“No, but I don’t know you. I mean, I hardly know you. And you’re just the kind of man I try to avoid.”
Because I’m not married, he wondered bitterly. “What is it about me that you try to avoid?”
“Your experience.” The way she said the word, an insult was obviously implied, but he couldn’t fathom what it was.
“Did my experience displease you in some way?”
She risked blinking one eye open, and even with a single look was able to convey a sense of mockery. “This is not the time to seek praise for your skills.”
“Ah,” he shrugged. “You are wrong there. It is always the time for a man to be complimented on how well he makes love to a beautiful woman.”
“Stop!” She closed both eyes again. “You’re making it … So. Much. Worse.”
She was the woman who was breaking up his sister’s marriage and yet he felt a lovely kernel of pleasure at this unexpected conversation. He moved back to her and gently glided her jeans up her legs. “I do not know what you feel is bad about our situation, but I should like to have dinner with you while you try to explain it to me.”
Sophie’s sharp intake of breath showed her surprise. “You would?”
“Ne.”
“No?”
“Ne is yes,” he admonished softly. “And if you are to raise two Greek boys, you should learn to speak some of the language.” He gripped her hands and pulled her gently to standing. “I will teach you.”
Her eyes were enormous, and she stared at his face as though she were drowning. “You will?” For that implied so much more than what she was expecting from him.
“Ne,” he grinned, and pressed a light kiss against the tip of her nose.
“Alex.” But what did she want to say? What could she say? This was wrong. Or was it? It certainly felt a thousand shades of right. “What shall we eat?”
CHAPTER THREE
“Two sisters?” His look of disbelief was priceless. Then again, Alex had led his life to that point looking out for Helena. The idea of multiplying his worry and responsibilities was onerous indeed.
Sophie shook her head dolefully. “Not just two sisters. Triplets.”
“Triplets?” He expelled a long, slow whistle. “You mean somewhere in Australia there are two girls just as gorgeous as you walking around the outback?”
Sophie laughed. “No.” The champagne was excellent; the food even more so. She’d always been a sucker for Indian and this little restaurant was the most authentic she’d tried. She fingered a pappadum thoughtfully. “We’re not identical. Though if you saw us together, you’d know we were related. And as for the outback, Olivia and Ava wouldn’t be seen dead there.”
“Tell me about them.”
Sophie screwed up her nose unconsciously as she thought of her sisters with the same lurching in her gut that always accompanied their absence. “They’re the most amazing women you can possibly imagine.”
“Really?” He reclined in his chair, his expression indomitable. It was very easy for Sophie to see him then as the powerful, dynamic megalomaniac who’d amassed a global empire all on his own.
“Really,” she confirmed, ignoring her dry mouth and racing heart.
“How so?”
“They’re just … the kind of women that you look at and think ‘wow’.” He looked at her with an expression of doubt. Did Sophie not know that she was similarly impressive? “Olivia is the flighty one. She’s beautiful and popular and footloose and fancy-free. She travels on a whim. She’s truly …”
“Amazing?” He supplied with a teasing grin.
She nodded and sipped her water.
“What about the other one?”
Sophie smiled when she thought of Ava. “Far more serious. Then again, she’s the responsible one. Despite the fact we’re triplets, Ava has always seemed older. She’s felt very free to boss Liv and me around from day one.” She shrugged. “But we’re happy to let her. She’s holding the business together at home now, while Olivia and I get to travel and have fun.”