Her fingers released their comforting clutch on her arms. He watched them lower to her sides then turn themselves into two tight, hopeful little fists. He wanted to claim those fists. He wanted to prize those fingers open and feed them inside his shirt so they could roam at their leisure.
‘Continue to play the charade—just for a few weeks,’ she begged him. ‘Give me time to let Grandpa down about this marriage thing—without my having to admit the truth to him.’
Well, he’d asked, now he knew. He was to play the love-struck lover of Eve until she decided it was no longer necessary. Why not? he asked himself. Why the hell not? At this precise moment he was even prepared to lie down on the floor and let her walk all over him.
Time to move, time to react. She was waiting for an answer. Dragging his eyes away from the inner vision of himself lying at her beautiful feet, he looked at his watch and tried to concentrate well enough to read it.
Twelve o’clock, he saw. ‘You’ve got approximately two hours to pack a bag and say your farewells,’ he announced with a smoothness that in no way reflected what was really happening inside him.
‘Why, where am I going?’
Well, there’s an interesting question, he mused. And wished he knew the answer. ‘You can’t come to despise me enough to jilt me while you’re here in the Caribbean and I’m in Spain,’ he pointed out. ‘So you are going to have to come to Spain with me.’
CHAPTER EIGHT
EVE was late.
Standing by the car he aimed to return to the hire company at the tiny airport on the other side of the island, Ethan was beginning to wonder if she’d had a change of heart about coming away with him, when he caught sight of her coming along the path that led to the lane behind the beach houses.
She was pulling her suitcase behind her through the dappled sunlight cast by the shady overhang of the trees. Tall and slender, as always faultlessly sleek, gone was the sweet Miss Modesty look she’d created for her grandfather’s benefit. Now the smooth and slinky siren was back in a misty-lavender skimpy camisole top edged with lace, and matching narrow skirt that did wonderful things to her figure as she moved. She had also let her hair down so it swung like spun toffee around her shoulders, and a pair of silver-framed sunglasses pushed up on her head held it away from her face.
A face that wasn’t happy, Ethan noticed as she came closer. A face that was not just pale any more but sad and very grim.
‘You’re late,’ he said as she reached him. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t going to bother.’
‘Well, I’m here, as you see.’ And there was nothing loverlike, pretend or otherwise, in the way she flipped the sunglasses down over her eyes before she handed over her case then climbed into the car without offering another word.
Grimacing to himself, Ethan stashed the case then joined her. As they drove off up the lane he noticed that she didn’t spare a glance for the sugar-pink gate posts that guarded her grandfather’s property.
‘He was okay about you leaving with me?’ he dared to probe a little.
‘Yes,’ she answered, but he saw the tension line around her mouth and knew she was lying…Again, he tagged on, and wondered why it was that even the lies weren’t bothering him any more.
‘You surprise me,’ he remarked mildly. ‘Having flown in from Greece this morning specifically to spend your birthday with you, I expected him to be very annoyed that you were now walking out on him.’
‘He didn’t fly in from Greece, he flew from Nassau,’ she corrected, ‘where he always intended to return tomorrow, because his mistress is waiting there for him.’
Mistress. Ethan’s opinion of the seventy-year-old Theron Herakleides altered slightly with that piece of information. ‘I didn’t know he had a mistress.’
‘He has several,’ his granddaughter supplied.
Ethan almost allowed himself a very masculine grin. ‘Then, why not bring her here with him and save himself several island-hopping journeys?’
‘A Greek male does not introduce his mistress to his family.’
‘Ah.’ Ethan began to see the light. ‘And neither should a Greek woman introduce her lover to her family?’
‘You are not my lover.’
‘He thinks I am.’
‘He also thinks you are only marrying me for my money,’ she responded tartly. ‘Says a lot about my personal pulling power, don’t you think?’
It said a lot about his character too, Ethan noted grimly, and stopped the car. Turning towards her he viewed her profile through a new set of eyes, and released a heavy sigh. ‘You fed him a very carefully constructed catalogue of lies to save his feelings and he disappointed you by not appreciating the gesture,’ he deduced.
She didn’t answer, but those hands were locked into fists again.
It made him wonder if she was having second thoughts about this and was being just too stubborn to admit as much. ‘If you would rather stay,’ he offered. ‘I can understand if you—’