Hold it together.
‘I was anything but gentle with you. If I had known it was your first time—’
‘Then you’d have never slept with me,’ she snapped.
His eyes narrowed, his chest pushing out with the force of his breath. ‘So you chose not to tell me?’
‘I—no. I wasn’t thinking clearly.’
‘Damn straight. Did it occur to you that I wouldn’t want this—to be your first lover? Did
it occur to you that I prefer to sleep with women who know what sex is all about?’
Hurt and mortification contorted her features. She angled her face away and when she answered him it was in a voice that was rich with hurt. ‘It didn’t occur to me that you’d notice. Or mind.’
His laugh lacked humour. ‘I’ve been with enough women to know the difference.’ She doubted he meant the words to hurt but they did. Her insides were still trembling with the force of his possession, pleasure still receding, and he was reminding her of how many conquests he’d had?
‘Yes, well, I was a virgin. I’m sorry you were disappointed, or whatever, but that wasn’t my intention.’ She yanked her wrist out of his grip, covering the slightly pink flesh with her fingertips, but not before his eyes had dropped to her wrist and observed the small marks there.
‘Before I came here you told me I’d barely see you,’ she said stiffly, moving to the door of the pool house. ‘I hope you honour that promise.’ Tilting her chin away from him, she turned her back and walked past the pool—even when she felt like running—and into the house. The sun had risen over Agrios Nisi but it breathed no light into Amelia.
* * *
He wasn’t conscious of how long he stayed in the pool house. He dressed slowly, his mind ticking over what had just happened. Something caught his eye; he reached down and lifted her underwear off the floor, stuffing it in his pocket. Knowing it was there sent something spiralling through him—an urgent wave of need that hadn’t been alleviated by their coming together.
How had she thought her virginity wouldn’t matter to him? Why hadn’t she realised it was something a man would want to know before having sex with a woman?
He stood at the foot of the bed, staring at it before sweeping his eyes closed and seeing Amelia—seeing her as she’d been in the throes of passion, and then in anguish afterwards, as he’d separated from her and hurled accusations at her until her eyes had gleamed and tears had moistened her beautiful, expressive eyes.
Christos.
The idea of being in a relationship with a woman was anathema to him and always had been. Not once had he questioned that. His father was blithely unaware of the true cost of his constant pursuit of ‘love’, but Santos wasn’t. Santos had seen the emotional consequences first hand—initially with his mother, who’d had to be hospitalised for severe depression after the divorce, and then in Nico’s subsequent wives. Each of them had suffered at the hands of his father and Santos had promised he would never be like him.
He enjoyed the company of women, and he loved sex, but sex was easy to control—it was an exchange, no different from the kind of commercially motivated deals he made every day. True, there was no exchange of money, just satisfaction, but the parameters were as inviolable as if a contract had been formed. Santos offered a good time in bed. Full stop. The end. There were no gifts, no promises, no damned romance that went beyond a drink in a bar, and only then as a precursor to a night of passion.
He didn’t swap life stories with these women but on some level, he was always careful. Finely honed business skills served him well in his private life; it was impossible to switch those traits off. He never slept with a woman who didn’t fit the mould he sought—a woman who was sophisticated and experienced, who understood what he wanted and was happy to oblige. He was, ordinarily, painfully careful to not take any woman to bed who didn’t share his view on relationships.
A virgin? Christos. Even with what Amelia had said, the derisive way she’d scoffed at the very idea of waiting for a marriage proposal, it didn’t change the fact that someone’s virginity should mean something. Her first time should have involved more than a quick lay in the pool house, for God’s sake. Surely she could see that? So why the hell had she come here with him? Why hadn’t she told him, so he could at least have been gentle with her?
He ground his teeth together, all the ‘what ifs’ in the world not changing the facts.
He’d slept with her; he was her first lover. And he’d hurt her. Not physically, necessarily—though, hell, he’d taken no effort to ease her into it; he’d simply driven into her, removing the barrier of her innocence and making her completely his.
More than that, he’d hurt her with his behaviour afterwards. He’d been angry and, though he’d had every right to feel that, he should have exercised more control, keeping a grip on his feelings in deference to hers.
He hadn’t. He’d said everything he’d thought and witnessed the ramifications of that. The way she’d looked away from him when he’d told her he was used to lovers who knew what sex was about! Talk about offensive and insensitive.
He closed his eyes and inhaled deeply; the room smelled like her.
Thialo. He’d hurt her. Amelia had been wrong not to tell him the truth, but she was still Amelia. Kind, generous Amelia who’d come to his house to beg him to be a better father to Cameron. And she deserved better than this—his mistreatment and now his disdain. With a dip of his head he moved out of the cabana, cutting across the terrace and moving through the house, taking the steps two at a time.
He knocked on her bedroom door; there was no answer. He hesitated only a moment, figuring he’d already crossed a line with her, before pushing into her room. It was empty. A second later he heard the shower running and something punched at his gut: it was as if she couldn’t wait to wash him off her.
That stoked his masculine pride. If he’d been less in control of his impulses he might have pulled the shower door open and joined her, whispering against her flesh that he wanted to show her what her first time should have been like.
He didn’t.
Instead, he sat on the edge of the bed and he waited. He hated that he’d hurt her, but not because Amelia meant anything to him. This was his own code of honour, one he’d sworn to uphold, and for the first time in his adult life he’d done something that didn’t sit well within the bounds of that. He’d fix it, and then move on.