by Tara Pammi
“Savas hated that my father walked out on all this. He wanted to ensure I didn’t end up another fool like him.”
Lexi wanted to argue some more, but the resolve etched into Nikos’s face stopped her. Now she understood why he had been so ready to blackmail her or pay her, how everything was a transaction, how everything had a price in his mind.
How could he be any different when that’s what he had been taught?
A thirteen-year-old boy, mourning his parents, dealing with his sister’s shock, fighting for survival, and the price for it had been that he show no weakness. Could she blame him when she knew the depths to which the need for survival could push a person?
“He messed you up, Nikos.” She said the words softly, slowly, burdened under a wave of sadness. Her childhood had been empty, her strongest memory was of craving for someone who would hold her, kiss her, hug her, love her unconditionally.
All she had ever wanted was to have a family.
Nikos, he had had one. And yet he had known less kindness than she had.
She heard Nikos’s laugh through the filter of her own teetering emotions. It was fire in his eyes, curving that sinful mouth. It mocked her for feeling sorry for him. “Everything Savas has done has been to my advantage. Have you seen where I’m in my life right now? I will be the CEO of Demakis International in a few months, will have everything my father didn’t have. Do you think I will ever be hungry again? We both know what that desperation feels like, agape mou. Admit it. Admit that any price is worth paying for it.”
“I have seen your place in the world. I almost drowned in that glorious bathtub. Are you truly blind to what price you’re paying for all this? Even sex is a transaction for you.”
He hulked over her in an ever so gentle way. But his gentility, his concern, they were all lost on her. “You can dish it out, Lexi, but can you take it? Do you want to hear some truths, as well?”
Her stomach dipped and dived, her nerves pinging with a thrilling excitement that spread through her like a fever. Now she knew why she had drawn him with that look in his eyes. Being near Nikos, feeling everything she did in his presence, she couldn’t spend another moment fooling herself.
She suddenly knew why her relationship with Tyler had failed on so many levels. Tyler and she had never meant to be more than friends. Ever. It was as if an invisible portal had been opened. Now she couldn’t unbelieve its existence whatever she did. “You’re right, I can’t,” she said, opting for cowardice. She wanted to run away before she betrayed herself, if he didn’t know already. “I can, however, tell you that Venetia and Tyler...whatever they share is not so weak as you imagine. There’s a fire between them. I’ve never...” She paused, the heat of his gaze lighting the very fire she had thought herself unaware of.
“You’ve never what?” His gaze widened with a dangerous curiosity that sent a pang of alarm through her. “With all your antiquated notions, did you refuse to put out, Lexi? Is that why he left you?”
Her gut flopped. She shivered, amazed at his razor-sharp mind. He was so close to the pathetic truth. “The P.I. couldn’t figure out if I had already lost my V card?” She was attracted to Nikos, and it was nothing like she had ever felt before. It was intense, and it made her feel frayed, as if she was coming apart at the seams.
Why else would his amusement hurt so much?
He grabbed her wrist and tugged her closer. “Articles in Cosmo have nothing over practical experience.”
“Are you volunteering then?” she said, before she could lock away the thought. “Will you help me practice so that I can then seduce Tyler away from your sister?”
A cavern of tension sucked them right in.
His dark gaze moved over her with lingering precision from the top of her hair to her feet clad in open-toed sandals. There was such a jaded look in those eyes that something within her rebelled and twisted.
He had no interest in her. She had seen his type and like every other man on the planet, it was boobs and legs. Neither of which she possessed enough to count, sadly.
For the first time in her life, she wished she had paid more attention to her clothes, had worn proper makeup. Because she wanted him to feel that hunger she felt for him, she wanted him to be mindless in his craving for her.
“I’m sure I can be persuaded,” he finally answered.
The color leached from Lexi’s face, leaving a pale mask behind.
Nikos instantly regretted his words.
She recovered fast, her mouth trembling with her fury. “I’m glad I’m such a source of amusement for you, but I’d rather be dumped by Tyler another hundred times than take you up on your offer. I’d rather sleep with one of the guys that frequent the club. You’re unfeeling, manipulative and arrogant. You’re toying with me just for the fun of it, and I don’t need your pity sex.”
She ran out of the garage as though the very devil was behind her. Stunned by how hard her words hit, Nikos forced himself to breathe, a storm of inexplicable emotion surging through him.
He had never meant to hurt her. He had only needled her, as he always did. His curiosity about every facet of her life, about her relationship with Tyler, it knew no bounds, shattering his usual reserve.
Had he hit the truth? Was there no end to her innocence? Why should it matter to him if she had slept with her blasted boyfriend or not? So he had covered his stunned reaction to it by needling her some more.
Are you volunteering?
Yes.
His body roared with its own answer. But he didn’t want just sex, he wanted her. For the first time in his life, he wanted something that he didn’t even understand.
He understood the pull he felt for her. It was more than just attraction; it was something as unique as the woman herself.
Her upbringing, her isolation even after the way she surrounded herself with people, her loneliness—it was like looking at an image of himself he didn’t know existed. Only a better one, with compassion, affection, love.
And the fact that he was letting her burrow under his skin, blared like an alarm in his head.
Unfeeling, manipulative and arrogant.
He was all that and more.
Yet, right at that moment—with his body shuddering at the very thought of kissing that mouth, his mind seething with hurt because she, Lexi Nelson, found him unsuitable— he was not the man he had forced himself to become. Old wounds and memories opened up, cloying through him, leaving him shaking.
The flash of pain, hot and shocking, that darted through him, forced him to focus like nothing else. He would not examine the whys or hows of it. There was nothing Lexi could offer him that wasn’t easily available to him without complication.
Not her body, and definitely not her pitying, trusting, loving, heart.
It was good he had scared her off, good that he had hurt her, because he had nothing to offer her, either. Like Venetia’s tears, the flashing hurt in her eyes was a price he would willingly pay.
Better she stay away from him, better she stopped analyzing him, better she stopped giving him glimpses of things he didn’t even know were missing from his life.
CHAPTER SEVEN
LEXI RUBBED IN the sunscreen on her legs, loving the golden tan she had already acquired. The early-morning sun felt warm on her bare shoulders, while the cool waves tickled her toes.
A small whitewashed beach house, small compared to the enormous mansion, stood near the ocean while the Demakis residence lay almost two miles inland. Leaving Tyler to Venetia in the afternoons, she had taken to walking the two miles, enjoying the quiet.
Ten days had flown by since she had let herself be cornered by Nikos in the garage, since she had lost it in front of him like that. But instead of anger that he had toyed with her, it was the fact that he had no interest that bothered her more.
Which meant she really needed her head examined. Because with everything else going on, Nikos’s lack of interest in her should be the high point of her life right now. Bad enough that she had to spend time with him in the morning, and evening, to feel his gaze on her, always a curious light in it.
Every morning brought a new facet of Venetia’s wrath that Lexi was here, revealing her frustration that Tyler couldn’t remember. Nikos hadn’t been joking when he had warned her about his sister. But even with the elaborate schemes that Venetia hatched to help Tyler remember, Lexi only saw her gnawing fear, her love for him. Lexi understood the fear the dark emotion in Venetia’s eyes caused Nikos.
Hearing Tyler’s tread on the sand behind her, Lexi turned around with a smile.
Dark shadows swam under his eyes, his face drawn. She sat up straight, her stomach tight. “You remembered something?”
Sinking to his knees next to her, he shook his head. His mouth a bitter curve, he clasped her face. “How can you bear to even look at me, Lex?”
Cold fear swept through Lexi. “What are you talking about, Ty?”
“Venetia told me what I said to you when you came to see us that day.”
“Why?”
“I guess to remind me how much I wanted you gone. Except, it didn’t work like she wanted.” He fisted his hands, his mouth tight. “I want to leave, Lex. There are so many things I have to apologize for. I don’t want to be here another minute.”
Stricken by the bitterness in his gaze, Lexi clasped his hand. Her throat stung with unshed tears, but she forced herself to say it, forced herself to see the truth she had been dancing around for so many days. “Listen, Ty. Yes, you hurt me. But I’ve no doubt that there was a reason behind it. This is you and me, Ty. We do this a lot. We fight, we yell and we make up. It’s just that this time things are different.”
He ran a hand through his hair, his gaze pained. “I...can’t believe I said those hurtful things to you, Lex, on top of everything else...”
Lexi felt as though someone was sitting on her chest. “It’s all forgiven, Ty. Truly.”
His blue gaze shone with affection, his palms clasped her cheeks. The familiar smell of him settled in her gut, infinitely comforting.
“I messed up everything with us so badly. And now, I have to break Venetia’s heart, too. I—”
Clasping his face in her palms, Lexi shook her head. “I have no idea what went wrong.” Her breath faltered in her throat. It would never go back to what it had been. But her love for Tyler, it would never waver. Knowing that Nikos would roast her alive for it, she said the words. “You don’t have to decide anything now, Tyler. About Venetia. Do you understand?”
His eyes glittering with the same pain, he shook his head. “I can’t face myself right now much less Venetia. You’re all I’ve ever had in the world, and I hurt you.”
Lexi closed her eyes as he pulled her closer and pressed his mouth to hers. But the only thing she felt was a sense of comfort, and a growing desolation as an inescapable truth began to inch around her heart. It was the loss of a dream more than anything else. Had he felt this same desolation that day? Had he known that something was irrevocably wrong between them but hadn’t known how to tell her?
He met her gaze, the same realization dawning in his. “We’re going to be all right, Lex.”
They were. Lexi curled into him and hugged him tight. He had always been there for her, had always made her feel as if she mattered to at least one person in the world, that she wasn’t an unwanted orphan. They had no future together except as friends. The realization instead of hurting her only strengthened her.
She had her only friend in the world back, and she wanted nothing more.
Her skin prickled, the hair on her neck standing to attention. Without turning, Lexi knew it was not Venetia.
Nikos was close.
Bracing herself, she didn’t know for what, especially because she was doing what he wanted her to do, she turned around.
And stared up at the open terrace of the beach house where Nikos and Venetia stood. They looked like a vengeful Greek goddess and god, come to cast a curse on them.
Focus on reality, Lexi.
She felt Tyler stiffen next to her and squeezed his hand. “Don’t do this, Ty,” she whispered in his ear, knowing that whatever her faults, Venetia did love him. “I’ll always love you but there’s nothing more between us. Don’t ruin what you have with her.”
Tyler turned toward her, a sad smile on his face. “If I really loved her enough to hurt you, it will come back, Lex. But no more of Venetia looking at you as if you were the cause of her problems, no more of her brother looking at you as if he wants to devour you.”
Stunned, Lexi looked up.
His hand on his sister, and his gaze calculatingly blank, Nikos held Venetia there. Probably stopping her from running down the stairs to gouge Lexi’s eyes out.
Lexi untangled herself from Tyler. Amnesia or not, heartbreaking realization that something between her and Tyler was right or not, she had kissed Venetia’s fiancé.
Feeling as dirty as Nikos was paying her to be, she walked away.
* * *
Nikos stayed on the roof long after Venetia ran down the stairs after Tyler, tears streaming down her face.
The very tears he had wanted to stop her from shedding. He felt powerless, but he also knew that she needed to shed them now. Better she found the truth now than when it was too late, when her love had an even more powerful grip on her.
But the powerlessness he felt was nothing compared to the dark cavern of longing that rent him open at the sight of Tyler kissing Lexi.
Again, it was exactly what Nikos had wanted. He should be elated that, even now, Venetia was kicking Tyler out of her life. And yet all he could hear was the roaring in his ears, a possessive yearning to wipe the taste of that kiss from Lexi’s mouth.
He wanted that hungry look in her eyes when she looked at him. He wanted to make her mewl with pleasure. He wanted to shower her with every possible decadent gift in the world. He wanted to possess her, he wanted to teach her to be selfish, he wanted to show her every pleasure there was to have in the world.
He wanted a part of her, that intangible element in her that made her her.
It took him a few minutes to get himself under control, to fight the urge to trace Tyler’s steps and beat him down to a pulp, to shove the desire that thrummed in his blood into one corner.
The pleasure he had pursued had only ever been transient, and he had liked it that way. But now he wanted Lexi. And not just for a night. He wanted to understand what made her tick, he wanted to hold her when she cried, he wanted to show her the world.
And he would have her.
* * *
Stepping from under the lukewarm blast of the shower spray, Lexi grabbed a beach towel from the neatly folded stack and wrapped it around herself.
Wiping herself down in the deafening quiet of the beach house, she pulled on her gym shorts and a pink tank top and threw her damp swimsuit into her bag. Venetia might have an army of servants to pick up after her, but she didn’t feel comfortable leaving her dirty clothes for someone else. Even more so now that she was leaving.
A hollow pang went through her and she fought the silly sensation. She wasn’t going to mope over a man who had nothing but mockery for her. And even if he did want her, taking on someone like Nikos Demakis, even for one night, wasn’t something she wanted.
She had hardly handled the fallout with Tyler. Nikos would chew her up and spit her out, leaving her no place to hide, even from herself.
She pushed her feet into the flip-flops and tugged her beach bag onto her shoulder, looking around for a switch to turn off the lights around the small pool.
“Leave it on, Lexi,” The words came from somewhere behind her,
rendering her frozen for a few seconds.
She whirled around. “Nikos,” she said stupidly, her heart still racing. “I thought you had left.”
“And miss the chance to chat with you?”
In the low lights of the pool, she couldn’t quite make out his features. Except for the rigid set of his mouth and the tension pouring out of him. “I really don’t have the energy to argue with you, Nikos.”
“You’re not going anywhere until we have this discussion.”
He was wearing a charcoal-gray dress shirt, the cuffs rolled back, and black trousers that hugged his hips. A couple of buttons were undone giving her a peek of golden-olive chest.
His sensuous mouth flattened into a thin line of displeasure, he leaned against the far wall, legs crossed at the ankles. But there was nothing casual in the way he looked at her.
“What happened with Tyler?”
“Venetia told him what he’d said to me that night at the party. He feels awful about it. Nikos, he—”
“Ahh...so everything is perfect in your little world again.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s come back to you, just as I predicted.”
Tension pulled at her nerves. He thought Tyler was done with Venetia. “You don’t understand—”
“I do. Better than you think. I understand the crippling loneliness, the need to matter to someone, the need to be loved. But you are better than this, better than him. Tell me you’re not going back to him.”
“That’s really none of your business, is it?” she said, pushing off the wall. She was goading him. But she couldn’t stop. “You’re not my pimp, or my boss.”
And he took the bait.
He was in front of her before she could blink. His hands braced on the wall either side of her, he slanted his upper body just enough that she could smell the purely masculine scent of him, so that she could see the evening stubble on his jaw, so that she could feel the heat radiating off him and blanketing her in a sensuous swathe.
