by Caro LaFever
“You don’t have to eat it if you don’t want to.” She stood rigid beside him, her mouth grim. “I just thought it might be fun to mix it up.”
That was probably the best description of Sophia Feuer he’d ever heard. She thought it was fun to mix everything up. Including him.
He looked down at her. He could tell she was pissed again, the olive branch he’d offered a moment ago rejected, because he swore he could see the steam shooting from the top of her head. “Hey.”
She huffed and ignored him.
His stomach let out a growl.
“Oh.” She jerked her head around to stare at his torso. “You’re hungry.”
Yes. Hungry for her. Her delicate brows, her creamy freckled skin, the sweet way she stared at him when they made love.
Made love.
Something other than hunger rumbled through him, but he pushed it back. “Yeah. I’m hungry. Shall we eat?”
Wary cocoa eyes lifted to meet his gaze. “All right.”
He poured the wine while she filled wooden bowls with the steaming stew. Within a few minutes, he’d finished the first bowl and helped himself to another. Freshly baked sourdough bread and a salad of tomatoes, cucumbers, and feta cheese went down along with the main course.
“Gee.” Sophie stared across the table, her mouth open in surprise. “You were hungry.”
“I’m always hungry.” He dipped a piece of bread into the broth.
“True.” She sipped the wine. “But not like this.”
He grunted, not willing to admit his hunger might be because he hadn’t eaten much the last couple of days. Nella had scolded so he’d ended up taking the remnants of his meal and scattering them for the birds. He also didn’t want to admit his hunger might have something to do with being a fucking animal twice today.
“This is good wine.” Her glass swirled, highlighting the rich, ruby-red wine. “Is it available in the US? I’ll have to get some.”
“No.” He scooped the last of the beans onto his spoon. “It’s only available here.”
Her dark brows arched. “In Greece? I can buy some here before we leave.”
“No.” He chewed on the last of the sourdough while he noticed the firelight from behind coated her in an amber glow, bringing out the red highlights in her hair. “Only here.”
“Here?” Her brow wrinkled in continued confusion.
So, so cute. He wanted to scoop her into his arms and take her right to the loft. Still, his fucking animal might make an appearance again, so he didn’t make a move. “I own a lot of land around here.”
“Oh?”
“And part of that land is a vineyard.”
Surprise filled her eyes. “You made this wine?”
“Yeah.”
Pushing her empty bowl away, Sophie placed her elbows on the table and notched her chin into her hand. He could see the buzz of questions zipping around in her brain.
He sighed. “Ask away.”
She tipped her head, her hair sliding down her shoulders, and laughed. “Am I that obvious?”
“Yes.” He grabbed his glass of wine and eased back in the low-backed wooden chair. He didn’t know why he opened this door inside him, why he wanted to give her this. Maybe it was the sated feeling after sex and a good meal. Maybe it was the warm quiet of the night. Or maybe, God help him, he wanted to give her anything she wanted.
Including himself.
She hummed, the hum that always made him itchy to grab her. “Where should I begin?”
* * *
The question she really wanted to ask was what’s wrong?
Yet from the slump of his broad shoulders and the shift of his body on the chair, he wouldn’t stand for an interrogation.
Sophie supposed she could take him by the hand like she’d done a few hours ago, using sex to take his mind off whatever was troubling him, but that hadn’t worked, had it? Not in the hot pool and not in the bed upstairs. In fact, the sex had seemed to make him even more agitated and angry. The man in front of her still had that ugly look in his eye and still appeared emotionally fragile.
Alexander Stravoudas. Fragile.
A month ago, if she’d thought of him this way, she would have laughed at herself. Now, the tug of her love threatened to sink her heart into a pit of worry. She needed to help him. Yet how?
“Come on.” He waved one brute hand at her. “Ask away.”
“Tell me about your little horses.” Surprise was always a good tactic. She took another sip of his fantastic wine and watched for his response from behind her eyelashes.
Caramel brows rose in disbelief. “That’s what you want to talk about?”
“For now, yes.” She gave him a teasing smile, trying to lighten the tone, trying to bring him out of his funk. Perhaps then, he’d tell her what rumbled in his soul.
He chuckled softly and her heart lifted.
“Fine. Where do I begin?” He ran his fingers through his loose hair. The curls clung to his ear and splashed along his collarbone and shoulders like a shower of golden coins. He hadn’t shaved since they’d left Paris; it showed clearly in the beginnings of a dark honey burr on his jaw. The deep blue of his simple wool sweater brought out the highlights in those impossible eyes of his. He was so perfect, so perfectly enticing, she had a hard time focusing on trying to help him find his way out of the minefield he’d strayed into.
But she needed to. Being his lover wasn’t going to fix this. Whatever this was.
“They’re Thessalys.” He took a sip of his wine, his wide mouth drawing her attention. “They’re almost extinct and I decided to do something about it.”
“Thessalys?”
He looked at her, the twinkling tease back in his eyes. “Supposedly, Alexander the Great’s horse was from Thessalian stock.”
“So of course, the modern day Alexander the Great had to have one too.” She smiled at him as her heart soared at seeing the twinkle.
“Actually, I have a dozen.” He gave her back a smile, his real one, and to her satisfaction, the light in his blue eyes didn’t dim. “I’m breeding them.”
“Do you ride them?”
Alex let out a bark of laughter. “With these legs?”
Sophie let her gaze travel over the leg he had thrust out from under the table. The jeans lovingly hugged the long length of his thigh while only hinting at the strength of his calf. Her inspection landed on his bare feet, big and male and brutish. A month ago, she would have said they were ugly, like his hands. Now, she found them, both his hands and his feet, inexplicably enticing.
“But I can see you on one of them.” He hadn’t noticed her perusal because he was too busy staring into the fire. “You’d be very pretty on top of one of the mares.”
“Pretty?” She scrunched her brow. “I’d say the word would be terrified.”
His gaze jerked around to meet hers. “You’ve never ridden?”
“Nope.” She placed her empty glass down. “I never plan on doing it either.”
“Honestly?” Grabbing the wine bottle, he filled her goblet and his. “Sophia Feuer? Afraid of something?”
She snorted. “I’m afraid of a lot of things.”
“No way.” He gave her another smile as he sipped. “Not the firecracker I know.”
“You’d be surprised.” She shouldn’t drink anymore, her head was definitely getting a bit fuzzy and her words slightly slurred. Yet the fire and the cozy hut and the man sitting across from her made her want to draw this time out into infinity.
Alex fiddled with the stem of his glass and threw her a cautious glance.
The warm, fuzzy happy feeling inside her slid away. “What?”
“Time for me to ask a question?”
“That was a question right there.” She straightened her spine. “My turn again.”
Sighing, he leaned back in his chair once more. “Go ahead.”
Keeping it light was for the best, yet how could she possibly help him if she didn’t start to dig? She had to s
tart with at least a tentative probe. “Why doesn’t your family know about this place? They’d love it.”
“You’re an expert on what my family would love?” The words were pointed, but his tone was contemplative.
Sophie took heart and dug in. “Why, Alex?”
One big hand dropped onto his flat stomach in apparent defeat. “Because this was where my dad grew up.”
“This exact place?” She glanced around the hut.
“No, no.” Another chuckle. “This place is new. I designed it.”
“You did?” Surprise ran through her and then she remembered his sketches. The simple beauty of the lines and the warmth of the setting. Yes, she could see him designing this lovely, cozy home.
“I did.” This time his smile was smug and instead of irritating her, his arrogance made her amused. “Anyway, my dad grew up at the big house. His family worked there.”
“Like Nella and Petros?”
“Not exactly.” His gaze went distant as if he traveled into another world. “He worked for the old man I bought the property from.”
“Oh.”
“He loved it here, but he hated it.” His wide mouth firmed. “He said he loved the land, but hated not being in charge.”
“I can understand that.” She gave him an arch grin.
“Miss Business-Owner-In-Charge.” His smile came back at her, teasing and tempting. “I guess you could. Still, I didn’t understand as a kid.”
“He told you about this place when you were a kid?”
Alex nodded and took one more sip of his wine.
“But he didn’t tell your mother or your sisters about it?”
“I think it was a pride issue.” His voice took on an edge of something.
Irritation? At his father?
Or perhaps she imagined it. “He told you, though.”
“Yeah.” With an abrupt jolt, he stood and strode over to the dying fire. Lifting another log off the bin, he threw it in, and then, kneeling, he used the steel poker like he wanted to stab someone instead of a log. “He always wanted to return here and buy the place. Wipe out some bad memories, I guess.”
“But he died before he could.”
The muscles along his spine tensed. “Yes.”
They were circling around something here. She didn’t know how it was tied to his agitation about Henry and his work, yet instinctively, she knew it was. The memory of the last time they’d talked about his dad returned to her. He’d paced away from her like he wanted to explode into a run. At the time, she’d put it down to his usual animosity toward anything she did or said.
Now? Now she didn’t think this was the reason.
“How did he die, Alex?” She tiptoed into his minefield.
Surging to his feet, he punched his fists on his hips. “He had a heart attack.”
The simple, smooth words didn’t fit with his taut body and twitchy movements. “That must have been horrible for you.”
“Horrible for my family.” He swung around, the ugliness back in the depths of his eyes, but he didn’t march off like he had in Paris. Instead, he stomped to the table and grabbed his glass.
Sophie guessed she could count that as some sort of progress. “So you bought this place for him.”
His head yanked up from contemplating his wine. The azure blue of his eyes deepened as his mouth pursed. “Yeah, I guess.”
“But you built this place for yourself.” She kept her focus on him, willing him to tell her more, realize more.
His gaze narrowed. “Your point?”
She didn’t know the entire point, and, apparently, he didn’t either. Frustration ran through her because she could feel the strands of meaning swirling around them. Still, neither of them had all the answers.
Not yet.
“Perhaps there isn’t a point.” He laughed, but it wasn’t his real one. This one was harsh and hard. Taking a swig of wine, he slid into his chair. “Enough about me.”
Frustration ran right into sorrow. She could tell by the set of his mouth and the tight line of his jaw, he’d gone as far as he could go.
For tonight.
“Okay.” She girded herself because she could see in his expression what he wanted to talk about now. “Your turn to ask questions.”
“The tragic story.”
“The silly story.” And it was. Silly that she’d held onto the hurt for so long making it come between her and so many important situations. Like connecting to this man.
“Tell me.”
Sophie sighed and closed her eyes. In her imagination, she saw herself more than a decade ago. Young and happy and naїve. “I had a crush on a boy my senior year of high school.”
He grunted as if he disapproved.
Her eyes popped open to meet his. The blue had frost around the edges. “What? You can’t be jealous of a guy I knew over ten years ago.”
“Sure, I can.” He sipped his wine like he hadn’t said something astonishing. “Plus, I have a feeling already that I won’t like this guy and what he did to you.”
Her eyes widened. Alex was right. He wasn’t going to like what that high school jerk had done. “It wasn’t that big of a deal.”
“No?” The frost hardened. “Whatever he did hurt you and the experience has stayed with you for years.”
“Well, I—”
“Tell me what he did.”
Taking another sip of wine, she was suddenly glad she had a fuzzy head. The old pain seemed very far away and inconsequential. “He asked me to the prom.”
“You were ecstatic.”
“Yes.” She chuckled, but the sound must have conveyed something besides amusement because Alex’s gaze narrowed.
His big hand fisted by his glass. “Go on.”
“I bought this gorgeous dress.” She closed her eyes at the memory.
“A red dress.”
She nodded, admiring his perceptiveness. “He picked me up and took me to the dance.”
A short silence fell.
“And?” he finally said.
“And I had a good time.” She forced herself to open her eyes and stare at him across the table. “The dress showed my cleavage.”
He could have easily made a snarky remark and she’d bet that a month ago, he would have. Now, all he did was look back at her.
“After the dance, he took me to an after-party at a hotel.” She spoke the words with precision so she wouldn’t let out any emotion. “A bunch of his friends were there with their dates. There was liquor.”
“Yeah?” His voice was gentle.
“I hadn’t drunk much before.” She glanced down at her hands and was surprised to see her knuckles were white. “I told him I didn’t want to drink.”
“He made you drink too much?”
“No.” She husked a painful laugh. “He did more than that. Or at least, I’m pretty sure he did.”
“What?” His voice came with a sharp cut.
“He spiked my drink. The one drink I accepted at the party.” She clutched her wine glass to do something with her hands. “I don’t remember much else about that night.”
“What was this guy’s name?”
Sophie glanced over to meet his fierce blue gaze. “What does it matter?”
“I’m thinking of tracking him down when we return to New York City.”
A zing of reluctant pleasure ran through her. “Don’t be silly. The whole thing happened a long time ago.”
He grunted and leaned back. “That’s the tragic story?”
“No.” She swallowed. “That’s the prelude.”
His mouth went grim. “I am really going to need to know this guy’s name.”
“He took pictures,” she blurted. “After I’d passed out.”
“Pictures…”
“Of me. Mostly naked.”
“How do you know this?” His gaze went from fierce to fiery.
“He showed them around school.” The same numbness she’d felt all those years ago crept from her stoma
ch to her heart. “Finally, he…”
“He?”
“Posted them on his Facebook page.”
“Dammit, Sophie.”
The pain in his voice made her wince. But she wanted it all out. This was the first time she’d ever said anything about the fiasco since it happened and for some reason, she wanted every little bit of the story explained. “I got called a lot of names. People laughed at me.” She forced her own laugh. “I can assure you, the last part of my senior year of high school was not the best time of my life.”
“His name. What is his name?”
She stared at him. His face blazed with anger and his hands were fisted like he was ready to do battle. His protectiveness made her heart turn to mush. How she wished she’d had a gallant Alexander the Great by her side when she’d been seventeen. “It’s okay. My dad sued his family and the school. Eventually, every picture was destroyed. He got expelled, too.”
“It’s not okay.” Alex surged to his feet and circled the table. Before she could object, he’d swept her into his arms. “Look at me, Sophie.”
Dizzy from the wine and also from the confession, she laid her head on his strong arm and stared into his eyes. “They called me a fat cow.”
His mouth twisted and she saw her own pain in his eyes. “Sophie—”
“They said I had udders.” She sniffed, trying to stuff the tears back.
He walked to the sofa and sat down with her in his arms. The firelight flickered across the stern planes of his face as he stared at her. “Sophie.”
“Yeah?” She sniffed once more.
“You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”
A husky, disbelieving laugh escaped her. “O-okay.”
“I mean it.” His big hand slipped under her sweater and pushed it to her neck, exposing her big bosom stuffed into a bra. “If it’s the last thing I do, I’m going to make you realize I mean it.”
He shifted her into the corner of the sofa and knelt on the floor. She felt dazed and deflated, as if telling her silly story had taken everything out of her: her heart, her mind, her soul. She wanted to lean on the sofa’s cushions and fall asleep and pretend the silly story away—just as she had years before.
“Hey.” Alex wrenched her back into the present when he tugged her sweater over her head.
