He let the tips of his fingers brush lightly along her arm, amused at the way she jerked away again. He knew just how to handle her now, baiting her with her own responsiveness to him. She didn't like being that responsive, she was fighting against it, but it would be a losing battle, he knew.
And the victory would be his.
A sweet victory—reduced to abject pleading for his love-making this woman who made it totally, shamelessly clear that the only reason she was marrying him was to gain control of he capital her grandfather held for her. That would be a victory he would savour to the full.
As for Andrea, all she could do was put her mask in place and try and get through the evening.
Despite her protestations Nikos took her out later that night, and though it was not some packed and heaving strobe-lit club, there was no way she was going to let him lead her out onto the small, intimate floor in the rooftop restaurant he took her to.
'I said I don't dance and I meant it!' she repeated.
'Try,' he said. There was a glint in his eye, and it was not entirely predatory. There was determination in it as well.
Andrea gave in.
He led her out—she as stiff as a board—onto the dance floor. A love song was playing, and though with one part of her mind she was grateful, with the rest of it she felt her terror only increased, for reasons which had nothing to do with her habitual refusal to dance.
Nikos slid his arms around her, resting on the curve of her hips at either side. They burned through the thin fabric of her long peacock-blue dress with a warmth that made the pulse in her neck beat faster. She stood immobile. Her legs began to ache with the tension.
'Put your arms around my neck, pethi mou.'
The warmth of his breath on her ear made her shiver. He was too close. Much, much too close. The long, lean line of his body pressed against her, hip to hip, thigh to thigh.
Don't think! Don't feel! she adjured herself desperately.
Gingerly, very gingerly, she lifted her arms and placed one palm on either shoulder.
He was hi evening dress, and the dark fabric felt smooth and rich to the touch. Beneath the jacket she could feel the hardness :: his shoulders. She tensed even more.
‘Relax,' he murmured, and with the slightest of pressures on ~=r hip started to move her around with him.
For a brief moment she went with him, her right foot moving jerkily in the direction he was urging her. Her legs were like wood, unbending.
'Relax,' he said again.
She moved her left leg, catching up with him, and they repeated the movement—him smoothly, she with a jerkiness that she could not control. Her spine was beginning to hurt with the effort.
She lasted another ten seconds, her face rigid, willing herself to keep going. Then, with a little cry, she stumbled away from him.
'I can't! I can't do this!'
She broke across the little dance floor, desperate to sit down, and collapsed back on her chair. Nikos was there in an instant beside her.
'What the hell was that about?' he demanded.
She could hear the annoyance in his voice. Only the annoyance.
'I told you, I don't dance!' she bit at him.
'Don't? Or won't?' he asked thinly, and sat down himself. He seized at the neck of the champagne bottle nestling in its ice bucket and refilled his glass. Hers was almost untouched.
'When we are married,' he said, setting down his glass with a snap, 'I shall give you lessons.'
'You do that,' she replied, and took a gulp of her champagne.
Nikos Vassilis would never teach her to dance.
Or anything else.