Forgiven but Not Forgotten?

by Abby Green

  Andreas was grim. ‘And so as long as she stayed you were stuck too?’

  Siena nodded.

  Andreas put down his napkin. ‘Now that I know…everything…I will take care of Serena’s bills. You don’t have to pay me back.’

  Siena’s heart lurched. ‘But I do. You don’t owe me—us—anything.’ The line of her mouth was bitter. ‘I owe you so much. More than I can ever repay. If it wasn’t for me you would never have been sacked or had to leave Europe.’

  To Siena’s dismay she could feel tears threaten, but she forced herself to look at Andreas. ‘You don’t know how much I wanted to go back in time, to undo what happened.’

  Andreas’s eyes grew darker and he leaned forward. ‘That’s wishful thinking. If we had that moment over again nothing could have kept us from touching each other. It was inevitable.’

  Siena’s heart beat faster. Her belly swooped. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘What I’m saying is that the chemistry between us was too powerful to ignore. Then and now.’

  Stupidly Siena repeated, ‘Now?’

  Andreas nodded and stood up. He came around the table and took Siena’s hands, pulling her up out of her chair. He was suddenly very close, very tall. Siena could feel his heat reach out and envelop her, and a wave of intense longing came over her, setting her whole body alight. She’d not even admitted to herself how much she’d missed him in the past month, how she’d ached for him at night.

  ‘We’re not done, Siena.’

  Andreas put his hand to the back of her neck, fingers tangling in her hair, and urged her closer. And then his mouth was on hers, hot and urgent. She could feel him hardening against her belly and she groaned. She couldn’t deny this either—not when every cell in her body was rejoicing.

  She lifted her arms and fisted her hands in Andreas’s hair, bolder than she’d been before, arching herself into him. The knowledge resounded in her head. He knew everything but he still wanted her. She’d believed his desire had died a death the night he’d let her go. A fierce exultation made her blood surge, and her heart soared when he pulled back and looked at her for an incendiary moment. She felt him picking her up and quickly covering the distance back to the bedroom.

  As he was lying her on the bed Andreas was already opening the buttons of her shirt, and Siena’s hands were mirroring his. She almost wept when her fingers were too clumsy. Andreas took her hands away and ripped it open, buttons popping everywhere.

  An urgency that Siena hadn’t experienced before infused the air around them. Her shirt was open and Andreas pulled the cups of her bra down so that her breasts spilled free. He bent his head to pay homage to the puckered peaks, making Siena cry out at the exquisite sensation.

  Siena barely noticed that Andreas was arching her into him so that he could undo her skirt at the back, but then his mouth was gone and he was lying her down again so that he could pull her skirt over her hips and thighs and off.

  It was hard to breathe. Especially when she saw his hands go to his belt and he made quick work of taking off his trousers and boxers. And then he was naked. And aroused. Siena’s heart-rate increased when she saw the telltale moisture bead at the tip of his erection, and a gush of heat made her even wetter between her legs.

  Andreas came down on the bed beside her, the rising sun outside making his body gleam. With deft hands her shirt and bra followed her clothes and his to the floor and soon they were both naked.

  A surge of something scarily tender gripped Siena. She raised a hand and touched Andreas’s jaw, relishing the stubble prickling against her palm.

  He took her hand and brought it down, curling her fingers around him. Her eyes widened when she felt the solid strength of him, how he twitched and seemed to swell even more. Her hand moved up and down in an instinctive rhythm and Siena watched Andreas’s cheeks flush with blood, his eyes grow even darker.

  Stretching up, she pressed her mouth to his, open, her tongue seeking and finding his, sucking it deep. Her breasts were full and tight, and Andreas’s hand moved down her body until he pushed between her legs, making them fall apart. His fingers found the moist evidence of her arousal and stroked with a rhythm that made her curve into him, pull her mouth from his so she could suck in oxygen.

  And then his fingers thrust into her, and Siena’s body spasmed with pre-orgasmic pleasure.

  Andreas’s voice was guttural, rough. ‘You’re so ready for me. I want you now. I’ve missed you.’

  ‘I’ve missed you.’ Siena’s heart stopped for a long second and she searched Andreas’s face. He looked as if he was in a fever. She slammed down on the momentary joy his words had provoked. He was talking in the heat of the moment, that was all.

  Her whole body seemed to be poised on the brink. She felt Andreas take her hand from him and heard the ripping of foil, and then he was back, the blunt head of his erection pressing against her body, teasing.

  Siena opened her legs wider, bit her lip and arched upwards, forcing Andreas to impale her. The pleasure was like nothing she’d experienced yet with this man. It was more intense than anything before.

  Andreas slid deep into her body before pulling out again, and then moved back in. Siena’s head went back and she looked up at him, her chest feeling so full that she could only gasp when he slid so deep that it felt as if he touched her heart…and in that moment the knowledge burst into Siena’s consciousness.

  She loved this man. She loved him as she’d never loved another being—not even her sister.

  But she couldn’t fully absorb it. Andreas was wresting away her ability to think as his powerful body surged, robbing her of breath and speech.

  The intense dance between their bodies became all she could focus on. She was willing herself not to tip over the edge too soon, revelling in Andreas’s power and control. But then it became too much. She couldn’t hang on. Not when she wrapped her legs around Andreas’s hips and their chests were crushed together. And not when he bent his head and found one taut peak, sucked it deep.

  Siena cried out as emotion soared and realisation struck her: she’d thought she’d never experience this again.

  Her body tightened on that delicious plateau just a second before she fell and fell, her body clenching tight around Andreas’s shaft, urging him on until he too fell and their bodies were just a sweaty tangle of limbs on the tousled covers of the bed.

  * * *

  When Siena woke again she was disorientated once more, but this time because Andreas was in bed with her, his head resting on one hand as he looked at her. She blushed, and he smiled, and her heart palpitated. So much had happened in the space of twenty-four hours.

  His smile faded. ‘I want you to come home with me.’

  Those words caused a lurch in Siena’s chest. ‘Home? To your apartment?’

  Andreas nodded, and then said with familiar intractability, ‘I’m not going to take no for an answer. You’re coming with me, Siena.’

  She looked at him for a long moment. His jaw was more stubbled now. He had that look she recognized. Slightly stern. Determined.

  Feeling claustrophobic under his dark blue gaze, Siena looked away and saw the bathroom robe at the end of the bed, where she’d thrown it earlier. Moving before she could lose her nerve, she sat up and reached for it, pulling it around her and awkwardly feeding her arms into the sleeves. She got out of the bed to stand apart from him, belting the robe tightly and trying not to think of how dishevelled she felt. How deliciously sated.

  ‘Andreas…’ she began, not really knowing what to say.

  He lay back against the pillows, arms behind his head, broad chest swelling with the movement, and Siena was hopelessly distracted for a moment.

  With an effort she tore her avid gaze away and looked back to his eyes, narrowed on her. She started again. ‘Andreas.’

  He arched a brow.

  ‘Things are…different now. I owe you a huge sum of money.’ Siena blushed. ‘I didn’t feel comfortable taking the jeweller
y, or cashing it in, but I felt as if taking care of Serena was more important than my guilty conscience.’

  She steeled herself, but it was hard when Andreas was like a lounging pasha in the bed.

  ‘But now I won’t feel comfortable unless you let me come to some agreement. I can’t. It’s not right. Not with everything else that has happened. I’d prefer to let you have your money back and try to take care of Serena myself than let you pay.’

  Andreas sat up. ‘That is not an option. Not now that I know what her situation is. You will let me pay, Siena.’

  Siena wrung her hands and all but wailed. ‘But can’t you see? I’ll be beholden to you for ever. I can’t have that. My father was a tyrant…he owned us.’ She saw a dangerous look on Andreas’s face but rushed on. ‘I’m not saying you’re the same…but I couldn’t bear to go back into that kind of…obligation.’

  Andreas rested his arms on his knees, still managing to look intimidating despite his being naked under the sheets.

  ‘You weren’t so conflicted when you walked away with a fortune in jewellery.’

  Siena’s face grew hotter. ‘I didn’t think I’d ever see you again. I only took it because I thought I was making the best choice—that the end justified the means.’ She hitched her chin. ‘You were only too happy to let me walk away. And it’s not as if you got nothing in return.’

  His eyes flashed, but he said silkily, ‘That’s true. After all I got the precious DePiero innocence. But now I want you to come back to me.’

  ‘Come back to me.’ Siena felt weak. Questions reverberated in her head: For how long? Why? Is it just about the sex?

  A voice answered her. Of course it was just about the sex.

  ‘I—’ Siena began, but Andreas cut in harshly.

  ‘We both know I can have you flat on your back moaning with need in seconds—don’t think I won’t prove to you that you can’t just walk away from this.’

  Andreas didn’t like the feeling of panic that gripped him when her eyes grew wide. He had nothing to hold Siena now. Not really. Only a complete lowlife would make her pay him back for her sister’s treatment.

  So quietly that he almost didn’t hear her, Siena said, ‘If I come back to you I want things to be different.’

  Andreas went still, not liking the way his blood surged. She looked serious, and heart-stoppingly beautiful with her hair feathered over her shoulders.

  ‘I want to find a job—a better job if I can—and start paying you back.’ Andreas opened his mouth but Siena held up a hand, stopping him. ‘That’s non-negotiable. I have some skills…I can type and file. I used to act as my father’s secretary when his PA was off or on leave, and I worked sometimes at a local school, helping the special needs assistants. I’m hoping that will count for something.’

  ‘Also, I don’t want any more jewellery.’ She shuddered slightly. ‘I don’t want to see another piece of jewellery as long as I live.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Andreas prompted, seeing her biting her lip and feeling the rush of need make him harden again.

  ‘As soon as this…chemistry…whatever it is…is over it ends. Because it won’t last for ever, will it? It can’t…’

  There was a tinge of desperation to her voice that resonated in Andreas and he held out a hand. ‘It’s not over yet… Come here, Siena.’

  She stood stubbornly apart. ‘Do you agree? To what I’ve said?’

  ‘Yes,’ Andreas growled, his need making his voice sound harsh. ‘Now come here.’

  Six weeks later

  ‘’Night, Siena. See you on Monday. Have a good weekend.’

  Siena smiled. ‘’Night, Lucy. I hope your little girl feels better soon.’

  The other woman left and the door swung shut behind her. Siena looked around and stretched. She was the only one left in the typing pool. She was due to receive her very first paycheck next week, and it was almost embarrassing how excited she was about it.

  Sometimes she couldn’t fathom how lucky she was: Serena was safe and secure, and receiving the best treatment, and Siena was fulfilling a lifelong ambition to be independent. Well, she qualified, as independent as she could be with a dominant alpha male lover who resented everything that took her away from him. Even though, as she’d pointed out heatedly, he didn’t count his work in that equation…

  She got up and went to the rack to get her coat. She looked out of the window. A spurt of desire heated her insides when she saw a familiar silver sports car and Andreas standing beside it, phone to his ear.

  She hadn’t seen him in two days as he’d been in New York on business.

  She’d been working here for almost a month now, but he insisted on picking her up every day, or having his driver do it.

  He’d grumbled in bed the other morning at dawn, ‘I want you to come with me. Why do you insist on working when you don’t have to?’

  Siena had rolled her eyes. It was a familiar argument, but she stuck to her guns, not wanting to lay out in bald language that one day, when Andreas stopped desiring her, she’d be on her own again.

  He was the one who had patiently helped her put together a CV which flagrantly glossed over the fact that she had no bona fide qualifications. He’d pulled her close on his lap and they’d sat in his study in front of his computer. ‘Anyway, it doesn’t matter,” he’d said. “You’ll walk into the office and they’ll all be drooling too hard to even notice what’s on your CV…’

  Siena had punched him playfully, hating the see-saw emotions that still gripped her in his presence. It was different this time. He was different. Not more open, exactly—he always kept a piece of himself back—but she was seeing a side to him now that made her fall for him a little more each day. He was lighter, made her laugh.

  It reminded her painfully of what it had been like the evening they’d met in Paris, before the world had crashed down around them. She resolutely pushed aside the painful knowledge that for him it had just been an opportunity…

  When she’d got the job, after two rounds of interviews, Andreas had surprised her by cooking a traditional Greek dinner and producing a bottle of champagne with a flourish.

  Siena could see him now, looking at the door of her building with barely disguised impatience, and hurriedly put on her coat and got her bag. As she went downstairs she reflected that Andreas still hadn’t ever really opened up to her about his personal life. After mentioning his family the last time, and the way he’d shut down, she didn’t like to bring it up.

  After all, she thought a little bleakly, what was the point? It wasn’t as if she was ever likely to become a more permanent fixture in Andreas’s life.

  When she got outside the breath stuck in her throat at the narrow-eyed, heavy-lidded look he gave her. She wasn’t unaware of the interest of women passing by, and a fierce surge of possessiveness gripped her. A primal reaction of a woman to her mate.

  He put his phone in his pocket and caught her to him, slanting his mouth across hers in a kiss that was not designed for public consumption. Siena didn’t care, though. Two days felt like two months, and she arched her body into his and fisted her hands in his hair.

  When he pulled away he chuckled and said, ‘Miss me, then?’

  Siena blushed. She was so raw around him. She affected an airy look and said, ‘Not at all. How long were you gone anyway?’

  The ease that had built up between them in the past few weeks made Siena feel dizzy sometimes. It was so different from how it had been before.

  Andreas scowled. ‘You’ll pay for that. Later.’

  He stepped back and opened the car door, letting Siena get in. She took a deep breath, watching him walk around the car with that powerful, leonine grace, and her belly somersaulted.

  When he got in she felt unaccountably shy. ‘My boss came and told me today that I might be getting a promotion—moving up to work with someone as a personal secretary within another month.’

  Andreas looked at her and put a large hand on her leg, under her skirt,
inched it up. ‘I can offer you a promotion if you want—to my bed.’

  Siena rolled her eyes and stopped Andreas’s hand with her own—mostly because she was embarrassed by how turned on she already was.

  ‘I’m already in your bed. You know I’m not going to give up my job…’

  Andreas rolled his eyes and put his hand back on the wheel. ‘At least they won’t be demanding your attention over the weekend. You’re mine for the next forty-eight hours, DePiero.’

  Siena noticed then that they weren’t taking the turn for where he lived in Mayfair and asked idly, ‘Where are we going?’

  Andreas glanced at her and looked a little sheepish.

  Instantly Siena’s eyes narrowed. ‘Andreas Xenakis, what are you up to?’

  He sighed. ‘We’re going to Athens for the weekend.’ As if he could see her start to protest he held up a hand and said, ‘I promise you’ll be back at your desk by nine on Monday morning.’

  ‘But I don’t have anything with me—do you have to go to a function?’

  Andreas nodded. ‘It’s a charity ball. I instructed my secretary to go to the apartment and pack some clothes, get your passport.’

  At times like this it still stunned Siena how much power Andreas had.

  They hadn’t been to many functions in the last few weeks, but then Andreas said, with an edge to his voice, ‘My youngest sister has just had a new baby. I promised my parents we’d call for lunch on Sunday before going home.’

  Siena tamped down the flutters in her belly when he said ‘we’. ‘Oh?’ she said, in a carefully neutral voice. ‘That sounds nice.’

  She avoided Andreas’s eyes, not wanting him to remember how he’d reacted when she’d asked him about his family before. Not wanting to remind him of before at all.

  * * *

  The following evening, in the ballroom of the hotel where they were staying, Andreas looked at Siena weaving through the crowd as she came back from the ladies’ room. The ache that seemed to have set up residence in his gut intensified. She was wearing the black dress she’d worn on their first night out—except this time her face wasn’t a mask of faint hauteur and she wore only the gold birdcage necklace.