by Jane Porter
They were alone. Completely alone.
Panic shot through her. Panic because this secluded little beach was nothing short of a lover’s paradise. Picnic lunch, leisurely swim and exquisite lovemaking on the pristine sand.
Christos shifted and turning she caught a glimpse of him pulling his T-shirt over his head. His lifted arms tightened his chest, his rippled abdominal muscles contracted. His flat stomach was so lean and hard she itched to trace each sinewy muscle with her finger. A peculiar sensation rippled through her.
More desire, fresh desire flooded her, her breasts lifting with her swift intake. She felt an ache at the juncture of her thighs, her body suddenly hot and weak all over. She wanted something from him no man had ever given her. Wanted something that until now she didn’t even know existed.
Tossing his T-shirt down, Christos looked at her, their eyes meeting. His dark gaze locked with hers, and in his eyes she realized he knew what she was feeling, and that he was feeling it, too.
Her tummy clenched, her nipples hardened, her mouth full and sensitive. All from just one look.
If he touched her she’d melt. She’d puddle at his feet and beg for release. She’d clutch his wrist and move his hand across her body, across her stomach, to cup her breasts and then down again, over her hips to her thighs. She’d show him every spot that tingled. She’d press her mouth to his, taste his skin, drink him in—
Good God, what was happening here?
Jerkily Alysia rose, turned, covered her parted lips and shook her head. No, no, no. Not like this, not here, not with him.
She felt the boat rock and then heard a splash. Christos was in the water. He waded to the beach, tied the speedboat to an iron ring drilled in one of the massive rock formations.
He returned to the boat and reach for her. “Let me give you a hand.”
“Don’t touch me!” Color washed her cheeks. She sounded absolutely terrified.
His eyes narrowed, thick black lashes concealing his expression. “You okay?”
No. She wasn’t okay. She was anything but okay. Her heart felt strange and her emotions were wild and she didn’t know what was happening to her but she was losing control, felt sickeningly out of control, and this wasn’t supposed to happen. Not with him.
It’d been over four years since her marriage to Jeremy ended and in all those years she hadn’t been with another man. Four years had passed since she’d last been touched, kissed, caressed. Four years of nothing and now she felt absolutely crazy with sensation.
“I can manage,” she choked, resenting the fact that he stirred her up, that he mattered.
Christos shrugged, his lips compressed, and without a word gathered the picnic basket and towels from inside the boat and headed back to shore.
Alysia sat in the tethered boat, hands knotted in her lap and watched him drop the basket and towels into the sand before he returned to the water to swim. As the boat bobbed she followed his progress. He was a strong swimmer, his long, toned arms slicing through the waves, his dark head turning at regular intervals for air.
He’d covered the bay, reached the far end of the cove and prepared to turn around. Alysia pulled off her skirt and top and dived over the edge of the boat, swimming quickly to shore. The water actually felt wonderful, not too warm or too cold, just refreshing.
On the beach she toweled off, and then spread her towel to dry. She sat down on her damp towel and watched Christos’s approach. He was on his back now, lazily swimming along the shore. His dark head was thrown back, his muscular arms rotating in impossibly smooth arcs.
Poseidon. God of the Ocean.
Suddenly another boat motored into the bay and anchored not far from Christos’s Donzi. The group piled out, several families it seemed, mothers spreading blankets and towels on the sand, while the children splashed in the surf. The fathers sat together, a circle of male authority and Alysia darkly noted that while the men sat, the women did all the work. Typical.
Christos waded out of the ocean, water streaming, dark hair curling wetly on his muscular chest. He dropped to the sand next to her. Instinctively she scooted over, needing more space. Christos gave her a peculiar look. “Nervous?” he asked.
“No!”
“Good. Because we are married, Alysia. This is going to be a real relationship.”
Her pained expression didn’t go unnoticed. Christos’s jaw tightened as he watched her from beneath lowered lashes. Her face was like a canvas, storm after storm crossing the finely drawn features.
He scooped a palm of sand, letting the warm grains trickle between his fingers. “Why did you marry me? What changed your mind?”
Her head jerked up, long blond hair wet, clinging to her slim shoulder. “What?”
“You changed your mind about marrying me. Why?”
She didn’t answer and he reached out, opened his palm, trickling the soft sand to fall onto the inside of her arm. Alysia snatched her arm away and the warm grains slid to her inner thigh.
The pale grains of sand on her taut thigh were too irresistible to ignore. He lightly brushed the trail of sand from her thigh. Alysia gasped and jerked her knees closed, trapping his hand. He felt the smooth plane of muscle in her thigh, the heat of her body, the silky satin of her skin.
A faint tremor coursed through her. He felt it ripple through him and glancing at her, he arched one eyebrow. “This is nice.”
Pink color darkened her cheeks, a blush of mortification. Her knees opened and she shoved his hand away from her leg.
“I rather liked it there,” he drawled.
“Keep your hands to yourself.”
“I want a marriage, Alysia. I want you.”
“You said you’d give me time.”
“I am. I have. But how much more time is necessary? You’re attracted to me—”
“You’ve quite an imagination, Mr. Pateras, if you honestly believe that!” she interrupted, her head lifting, scorn flashing in her dark blue eyes.
He grinned, enjoying the flash and fire in her eyes. He liked it when she was angry, liked the fury and the challenge he saw buried there. “I do have a rather vivid imagination and I’ve a number of ideas I’d like to try with you.”
“I might not be a virgin, Mr. Pateras, but I’m afraid I lack your level of sexual expertise. You might be better off finding a partner that could better satisfy your needs.”
“I don’t want a mistress. I want you.”
“No.”
“Why can’t I want you?”
“Because you don’t even know me.” She dug her hands into the sand, burying her skin to the wrist. “And you can’t want someone you’ve only just met.”
“Why not?”
“Because. It’s just not right.”
“Ah, your morals. I see. You’ll marry a man to escape your father but you won’t stoop low enough to want him.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“That’s exactly it. You’d find it a whole lot easier to accept our arrangement if you were forced to endure my touch, then you could blame it on me. But the truth is, you want my touch and that makes you angry.”
Alysia jumped to her feet and began brushing the sand from the back of her legs with tangible violence. “I’m not attracted to you, I don’t want you and I want nothing to do with you.”
“Little late for that, don’t you think?”
Suddenly she stiffened, and raised a hand to shield her eyes as she stared out toward the water. Her lips parted in a silent oh, her focus entirely fixed on the tide. He felt her tension, her slender body taut, her breath bottled. She stood like that another couple of seconds before running frantically to the water’s edge.
Alysia saw the small body floating face down, arms outstretched, legs apart. She heard a scream, someone was screaming and she lunged into the water, grabbing at the child, flipping him up.
Breathe, she shouted, breathe.
The little boy wiggled, blue rubber mask framing his dark startled eyes. The sea-gre
en snorkel fell from between his clenched baby teeth.
He wasn’t dead. He was swimming. Snorkeling.
Her legs turned to jelly and she nearly collapsed into the water, still clutching the little boy to her chest.
People surged towards her. Women, men, the other children, everyone yelling at once.
“Down,” the little boy imperiously demanded, no longer frightened, just angry. “Put me down now.”
Above the commotion she caught Christos’s gaze, his dark eyes fixed on her. There was no anger in his eyes, no expression at all. Weakly she set the child down, placing him on his feet.
A woman, his mother most likely, yanked him into her arms, turning on Alysia in a tirade of angry Greek. Alysia saw the woman’s mouth move, flapping, flapping, flapping, but heard nothing the mother said, her brain dazzled by silence, stunned to stillness by the wretched memory of death.
Christos worked through the crowd, circling her shoulders with one arm, pushing the others away. “Shall we go?”
She nodded, her brain dimly aware of the pressure of his arm around her body, his size shielding her from the others nearby.
Her mouth felt parched, dry like the sand. They walked across the beach, leaving the others behind. Christos stopped briefly, bending over to gather their towels and shirts.
At the boat he undid the knotted rope. She waded to the boat, water surging around her thighs, swirling to her hips. She climbed up the boat’s ladder and moved toward the driver’s seat.
Christos glanced at her as the speedboat sliced through the ocean on the way back to the yacht, but he said nothing, and for that, she was grateful.
She couldn’t look at him, couldn’t talk to him, too mired in grief. Her stomach cramped, pain contorting in her belly. She clutched her hair in one hand and hunched over the side of the Donzi, throwing up into the saltwater.
Alexi.
Christos had seen the look on her face as she’d pulled the little boy up, snorkel, mask and all, it was a look of dread and terror, the expression of one who has seen a ghost.
Toweling off after his shower, Christos quickly dressed, donning black trousers and a fine white dress shirt.
She hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened on the beach and he hadn’t pressed for an explanation. It was enough that they both knew she’d run for the boy, seeing something else, thinking something else.
Christos saw enough today to feel worry of his own. Alysia’s ghost would haunt her forever if he didn’t try to help. He had to do something. But what?
He slid his arms into his black tuxedo jacket, grateful they’d be dining out tonight. They were dining on Cephalonia tonight, joining Christos’s closest friends at Constantine Pappas’s elegant villa, and he thought the party atmosphere would be good for Alysia, especially in light of what happened on the beach today.
He’d told her that dress for dinner was formal and while knotting his tie, Christos found himself wondering what she’d wear.
He imagined the long gowns she might pick from, beaded fabrics, velvet fabrics, delicate silk fabrics, but nothing he thought, could be more seductive than the conservative two-piece swimsuit she’d worn at the beach today.
Her suit, a pale pink tank-style with thin spaghetti straps, clung to her breasts and hips like a second skin. And wet, the fabric revealed the contours of her nipple, the cleft in her derriere, the protruding hipbones. He’d wanted to take her right there in the warm sand, pull her down beneath him and bury himself inside her.
Jutting his jaw to better see his collar, Christos knotted his black bow tie, then snapped off the bathroom light. Time to check on his bride.
CHAPTER FIVE
“YOU didn’t tell me we were joining other shipowners for dinner!” Alysia stared at Christos in dismay, her thin silk shawl folded over her arm, her small beaded purse clutched in her fingers. She’d imagined a quiet dinner alone with Christos. Instead they’d be spending the evening with old, powerful Greek families, families that knew too much of her family history.
“I thought I’d mentioned it.”
“No, you did not.”
He inclined his head, his black hair gleaming like polished onyx, his white shirt a perfect foil for his dark, hard features. “I apologize, then. It must have slipped my mind. We’ve been invited to Constantine Pappas’s for dinner. You know him, I believe?”
Oh, she knew Constantine Pappas very well. Not only had he once been her father’s best friend, but he’d created tremendous, and lasting, controversy in the Greek shipping industry by inviting foreigners to invest in his company, investors like Christos.
Suddenly it dawned on her, that Christos might very well be Constantine’s silent foreign investor. “You’re not…you don’t…with Mr. Pappas?”
“Are you asking if I’m his business partner? The answer is yes. I’ve backed his business for nearly ten years.”
“Constantine and my father are enemies.” But she saw from Christos’s expression he already knew that. “But my father doesn’t know that, does he?”
“No. I’ve always been a silent investor. And I’ve had my own business. Your father only knows me as an American holding company.”
“He doesn’t really know you, does he?”
“We’re business acquaintances. Not friends.”
She felt a bubble of hysteria. “So how did you make the deal? Did he ask to see your stock portfolio? Your savings accounts, what?”
“I sent him some income tax statements.”
“Income tax statements. Amazing. You had money, he had a daughter, a deal was struck.” Shock made her tongue thick. Tears welled in her eyes. “How many men did he go through trying to find one rich enough?”
“I don’t know, Alysia, it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”
“Not to you, because you won. You got Lemos’s name, Lemos’s ships, Lemos’s business and Lemos’s daughter.” The shame of it made her skin crawl. What kind of man sold off his only child? What kind of man would sell her to a virtual stranger? Christos wasn’t even Greek. He was American. He was everything her father despised and yet it didn’t matter because Christos was rich, filthy rich, appallingly rich.
“I hate you!” She swung her beaded purse, swiping him in the chest. “I hate that you’d do this to me. To us.”
The moment she’d said “us” she’d realized why she felt so crazy the past few days. If she’d met Christos anywhere else, in any other situation, she would have fallen in love with him, fallen for his impossible good looks, his strength, his sensuality. Instead marrying him like this destroyed everything. He was a mercenary and all the charm in the world couldn’t change that one horrible fact.
“I’m sorry.” There was no emotion in his deep voice, nothing at all.
“I’m not going with you tonight,” she said, blinking away the tears, her chest tender, her throat sore. “If you want to celebrate your victory, you go without me.”
“Constantine is throwing the party for us. It’d be a slap in his face to not show up.”
“I can’t go there. I can’t face everyone.”
“Why not? Because you feel like an outsider? Guess what, darling, I’ve spent my life on the outside. I know what it’s like to be the subject of constant speculation. I’ve heard the criticism about my past. But I don’t care what others think. I don’t need to please anyone but myself.”
“Obviously,” she flung back. He might consider himself Greek, but he was still an American. He’d been born in another country, raised with another society’s values. As much as he wanted to think of himself as Greek, he was still alien, would always remain alien, despite his marriage to her. “I’m not going tonight. I want no part of this. You’ve made your deal with my father. Now leave me alone.”
He shrugged, unmoved. “You made a deal with me, too, and I expect you to hold up your end of the bargain.”
“It’s not a fair bargain!”
“You should have thought about it earlier. But since you a
re a Pateras now, you shall do I as ask.”
“Ask?”
“Insist.” His dark eyes narrowed, his jaw jutting harshly, hinting at emotions he so far hadn’t revealed. “As my wife you will go with me tonight and treat Constantine Pappas with respect, indeed, reverence. Is that clear?”
The yacht slowly motored into the harbor, pulling up alongside the dock. Alysia and Christos didn’t speak as they stepped ashore, and the silence continued once they were seated in the waiting Rolls-Royce.
In the car Alysia wondered how much Christos actually knew about her father’s relationship with Constantine. The two had once been best friends, growing up together on Oinoussai and attending college together. It wasn’t until they’d both gone to work in the shipping industry that their friendship changed. Always competitive, they grew suspicious of the other. Suddenly a lifelong friendship turned into a bitter rivalry, exploding one summer into wild accusations of cheating, stealing, lying, and petty crime.
The chauffeured car pulled up in front of Constantine’s enormous villa, the white marble building glimmering with light, and Alysia brought herself to speak. “Mr. Pappas must be shocked by our marriage.”
“Everyone’s a bit intrigued,” he answered.
And that was putting it mildly, she suspected. Alysia gripped her pale blue silk shawl and drew the fringed edges to her breast, her dress the color of aquamarine. “People will gossip.”
“They do anyway.”
“Yet everyone knows he was trying to find a husband for me. He’d practically advertised in all the Greek papers!”
Christos’s white teeth gleamed in the darkness. “You forget, everyone believes ours is a love match. We had a secret wedding. Most people will assume we’ve gone behind your father’s back.”
“My reputation.”
“Is in tatters,” he agreed, reaching out to touch the slender sapphire-and-diamond bracelet encircling her wrist.
The chauffeur swung the back door of the Rolls-Royce open and stepped back, silently attentive.
But Alysia couldn’t bring herself to move. She felt tricked somehow, outwitted into this game. All her life she’d been manipulated by her father and now she was married to a man who intended to do the same. A lump formed in her throat. “I thought you might have been different.”
