That low-frequency purr intensified. Became irresistible...
His mouth dipped to hers...
It was the lightest of kisses—the softest brushing of his mouth on hers, lasting only seconds. The merest fleeting sensation...the merest sip of the honey of her silken lips... The kind of kiss any man could greet any woman with in public.
And yet he had to use every ounce of his self-control to draw back from her, to smile down at her and release her hand, her waist, help her to take a seat. He could see that her face had flushed, her colour heightened and the low purring inside him was glad of this visible evidence of her response to him.
Of his to her he needed no second proof. Desire rushed through him. And an absolute certainty that the half-crazy idea he had blurted out to her that afternoon to stop her fleeing back to London, to the grim, bleak life she lived there—the impulsive offer that, despite his original determination to have nothing to do whatsoever with Stavros’s English daughter, had seemed the most obvious thing to make—was, in fact, the one idea he longed to make happen... He wanted to make her his.
He resumed his own seat, his eyes never leaving her. Her gaze had dipped and she was busying herself smoothing a napkin over her lap, the colour gradually subsiding from her flushed cheeks. Xandros knew he needed to put her at ease with him. There would be time enough to make clear to her just how he felt...
‘I thought it best to dine here at the hotel,’ he opened. ‘The food is excellent and I thought you might like the view.’
He gestured to the picture windows, which opened on to a terrace beyond. He heard her breath catch with delight as she looked past him to see what he was indicating: the ultimate symbol of Athens, spotlit as it always was by night.
‘The Acropolis!’ she breathed, with wonder in her voice, leaning forward to maximise her view.
‘And the Parthenon on top of it,’ he supplied.
Her face had lit up, enhancing her beauty, and as she gazed at the vista Xandros gazed at her face. One thought only blazed in him: whatever it took to convince her to accept his proposal, he must do it.
He could tell that her presence here with him was drawing eyes. Not because he was dining with a beautiful woman—Athens society was well used to that—but because up until recently the woman he’d been dining with had been Ariadne Coustakis.
And that, he realised, thinking it through rapidly, was yet another bonus to be gained from going through with the plan that he’d put to Stavros’s English daughter that afternoon.
It will give me a highly acceptable explanation for why my relationship with Ariadne is no more. A totally unexpected coup de foudre when I met her half-sister led her to release me from our engagement.
The tale would play well, and it would silence any speculation arising from his precipitate marriage to another woman. He did not want Rosalie to be the butt of gossip.
He realised she was talking.
‘It looks so close...the Acropolis!’
‘It’s quite some distance away, really—it looks close because there are no high-rise buildings between here and it,’ he replied. ‘Many buildings have a view over it—my apartment does,’ he said.
He started to tell her about the extensive ruins of classical times, both on the Acropolis and at its base, and then went on to describe some of the geography of the city itself—the different areas from Plaka to Syntagma Square.
She listened with interest, asking questions, increasingly relaxed as their dinner arrived, sipping at her wine.
‘I must buy myself a guide book,’ she said. A shadow crossed her face. ‘It seems sad that I know absolutely nothing about a city that I should have known all my life—’
She broke off, took another mouthful of her wine.
‘It isn’t too late to learn to love your Greek heritage,’ Xandros said quietly.
He left it at that—let the thought gel, take root. He left unspoken, for now, the corollary... If you marry me...
Throughout dinner he kept the conversation and the mood casual, easily friendly, and it served his purpose well. For all the privations of her deprived upbringing she was obviously not unintelligent—just ignorant of a great deal of what he took for granted. But she held her own, asked good questions, showed a sensitivity that he appreciated.
‘I know there’s a fuss about the Elgin Marbles being in the British Museum,’ she ventured, ‘but I don’t really understand why.’
‘Because,’ Xandros informed her sternly, ‘they are not the “Elgin” Marbles at all—they are the Parthenon Marbles! The problem is,’ he went on, ‘that Lord Elgin acquired them in good faith—but from an authority that did not own them in the first place. From the Ottoman government of Greece at the time.’
She wrinkled her brow. ‘Ottoman...?’
‘The foreign empire from Asia Minor that conquered the Middle East and the ancient Byzantine Empire in the fifteenth century—and ruled Greece for four hundred years until we finally shook them off! It was a dark time for Greece. A dark time,’ he added, ‘for my family.’
She looked at him questioningly.