She’d thought he was beautiful. She hadn’t been stupid; had known she’d had no chance with him. He’d been as unobtainable as the film stars she’d loved to watch so much. Even then he’d been a man surrounded by a legion of admirers, men and women who all hung on to his every word and laughed at his every joke. Men like him didn’t notice girls like her apart from to make fun of them.
The last thing she’d expected—the very last thing—was for him to stand up for her. To protect her. That one action had turned her crush into something more, making her heart swell and attach itself to him.
Even then she hadn’t been naïve enough to think her adoration would be reciprocated. The world didn’t work like that. Gorgeous, fit Greeks didn’t fall for plump, shy English girls. He could befriend her, but desire her? Impossible.
And then he’d turned up at the chalet she’d shared with her friends, bottle of gin in hand, hair in disarray and wildness in his eyes...
That look in his eyes when he’d first kissed her... That same look was in his eyes now. It was a look that pierced her skin and made her recall for the thousandth time their one night together.
That night...
Losing her virginity to a drunk, melancholic man had been something she could never have expected, but it was something she would never regret, and not just because that one time had created Toby.
Theseus had needed her that night. That hadn’t been a lie. He’d lain on the bed with the back of his head resting against her breasts, swigging from the bottle of gin. She’d run her fingers through his hair and listened to him talk.
He’d told her about his brothers and their fierce competitiveness, the penknives they’d each been given at the age of ten by their grandfather and how they would spend hours finding inanimate objects to throw them at as target practice, how the loser would be subjected to knuckle-rubs.
And then—she had never figured out how or why—the atmosphere had changed and he’d stopped talking. His eyes had gazed into hers with an expression she had never seen before but which had acted like a magnet, pulling her to him.
The stars might not have shone and fireworks might not have exploded but she hadn’t needed them to. For a few precious moments she had belonged to him and he had belonged to her.
For one solitary night she had been needed and loved and wanted, and it had filled her romantic heart with hope and tenderness.
She couldn’t bear to think it had all been a lie.
She’d stood in the shower an hour ago with anticipation thrumming through her and had known she had to tell him about Toby. She could not in all good conscience keep it from him any longer.
Theseus was arrogant, and often curt, but he was also generous and thoughtful. He was a powerful man, but she’d seen no sign of him abusing that power. He wasn’t Theo, but there had been a couple of times when she’d sworn she’d glimpsed the man she’d fallen in love with five years before.
She would wait until the biography was complete. It meant everything to him. For all his talk about disavowing love, she knew he loved his grandfather just as he’d loved his grandmother.
A few more days—that was all it would take. Two days at the most. Then her job would be done and she could turn his life upside down with the truth.
All she had to do was smother the awful feeling of deception she carried everywhere.
She felt such guilt. Every minute with him was clouded by her total awareness of him and the knowledge that she was hiding something so monumental. She’d thought her heart might jump out of her ribcage earlier, when he had almost caught her looking at another picture Toby had drawn which Jonathan had scanned and emailed over to her.
And now her heart was beating just as frantically, but with a hugely different rhythm. Flames licked through her veins at the look in Theseus’s eyes. It was as if he wanted nothing more than to eat her whole. As if her knee-length mint crêpe dress with its flared sleeves and her flat black sandals made up the sexiest outfit he’d ever seen on a woman.
The nervous excitement that had built in her stomach almost skipped up and out of her throat when he dived a hand around her neck and gathered her hair in a bunch.
Without breaking stride, he kicked the door shut behind him, moved his other hand to her cheek and brought his mouth down on hers.
If a body could spontaneously combust, then Jo’s did. The lit flames became a blaze—a dark, fiery ache which deepened in her pelvis as his lips moved over hers, firm but gentle, seductive but checked. Firmly controlled. His tongue darted out, prising her lips apart so it could slide slowly inside and dance against her own. His fingers were making gentle kneading motions against her cheek.