CHAPTER ONE
HE COULDN’T AVOID it any longer. He had to tell her the truth.
From the bed, Leonidas Niarxos looked out the window. Across the river, on the other side of the bridge, Manhattan skyscrapers twinkled in the violet and pink sunrise.
Taking a deep breath, he looked down at the woman sleeping in his arms. For the last four weeks, he’d enjoyed the most exhilarating affair of his life. After years of brief, meaningless relationships with women who had hearts as cold as his own, Daisy Cassidy had been like a fire. Warming him. Burning him.
For weeks now—from their very first, accidental, surprising night—he’d been promising himself he would end their affair. He would tell her who he really was.
But he’d put it off, always wanting one more day. Even now, after a night of lovemaking, Leonidas wanted her. As he looked at her, feeling her soft naked body pressed so trustingly against his, his willpower weakened. Perhaps he could put off his confession one more day. Until tomorrow.
No, he thought furiously. No!
He had to end this. Daisy was falling in love with him. He’d seen it in her lovely face, in her heartbreakingly luminous green eyes. She believed Leonidas to be Leo Gianakos, a decent, kindhearted man. Perfect, she called him. She thought he was a store clerk without a penny to his name.
Lies, all lies.
Maybe if he took her to his house in Manhattan first, it might soften the blow, he argued with himself. Maybe Daisy would be more likely to forgive him in his fifty-million-dollar mansion, while he offered her a life filled with luxury and glamour...
Forget it. Did he really believe that either love or money would make Daisy forgive what he’d done? After he revealed his real name, the only emotions she’d ever feel for him again would be horror and hate.
It had all been stolen time.
She sighed in his arms. Looking down, he saw her dark eyelashes flutter in the gray dawn.
He had to tell her. Now. Get it over with. For her sake. For his own.
“Daisy,” he said quietly. “Are you awake?”
* * *
Stretching her limbs out luxuriously between the soft cotton sheets, Daisy blinked dreamily in the pale light of dawn. Her naked body was filled with the sweet ache of another night of lovemaking. She felt delicious. She felt cherished. She felt like she was in love.
Was she also in trouble?
Her eyes flew open. You don’t know anything’s wrong, she told herself fiercely. It might be nothing. It has to be nothing.
But her ridiculous fear had already ruined their date last night, when Leo had gone to tremendous expense to take her to a way too fancy French restaurant in Williamsburg. She’d been miserable—not just afraid of using the wrong fork, not just uncomfortable in the formal setting, but haunted by a new, awful suspicion.
Could she be pregnant?
“Daisy?” Leo’s voice was a husky growl, his powerful body exuding heat and strength as he wrapped one muscular arm around her in the large bed.
“Good morning.” Pushing away her fears, she smiled up at his darkly handsome face, silhouetted by the rising dawn.
He hesitated. “How did you sleep?”
Daisy gave him a shyly wicked grin. “Sleep?”
Leo gave her an answering grin, and his gaze fell slowly to her lips, her throat, her breasts barely covered by the sheet clinging to her nipples. Over the sheet, his hand brushed her belly, and she wondered again if she could be pregnant. No. She couldn’t be. They’d used protection, even that first wild night four weeks ago, when he’d taken her virginity.
But as he softly stroked her body, her breasts felt strangely tender, swollen, beneath his sensual hands...
A sigh rose from the back of his throat as Leo reluctantly pulled away. “Daisy, we need to talk.”
Never a phrase anyone wanted to hear. She swallowed. Did her body feel different to him? Had he already guessed her fear? “Talk about what?”
“There’s something I need to tell you,” he said in a low voice. “Something you’re not going to like.”
His grim black eyes met hers, over his cruel, sensual mouth and hard jaw, dark with five o’clock shadow.
An awful new fear exploded in the back of her mind.
How much did she really know about him?
After a hellish year, Leo Gianakos had wandered into her life last month like a miracle, like a dream, all dark eyes, tanned skin, sharp cheekbones and a million-dollar smile. From the moment Daisy had first looked at his breathtaking masculine beauty, at his powerful shoulders in that perfectly tailored suit, she’d known he was a thousand miles out of her league.
Yet somehow, they’d ended up in bed. Since that magical day, they’d spent nearly every night together, whenever she wasn’t at work.
But it was strange to realize how little she actually knew about him. She didn’t know where he worked, or where he lived. He’d always evaded personal questions.
There were all kinds of good reasons why, she’d told herself. Perhaps Leo shared a tiny rat-infested studio with three roommates and was self-conscious about it. After all, not everyone had a wealthy artist friend, as Daisy did, who’d asked them to house-sit. If not for Franck’s generosity, Daisy would undoubtedly be sharing a studio with three people, too.
She hadn’t pushed Leo for details about his life. They were happy; that was enough.
Now, for the first time, a horrible idea occurred to her. Could there be some other, more sinister reason why he hadn’t told her where he worked, or invited her to his apartment? What if—could he possibly be—
“Are you married?” she blurted out, her heart in her throat.
Leo blinked, then gave a low laugh. “Married? If I were married, could I be here in bed with you?”
“Well, are you?” she said stubbornly.
He snorted, his black eyes glinting. “No. I am not married. And for the record, I don’t ever intend to be. Ever.” His voice dropped to a husky whisper. “That’s not the problem.”
Daisy stared at him. She was relieved he wasn’t married, but...
Leo didn’t want to get married? Ever?
She took a deep breath. “I just know so little about you,” she said in a small voice. “I don’t know where you work, or where you live. I’ve never met your family or friends.”