His tone was a shade cooler. Another person probably wouldn’t have noticed but she was so tuned in to every subtle shift in her father’s moods that she sensed the change instantly.
Confused, she stood for a moment clutching the towel, watching as he strolled to the bed and pulled his phone out of his abandoned trousers.
A moment ago he’d been focused on her and now his focus was on his phone. His business. His world. He’d shut her out as clearly as if he’d closed a door between them.
And she didn’t understand it.
Selene cast her mind back to try and work out what she’d said. ‘I love you’ had stayed firmly in her head, so it definitely hadn’t been that.
All she’d said was that she loved it here so much she could stay forever. And that couldn’t possibly—
Forever.
Her head snapped up and she stared at the ceiling, wondering how she could have been so stupid. She’d used the word ‘forever’ and it had to be his least favourite word in the English language.
The fact that it had been a throwaway comment didn’t make a difference. It had triggered alarm bells and he’d backed off—withdrawn as quickly as if she’d booked the church. And now his attention was focused on his e-mails as if their steamy, erotic encounter in the pool had never happened.
Selene took a step towards him, then changed her mind and instead walked quietly into the shower and closed the door.
If she brought it up, tried to talk about it, she would just make it worse.
She understood that he was running from attachment. She understood that he kept his relationships short and superficial. She knew all that so it wasn’t fair of her to feel this sick disappointment, was it? She knew him.
Reminding herself of that, she hit the buttons on the shower. There was an assortment of expensive, exclusive bath products but she ignored them and reached for a bar of her own soap from the bag she’d packed. Relax, she thought numbly, letting the scent of it flow over her and into her. It was what she needed.
And tomorrow she’d give him some space.
Show him she wasn’t going to crowd him.
CHAPTER TEN
STEFAN lay in the dark, wide awake as she slept. She’d fallen asleep snuggled next to him and now one slender arm was wrapped around his waist and her head was buried in his shoulder as she breathed softly.
The scent of her soap—that smell that he associated only with her—slid into his brain and blurred his thinking.
He wanted to extract himself from her grip but he didn’t want to risk waking her.
The night was warm but he was cold with panic.
He shouldn’t have brought her here. He’d sent out all the wrong messages and then compounded it by not even waiting for her to undress before having sex with her in the pool.
The intensity of it made him uncomfortable. He was used to being in control, not losing control. He was used to walking away. Used to keeping himself separate. And yet here he was, his limbs tangled with hers, anything but separate.
Tomorrow, he promised himself as he stared into the darkness, when she woke he’d make some excuse. Take her back to Athens and explain he couldn’t mix business with pleasure.
Having decided on that approach, he fell asleep—and woke hours later to find the sun blazing into the room and the bed empty.
‘Selene?’ Assuming she was in the bathroom, he called her name, but there was no response. He sprang from the bed, prowled out to the terrace area and found no sign of her.
Alarm flashed through him and he reached for his phone and called hotel security, who told him that Selene had been in the hotel spa since it had opened.
Slightly unsettled by just how relieved he felt hearing that, Stefan relaxed and decided to take the opportunity to work. No doubt she was enjoying a massage or something similar and would be back shortly. Then they’d have the conversation he’d been planning. He’d emphasise that this was just fun, not anything serious, and they’d go from there.
Hours later he started to worry that she still hadn’t returned.
He was about to call the spa when the door opened and Selene walked back into the suite, wearing a pristine white uniform presumably supplied by the staff of the spa.
His eyes slid to her wonderful curves. ‘Where have you been? You’ve been gone all day.’