by Sarah Morgan
‘Oh, for crying out loud.’ Kelly removed her shoes and walked barefoot across the tiled floor, where she’d slipped, and out on to the terrace. He’d said that if she wanted to talk he’d be outside.
Fine, they could talk—for five minutes. She’d just check he was all right and then she’d leave.
Her feet made no sound on the terrace and Kelly stood for a moment, puzzled, because there was no sign of him.
Then she heard a splash from the pool.
Glancing in that direction, she watched as Alekos powered his way across the pool, water streaming off his muscular shoulders as he swam, clearly trying to work off his frustration as he cut through the water with explosive force.
His body pulsated with strength and power, and Kelly gave a little shiver, remembering how it felt when all that power and passion was focused on her. Refusing to join him in the pool, she gritted her teeth and sat down on the edge of a sun lounger to wait.
The view was stunning, stretching across the gardens and down to the perfect blue sea. Normally the peace and tranquillity of her surroundings would have calmed her, but she was incapable of feeling calm in the current situation, with Alekos still within her line of vision.
Having swum endless punishing lengths, Alekos sprang from the pool, swept water from his face with his hand and prowled over to her.
Kelly slid back on the seat. ‘That’s close enough. I—I just came to check you’re OK.’
‘Why wouldn’t I be OK?’
‘Because you—you talked about stuff you don’t usually talk about.’ Out of her depth, she looked at him warily. ‘I just wanted to make sure you’re all right.’
He gave a wry smile and reached for a towel. ‘Typical Kelly,’ he said softly. ‘You hate me, but you think I might be upset so you have to check I’m all right.’
‘I just don’t want your death on my conscience.’ Finding it impossible to concentrate with all that gleaming male muscle on display, Kelly averted her eyes. ‘So, let me just check I’ve understood this correctly: you’re basically saying that you don’t want children because you’re afraid you’ll hurt them, is that right?’
‘Yes.’
Kelly chewed her lip, waiting for a full confession to spill out. When he was silent, she prompted him. ‘Your dad was selfish? He hurt you?’
‘Yes.’
Kelly stared at him in exasperation. ‘Can’t you say more than “yes”? “Yes” doesn’t tell me anything about your feelings. Oh, forget it,’ she mumbled. ‘You don’t want to talk about it, I get that. Whatever it is, you’ve blocked it out. I heard what you said to the doctor, although I didn’t realise at the time what it meant. You’d rather just plough on, pretending it didn’t happen, because that’s what works for you. The trouble is, that doesn’t work for me. I played guessing games last time and I guessed all wrong. I assumed you’d just decided you didn’t want me—that I was too inexperienced or something.’
‘I loved the fact you were inexperienced.’ He knotted the towel around his hips and Kelly swallowed, trying to focus on a different part of him.
‘Right. Which just goes to show I’m rubbish at reading your mind. And you won’t tell me what’s on your mind, so we might as well give up.’
‘We are not giving up. But you’re right—it is a subject I find hard to talk about.’ He poured himself a glass of water from the jug that had been left on the table. ‘What is it you want to know?’
‘Well, all of it! I want to understand.’
Alekos stared into the glass in his hand. ‘My parents had a disastrous marriage. My mother had an affair, my father left her, I was made to choose who I wanted to live with.’ He lifted the glass to his lips and drank while Kelly stared at him, absorbing that information slowly, slotting the pieces together in her brain.
‘Y-you were made to choose between the two of them?’ Shaken, she rubbed her hand over her forehead. ‘But—how old were you?’
‘I was six. They stood me in a room and asked me who I wanted to live with. I knew that whichever decision I made, it would be the wrong one for them.’ His tone grim, Alekos thumped the glass down on the table. ‘I chose to live with my mother. I was worried about what she might do if I went to live with my father. She was the more vulnerable of the two of them. She told me that if she lost me she’d die. No six-year-old boy wants his mother to die.’
Six? They’d forced a six-year-old to choose who he wanted to live with? Kelly was appalled. ‘That’s completely shocking. What about your dad? Didn’t he understand what a hideous position you were in?’
His mouth twisted. ‘A son is a Greek man’s most precious possession. To him, I made the wrong choice. He never forgave me.’
‘But—’
‘I ceased to exist. I never saw him again.’ Alekos looked at her and for once there was no mockery in his eyes, no hint of humour. Just a hard, steely determination. ‘I never, ever want any action of mine to hurt a child. And it happens. All too easily. So now you understand why I overreacted to the revelation that you want at least four children. It came as a shock.’
Kelly licked her lips. ‘I wish you’d told me.’
‘We weren’t doing that much talking, were we? Most of our communication was physical.’ He gave a cynical laugh. ‘To call our relationship a whirlwind would be like calling Mount Everest a molehill.’
‘I did plenty of talking,’ Kelly muttered, feeling a sudden stab of guilt. She’d never asked him that much about himself, had she? She’d never pushed him to talk about his family or his hopes. She’d been thinking about her dreams, not his. ‘It didn’t occur to me you were thinking that way. You just seemed so confident about everything. You seemed to know exactly what you wanted.’
‘I did know what I wanted. Or, at least, I thought I did.’ Alekos pulled her to her feet and drew her towards him. ‘Things change. Life throws things at you that you weren’t expecting.’
Without her shoes, she barely reached his shoulder. For a brief, indulgent moment Kelly leaned her forehead against smooth, bronzed skin, breathing in the tantalising scent of him. ‘Yes, life does throw the unexpected. This doesn’t feel like the fairy tale.’
He gave a cynical laugh. ‘Some of those fairy tales were pretty nasty, agape mou. How about the wicked witch and the fairy godmother?’
‘The fairy godmother was good. You mean the wicked stepmother.’
‘Her too. I told you I’d make a terrible father; I don’t even know the right stories,’ Alekos lifted her chin with strong fingers. ‘How is your poor head?’
‘Aching. Like the rest of me. I feel as though I’ve been trampled by a herd of cows. I’m never wearing shoes in your house again.’ But the thing that ached most was her heart—for him. For the small child who had been forced to make an impossible choice by parents too selfishly absorbed by their own problems to put him first. And for herself, who now had to make an equally impossible choice.
Leave and live without him, or stay and risk that he’d walk away again?
She had no idea what to do, which decision to make.
Alekos drew his thumb slowly over her lower lip. ‘You’re never wearing shoes again? How about clothes?’ His voice was husky. ‘Perhaps you’d better not wear those, either.’
‘Don’t. I can’t think when you do that.’ Kelly tried to pull away but he held her firmly, his hand warm against her back. ‘I’m completely and utterly confused now. I always thought you were a totally together, sorted-out person.’
‘I am in my business life,’ Alekos drawled, sliding his hand into her hair and trailing his mouth along her jaw. ‘It’s just in my personal life I manage to mess up in spectacular fashion.’ This surprisingly honest admission disabled her pathetic attempt to resist him.
She felt impossibly torn.
‘We can’t get back together for the sake of a baby you never wanted.’
He cupped her face in his hands and brought his mouth down on hers.
‘I brought you here before I
knew you were pregnant.’
‘If you were that keen on mending fences, why didn’t you come back to England?’
‘Because in England it rains even in July, and here in Corfu I can guarantee that you will be walking round in a bikini.’ His eyes gleamed dark with the promise of seduction. ‘Or less. I’m that shallow.’
‘It can’t be all about the sex, Alekos!’ Her hand slid to the hard muscle of his shoulders and she pushed him away. ‘Having sex is the easy part. It’s the relationship bit that’s the hard bit.’
‘I know that.’
‘You don’t want a baby. I don’t see a solution.’ But she wanted one badly. So badly.
‘We’ll find one together.’ He took her mouth then, plundering the depths with skilled strokes of his tongue, stirring up emotions she’d struggled to keep under control. His hard body pressed against hers and the flat of his hand kept them welded together while his mouth created a storm of passion.
Kelly melted into him.
He was the only man who’d ever been able to do this to her. The only man who could make her act against her better judgement.
He groaned something in Greek against her mouth, then switched to English. ‘For weeks I have wanted to do this—since that time in your kitchen I have thought of nothing else. You have been driving me wild, erota mou.’
Kelly lifted her hands, speared his hair with her fingers and let herself go. The taste of him was so dangerously good that she gave a low moan. The sun beat down on their heads and the birds flew playfully across the surface of the pool, but neither of them noticed, so intent were they on each other.
It was the sound of a door slamming close by that caused them to break apart.
Kelly gasped. ‘Y-you’re just confusing me.’
‘There’s nothing confusing about it.’ Alekos had his hand behind her head and he drew her mouth to his again. ‘You want this as much as I do.’ The air was humid, thick with sexual tension, and like a drowning person being swept downstream Kelly struggled to keep her head above the water.
‘Four years ago you really hurt me.’
‘I know.’
‘You didn’t even explain.’ She was looking at his mouth so close to hers, at the sensual curve of his lips and the dark shadow of his jaw. ‘You were really horrid.’
‘I know that too; I was a real bleep.’ His voice was husky and his black lashes shielded eyes that smouldered with the promise of sex. ‘I can make it up to you. I can make this work. We can find a way.’
‘I don’t see how. Don’t you dare kiss me again, Alekos—don’t you dare—not until I tell you it’s OK.’ Kelly tried to pull away but he was stronger than her and he wasn’t afraid to use that strength when it suited him.
His kiss was a devastating reminder of what they shared: power play. ‘You are going to forgive me, agape mou,’ he murmured, taking her lower lip gently between his teeth. ‘You are angry, I know, but that is good because it shows you still care.’
‘It shows that I have more sense than to let you back into my life again.’ But the words lacked conviction, not just because that brief kiss had left her weak and shaking, but also because of the baby. She didn’t want to just walk away, did she? It wasn’t that simple. But if she stayed there was a strong chance that he’d hurt her again, and this time he’d be hurting their baby too. ‘I can’t do this, Alekos. I can’t put myself through that again. I can’t risk it.’
He cupped her face in his hands. ‘You want me, you know you do.’
‘No, actually, I don’t know that at all.’ She struggled against her feelings. ‘It’s just a physical thing.’
‘If you don’t want me, and it’s just a physical thing, why have you been wearing my ring around your neck for four years?’
Kelly’s eyes flew wide. ‘Who told you that?’
‘I saw it after we made love in your kitchen,’ he said huskily, brushing his mouth over hers. ‘I didn’t know you’d been wearing it for four years. That was a guess that you just confirmed. But you have to admit that it says something.’
‘It says that you’re devious.’
‘It says that what we shared has never gone away.’ He leaned his forehead against hers. ‘Stay, Kelly. Stay, agape mou.’
‘No, because I can’t think straight when I’m near you, and I need to decide what to do without being influenced,’ Kelly moaned, turning her head away. ‘I’m pregnant, Alekos, and you don’t want children. So, tell me how this can ever work! Or are you suddenly going to pretend you’ve discovered this is what you’ve always wanted?’
He breathed out slowly. ‘No, I’m not pretending that. But it’s happened. That changes things. I admit that hearing about the baby is a shock, but we will work it out.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know.’ He was brutally honest. ‘I need some time to get used to the idea. But, in the meantime, you leaving won’t help the situation.’
‘If I stay, we’ll just end up in bed, and that won’t help the situation either.’ Ripped apart with indecision, Kelly stared at him. ‘Last time it was all about the sex. You said that yourself. If I stay, then it has to be different.’
‘Different in what way?’
‘It has to be about the whole relationship.’ She pulled away from him and stared at her suitcase. She didn’t know what to do. And the only person she could talk it through with was the same person who made it an impossible decision. If his desire not to have children was so deep rooted that he’d left her on her wedding day, that wasn’t going to change, was it?
On the other hand, it was impossible not to admire the fact that he was still standing here. That took courage, didn’t it? That showed he was serious about trying to make it work.
Unless it really was all about the sex.
There was only one way to challenge that possibility.
‘We’ll sleep in separate bedrooms,’ she blurted out impulsively and his eyes flared dark with shock.
‘Fine,’ he said tightly. ‘Separate bedrooms. If that’s what you want.’
Astounded that he’d agreed so readily, Kelly didn’t know whether to be impressed or disappointed. Was it what she wanted? She wasn’t sure, but now that she’d suggested it she had to follow through. ‘And you have to tell me what you’re thinking. All the time. I want to know, because I’m obviously not good at reading your mind and it’s exhausting trying to guess.’
His gaze slid over her. ‘You’re hot, and you should get out of your clothes. I want you naked.’
Feeling as though she was boiling inside, Kelly glared at him in exasperation. ‘I’m trying to have a proper conversation! Do you think you could possibly think about something other than sex for a moment?’
‘You told me to tell you what I’m thinking,’ he said silkily. ‘That’s what I was thinking.’
Kelly’s face burned. ‘In that case, I want you to censor your thoughts. I don’t want to hear the ones that involve sex.’
‘Censor my thoughts.’ Alekos arched an eyebrow and his eyes gleamed with sardonic humour. ‘So you want me to tell you everything I’m thinking, as long as it’s what you want me to be thinking. This is complicated, isn’t it?’
‘You built a billion-dollar business from nothing but a rowing boat,’ Kelly said stiffly. ‘I’m sure you can rise to the challenge if you really want to. And now I’m going to unpack my case.’
‘The staff will do that.’
‘I’d rather do it myself.’ She needed an excuse to have a few minutes without him looking at her. She needed to think, and she couldn’t do that when he was standing this close.
A faint smile touched his mouth. ‘Why not just tip the contents of the case over the floor and have done with it?’
‘You may think I’m messy, but I happen to think you’re far too uptight and controlling.’ Flying into defence mode, Kelly lifted her chin. ‘There’s something suspicious about someone who needs everything in their life to be neatly ordered. Spontaneity can be a healt
hy thing. You might want to remember that.’
And she needed to try and remember why on earth she’d thought it would be a good idea to suggest separate bedrooms.
Kelly stalked back inside the villa, wishing she had more control over her mouth.
She’d just consigned herself to endless sleepless nights. If he was going to talk about sex all the time, the days weren’t looking too restful either.
Chapter Six
‘SO, WHERE exactly are we going tonight?’ Kelly lay on a sun lounger next to the pool, sipping lemonade with no bits, trying not to think about sex.
Why was it, she wondered gloomily, that when you knew you couldn’t have something you just thought about it all the time?
And why was it that Alekos, who usually crashed straight through any decision he didn’t like, had accepted this one without argument?
Not that she could accuse him of not being attentive. Over the past few weeks, he had apparently expressed every thought in his head, some of them so hot that she’d been relieved they were on their own in the villa. He’d also presented her with flowers, jewellery, a book he thought she’d enjoy and a new iPod to replace the one she’d accidently dropped in the pool—but he hadn’t touched her. Not once.
And not once had he challenged her request for separate bedrooms.
‘We’re flying to Athens.’ Apparently oblivious to the fact that she was reaching boiling point, he scrolled through the messages on his BlackBerry, occasionally typing in a response. His cool, relaxed demeanour was in direct contrast to her own increasing stress levels.
Kelly was agonisingly aware of him.
It didn’t help that he’d chosen to sit on the edge of her sun lounger, as close to her as possible without touching. Sneaking a look at him, she felt a sharp dart of desire pierce her body. Her eyes slid to his muscular legs and her belly clenched.
Was he doing it on purpose, sitting this close?
She pulled her knees up, worried that her thighs would look fat pressed against the sun lounger.
The fact that he was spending so much time with her, surprised her. Over the past couple of weeks he’d only left her side a couple of times, to attend meetings in Athens that couldn’t be conducted on the phone. Apart from that, they’d been together at the villa, and the fact that he’d made that compromise for her had Kelly even more confused.
