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‘Maybe her claim on you has some justification,’ Natasha said with a shrug.
‘Like…?’ he prompted, and there was no hint whatsoever left of the provoking mockery with which he had started this conversation. He was deadly curious to hear where she was going with this.
‘The way you run your life is your own business.’ Chickening out at the last second from stating outright the real question that was beating a hole in her head, she gave up on the chair and tossed the cushion back onto it.
But—did he still sleep with his ex-wife when he felt like it? Did Gianna have a genuine right to her grievances when she’d barged in on them as she had? If so, then it made him no better than Rico in the way that he treated women!
Tacky, as she’d already said. She returned to her search with his brooding silence twitching at her nerve-ends as she moved about the room.
‘I do not have a relationship with my ex-wife,’ he spoke finally. ‘I do not sleep with her and I have no wish to sleep with her, though Gianna prefers to tell herself I will change my mind if she pushes long and hard enough… In case you did not notice,’ he continued as Natasha turned to look him, ‘Gianna is not quite—stable.’
It was the polite way to call it, but Natasha could see by the flick of a muscle at the corner of his mouth that he was holding back from voicing his real thoughts about Gianna’s mental health. And what did she do? She stood here eating up every single word like some lovelorn teenager in need of his reassurance.
‘In some ways I still feel responsible for her because she was my wife and I did care for her once—until she pressed the self-destruct button on our marriage for reasons not up for discussion here.’ And the tough way he said that warned her not to try to push him on it. ‘I apologise that she barged in here and embarrassed you,’ he expressed curtly. ‘I apologise that she found a way to enter this property at all!’ A fresh burst of anger straightened him away from the wardrobe. ‘But that’s it—that is as far as I am prepared to go to make you feel better about the situation, Natasha. So stop behaving like a tragic bride on her wedding night and take the damn jacket off before I take it off!’
‘W-what—?’ Not quite making the cross-over from his grim explanation about Gianna to the sudden attack on herself, Natasha blinked at him.
Which seemed to infuriate him all the more. ‘While you stand here playing the poor, abused victim, you seem to have conveniently forgotten about the money you stole from me!’
The money.
Natasha tensed up, then froze as if he’d reached out and hit her. Leo smothered a filthy curse because her hesitation told him that she had forgotten all about the money. Though the curse was aimed at himself for reminding her about it when he would have preferred it to remain forgotten about! Now she was looking so pale and appalled he grimly wondered if she was going to pass out on him.
A tensely gritted sigh had him striding over to her. Lips pinned together, he reached out and began unbuttoning her jacket with tight movements that bore no resemblance whatsoever to the other times he had taken it upon himself to do this.
She didn’t even put up a fight, but just stood there like a waxen dummy and let him strip the garment from her body, which only helped to infuriate him all the more! With the muscles across his shoulders bunching, he tossed the jacket aside, then turned to walk back across the room to the wardrobes. Hunting out a white T-shirt, he dragged it on over his head.
When he turned back to Natasha, he found her still standing where he’d left her, giving a good impression of a perfectly pale ghost.
Theos, he thought, wondering why seeing her looking so beaten was making his senses nag the hell out of him to just go over there and apologise yet again—for being such a brute.
‘Dinner,’ he said, taking another option, keeping up the tough tone of voice because—well, she was a cheating thief even if he wanted to forget that she was!
At last she moved—or her pale lips did. ‘I’m not hungry—’
‘You are eating,’ he stated. ‘You have had nothing since you threw up in my London basement.’
And reminding her of that was Leo Christakis well and truly back as the blunt-speaking insensitive brute, Natasha noted.
Even in the T-shirt and chinos.
And his feet bare…
She felt like crying again, though why the sight of his long, bronzed bare feet moving him so gracefully across the room to the door made her want to do that Natasha did not have a clue, but suddenly she just wanted to sit in a huddle in a very dark corner somewhere and…
He pulled the bedroom door open, then stood there pointedly waiting for her to join him. Head lowered, she went because there was no point in continuing to argue with him when all he had to do was to mention the money to devastate her every line of defence.
Hard, tough, unforgivably ruthless, she reminded herself, wondering how she had allowed herself to forget those things about him while she had been giving him free use of her body—as a part of their deal.
She didn’t look at him as she walked past him and out into the hallway. She kept her head lowered when he stepped in front of her to lead the way through the apartment and into a room lit by flickering candle-light and another glass wall. Bernice was there, arranging the last pieces of cutlery on a white linen tablecloth intimately set for two. Candles flickered. Beyond the table stood the night view of Athens, making the most romantic backdrop any woman could wish for.
Any romantically hopeful woman, that was.
Friction stung the atmosphere and the housekeeper smiled and said something in Greek to Leo. He replied in the same language as he held out a chair for Natasha to use. After that there was no privacy to speak of anything personal because a maid arrived to serve them. Natasha had a feeling Leo had arranged it that way so he didn’t get into yet another dogfight with her, but the tension between them made it almost impossible to swallow anything, though she did try to eat. When she couldn’t manage to swallow another beautifully presented morsel, she stared at the view beyond the glass window, or down at the leftover food on her plate, or at the crisp white wine he had poured into the glass she was fingering without drinking—anywhere so long as it wasn’t at him.
Then he shattered it. Without any hint at all that one swift glance from his eyes had sent the maid disappearing out of the room, Leo suddenly leant forwards and stretched a hand out across the table and brazenly cupped her left breast.
‘I knew it,’ he husked. ‘You are wearing no bra, you provoking witch.’
Pleasure senses went into overdrive. Natasha shot like a sizzling firework rocket to her feet. He rose up more slowly, face taut, his dark eyes flickering gold in the candle-light.
‘Don’t ever touch me like that without my permission again,’ she shook out in a pressured whisper, then she turned to stumble around her chair and made a blind dash out of the room.
The lift stood there with its doors conveniently open. Natasha did not even have to think about it as she dashed inside and sent the lift sweeping down to the ground floor. Outside in the garden the thick, humid air was filled with the scent of oranges. Soft lighting drew her down winding pathways between carefully nurtured shrubs and beneath the orange laden trees. She didn’t know where she was heading for, all she did know was that she needed to find that dark corner she could huddle in so she could finally—finally give in to the tears she’d held back too long.
She found it in the shape of a bench almost hidden beneath the dipping branches of a tree close to the high stuccoed wall that surrounded the whole property. Dropping down onto the bench, she pulled her knees up to her chin, leant her forehead on them, then let go and wept. She wept over everything. She just trawled it all out and took a good look at everything from the moment she’d opened the message on her mobile telephone that morning to the moment Leo had touched her breast across the dinner table—and she wept and she wept and she wept.
Leo leant against a trunk of the tree and listened. Inside he had never felt so bad in his life. The way he had been treating her all day had been nothing short of unforgivable. The way he’d made love to her when he’d known she should have been doing this instead was going to live on his conscience for a long time to come.
But the way he had reached across the dinner table and touched her just now was, without question, the lowest point to which he had stooped.
And listening to her weep her soul into shreds was his deserved punishment. Except that he couldn’t stand to listen to it any longer and, with a sigh, he levered away from the tree trunk and went to sit down beside her, then lifted her onto his lap.
She tried to fight him for a second or two, but he just murmured, ‘Shh, sorry,’ and held her close until she stopped fighting him and let the tears flow again.
When it was finally over and she quietened, he stood up with her in his arms and took her back inside. He did it without saying a single word, ignoring the dozen or so security cameras he knew would have been trained on them from the moment Natasha ran outside.
She was asleep, he realised when he lay her down on the bed. With the care of a man dealing with something fragile, he slipped off her shoes and her skirt, then covered her with the sheets.
Straightening up again, he continued to stand there for a few seconds looking down at her, then he turned and walked out of the bedroom and into his custom-built office.
A minute later, ‘Juno,’ he greeted. ‘My apologies for the lateness of the hour, but I have something I need you to do….’
CHAPTER SEVEN
NATASHA drifted awake to soft daylight seeping in through the wall of curved glass and to instant recall that sent her head twisting round on her pillow to check out the other side of the bed.
The sudden pound her heart had taken up settled back to its normal pace when she discovered that she was alone, the only sign that she had shared the bed at all through the night revealed by the indent she could see in the other pillow and the way Leo had thrown back the sheets when he’d climbed out.
Then the whispering suggestion of a sound beyond the bedroom door told her what it was that had awoken her in the first place, and she was up, rolling off the bed and running for the bathroom, only becoming aware as she did so that she was still wearing the white top she’d spent most of the day yesterday in.
So he’d shown a bit of rare sensitivity by not stripping her naked, she acknowledged with absolutely no thought of gratitude stirring in her blood. Leo had taken her to pieces yesterday brick by brutal brick, so one small glimpse of humanity in him because he’d put her limp self to bed and had the grace to leave her with some dignity in place did not make her feel any better about him.
She stepped into the wet room, with her hair safely wrapped away inside a fluffy white towel, frowned and at the range of keypads and dials, trying to work out how she could take a shower without having to endure a thorough dousing at the same time. Leo Christakis was one of life’s takers, she decided. He saw an opportunity and went for it. He’d wanted her so he just moved in on her like a bulldozer and scooped her up.
Water jets suddenly hit her from all angles, making mockery of the buttons she’d pushed to stop them from doing it. A gasping breath shot from her as the jets stung her flesh. The sensation was so acute it made her look down at her body, half expecting to see that it had altered physically somehow, but all she saw was her normal curvy shape with its pale skin, full breasts and rounded hips with a soft cluster of dusky curls shaping the junction with her thighs.
But she had changed inside where it really mattered, Natasha accepted. She’d become a woman in a single day. One stripped of her silly daydreams about love and romance, then made to face cold reality—that you didn’t need love or romance to fall headlong into pleasures of the flesh.
You didn’t need anything but the desire to reach out and take it when it was right there in front of you to take.
Rico was like that. So was her sister, Cindy. They saw, they desired, so they took. It was there to take, so why not? Now she might as well accept that she’d joined the ranks of takers because she could stand here letting the shower jets inflict their torture on her and try to convince herself that she’d been blackmailed and bullied into Leo’s bed, but it was never going to be the truth.
She’d wanted, she’d let him see it, Leo had taken, now it was done. What a fabulous introduction to the reality of life.
Bernice was walking in from the terrace when Natasha came out of the bathroom back in the bathrobe once again. Feeling a hot wave of shyness wash over her, Natasha felt like diving back into the bathroom and hiding there until the housekeeper had gone but it was already too late.
Bernice had seen her. ‘Kalemera, thespinis,’ the housekeeper greeted with a smile. ‘It is a beautiful day to eat breakfast outside, is it not?’
‘Perfect.’ Natasha managed a return smile, ‘Thank you, Bernice,’ she added politely.
Walking towards the wall of glass as Bernice left the room, she pushed her hands into the deep pockets of her robe and stepped out into a crystal-clear morning bathed in sunlight and the inviting aroma of hot coffee and toast. By the sudden growl her stomach gave she was hungry, Natasha realised, which shouldn’t surprise her when she’d barely eaten anything the day—
Her mind and her feet pulled to a sudden standstill. For some crazy reason she just had not expected to find Leo out here seated at the table set for breakfast. However, there he sat, calmly reading a newspaper with a cup of hot coffee hovering close to his mouth.
Her soft gasp of surprise brought his eyes up from the newspaper, his heavy eyelashes folding back from liquid-dark irises that swamped her in heated awareness as they stroked up the length of her from bare toes to the tangling tumble of her unbrushed hair.
‘Kalemera,’ he murmured softly, and he rose to his feet.
It was like being hit head on by all the things she had not allowed herself to think about since she’d woken up this morning—the man in the flesh. Even though he was wearing a conventional business suit a warm tug of remembered intimacy made itself felt between her thighs. She found her eyes doing much the same thing as his eyes had done, feathering up the length of his long legs encased in smooth-as-silk iron-grey fabric, then his torso covered by a pale blue shirt and dark tie. By the time she reached his clean-shaven face with its too-compellingly, strong golden features, she was blushing and annoyed enough by it to push up her chin.
‘Good morning,’ she returned in cool English.
A half-smile clipped at the corners of his mouth. ‘You slept well, I trust?’
He met her challenge with mockery.
‘Yes, thank you.’ Natasha kept with cool.
Pulling her eyes off him, she dug her hands deeper into her robe pockets, curled them into tense fists, then made herself walk towards the table and slip into the chair opposite him, expecting Leo to return to his seat, but he didn’t.
‘Bernice was unsure what you preferred to eat for breakfast so she has provided a selection.’ A long, lean hand indicated another table standing to one side of the terrace, which was spread with covered dishes. ‘Tell me what you would like and I’ll get it for you.’
Glancing at it, then away again, ‘Thank you, I’m fine with just toast.’
‘Juice?’ he offered.
A small hesitation, then she nodded. ‘Please.’
He went to pour the juice from the jug set on the other table. You couldn’t get a more pleasantly generated scene of calm domesticity if you tried, Natasha noted—though there was nothing domesticated in the way her eyes had to follow him or the way they soaked in every inch of his powerful lean frame like greedy traitors.
Looking away quickly when he turned around, she pretended an interest in the daytime view of Athens glistening in a hazy sunlight. Then one of his hands appeared in front of her to set down the glass of juice. Ice chinked against freshly squeezed oranges. He did not move away and another of those hesitations erupted between them sending out vibrating signals Natasha just did not want to read. And he was standing so close she could smell the clean, tangy scent of him, could feel the sheer masculine force of his sexuality that to her buzzing mind was barely leashed.
Then he brought his other hand around her to settle a rack of toast next to the glass of juice.
‘Thank you,’ she murmured.
‘My pleasure,’ he drawled—and he moved away to return to his seat, leaving Natasha to pull in a breath she had not been aware she had been holding on to.
He picked up his coffee cup and his newspaper.
Tugging her hands out of her pockets, she picked up the glass and sipped the juice. The sun beat down on the gardens below them while the overhang from the roof suspended above the terrace kept them in much pleasanter shade.
She was about to help herself to a slice of toast when she saw her mobile telephone lying on the table and her fingers stilled in midair.
‘Bernice found it in my jacket pocket. I had forgotten I had it.’ He might give the appearance of being engrossed in his newspaper, but he clearly was not.
Having to work to stop yet another polite thank-you from developing, Natasha pressed her lips together and nodded, then picked the phone up, her fingers stroking the shiny black casing for a few seconds before she flipped the phone open and looked at the screen.
It filled up with voice and text messages from Rico or Cindy. Aware that Leo was watching her, aware of the silence thickening between the two of them, she began to delete each message in turn, gaining a cold kind of pleasure from watching each one disappear from the screen. As the final one disappeared she flipped the phone shut and placed it back on the table before reaching for the slice of toast.
‘I need to shop for some clothes,’ she said coolly.
Leo said nothing, though Natasha could feel his desire to say something about the way she had wiped her phone clean. Had he read her messages? Had he expected to find a volley of instructions from Rico instructing her on how to sneak away from here so she could hole up with him somewhere until the six weeks were up and they could get at their stolen stash?
What Leo did do was to reach inside his jacket pocket and come out with a soft leather wallet. ‘I will arrange an account for you with my bank,’ he said evenly, ‘but for now…’
A thick wad of paper money landed on the table next to her phone. Cringing inside, Natasha just stared at it.
‘Buy anything you want,’ he invited casually. ‘Rasmus will drive you into Athens—’
‘I don’t need a driver,’ she whispered tautly. ‘I can find my way to the shops by myself.’
‘Rasmus will not be there merely to play chauffeur,’ his smooth voice returned. ‘He will escort you wherever you go while you are here.’
‘For what purpose?’ Natasha forced herself to look at him—forced herself to keep silent about the phone and the hateful money he’d tossed down next to it. ‘To guard me in case I decide to run out on you? Well, I won’t run,’ she stated stiffly. ‘I don’t want to be thrown into jail if I get caught.’
‘In that case think of Rasmus as protection,’ he suggested.
‘Which I need because…?’
The attractive black arc of his eyebrows lifted upwards. ‘Because it is a necessary evil in this day and age?’ he offered. ‘For you perhaps.’
‘You are an intimate part of me now, which means you must learn to take the bad with the good.’
So where was the good in being his woman? she wondered furiously. ‘People would have to know I’m with you to make a bodyguard necessary for me.’
‘But they will know—from tonight,’ he countered, calmly folding his newspaper on that earth-rocking announcement. ‘We will be dining out with some friends of mine. So while you are shopping buy a dress—something befitting a blacktie event. Something—pretty.’
Pretty? ‘I don’t do pretty.’ Reaching for the pot of marmalade, Natasha began spreading it liberally on the toast.
‘Something—colourful, then to—complement your figure.’
‘I am not—’ the knife worked faster ‘—going to dress up like some floozy just to help you prove a point to your awful ex-wife!’
‘Why? Don’t you believe you have the power to compete?’
The challenge hit Natasha blindside, and she felt her breath stick in her throat.
