He turned and snatched Kallie’s glasses off, putting his hands on her shoulders. Her face was red, her eyes streaming.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’
‘Thea…She told me…’ Kallie made a huge effort to control herself and wiped the backs of her hands across her face. Alexandros was still just a blur in her vision.
‘Thea what?’ He was shaking his head, frowning.
A big shuddering breath. ‘Thea…We spoke…She told me…what had been happening, what happened after…after…’
His hands tightened on her shoulders so tightly that she grimaced. Then he let her go and sat back. The paroxysm of tears was passing. She could see now, and his eyes were black, unreadable.
‘I never read the article, Alexandros. I didn’t know, I swear.’
His voice sounded funny and mechanical, as if he was repeating himself to a slow child. ‘They printed conversations…private conversations that only we had…’ His mouth twisted. ‘You have no idea how much I regret that now…I know, Kallie. The evidence was there on their computer system…it was your e-mail, your password. Are you telling me you gave that to someone else?’
A physical pain struck her chest when he spoke about regretting the conversations, stunning her with its force. She had to shake her head miserably. Of course she hadn’t given anyone her password.
They were back to square one. How had she let herself get this upset, so emotional? All she had to worry about was getting through this…experience in one piece. And when Alexandros had had enough, which she prayed would be soon, he’d let her go. That was the decision she’d come to in her long hours of contemplation the previous day. Why, oh, why did she have to be so impetuous? She may as well declare to him right now that she was very much afraid she was in love with him all over again, that she’d never stopped loving him.
And that had to make her the saddest woman in the world. She also knew, much to her dismay, part of the reason she couldn’t launch into a proper confession. As much as she was still genuinely scared for Eleni and her family, after being with him last night she was very much afraid that a future, however brief, without him in it scared her even more. Was she really willing to plead guilty in order to snatch whatever this man might offer her? She took her sunglasses and put them back on, covering her eyes again.
A shiver ran through Alexandros as he saw the woman before him morph into some kind of a robot. Why was she so insistent on proclaiming her innocence? What was the point? Something struck him. And it seemed to make sense as he witnessed her lightning change. Sympathy. She was looking for a way to get to him…to play him, make him doubt his suspicions. What was she hoping for? A more permanent arrangement? To bring him to the point where he might possibly offer her something more out of the marriage? A heavy weight settled in his chest. She’d made him wait till she came to him, and now, after sleeping with him, she was pretending repentance. Innocence.
He conveniently ignored the voice reminding him that he had insisted on her coming to him, told himself that she must have assumed their intimacy might have softened him up. How many countless women before her had done it? He crushed the concern, the confusing contradictions that had flooded his head on seeing her tears. She was even buttering up Thea, for goodness’ sake!
He leant across and whipped off her sunglasses again. She shrank back, her eyes wary, which he read as calculating. Leaning across, he didn’t allow her any escape. ‘I don’t want to hear you mention the past again. It has no relevance any more.’
Apart from the fact that you used it to get her where you want her…
He brutally crushed every contradiction. For the final time. Enough. And concentrated on the woman in front of him, the ache he could feel building in his groin as he took in the way her chest heaved with her breaths. She was as aware of him, this space around them as he was. She was lying, he’d prove it, right now.
‘The only thing that matters is this…’
Kallie cou
ld feel the doorhandle digging into her back. Alexandros came closer and closer. She put up her hands but they only met a wall of hard muscle. And her insides liquefied when she remembered touching it, feeling it last night. His whole body was like a statue brought to vibrant life. He was holding her head in his hands so she couldn’t move, and Kallie clamped her mouth shut to deny him access. But instead of the brutal crushing kiss which she’d expected, it was soft, tender. His mouth moving across hers, like a whisper of things to come, an erotic invitation to join him. And, heaven help her, she wanted to, she wanted to so badly. He was relentless, patiently enticing, waiting. She couldn’t withstand his sensual onslaught. Like last night, he managed to reduce her entire universe to here and now. Nothing else existed.
When he probed, she sighed, his tongue touched the seam of her lips and she opened a little more. But still he didn’t enter. Her nerve ends tingled, her blood hummed. She lifted her hands to his shoulders, trying to tell him silently that she was giving in, acquiescing…and then she knew exactly what he wanted. Tentatively at first, she darted her tongue forward in an erotically innocent foray, touched his mouth, traced his lips…and then delved in to that dark moistness of his mouth, feeling emboldened and heady when his tongue finally met and tangled with hers.
She felt a hand under her loose top cup one breast, a thumb pad running back and forth over her nipple. Her tongue thrust harder, she arched her back, pressing her breast into his palm. And then, as if a light switch had gone on, he pulled back, put his hands on her shoulders and looked deep into her shocked-glazed eyes.
‘See? That’s all we need to worry about…for as long as it lasts, we’re going to be married.’
He lifted her hand and pressed a searing kiss to her palm. She couldn’t move for a long moment as he looked at her. She felt her seat belt digging into her waist—she still had it on! They were at the side of the road with cars whizzing up and down outside.
Kallie shook herself free of his hands and sat up properly, mortified. She was as weak as a kitten where it came to him and she’d helped him achieve his aim. She wouldn’t be so silly as to bring up the past again.
‘I won’t offer you wine…’
Kallie shook her head quickly. Her sunglasses covered her eyes. They had found a secluded glade, just down from the chapel which was higher up on the mountain than the Kaisariani monastery, which dated from the twelfth century. An uneasy truce seemed to have settled on them, and Kallie welcomed it.
Thea had prepared a veritable feast. Pity she’d lost her appetite, thought Kallie, which was very out of character for her. She couldn’t stop her mind going back to the previous night. In anticipation of the coming night? And nights?
The only time reality had intruded last night, apart from her little outburst, had been when Alexandros had mentioned protection. The first time they hadn’t used anything. His look of abject horror when he’d realised, she wouldn’t forget in a hurry. She’d told him that she was on the Pill. She knew he’d probably taken that as a sign of promiscuity, in fact it was for her painful and irregular periods. And she reflected then that she’d just recently changed over to a new Pill. Maybe that’s what was making her feel so emotional.
‘What are you thinking?’
Kallie coloured. ‘Nothing.’ She grabbed some cheese and bread and searched for something—anything—to say to avoid his gaze, his assessing eyes.