His body was pressed up against hers, and it was an incredible body. Hard muscle, height, width—he was exquisitely proportioned. Even though the night was oppressively warm, she shivered.
He lifted a hand to her short hair, toying with the ends. ‘I’m attending a charity ball tomorrow on Corfu. It’s going to be glamorous. Men in dinner jackets, champagne in tall, slim glasses. Your kind of evening.’
Once again temptation pulled at her but this time she pulled back. ‘No, thank you.’
His eyes gleamed with exasperation. ‘What happened to the sweet, trusting girl who drank too much champagne and tried to seduce me? She would never have said no to a good night out.’
‘She grew up the night you used her to score points over a business rival.’ Terrified by her own feelings, she pushed past him but he caught her arm, his fingers holding her still.
‘What if my feelings for your father have nothing to do with our conflicting business interests?’ He spoke in a tone she’d never heard him use before and it made her pause.
‘Of course they do. You’re just two alpha males who have to win, and because two people can’t both win it’s never going to end.’
‘Your father ruined my father.’ His voice was hoarse and not entirely steady. ‘He took everything from him, starting with my mother.’
When Selene simply stared at him, he carried on. ‘I was eight years old when Stavros Antaxos landed in his flashy yacht and tempted her away with the promise of a lifestyle beyond her imagination. And just in case she ever changed her mind and considered returning to her husband and son he made sure there was nothing to return to. He destroyed my father’s fledgling business, his self-respect and his dignity, and the irony was he didn’t need to. The day my mother walked out my father lost everything that mattered to him. He loved her so much that his life had no meaning once she’d gone. So before you judge me remember I have more reason than most for knowing just how low your father will stoop.’
Selene was welded to the spot—and not just by the shock of that unexpected revelation and by the pain she saw in his face. It was the first time she’d seen him display any real human emotion. ‘I—I didn’t know.’
‘Well, now you do.’ His tone was flat. His expression blank.
‘There have always been women, of course. Before his marriage and afterwards.’ She said the words to herself as much as him. ‘It was one of the things I hated most—that my mother just accepted it as part of her marriage. I wanted her to have more self-respect, but she was dazzled by him to begin with and then ground down by him. He sucked the personality from her.’
‘Yes. That’s how he operates.’
‘It’s driven by insecurity.’ She saw it clearly now and wondered why she hadn’t before. ‘He doesn’t believe someone will stay with him if they can leave, so he stops them leaving. He makes them feel weak. As if they can’t survive without him.’ And suddenly she knew and the realisation made her feel sick. ‘There was a woman—a woman who was in love with him years before my mother ever came on the scene—and she drowned on the rocks off Antaxos.’
He released her suddenly. ‘We never knew if it was an accident or if she jumped.’
Without waiting for her to respond he strode away from her, leaving Selene staring after him in appalled silence.
Your father ruined my father.
The woman who had drowned was his mother.
‘Stefan, wait—Stefan.’ But her voice was lost in the crowd and he was already out of sight, his long, powerful stride eating up the ground as he walked out of her life, leaving her with nothing but the knowledge she’d been terribly, horribly wrong about him.
CHAPTER NINE
STEFAN sat sprawled in his chair at the head of the table, his features stony as he listened to his executives discussing a business issue that should have interested him but didn’t. His mind was preoccupied with memories he himself had unlocked. It was like ripping open an old wound, tearing through healing tissue and exposing raw flesh. It wasn’t just pain, it was screaming agony. But worse than that was the thought of Selene struggling on her own, looking over her shoulder all the time, never able to relax and just enjoy her new life.