“I get that you’re convinced, and no way am I going to say your sperm donor sounds like a nice guy.”
“But?” Andreas asked, his mouth a flat line, his tone mocking.
“But you were grieving the loss of the one person you loved in the world when Barnabas Georgas showed up in your life and came stomping in with his ugly, heavy hobnailed boots, prepared to get what he wanted by hook or by crook. He was an arrogant monster, no denial, but I’m not convinced he wasn’t also a man desperate to reconnect to the son he thought lost to him forever.”
“By his own choice.”
“Yes, a choice he probably regretted deeply and not only because he and his wife had never been able to have children together.”
“Why would you believe this?”
“Because in the beginning, he could have squashed you like a bug. He didn’t do that.” And she wasn’t just talking about when Andreas went to Greece, but if Barnabas Georgas had wanted to crush KJ Software before they made a name for themselves, he could have done it.
He’d never even tried. He’d never tried to block Andreas getting into the university he’d wanted to. He’d done nothing to prevent his son’s successes.
Maybe he was playing a long game, hoping Andreas would one day come back and play the Georgas heir, but maybe he just wanted his son to be happy and successful.
Andreas opened his mouth and then shut it again.
“How did his wife treat you?”
“She was surprisingly kind.” Andreas shrugged. “I thought she would hate me, but she didn’t. She didn’t hate my father either.”
“You thought she should.”
“He cheated on her.” Andreas looked baffled. “She treated him with what looked like genuine affection and he was very respectful and warm toward her.”
“Do you think his relationship with your mother was an aberration?”
“It may have been. There was no evidence of other mistresses in the wings, but then he’d done a decent job of keeping my mother a secret, as well.”
They’d reached the area under the bridge again by this point and for the first time in hours, Andreas pulled his phone out. He sent a text.
She gave him a questioning look.
“Calling for our car.”
“The same driver?” she asked, immediate embarrassment at the idea she had to face someone who knew what she’d been doing with him in the car earlier suffusing her with heat.
“I don’t know. It’s a service.”
“Oh.”
“You blush kind of spectacularly.”
Yeah, despite her dusky skin tone, she still managed to show the world when she was embarrassed. “You’re not supposed to notice.”
“I was unaware of that rule.”
She just shook her head. “How is it that people think I’m the one who is socially awkward?”
“Because you do not recognize certain social cues. I ignore them.”
“And that makes it okay?” she demanded. “It’s fine for you, but not for me?”
“No double standard exists between us because I have never considered your quirks as less than and you have always tolerated my impatience with the social niceties.”
“The rest of the world says you are normal, while I am not.”
“The rest of the world does not matter.”
A sleek black sedan pulled up, forestalling any further discussion on the matter. Kayla wasn’t sure she had any more to add anyway. Andreas didn’t care what others thought and she had learned long ago she couldn’t let them matter too much either.
Nevertheless, she was glad to see the driver was unfamiliar.
Andreas closed the privacy screen between the back and the driver as soon as they were settled in their seats. Kayla’s heart sped up, her breath catching as a curl of undeniable anticipation warred with her common sense.
She jerked her head side to side several times. “No, no, no, Andreas. We are not doing that again.”
“Doing what?” he asked, devilish amusement sparkling in his green gaze.
Her fingers scrabbled for her headphones that were not there, nothing to cut out the rest of the world. Nothing to help her ignore Andreas and the maelstrom of emotions he evoked inside her. “You do not pull off innocent. At all.”
“That is because I left innocent behind a long time ago.”
She would have answered, in wholehearted agreement, but masculine lips pressed firmly against hers. The kiss didn’t shock her this time. Not even a little. She knew it was coming. Had known it was coming since getting out of the car before crossing the bridge.
Even without the surprise factor, it still annihilated her senses.
Despite her verbal protests, she didn’t fight the sensations roaring through her. There was simply no point. Whatever the rational part of her brain told her, she knew the truth deep in her soul. Kayla wanted this kiss. This moment. This feeling.
She wanted Andreas.
All rational argument against intimacy with him went up in the conflagration of desire a single touch of his mouth to her elicited.
She let herself experience it all, every amazing spark of sexual energy, each tiny zing of sensual delight. She had no idea how much of this physical intimacy she and Andreas would have...how much was on offer, much less how much she could ultimately allow herself.
But she was going to revel in every moment between them, because she knew the frozen chill of loneliness while standing beside him in the same room all too well. She knew what years of want, need, aching unfulfilled desire felt like.
She knew the deep, searing pain of unrequited love, of frustrated longing, of lust that went unsatiated so long, she almost forgot what true sexual contentment felt like.
Kayla knew what it was to hunger. She’d spent her lifetime wishing for things just out of reach, grieving losses she’d never had any control over.
In this moment she would embrace the getting, no matter how temporary.
This time, she didn’t just hold on to him while they kissed, she explored the hard planes of his body, both remembering and rediscovering him in the most visceral of ways. Her hands skimmed over Andreas, mapping every bulging muscle, touching places she knew caused him extra pleasure. Triumph flared through her when his breath caught, his kiss growing more fervent, proving her touch was true, her memories still accurate, that she, Kayla Jones, was capable of turning this man—the only man who mattered to her—on.
When she curled her hand around his hard sex, his response was electric. Andreas’s big body went rigid, his groan deep and loud.
He slid his lips from hers, along her jaw. “Careful, pethi mou. We will never make it to our next tourist attraction if you keep doing that.”
“If you gave the driver any address but our hotel, Andreas Kostas—” she paused, her hand tightening on its cloth-covered prize, letting the seriousness of her words sink in “—I am going to infect every single one of your connected devices with an irreparable virus.”
It wasn’t an idle or paltry threat. She’d connected his smartphone to his tablet, which was now also linked to his work system as well as the system that controlled his home’s heating, lights, etc., as well as his alarm systems. No one else could have done it, but Kayla could bring Andreas’s life to a standstill.
His deep, sexy chuckle said despite the severity of her threat, Andreas was not worried.
Pulling back, she glared up at him. “You think I’m joking?”
“Oh, no, Kay-love. I am certain you would follow through.” He trapped her hand where it was, even though her body was straining back, his gorgeous eyes glittering with green fire. “I have never enjoyed another woman’s hands on me as much as yours.”
“Do not try to sweet-talk me, Kostas. I’m not in the mood for your teasing.”
“I see that.” He thrust against her hand, the hard bulge under her hand more a temptation than he could possibly know.
“So?”
“Are you demanding we
go back to the hotel and make love?” he asked, no mockery or even justifiable triumph in his tone, just a good dose of sexual heat.
She glared, her own frustration boiling near the surface, realizing he was calling the bluff of all her earlier denials, demanding she spell it out for him. “Are you saying you would rather do something else?”
“No.” He was suddenly very serious. “There is nothing I want more.”
“And the tourist attraction?”
“A joke.”
“In poor taste.” And maybe she was a teensy, tiny bit defensive.
“But I like when you get testy.”
“You can be really annoying, Dre.”