“Look, you don’t know me,” she said, moving to keep up with his longer stride.
“Don’t I?”
She ignored his barb. “But I have no intention of talking to anyone in the media about your dad and me. That wasnevermy intention.”
He cast a glance over his shoulder. “So you admit you were involved with him.”
She let out a frustrated sound. “Not at all. We were friends. But I can see how easy it would be to take that innocent friendship and turn it into something dirty and I don’t want to disgrace his memory in that way. Nor should you.”
“Idon’t,” he pointed out sharply. “Why else would I be going to these lengths to conceal you?”
She closed her eyes on a wave of frustration and hurt. It was obvious that he viewed her as a problem to be solved but hearing him say as much didn’t make it any less hurtful.
“I don’t need to be concealed.”
“You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“I’m not going to discuss my friendship with your father with anyone.”
“Regardless, you and he were careless. People at the restaurant saw you together. They saw him coming in weekly, to meet with you.”
“The fact we were so careless should give you a clue as to how innocent this all was.”
“Who knows? My father is a man who seems to have lost his head when it comes to the women he was having sex with on the side.”
She gasped, hating him in that moment. “How dare you speak of him like that? And to me? However you might feel about your father, I valued him an extraordinary amount, and I’d appreciate it if you’d use respectful language in my company.”
His eyes glittered with unconcealed rage. “My father was worth an extraordinary amount. I wonder if that helped you value him?”
She gasped then lifted her hand, halfway to striking his cheek before he caught her wrist easily, using it to draw her closer to him, jerking her against his chest so she gasped at the urgency of the movement, and the thrill that spun wildly through her.
She felt the hard beating of his heart through his ribs and it echoed the frantic tattoo of her own.
“Money was never a part of it,” she ground out.
His eyes bore into hers and something inside of her snapped—common sense, rational thought, all of the above. She met his eyes but a part of her was spinning wildly out of control.
“Damn it, Anastasios. Why don’t you believe me? What have I ever done to you?”
“Nothing. This isn’t really about you, but my father, and his habit for philandering.”
She drew in a sharp breath.
“Though in this instance, I have to say, I can understand the temptation.”
And then he was kissing her, a kiss that caught her completely by surprise and simultaneously compounded every hope and dream she’d cherished, so she tilted her face and surrendered to it, wondering at the woman she’d become, who could swing so violently from outright hatred to these delicious, licking feelings of need and heat?
She desperately tried to grab hold of self-control, savouring the kiss for one more moment before wrenching free, her heart screaming at her for the denial, her body quivering with the feelings he’d stirred to life.
“Damn you,” she groaned. “Don’t do that.”
“Why not, when you like it so much?”
“Because we’re not animals. You’re—you’re…”
“Yes,agape mou? What am I?”
“Just—awful,” she said, her voice cracking a little as emotions threatened to overwhelm her. “I can’t believe you share even a hint of DNA with your father.”