‘What?’ she asked, faking bravado. ‘Did I strike too close to home?’
He tugged her into the stairwell and slammed the door behind them. ‘You are so determined to provoke a reaction in me,’ he whispered, hemming her in against the cool wall with his hands. ‘So keen to make me lash out in a specific way.’
He leaned closer still.
‘You want me to do what I did the other night so you can cast me as your villain. But the truth is you liked it. You’re attracted to me. You want me. You just don’t want to admit it.’ His lips curved with arrogant satisfaction.
‘I don’t want you.’
Her heart thundered. She was shocked at his verbal attack. Shocked more by the unfurling betrayal of her body. He was right. She did want him.
His gaze swept down, lingering on her tightened breasts.
She gasped. ‘You’re the most arrogant creature who walked the planet.’
‘Well, that’s a step up from being a monster.’ He laughed. ‘And at least I’m honest.’
‘You want honesty?’
‘It’d be a good start.’
‘You’re the last man I’d be attracted to.’
He snorted. ‘I think I’m the only man you have been attracted to.’
He was right—which was all the more annoying. Why did it have to be him, of all people?
‘Everything comes too easily to you,’ she grumbled. ‘You think you can have any woman you want. Everything in your life is disposable.’
‘Nothing in my life is disposable.’ His smile gained a bitter edge. ‘Everything I do has more consequences than for most people. Nothing is forgotten.’ He stepped back but took her clenched fist in his hand. ‘Did some powerful, wealthy man hurt you, Kassiani?’
Of course. Starting with her louse of a father.
‘What makes you think there was only one?’
‘Poor little thing... But the pity card isn’t going to work on me,’ he muttered, unmoved. ‘Your past isn’t my problem. I’m concerned only with now. And right now you need to come with me.’
‘And if I refuse?’
‘You just want me to toss you over my shoulder.’ He laughed again at her expression. ‘Do you think I wouldn’t dare?’
She stared up at him. He would. But she couldn’t give in this easily—especially considering he was the one man she found sexually attractive.
‘I am trying to save you from a horror-fest,’ he growled.
‘I can take care of myself.’
He released her fist with a theatrical sigh and dug into his pocket.
‘Take a look at the damn screen.’ He flicked his phone around, almost shoving the screen in her face. ‘This is the mob outside your apartment right now.’
There was a bunch of men standing around outside her apartment. Guys in jeans and tees on scooters, with cameras and lights and phones. One was repeatedly banging on her door.
‘How can you see my apartment?’ She frowned. ‘Have you put cameras on me?’
‘This is a live feed from my security team. I have someone stationed in the building across the street to keep an eye on the place and the other is...’ He swiped the screen again, fury flickering across his face as he checked the screen before showing her again. ‘You can’t go home. Not until I have this under control.’
Kassie stared at the grainy image on the screen. There were two guys right in her back yard. ‘They’re going through my rubbish?’ Appalled, she leaned back against the cool wall for support. ‘That’s sick.’
‘Now do you understand? You don’t want to be running that gauntlet. You don’t want to hear their questions and have their cameras in your face. You need to leave with me. Now. They’ll already be here at the hospital, trying to get through Security.’
‘Why are they even here?’ She was shocked—she didn’t understand it at all.
‘Because your half-brother has just married my sister.’
She gaped at him for a full five seconds.
‘What?’ she muttered breathlessly. ‘He’s what?’
‘They returned. They married. This afternoon.’
She registered the grim tension in his eyes. ‘Are they okay? Is Eleni okay?’
‘I think so.’ Uncertainty flickered across his face, but then he straightened. ‘More okay than you’re about to be if you don’t come with me now.’
And was Giorgos okay? Because, to be honest, he didn’t really look it. He looked pale and, frankly, right on the edge.
Wordlessly, she turned and walked up the stairs with him, so full of questions that she didn’t know where to begin.
Less than two minutes later she was strapped in to take the first helicopter ride of her life. Giorgos handed her a headset and she put it on with fumbling fingers as the machine lifted into the sky.
‘We have a secure channel.’ His voice sounded too close, too intimate, even though he sat a foot apart from her in his own surprisingly spacious seat. ‘Not even the pilot can hear us.’
Yeah? Well she wasn’t about to have headset sex with him. She was too busy clutching on to the armrest and remembering to breathe, trying to get her head around the developments of the last ten minutes.
‘Are you okay?’ he asked, a reluctant smile breaking his frown.
‘I’m fine. You?’
‘I will be.’ He shot her a look. ‘I’m sorry.’
So was she. Because there was scandal here. Her mother had been a mistress—the ‘other woman’. And she was a child born of lust. The exact sort of juicy scandal that royals ought never to be tainted with...
‘How do you cope with it?’ She gestured to the phone he still held. ‘How do you live with that level of intrusion?’
‘I don’t have to. They don’t scrutinise me the way they would you or any woman.’ He frowned. ‘I know it’s not right. That’s why...’
‘You never have a girlfriend? You’d never subject any woman to this.?
?
‘I can’t protect anyone from it.’ He sighed. ‘Someone born into the craziness understands it, and at least has built the defences to cope with it. But the women get it far worse than the men.’
‘This is why you’re so protective of Eleni?’ It made sense to her now.
‘I’ve seen what it does to other women in public positions. I’ve seen their skeletal figures and the strain on their made-up faces at the stress of having their dress choices stupidly picked apart.’ He shoved his phone back into his pocket. ‘I didn’t want that for her. Ever. I wanted her out of the spotlight as much as possible. To go from the safety of one palace to another.’
‘But you can’t hide her away from life.’
‘Obviously not,’ he said grimly. ‘She was too vulnerable and naive.’
‘Because she hadn’t been out there—living life like a normal young woman, making mistakes—’
‘That was impossible,’ he argued strongly. But then he sighed. ‘And now she’s made the oldest mistake in the world...’
‘So you’ve made Damon marry her?’
‘I don’t think I could make him do anything he didn’t want to—he’s your half-brother after all.’ He shot her a look. ‘He all but abducted Eleni to prevent her marrying Prince Xander. He’s the one who pushed for this. Eleni thought she could go it alone.’
‘And you don’t think she could?’ Kassie felt her fighting spirit stir. ‘My mother went it alone.’
‘And was it easy?’
‘Of course not, but—’
‘Then you know exactly why I didn’t want that for Eleni,’ he interjected. ‘But it was Damon, not me, who convinced Eleni that marriage was the best answer. I wasn’t the bully this time—it had already happened.’
His gaze narrowed on her thoughtfully.
‘And how was it for you?’ he asked quietly.
‘How was what?’
‘Your mother’s decision to go it alone?’
‘She didn’t really have a choice, given my father was already married,’ she muttered through gritted teeth. ‘She avoided other men.’