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His silky voice sounded almost … threatening. And primitive. Rebecca frowned, taken aback by the hot storm of accusation which blazed from his eyes. ‘What are you suggesting, Xandros?’ she queried unsteadily. ‘That I have sex with other men while you aren’t here?’
‘Do you?’
First she felt faint, then hurt—and then angry. But it was difficult to maintain your dignity while you were completely naked and Rebecca yanked the sheet from the bed and wrapped it around herself. As she got out of bed she realised that her hands were shaking and she turned on him.
‘I can’t believe you would even ask a question like that! Implying I’m some kind of…some kind of … tramp!’ Her breath was coming hot and rapid and he regarded her with a narrow-eyed scrutiny before crossing the room, but she waved him away. ‘Just what kind of woman do you normally associate with to make you think something like that?’ she demanded.
None that had as much fire in their eyes as she did at that precise moment, he thought with a mixture of sexual hunger and something much darker which had not reared its ugly head for a long time. With an effort he forced himself back from its brink. For a man who rarely considered himself to be in the wrong, apology did not come easy. ‘It was a clumsy question—I should never have asked it.’
‘No, you shouldn’t.’
He reached out for her and he could see the struggle taking place within her, telling herself not to forgive him too quickly. Until, with a reluctant sigh, she let him lift her hand to his lips and he managed to coax a reluctant softening of her mouth as he kissed each fingertip in turn.
‘Forgive me,’ he murmured, against skin which still carried his scent from their long night of sex. ‘Forgive me, agape mou.’
She wanted to—and yet she wanted to tell him to go to hell. Wavering between desire and despair, Rebecca closed her eyes, wishing she were strong enough to walk away from this sweet torture he inflicted on her. And when she opened them again it was to find his gaze upon her—dark and unremitting and gleaming with erotic promise. When he looked at her that way, she was utterly lost—so did that make her weak, or him strong? Or both? Oh, Xandros.
‘Do you?’ he prompted her.
With an effort, she shrugged, thankful he didn’t have the power to read her thoughts. She might not want to let him go, but she was damned if she was going to lie down on the ground and let him trample all over her. ‘I’ll think about it.’ Her eyes grew serious. ‘But please don’t ever accuse me of something like that again. It’s unjustified and it’s archaic’
Was it? ‘But I am Greek,’ he returned softly. ‘And we Greeks understand that human nature never really changes. I believe that it is impossible for a man and a woman to have real friendship—for how can they, when the hungry presence of sex is for ever in the background? Particularly when the woman happens to look like you, Rebecca.’ His mouth twisted into an odd kind of smile as he forced himself to voice the inevitable climb-down. ‘But I accept that you have no intention of bedding another man.’ And why would she, when Xandros Pavlidis was the finest lover a woman could ever desire in a hundred lifetimes?
He could see her looking as if she wanted something more—and this wearied him because he did not provide emotional security. Ever. Xandros used exactly the same coolly analytical attitude towards relationships as he did towards his work. Affairs ran their course—in the same way as a fever did—and by now he had gone through most of the stages with Rebecca.
He had chased her and seduced her. Revelled in making love to her—over and over and over again. But much more and the relationship would slip into a boring and predictable pattern—and Xandros would not tolerate either. Much better for it to finish on a high. To leave him with exquisite memories, rather than the slow deterioration into apathy.
Yet even though he sensed that his time with her was coming to an end, something inside him relented. A little longer, that was all he wanted. Because somehow—unusually—he had not quite got her out of his system and he needed more time to rid his mind and his body of her sweet temptations. He felt the sweet, hard jerk of desire.
‘I should be back on the tenth,’ he murmured. ‘So why don’t you plan something around that? Something you’d really like—a place you’ve always wanted to visit. Bill it to me.’
Rebecca flinched as one of his phones began to ring, but he didn’t even appear to notice the wounding nature of his words—dropping a brief kiss on the tip of her nose, his mind already occupied with the day ahead.
‘I’ll call you,’ he promised as he clicked one of the buttons to answer it. Soon, he mouthed, beginning to speak rapidly in Greek as she headed for one of the bathrooms.
Rebecca felt distracted all the way home. And hurt—the kind of simmering low-grade hurt which wouldn’t go away. Usually, when Xandros flew out she treated herself to chocolates or bubble bath, or a new book—silly little inexpensive treats which helped lessen the impact of his departure. But today she didn’t feel like buying any. Nor did she feel like an early night, which was the sensible solution after so little sleep—with a flight the next day leaving soon after dawn.
Plan something, he had said.
Bill it to me, he had said. Was he aware of how dismissive those words had been—as if everything in life came with a price-tag? She supposed that maybe for Xandros it did. Did he think that she couldn’t manage to provide an enjoyable time on her rather limited income? It was true that her salary as a stewardess was a mere drop in the ocean compared to his vast wealth—but she knew how to live. You didn’t need vintage wines and costly foods to satisfy your appetite.
Rebecca shut the front door behind her and looked around. Yet she hadn’t exactly welcomed him into her home, had she? Why, Xandros had barely been here apart from a few bouts of snatched passion en route to somewhere else. He had certainly never eaten a meal here or spent the night with her in her—admittedly—rather small bed. But it wasn’t small—it was a normal, double bed. It was just that anything was going to seem minute when compared with what he was used to.
Putting the kettle on to make a cup of coffee, she stared out of the window where the first hint of green buds were softening the sharp edges of the branches. Springtime often brought with it clarity—shining a light after the long darkness of winter—and maybe it was time for her to face facts.
She was falling ever deeper for Xandros, but currently their relationship was all on his terms. She was worried about it ending and yet how could anything so one-sided possibly be sustained?
Surely Xandros got fed-up with everyone always acceding to his whims. An appetite would inevitably become jaded if it was always indulged. Didn’t you need a proper contrast in life to enjoy it to the max?
Plan something, he had said.
Rebecca’s mouth curved into a sudden, spontaneous smile. She most certainly would! Only she wouldn’t dream of billing it to him. He would get a taster of life, Rebecca-style! A little home-cooking and a flavour of the ordinary.
She decided to make him a home-made chicken pie—a favourite choice from her childhood and something he’d be unlikely ever to get in one of the fancy restaurants he frequented. Going down the road to her local wine merchant, she bought a mid-price bottle of red which the wine-merchant said was a real find. Next, she set to giving her apartment the kind of spring-cleaning which it hadn’t seen in longer than she cared to remember.
How satisfying it was to drag out pieces of furniture and to polish and wipe and shine in all the dusty corners. It was liberating—and Rebecca felt as if she were cleaning out all the dark corners of her own mind as she scrubbed and polished.
Xandros hadn’t rung, but she wasn’t going to get into a flap about it. She wasn’t going to be needy and dependent when he was obviously busy. He had said the tenth, and that was what she was planning for.
She washed the linen on the bed—hanging it out on her tiny washing line in between April showers so that it smelt all clean and fresh. But as she ironed it and sniffed it with the enthusiasm of someone appearing in a soap-powder commercial she felt a faint cloud of apprehension skitter into her mind. Just because she was planning to entertain Xandros on her territory, didn’t mean she had to transform herself into some kind of hausfrau, did it?
And besides, Xandros still hadn’t phoned—and once she registered the long gap since they’d spoken she began to fret about it, even though she tried to tell herself not to.
She did that dreadful thing of haunting the telephone—while gazing in dismay at the vases of fresh flowers she’d bought down at the market. What if they’d wilted by the time he turned up? What if all the dust particles she’d cleared away somehow regrouped on every lovingly buffed piece of furniture?
It was that thought which drew her up short and made her realise that, although she was planning to give Xandros a little taste of her life, she was still behaving like a starving dog who was content to be thrown an occasional scrap from its master’s table.
Why was she waiting for him to call her? She knew his number. She shared his bed—why shouldn’t she call him to confirm the arrangements?
Yet despite all the reasoning in the world her hands were still trembling as she dialled his number and her heart was pounding with nerves. How stupid was that? This was a person with whom she had…
There was a sudden click on the line and then an automated voice telling her that her call was being transferred, then more ringing—with the instruction to leave a message. She had nothing prepared. Nothing to say but a stumbled, ‘Oh, hello, Xandros, it’s me. Rebecca. I was just …’
Just what? Just wondering what time to put the chicken pie in the oven? Very enticing.
‘I was just calling to say hi,’ she continued firmly. ‘And perhaps you could give me a ring when you’re free?’ Now she sounded like a dental receptionist asking him to confirm that he was about to keep his appointment.
Then she noticed that there was another number listed for him, and when she tried that, a woman’s voice answered.
Rebecca’s heart pounded painfully in her chest. Who the hell are you? ‘Is … is Xandros there, please?’
‘Not at the moment, I’m afraid,’ came the woman’s cool, transatlantic drawl. ‘May I ask who’s calling?’
I’m his girlfriend, she wanted to shout. ‘Could you just tell him that Rebecca called?’
‘Sure.’
Her phone shrilled into life an hour later and a distracted-sounding Xandros spoke. ‘You rang?’
She wanted to ask who the woman had been. She wanted to ask why he never rang when he said he would. Instead, she said in a way which would afterwards make her cringe, ‘Did I disturb you?’
There was a pause. ‘I was in a meeting.’ One of those meetings with a developer who seemed to think that cutting corners was a necessary part of construction. It had gone on for much too long, and it still wasn’t resolved. ‘What can I do for you, Rebecca?’
Was she imagining the indifference in his voice? Was this why she had always waited for him to ring before? Some instinct protecting her from this haughty coolness which seemed curiously at odds with the hot passion he displayed in bed. He was a man who always liked to be in control by telephoning her; she was taking a little of the control back.
But the reason she was doing this was because she wanted things to move out of the rut they seemed stuck in. To become once more the sparky and animated woman she used to be. ‘I just wanted to check that you’re still arriving on Friday.’
Narrowing his eyes, Xandros glanced down at the diary lying open on his desk. ‘That’s right. Though if this deal isn’t tied up, I may have to take a later flight.’ His voice softened by a fraction as he allowed himself an enticing reminder of just how beautifully she always welcomed him. ‘Why don’t I call you when I land and you can come straight round and say hello, agape? Tell you what, why don’t I warn the hotel—and you can be right there waiting for me?’
Warn the hotel? The husky timbre of his voice left her in no doubt as to how he would like her to greet him. Probably wearing a tight, satin bra and a pair of skimpy panties. She thought of the chicken pie she had laboured over. The apartment which was so clean, it looked as if she were about to start marketing it. And the little vase of lily of the valley which she had rather self-consciously placed next to her bed, which she planned to make up with clean and freshly ironed linen.
‘I’d much rather you came to me actually, Xandros.’
There was another pause. ‘To you?’
‘Yes. I’m cooking you dinner here. At my apartment. Just for a change.’
In New York, Xandros frowned and stifled a sigh. He didn’t want her cooking for him. He wanted her where he always had her—on tap and readily available. Quietly, he began to drum two fingers against the gleaming oak of his desk. ‘What is the point of wasting precious time cooking when there are so many more enjoyable ways of spending it?’ he questioned reasonably.
But Rebecca was determined—she could feel her resolve bubbling to the surface. She was no longer going to be just a compliant sex-object—available whenever and wherever. From now on they were going to be on a more equal footing—because that was how relationships moved forward.
‘Because I want to,’ she said stubbornly.
Oh, do you? ‘Then who am I to object?’ questioned Xandros, with silky carelessness. ‘In that case—I’ll come straight from the airport, and ring you when I’m on my way. How does that sound—satisfied now?’
But Rebecca was not left with anything remotely resembling satisfaction as he finished the call with a note in his voice she couldn’t ever remember hearing before. Instead, a terrible kind of foreboding had begun to make her stomach flutter and she felt as if she had stupidly brought down the curtain on the show, before the last act was properly over.
CHAPTER FOUR (#ulink_614201dd-4f0f-5b8e-95b1-37335c7fb1d1)
XANDROS had been to Rebecca’s house before—but maybe he’d never looked at it properly. When a man was hot with desire it obliterated almost everything else and he had wanted her so badly. She had made him wait for so long that the sex had been dynamite. He hadn’t been able to get enough of her.
And now? His thumb jammed on the doorbell. Of course he still wanted her, but inevitably desire became corrupted. Life and circumstances began to muddy it. More damningly, women always had to try and change what was good—and to reach beyond that. Why did they always want more than you were prepared to give and thus to ruin it for themselves? Xandros felt his mouth thin into a grim line. They hid their duplicity and schemes behind their beautiful smiles and men allowed them to. Why, he would never forget the shock on his father’s face when his mother had announced she was leaving them. How could a man be such a fool not to have seen it coming? How could he and Kyros not have seen it coming?
Her front door flew open. Hair piled up on top of her head and an apron tied around the waist of her short cotton dress—this was Rebecca looking more functional than he had ever seen her. Her smile was bright, but he thought he could detect a wariness in her eyes. Had she recognised that she had pushed him into a corner and realised her folly too late?
But Xandros had played out this scene often enough in the past that he’d become a master of it and knew how best to deal with it. He had his props to hand, just as she had hers. He could hear the sound of music playing and smell something cooking.
‘Hello, Rebecca,’ he said softly.
‘Hello, Xandros.’ She stood there, almost awkwardly, not quite knowing what to do, or say. A fish out of water in her own home. ‘Won’t you come in?’
He gave an odd kind of smile as he walked into the tiny hallway and shut the door behind him. How he hated convention—the stultifying feeling that this kind of situation imposed on him. Trying to ignore the line of shoes which were lined up by the telephone—how cluttered!—he stared down into her violet-blue eyes. ‘No kiss?’ he mused.
She wound her arms up around his neck, her inexplicable nerves and his heady proximity making her tremble—but once his lips crushed down on hers, then all her vague fears were forgotten. How could they be otherwise? The seeking caress of his kiss and the hard contours of his body stirred her into instant longing as she gave herself up to his kiss and with a hungry groan he deepened it.
His hands began to rove experimentally over her body and once again he was taken aback by the intensity of his desire—his body felt like dry timber, her kiss the match which ignited it. He wanted her here, now—instantly. If he could have signed a pact at that moment to say that he wanted to spend the rest of his life inside her body, then he would have signed it willingly. ‘Oh, Rebecca,’ he groaned. ‘What is it that you do to me?’
‘X-Xandros,’ she breathed, because he was splaying his fingers luxuriously over her bottom and bringing her up against the hard cradle of his own desire.
‘Ne, agape mou? What is it that you want? Some of this? Ah, yes—you like that, don’t you? And this? Mmm? This, too?’
His fingers were teasing their way over her belly and he was drifting his mouth against her neck in a way which was making her shiver even more. She knew what he wanted—exactly the same as her—but tonight was going to be different. Tonight she wanted to feel more than just an object in his arms.
She pulled away from him, her cheeks flushed, her heart beating like crazy. ‘There’ll be time for that later—but I don’t want your supper ruined.’
How like a suburban housewife she sounded! But Xandros didn’t react. Didn’t she realise what she sounded like? Didn’t she realize how many times women had spoiled things for themselves through their own, warped ambition? ‘No, indeed—for that would indeed be a crime,’ he said gravely. ‘To ruin my supper.’
Rebecca smiled uneasily. ‘Come on through.’
Xandros walked into the sitting room, which had a dining area at one end, and a door leading into the tiny kitchen. It was smaller than his walk-in closet back in New York and once he had made love to her on that rather curious sofa while his chauffeur waited outside. But tonight the scene was very different and she had clearly gone to a lot of trouble.
Candles glittered everywhere and there was a small pot of flowers placed at the centre of the table, which was laid for dinner—every piece of cutlery and china seeming to be fighting for a little of the limited space. The smell of polish clashed with the heavy smell of something cooking, and Xandros forced a smile.
‘It smells delicious,’ he lied.
‘Does it? I hope you’re hungry.’
He guessed that now would not be a good time to tell her that he had eaten something on the plane. ‘Why don’t we have a drink first?’
‘Yes, of course—sorry, I should have asked. Would wine be all right?’
‘Some wine would be perfect,’ he said evenly, and took the bottle from her and began to open it. ‘Here, let me.’
The glasses were chinking like wind chimes as she put them down in front of them. Would he notice that was because her hands were shaking—and how stupid was that? Xandros was her lover and she was entertaining him for the first time—what was there to be nervous about?
He poured them both a glass and handed one to her. ‘What shall we drink to?’
To us, she wanted to say—but only a fool would have made a toast as inappropriate as that. ‘Let’s drink to happiness.’
He wanted to wince but sipped his wine instead, before putting put his glass down to dig deep inside his pocket to produce a small packet. He held it out towards her.
Wide-eyed, Rebecca stared at it, and then up at him. It looked like … ‘What’s this?’
‘Why not open it and see?’
A present? A present which looked awfully like jewellery? Carefully, she put her drink down and fumbled with the wrapping to reveal a pair of earrings. They were large amber ovals—simple and bright as syrup, set in plain silver—and she stared at them for a moment, her eyes blinking furiously because the gesture was so unexpected.
‘Put them on,’ he said.
They gleamed against her ears and reflected back the colour of her hair. ‘Oh, Xandros—they’re beautiful,’ she breathed. ‘But why have you bought me earrings?’
Something to remember me by. ‘Isn’t a man allowed to buy a woman presents?’ he retorted softly.
‘Well, yes, but …’ A timer starter pinging in the kitchen. ‘Damn!’ she exclaimed. ‘I’d better go and turn the oven off.’
‘Leave it.’
‘I can’t leave it—the pie will burn.’
‘Let it burn.’ He snaked his hands around her waist and brought her up close to him, seeing the violet-blue light from her eyes darken with desire as he began to kiss her.
But for once Rebecca couldn’t relax into it. Was that burning she could smell? After all her hard work? ‘The dinner …’
He said something soft and explicit in Greek as she pulled away from him.
‘Xandros, I must go and check the dinner.’
‘Must you?’
