others carefully on the other side of the pavilion,’ he said, not breaking stride.

‘She has instructions for when you bring your women here?’

He stopped at that. Stopped dead and his brow snapped down into a frown. ‘No,’ he said, and his tone was suddenly harsh. ‘I’ve told you. I’ve brought no other women here.’

‘Like I believe that.’

‘You can believe it,’ he whispered and kissed her again, so deeply there was no room for argument; there was no room for anything but heat and want and now. ‘I’ve brought you here, my woman. My wife. It was time to bring you home.’

And then he didn’t stop until he reached the shallows. He laid her down, almost reverently, on the soft sand, where the tiny waves rippled in and out. She gasped as her overheated body met the cool of the water, but then Andreas was following her down, gathering her to him, taking her to him with a desire that said this was to be no gentle soak.

‘I thought…’

‘You think what you like,’ he growled and pulled her to him, under him, his knees sinking into the soft sand, his hands holding her face as he tugged her closer, closer until once more their bodies met, fused, merged. ‘I can’t think at all. My Holly. Agapi mou. My heart.’