Her eyes sparked with something when they met his. ‘I wasn’t interested in dating. I wasn’t interested in men. I wasn’t interested in being lied to, told I was the love of someone’s life just so they could get me into bed. I’ve seen it happen enough times to my friends to know that’s the drill. I saw the way heartbreak torpedoed their lives and chose to avoid that for myself. Men, frankly, suck.’
Her words whirled around him. It was a speech laced with bravado, but he heard the hurt that underscored it. ‘Heartbreak and sex don’t have to go hand in hand. I’m sorry you’ve missed out on something so wonderful for so many years, simply because you were afraid.’
‘I’m not afraid,’ she rejected, so quickly it was obvious she hadn’t given it a moment’s thought.
For Ares, it was all he needed to push home his advantage. He hadn’t realised he’d been laying the pieces of a trap—he’d played to win without even intending to—and now it was set.
‘If that is true, you’ll consider my proposition more seriously.’
Her eyes widened; he could feel her temptation.
‘I will not break your heart, Bea, because I don’t want it. I will not make you promises, I will not lie to you. I’m offering only sex.’ His lips twisted with a hint of mockery. ‘Nothing more complicated than that.’
He could feel her wavering, her certainties eroding, but it was too soon to celebrate. Too soon to rejoice in the fact that he would make her his. A heady rush of adrenaline at the prospect of being her first lover flooded his veins, but it wasn’t time to act on it yet. She was staring at him appraisingly, a battle clearly being waged inside her mind.
‘I think it would be foolish to stay here,’ she said stiffly, so whatever jubilation he’d been feeling a moment earlier evaporated. But Ares Lykaios intended to win and there were two objectives for him that evening.
‘Oh, make no mistake about it, you’re staying here, Beatrice. At least you are if you value my business at the London Connection.’
He knew it was beneath him, but desperation to find someone who could help with Danica forced his hand there.
‘I don’t believe you,’ she whispered. ‘One minute you’re asking me to make love to you and the next you’re blackmailing me?’
‘Not to sleep with me. Only to look after Danica,’ he clarified, as though that made it any better. Since when had he become someone who stooped to this level? The answer was simple. On the streets of Athens, broke and starving, he’d done things as a teenager he knew to be reprehensible. Things that were against his strict moral code, all to ensure Matthaios’s survival. He’d stolen food from grocery stores—not a lot, just enough to survive, but it had offended every cell in his body to do it. He’d hated that their impoverished state had required it of him. On one occasion he’d even stolen money from a tourist. A ten-euro note had been sticking out of her pocket, so close to falling. He’d walked behind her, waiting for it to drop and, when it hadn’t, he’d brushed past her and taken it, aware that the money could make all the difference to Matt. He’d done what he’d needed to protect his brother, and now he was doing what he needed to protect Danica.
He didn’t have to like himself for it though.
‘Just to be stranded in this luxurious fortress for a whole month?’
He ground his teeth together. ‘Think of it as an assignment.’
‘I’m a lawyer. I don’t get “assignments”.’
‘You’re also a senior member of the London Connection, aren’t you?’
‘Stop banging me over the head with that,’ she demanded haughtily. ‘You don’t need to keep reminding me of your importance to the company, and I’m well aware of the company’s importance to me.’ Her gaze clashed with his, cold anger stirring in their depths. ‘But if you knew me, Ares, if you’d listened to anything I’ve said tonight, you would have known how unnecessary it was to go to such crude, bullying means to achieve your ends.’
He felt as though a boulder was pressing down on his chest, but didn’t visibly react to her condemnation.
‘I told you how I put my whole life on hold to help Priti with her baby. Tonight, at the ball, I spent an hour with a little girl I didn’t know just because I felt sorry for her. You could have pleaded with me on Danica’s behalf and won me over. You didn’t need to show yourself to be such a callous bastard.’
She sniffed, a sound of anger not sadness.
Provoked into responding with total honesty, he spoke unapologetically. ‘I had to be sure of your cooperation. I could have played on your sympathy, certainly, but then you might have said no. In my experience, people are always motivated by money.’
She laughed dismissively. ‘It’s not money that’s motivating me, you idiot. It’s basic human decency, and love. Love for Clare and Amy and the business they’ve built up. Love for the clients they take care of with every breath in their bodies.’ She pushed her hands onto her hips, looking at him as though he were scum. ‘Even you,’ she said witheringly. ‘To think, Clare works her butt off for you and this is how you behave!’
Strange that earlier that very same day she’d gasped any time she said anything approaching an insult, apologising profusely. There was no sign of apology in her face now, just scathing condemnation.
It stirred an ache in his gut he’d never felt before.
‘I take it that means you’ll stay?’
Her eyes swept shut, her features taut and skin pale. ‘Obviously.’ The word was seething with disgust. He felt every measure of it in the core of his being.
‘But as for sleeping with you,’ she said coldly, moving towards him, pressing a finger to his chest. ‘That’s something I no longer have any interest in doing.’
It was a split-second decision. No, there was no decision-making about it. He acted purely on instinct, the same instinct that had seen him steal out of desperation as a starving teenager—he wasn’t proud of it; it showed his darker side—roared to life now. He took hold of her finger, moving her hand to their sides, his eyes flashing with intention before he acted, his mouth claiming hers. Not like on the gondola—this wasn’t a kiss of gentle, moonlit exploration, with waves splashing at their side. This was a kiss of desperate anger, a kiss of dominance, a kiss designed to entreat submission. Other than his hand holding her finger, he didn’t touch her anywhere else. His mouth ravaged hers and she moaned, her body swaying forward, her abdomen pressing to his arousal. She made a low, keening noise as he grew harder against her, a whimper, and then a plea in his mouth.