Wasn’t it that which had made her come here this afternoon—to meet up with Pavlos and remind herself of the beauty of the place? As if by doing that she could draw a line under the past and have some kind of closure? She’d hoped she might be able to eradicate some of the awful memories and replace them with better ones. She’d seen a picture of Ariston in the paper, attending the opening night, with some gorgeous redhead clinging like a vine to his arm. She certainly hadn’t expected him to show up here today. Would she have come if she had known?
Of course she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t have set foot within a million miles of the place.
‘Keeley?’
She turned around to find that Pavlos was back—with Ariston standing slightly behind him, not bothering to disguise the triumph curving his lips as his gaze clashed with hers.
‘Hi,’ she said, aware that the blue burn of his eyes was making her skin grow hot. ‘You weren’t long.’
A look of regret passed over Pavlos’s face and somehow Keeley knew what was coming.
‘No. I know I wasn’t. Look, I’m afraid I’m going to have to bail out, Keeley,’ he said. ‘And take a rain check. Ariston needs me to fly out to the Middle East and take care of a ship.’
‘What, now?’ questioned Keeley, before she could stop herself.
‘This very second,’ put in Ariston silkily before adding, ‘Should he have checked with you first?’
Pavlos bent to brush a brief kiss over each of her cheeks before giving her a quick smile. ‘I’ll message you later. Okay?’
‘Sure.’ She stood and watched him leave, aware that Ariston was still standing behind her but not trusting herself even to look at him. Instead, she tried very hard to concentrate on the photo she’d been studying—a sheltered bay where you could just make out shapes of giant turtles swimming in the crystal-clear waters. Perhaps he might just take the hint and go away. Leave her alone so that she could get to work on forgetting him all over again.
‘I can’t quite work out whether you are completely oblivious to my presence,’ he said, in his dark, accented voice, ‘or whether you just get a kick out of ignoring me.’
He had moved closer to stand beside her and Keeley lifted her gaze to find herself caught in that piercing sapphire stare and the resulting rush of blood went straight to her head. And her breasts. She could feel them become heavy and aching as the slow beat of her blood engorged them. Her mouth dried. How did he do that? Her fingers had grown numb and she was feeling almost dizzy but somehow she managed to compose a cool sentence. ‘Why, do women always notice you whenever you walk into a room?’
‘What do you think?’
And it was then that Keeley realised that she didn’t have to play this game. Or any game. He was nothing to her. Nothing. So stop acting like he’s got some kind of power over you. Yes, she’d once made a stupid mistake—but so what? It was a long time ago. She’d been young and stupid and she’d paid her dues—not to him, but to the universe—and she didn’t owe him anything. Not even politeness.
‘Honestly?’ She gave a short laugh. ‘I think you’re unbelievably rude and arrogant, as well as having the most over-inflated ego of any man I’ve ever met.’
He raised his brows. ‘And I imagine you must have met quite a few in your time.’
‘Nowhere near the amount of women you must have notched up, if the papers are to be believed.’
‘I don’t deny it—but if you try to play the numbers game I’m afraid you’ll never win.’ His eyes glittered. ‘Didn’t anyone ever tell you that the rules for men and the rules for women are very different, koukla mou?’
‘Only in the outdated universe you seem to occupy.’
He gave a careless shrug. ‘It may not be fair but I’m afraid it’s a fact of life. And men are allowed to behave in a way which would be disapproved of in a woman.’
His voice had dipped into a velvety caress and it was having precisely the wrong effect on her. Keeley could feel a hot flush of colour flooding into her cheeks as she made to move away.
‘Let me pass, please,’ she said, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘I don’t have to stand here and listen to this kind of Neanderthal...rubbish.’
‘No, you’re right. You don’t.’ He placed a restraining hand on her forearm. ‘But before you go, maybe this is the ideal opportunity to get a few things straight between us.’
‘What kind of things?’
‘I think you know what I’m talking about, Keeley.’
‘I’m afraid you’ve lost me.’ She shrugged. ‘Mind-reading was never one of my talents.’
His gaze hardened. ‘Then let me give it to you in words of one syllable, just so there can be no misunderstanding.’ There was a pause. ‘Just stay away from my brother, okay?’
She stared at him in disbelief. ‘Excuse me?’
‘You heard. Leave him alone. Find someone else to dig your beautiful claws into—I’m sure there must be plenty of takers.’
His hand was still on her arm and to the outside world it must have looked like an affectionate gesture between two people who’d just bumped into one another, but to Keeley it felt nothing like that. She could feel the imprint of his fingers through her sweater and it was almost as if he were branding her with his touch—as if he were setting her skin on fire. Angrily, she shook herself free. ‘I can’t believe you have the nerve to come out and say something like that.’
‘Why not? I have his best interests at heart.’
‘You mean you regularly go around warning off Pavlos’s friends?’
‘Up until now I haven’t felt the need to do more than keep a watchful eye on them but today I do. Funny that.’ He gave a mirthless smile. ‘I have no idea of your success rate with men, though I imagine it must be high. But I feel I’d better crush any burgeoning hopes you may have by telling you that Pavlos already has a girlfriend. A beautiful, decent woman he cares for very much and wedding bells are in the air.’ His eyes glittered. ‘So I wouldn’t bother wasting any more time on him if I were you.’
It struck Keeley again how controlling he was. Even now. As if all he had to do was to snap his fingers and everyone would just jump to attention. ‘And does he have any say in the matter?’ she demanded. ‘Have you already chosen the engagement ring? Decided where the wedding is going to be and how many bridesmaids?’
‘Just stay away from him, Keeley,’ he snapped. ‘Understand?’
The irony was that Keeley had absolutely no romantic leanings towards Pavlos Kavakos and never had done. They’d once been close, yes—but in a purely platonic way and she hadn’t seen him in years. Their current friendship, if you could call it that, extended no further than her pressing the occasional ‘like’ button or smiley face whenever he posted a photo of himself with a crowd of beautiful young things revelling in the sunshine. Meeting him today had been comforting because she realised he didn’t care what had happened in the past, but she was aware that they moved in completely different worlds which never collided. He was rich and she was not. She didn’t know or care that he had a girlfriend, but hearing Ariston’s imperious order was like a red rag to a bull.
‘Nobody tells me what to do,’ she said quietly. ‘Not you. Not anyone. You can’t move people around like pawns. I’ll see who I want to see—and you can’t do a thing to stop me. If Pavlos wants to get in touch, I’m not going to turn him away just because you say so. Understand?’
She saw the disbelief on his face which was quickly followed by anger, as if nobody ever dared defy him so openly, and she tried to ignore the sudden sense of foreboding which made her body grow even more tense. But she’d said her piece and now she needed to get away. Get away quickly before she started thinking about how it had felt to have him touch her.
She turned away and walked straight out of the gallery, not noticing that her cream shawl had slipp
ed from her nerveless fingers. All she was aware of was the burn of Ariston’s eyes on her back, which made each step feel like a slow walk to the gallows. The glass elevator arrived almost immediately but Keeley was shaking as it zoomed her down to ground level and her forehead was wet with sweat as she stepped out onto the busy London pavement.
CHAPTER TWO
THE JOURNEY BACK to her home in New Malden passed in a blur as Keeley kept remembering the way Ariston had spoken to her—with a contempt he’d made no attempt to disguise. But that hadn’t stopped her breasts from tightening beneath his arrogant scrutiny, had it? Nor that stupid yearning from whispering over her skin every time she’d looked into the blue blaze of his eyes. And now she was going to have to start forgetting him all over again.
A sudden spring shower emptied itself on her head as she emerged from the train station. The April weather was notoriously unpredictable but she was ill-prepared for the rain and hadn’t packed an umbrella. By the time she let herself into her tiny bedsit she was dripping wet and cold and her fingers were trembling as she shut the door. But instead of doing the sensible thing of stripping off her clothes and boiling the kettle to make tea, she sank into the nearest chair, not caring that her clothes were damp and getting all crumpled. She stared out of the window but the rods of rain spattering onto the rooftops barely registered. Suddenly she was no longer sitting shivering in a small and unremarkable corner of London. Her mind was playing tricks on her and all she could see was a wide silver beach with beautiful mountains rising up in the distance. A paradise of a place. Lasia.
Keeley swallowed, unprepared for the sudden rush of memory which made the past seem so vivid. She remembered her surprise at finding herself on Lasia—a private island owned by the powerful Kavakos family, with whom she’d had no connection. She’d been staying on nearby Andros with her mother who had spent the holiday complaining about her recent divorce from Keeley’s father and washing her woes away with too many glasses of retsina.
But Ariston’s own father had been one of those men who were dazzled by celebrity—even B-list celebrity—and when he’d heard that the actress and her teenage daughter were so close, had insisted they join him on his exclusive island home to continue their holiday. Keeley had been reluctant to gatecrash someone else’s house party but her mother had been overjoyed at the free upgrade, her social antennae quivering in the presence of so many rich and powerful men. She had layered on extra layers of ‘war paint’ and crammed her body into a bikini which was much too brief for a woman her age.
But Keeley had wanted none of the party scene because it bored her. Despite her relatively tender years, she’d had her fill of the decadent parties her mother had dragged her to since she’d been old enough to walk. At eighteen, she just tried to stay in the background because that was where she felt safest. Over the years her mother’s sustained girlishness had contributed to her becoming an out and out tomboy, despite her very bothersome and very feminine curves. She remembered being overjoyed to meet the sporty Pavlos, with whom she’d hit it off immediately. The Greek teenager had taught her how to snorkel in the crystal bays and taken her hiking in the blue-green mountains. Physical attraction hadn’t come into it because, like many children brought up by a licentious parent, Keeley had been something of a prude. She’d never felt a single whisper of desire and the thought of sex had been mildly disgusting. She and Pavlos had been like brother and sister—growing brown as berries as they explored the island paradise which had felt like their own miniature kingdom.
But then one morning his older brother Ariston had arrived in a silvery-white boat, looking like some kind of god at its helm, with his tousled black hair, tawny skin and eyes which matched the colour of the dark sea. Keeley remembered watching him from the beach, her heart crashing in an unfamiliar way. She remembered her mouth growing dry as he jumped onto the sand, the fine silver grains spraying up around his bronzed calves like Christmas glitter. Later, she’d been introduced to him but had remained so self-conscious in his presence that she’d barely been able to look him in the eye. Not so all the other women at the house party. She’d cringed at the way her mother had flirted with him—even asking him to rub suncream into her shoulders. Keeley remembered his barely perceptible shudder as he delegated the task to a female member of staff, and her mother’s pout when he did so.
And then had come the night of the party—the impressive party to which the Greek Defence Minister had been invited. Keeley remembered the febrile atmosphere and Ariston’s disapproving face as people started getting more and more drunk. Remembered wondering where her mother had disappeared to—only to discover that she’d been caught making out with the minister’s driver, her blonde head bobbing up and down on the back seat of the official car as she administered oral sex to a man half her age. Someone had even filmed them doing it. And that was when all hell had broken loose.
Keeley had fled down to the beach, too choked with shame to be able to face anyone, too scared to read the disgust in their expressions and wanting nothing but to be left alone. But Ariston had come after her and had found her crying. His words had been surprisingly soft. Almost gentle. He’d put his arms around her, and it had felt like heaven. Was it because her mother never showed physical affection and her father had been too old to pick her up when she was little which had caused Keeley to misconstrue what was happening, so she mistook comfort for something else? Was that why the desire which had been absent from her life now shot through her like a flame, making her behave in a way she’d never behaved before?
It had been so powerful, that feeling. Like a primitive hunger which had to be fed. Pressing her body against Ariston’s, she’d risen up on tiptoe as her trembling mouth sought his. After a moment he had responded and that response had been everything she could have dreamed of. For a few minutes the feeling had intensified as his lips had pressed down urgently against hers. She’d felt his tongue nudging against her mouth and she’d opened her mouth in silent invitation. And then his fingers had been on her quivering breasts, impatiently fingering her nipples into peaking points before guiding her hand towards his trousers. There had been no shyness on her part, just a glorious realisation of the power of her own sexuality—and his. She remembered the ragged groan he’d made as she’d touched him there. The way she’d marvelled at the hard ridge pushing against his trousers as, greedily, she had run her fingertips over it. Passion had swamped shyness and she’d been so consumed by it that she suspected she would have let him do whatever he wanted, right there and then on the silvery sand—until suddenly he had thrust her away from him with a look on his shadowed face which she would remember as long as she lived.
‘You little...tramp,’ he’d said, his voice shaking with rage and disgust. ‘Like mother, like daughter. Two filthy little tramps.’
She’d never realised until that moment how badly rejection could hurt. Just like she hadn’t realised how someone could make you feel so cheap. She remembered the shame which flooded through her as she vowed never to put herself in that position again. She would never allow herself to be rejected again. But her own pain had been quickly superseded by what had happened when they’d returned to England and her mother’s lifestyle had finally caught up with her—and in one way and another they’d been paying the price ever since.
She pushed the bitter memories away because her hair was still damp and she had now started to shiver so Keeley forced herself to get up and to go into the cramped bathroom, where the miserable jet of tepid water trickling from the shower did little to warm her chilled skin. But the brisk rub of a rough towel helped and so did the big mug of tea she made herself afterwards. She’d just put on her uniform when there was a knock on the door and she frowned. Her social circle was tiny because of the hours she worked, but even so she didn’t often invite people here. She didn’t want people coming in and judging her. Wondering how the only daughter of a wealthy man and an actress whose fac
e had graced cinema screens in a series of low-budget vampire movies should have ended up living in such drastically reduced circumstances.
A louder knock sounded and she pulled open the door, her curiosity dying on her lips when she saw who was standing there. Her heart pounded in her chest as she looked into the blaze of Ariston’s eyes and she gripped the door handle, hard. His black hair was wet and plastered to his head and his coat was spattered with raindrops. She knew she should tell him to get lost before slamming the door shut in his face but the powerful impact of his presence made her hesitate just as the siren tug of her body betrayed her yet again. Because he was just so damned gorgeous...with his muscular physique and that classical Greek face with the tiny bump midway down his nose.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said coldly. ‘Did you think of a few more insults you’d forgotten to ram home?’
His lips curved into an odd kind of smile. ‘I think you left...this.’
She stared down at the cream shawl he was holding, her heart automatically contracting. It was an old wrap which had belonged to her mother—a soft, cashmere drift of a thing embroidered with tiny pink flowers and green leaves. These days it was faded and worn, but it reminded her of the woman her mother used to be and a lump rose in her throat as she lifted her gaze to his.
‘How did you find out where I live?’ she questioned gruffly.
‘It wasn’t difficult. You signed the visitors’ book at the gallery, remember?’
The Pregnant Kavakos Bride Page 2
