Lovers?
Heat suffused her everywhere and she covered her face with both hands, fighting back the sobs desperate to break out.
She didn’t want to be Andreas’s lover. She didn’t want to be anything to him, not his fake fiancée, not his fake wife, not anything…
The door opened.
As quick as lightning, she turned back onto her side and squeezed her eyes shut.
If she pretended to be asleep maybe he would leave her alone.
Footsteps padded over the floor tiles. New scents filled the room. Coffee. Fresh bread.
She heard another door slide open and cool air filled the room.
A minute later the bed dipped. A hand brushed against her hair.
She couldn’t stop her shoulders moving in reflex at his touch.
Holding her breath as tightly as she held the sheets around her, she rolled onto her back.
Andreas was sitting on the edge of the bed wearing nothing but a pair of jeans.
His eyes were on her, a wariness underlying the intensity of his stare. ‘Good morning,’ he said quietly.
She managed the semblance of a smile but couldn’t get her throat, echoing with the vibrations of her hammering heart, to move enough to speak.
‘I’ve got breakfast for us,’ he said after an impossibly long period of silence between them during which they did nothing but stare at each other. ‘It’s on the balcony.’
She hadn’t known this room had a balcony.
She didn’t even know what room they were in. It certainly wasn’t the one she’d been given.
‘Give me a minute to get changed and I’ll join you out there,’ she whispered.
His eyes narrowed slightly before he nodded and got to his feet.
She watched him step out onto the balcony, sliding the glass door shut behind him. Only when he was out of her eyeline did she slide out of the bed and snatch her discarded clothes from the floor. She found the en-suite and locked the door behind her.
Barely twelve hours ago she had felt not a modicum of shyness in showing her naked body to him. He had kissed and touched every single part of her and she had thrilled at the sensual pleasure of it, a pleasure she had never imagined; seductive and addictive.
She had been drunk with it all. Drunk on Andreas.
Now she wished for nothing but to hide back in her protective cocoon and forget it had happened.
Throwing her clothes on, she splashed her face with water and smoothed her hair as best she could with her fingers, trying not to look too hard at her reflection in the mirror so she couldn’t see the bruised look of her lips or the glow on her skin that had never been there before.
Andreas was eating a Greek breakfast pastry when she joined him on the balcony.
‘Coffee?’ he asked amiably.
‘Yes please.’ She sat opposite him and looked at the huge spread laid out between them. ‘Did you do all this?’
‘Of course not. I called the chefs in and got them to make it.’ The mockingly outraged face he pulled as he said this, that How dare you even suggest I soil my hands by preparing my own food? expression, tickled her and she found herself fighting back a grin.
But then she met his eye and the smile formed of its own accord. Not a full grin, but her lips loosened enough to curve a touch.
His features relaxed to see it. He pushed her cup of coffee to her then leaned back. ‘Eat something. You must be starving.’
That reminded her of their missed dinner. And his roses…
‘What’s wrong?’ Andreas asked, seeing her brow suddenly furrow.
‘Those poor roses. I never…’ She dropped her gaze from his and snatched a bread roll, opening it with her fingers.
He knew exactly what had caused her face to look as if she’d been dipped in tomato juice and his loins twitched to remember lifting her onto the worktop, the roses abandoned, and all that had followed.
And what had followed had been one of the best nights of his life. Maybe the best. He couldn’t think of a better one.
‘The housekeeper has revived them,’ he assured her, remembering the way Carrie had rubbed her nose against the petals when she’d taken them from him.
She’d rubbed her nose over his stomach in the exact same way…
The twitch in his loins turned into a throb, the memory of her nails digging into his back as she’d orgasmed strong enough that he could feel the indentations on his skin as fresh as if she were making them still.
‘That’s good,’ she said, nodding a little too vigorously. She stretched for the jar of honey with a hand that trembled and said in a voice so low he had to strain to hear her, fresh colour smothering her entire face, ‘Does she know I, err, we, slept in the wrong room?’
‘It doesn’t matter, matia mou.’
‘She needs to know.’ She struggled to remove the lid. ‘When we’re gone someone else will stay here. The sheets…’