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“What’s the matter?” she asked after he leaned over to kiss her square on the mouth.
He did that a lot. Kissing her, but he never pushed for more and while part of her appreciated his restraint, she couldn’t help wondering the why of it.
“I have business in Athens and must fly out today.”
Her heart sank. “I see. I guess I’d better look into that flight home.”
His mouth set in a grim line, he asked, “Is that what you want?”
“I should get back to California. I don’t know how long they’ll hold my job open.”
“You have only been in Greece for a week. Surely a family bereavement justifies more time away than that.”
“There’s no point in my staying on the island alone. I’ve finished all I needed to do.”
“You could come to Athens with me.”
The words dropped like stones into the silence around them and she stared helplessly at him. He was inviting her to take another step forward in their relationship. Athens meant real life and he wanted to take her into it with him.
He said nothing, his expression as blank as an unendorsed check.
Her head told her to ignore the seductive attraction of such an invitation and get out while part of her heart was intact, but her heart told her it already belonged to the powerful man and to go for it.
She’d been ruled by her head all of her life and while she had a lifestyle far removed from anything resembling her mother’s to show for it, she was also lonely. She’d wanted Sebastian for as long as she’d known him and the chance to do something about it stared her in the face.
To ignore it would be to forever shut a door her heart was screaming at her to walk through. “I’d like that.”
His face transformed with a smile that she couldn’t help returning.
“Then it shall be arranged.”
The flight to Athens was a short one with no chance to communicate over the loud whir of the helicopter blades. Not that she would have interrupted Sebastian’s intent study of documents from his briefcase even if she’d been wearing a communication headset. They were returning to Athens because he had no choice and that meant he needed to focus on the problem at hand, not entertaining her.
And she didn’t mind. Simply being in his company was something special.
When they arrived in Athens, the limo driver dropped Sebastian off in front of his building and then took her to an apartment in an exclusive suburb of the city.
The chauffeur disappeared with her luggage and a middle-aged Greek woman offered her refreshments. Rachel refused, more interested in exploring Sebastian’s sanctuary than anything else. The housekeeper nodded and returned to whatever she’d been doing when Rachel arrived.
His home was big and beautifully decorated, the great room big enough to fit her entire California apartment in with room to spare. It had an eating area as large as any formal dining room, a living area with a huge plasma screen television and a large corner of the room dedicated to reading with ceiling high bookcases and matching reading chairs.
All the furniture had a rather traditional feel; it and the accents were all done in smooth dark woods. His interior decorator liked neutral tones with splashes of color, which fit the vibrant man’s personality rather well.
Inappropriate and no doubt misplaced jealousy had her wondering how well the designer knew her client. It was not even a fair thought, much less a rational one. There was nothing to say that Sebastian’s designer had not been a man and absolutely no indication that the relationship had been anything but a professional one.
Nothing but Sebastian’s reputation for dating beautiful career women while getting serious about none of them.
The possessive feelings coursing through Rachel were not unfamiliar and had been another reason why she had spent the last few years in the States. Living far away from Greece, she had not been forced to watch Sebastian with other women.
She walked into the first bedroom off the hall wondering how wise she’d been to come to Athens with a man who was unashamedly commitment phobic. Even if he hadn’t despised her mother, he was hardly a sure thing in the emotional department.
The room she’d walked into was a fully furnished guest bedroom, but there was no sign of her luggage.
The next room had been converted into a home office complete with computer, printer, fax machine and a three-line telephone system. She didn’t think he’d mind her using the computer to check her E-mail, so she powered it up, her chaotic thoughts still whirling around her decision to accompany Sebastian rather than fly home.
There was so little chance of a future for them that it was practically nonexistent. However, the feelings she had for him demanded she not walk away even if their chance at a future together had worse odds than winning the jackpot in California’s state lottery.
She loved him.
She couldn’t deny it. No other reason explained her inexplicable decision to stay on the island and to come with him to Athens knowing how little interest he had in a long-term relationship.
It was horribly ironic that she’d fallen in love with the one man programmed by her mother’s behavior to steer clear of any woman from the Long family. But there were lottery winners and maybe she could be a winner at love too.
It took only a moment to check her E-mail via her server’s Web site once the computer came online. There were several messages. So many in fact, that she almost deleted one from a friend of her mother’s in a wholesale clearing of junk mail from her in-box. She stopped herself just in time and clicked on the message, expecting an expression of sympathy of her recent loss.
Instead, the E-mail was a barely coherent diatribe about Matthias Demakis and his threat to divorce Andrea. It was only then that Rachel realized the message had been written the same day as the accident. She hadn’t received it before she left and now wished she’d deleted it with the junk mail.
Apparently Matthias had gotten fed up with his wife’s outrageous behavior and told her that he intended to divorce her, settling a small alimony stipend on her. Nothing like enough to make it possible for her to continue with her current decadent lifestyle. Her mother’s friend believed Rachel should come to Greece and stand beside Andrea in her time of need.
The thought was a nauseating one.
The very suggestion she stand by her mother’s side in such a scenario was obscene. The additional suggestion by her mother’s friend that it was in Rachel’s own best interest was just as appalling. She’d never considered Matthias Demakis a meal ticket and hated the fact that anyone would assume she did simply because she was Andrea’s daughter. She would never have countenanced a bid for more money by Andrea from a man who had already paid far too much in his marriage to her.
The rest of her E-mails were innocuous and she finished going through them in very little time.
Afterward, she continued her exploring. Across the hall, she found Sebastian’s bedroom. It was ultra-masculine and she could almost feel his presence amid the chocolate brown and vanilla decor. She spent several minutes just soaking in the reality of being inside his most private sanctuary.
She found her cases in the next room down the hall. The furnishings were decidedly feminine. Pale blue and peach with whitewashed wood made a departure from the other rooms in the apartment. Had he had the room designed for his lovers’ comfort?
But no, she couldn’t imagine him planning to have female guests overnight that were not intending to share his bed. Perhaps he’d had it decorated for his mother’s visits. That was much more in keeping with his character.
The fact that he’d had her things put in the room indicated his willingness to respect her right to choose if and when they began a physical relationship. She appreciated Sebastian not assuming she would sleep with him immediately. However, she knew that if she stayed in his apartment for any length of time, it would not be sleeping in the double size bed in the beautiful guest room.
Sebastian rubbed his eyes and leaned back in his desk chair.
It had been a long day, with one draining meeting after another. The Chinese business contacts that had shown up unexpectedly had required careful handling and a tremendous focus on what was being said in each of their get-togethers. It had taken nearly half of the day for him to discern their objective in coming and the rest of the day making sure they did not achieve something not in his company’s best interest.
The thought of going home to his apartment and seeing Rachel was very tempting, but he forced himself to go through his in-basket of personal correspondence before leaving. There were only a few letters, but some of them were over a week old.
He’d been gone for a lot longer than he’d originally planned when he’d flown to the island to take charge after his great-uncle’s death. He’d taken care of business easily, but had told his secretary to hold off forwarding personal correspondence because he’d expected to be back sooner and he’d never rescinded that order.
Why, even though he’d been gone longer than expected?
Because he’d been focused on the confusing woman waiting in his apartment and he hadn’t even thought of it.
He’d called her twice that afternoon, just like a lovesick boy. She’d responded like she was really happy to hear from him and was probably hearing wedding bells in her head.
He had no one to blame but himself. He shouldn’t encourage her to think their relationship was out of the norm for him because he was not ready for marriage and emotional entanglement was right off his list of things to do for the next century.
He’d come much too close to going that direction once already to a woman a lot like Andrea Demakis, but he’d wised up in time and had paid in experience not alimony for his stupidity. He’d determined then not to let a woman get the upper hand in his life and his uncle’s marriage had only reinforced that belief.
He didn’t want to get married.
He sure as hell wasn’t about to fall in love.
He picked up a letter that looked like it was addressed in Matthias’s hand. He must be more tired than he thought. The return address was smudged, but it…
No it couldn’t be.
It was.
The letter had been written by his great-uncle before his death, no doubt about it. The envelope was thick and Sebastian hesitated to open it. He didn’t want to read something that would add to his ambivalent feelings about Rachel. He hated any sort of confusion and that seemed to be the vast majority of what he felt in relation to her.
But he was a man, not a spineless wimp, so he slit the envelope marked personal and pulled out the several page letter. A half an hour later, the pages of the letter in an untidy heap in front of him on the desk, he sat in stunned silence, trying to digest what he’d read.
His uncle had wised up to his younger wife, but too late.
Not only had Matthias acknowledged what a horrible mistake he’d made in marrying Andrea, but he had written that he was concerned that if his mercenary wife thought she stood to gain by his death, he would not live very long. He had therefore changed his will to disinherit his wife completely.
The admission of such a mistake in judgment, not to mention the necessity of taking such action, would have been devastating to the old man’s Greek pride and reading the words had made Sebastian physically ill.
Matthias had informed Andrea of the change in his will as well and his intention to divorce her. No wonder she’d gone so completely off the rails. She’d had nothing to lose anymore and a vindictive streak a mile wide. Realizing this, Matthias had written the letter to Sebastian so that in the event he did die before he got a divorce, his nephew would know that as far as he was concerned Andrea had no claim to the care given a widow within the family.
He stared down at the letter, the sick feeling in his stomach tightening into a knot of tension.
Had Andrea told her daughter their sugar daddy intended to evict them from his life? Had Rachel been angry, prepared to conspire with Andrea to get the biggest divorce settlement possible?
His teeth gritted as he rejected the thought.
Rachel was not anything like her mother. Hadn’t she shown that to him in numerous ways already?
His rational mind reminded him that his uncle had been deceived by Andrea’s false impression of innocence. Was Sebastian just as foolish in his dealing with a Long woman? Matthias had written that he’d married Andrea in order to protect her and had only later realized that far from being prey to the vagaries of life, Andrea had been predator through and through.
She’d convinced him that she’d had a traumatizing experience with a man and had played up to Matthias’s protective instincts. It was only after the marriage that he’d realized far from being a victim, his wife was addicted to sex, not to mention alcohol and other substances that left her less than rational in her dealing with others.
But Rachel wasn’t like that. She never drank. She didn’t flirt and she didn’t lie. She told the truth even when it embarrassed her. She wanted Sebastian, but she’d made no attempt to use sex to manipulate him.
She was perhaps one of the few totally honest women of his acquaintance.
Realizing that made him all the more eager to get home to her.
“What is that incredible smell?”
Rachel spun away from the stove where she had been adding the last minute spices to a pan of simmering curry chicken and landed smack against the immovable wall that was Sebastian.
His hands clamped on her arms before she could move away and his head lowered until his lips were almost touching hers. “Now this is the way a man likes to be greeted after a trying day.”
Then his mouth finished its descent, slanting over hers with lazy affection. The scent of his expensive aftershave still clung to him from the morning, but it mixed with the smell of his skin to turn her bones to a jelly-like substance not intended to support her body in a vertical position.
Sagging against him, she clung to his shoulders, glad for his still firm grip on her arms. She had no defenses left against him and her body was making emphatic statements of desire in secret, tender places.
He must have had a glass of ouzo recently, she thought dizzily, the licorice flavor permeating her taste buds as his tongue penetrated her mouth. She loved his taste, his scent and the feel of his hard body against hers. Each of her senses was filled to over-flowing with his presence.
Time ceased to mean anything and firm, masculine lips molded her own in one drugging kiss after another. His hands moved from her arms to her back, pressing her already pliant body into his firmness.
Something buzzed in the background, but she couldn’t think what it was, and honestly didn’t care.
However, Sebastian pulled his lips from hers, causing her to moan in protest and try to catch his mouth again with hungry lips.
He kissed her once, firmly, and then set her away from him. “Something is done, I think.”
“Wh-what?” She couldn’t think of anything but him, didn’t want to look anywhere but at his beloved face.
“Dinner, pethi mou.” He turned her around to face the stove.
And her mind kicked into gear. The curry. She scrambled to turn off burners and pull the caramel flan she’d made for dessert from the oven. Nothing looked burned and she breathed out a sigh of relief.
“I told my housekeeper to inform you of my intention to eat out tonight.”
Was that a criticism that she’d decided to cook?
She could not tell from his voice and was too busy removing the flan cups from the still simmering water to look at him. “You sounded tired the last time I spoke to you on the phone. I thought eating in would be more relaxing.”
“You did not have to cook.”
She turned to face him, biting her lower lip. “I’m sorry if I’ve overstepped the mark.”
His shook his head, his expression wry. “You did not overstep, but you have surprised me.”
“Good. That was the whole idea.” She smiled at him. “I hope you like curry.”
“I love it.”
She’d thought that might be the case when she’d found pretty much all the ingredients she needed already stocked in the kitchen’s large pantry.
He took a shower while she put the food on the table.
He joined her, wearing a pair of jeans and a ribbed cotton shirt and looking like an advertisement for Men’s Fitness Magazine. It was all she could do not to drool.
“I’ve never had a woman cook for me before.” He surveyed the serving dishes filled with rice, chicken curry and spicy grilled vegetables. “It is a novel experience.”
She started serving the food. “Good novel, or bad novel?”
“Definitely good. It makes me feel indulged.” He reached out and touched her, his fingertips trailing down her arm, leaving shivery goose bumps behind. “I am usually the one doing the pampering.”
She didn’t like the reminder he had more pillow friends than silk ties, and it made her insecure.
She arranged the food on her plate with no desire to taste any of it and refused to meet his eyes. “I’m sure the other women in your life are far too sophisticated to enjoy a meal at home and an old movie on the television afterward.”
She must seem so gauche to him. She knew the women in his world didn’t do the domestic bit, so why had she?
Because she liked to and her newly acknowledged love had demanded an expression.
When he’d called that afternoon to tell her he would be later than expected, he’d sounded exhausted, discouraged even. She had wanted to do something to help, but what was the point?
He had a housekeeper who could cook for him if he wanted to eat in. She would have spent the afternoon better occupied in an attempt to improve her image than acquainting herself with his kitchen.
“So is that what is on offer for later?”
“What?” Her head jolted up and she met his slate gaze, having lost the train of the conversation with her mental rambling.
“A movie.”
“If you like.”
He smiled and some of the tension inside her dissipated. “I like.”
He took a bite of his dinner with every evidence of enjoyment and she followed suit, appreciating the burst of spicy sensation from the curry.
“How did you know I liked classic movies?” he asked a few minutes later.
“I didn’t, but I’m glad you do.” Or was he just trying to be kind? “Look, we don’t have to watch it if you don’t want to. This scene must seem pretty tame to you.”
She indicated the table and her own less than perfectly coifed appearance. Her knee length khaki straight skirt and casual knit top would have been perfect for an evening at home in California, but were too sloppy for dinner with a man like Sebastian, she now appreciated.
Oh, well. She could hardly run into her room and change without looking like an idiot.
Sebastian had stopped eating and was looking at her.
She paused with her fork midway to her mouth. “What?”
“I like it.”
“You like it?” She really wasn’t grasping the conversation tonight.
“I enjoy being pampered. I like that you did all this for me and I like the idea of spending a couple of hours with you cuddled against me while we watch a movie.”
“I don’t fit in your world very well, Sebastian.” She’d never fit in her mother’s either. She wasn’t the rich and famous type.
“Did I not just say I liked all this?” He looked confused.
“Yes, but you’re simply being kind.”
“I’m being honest.” He frowned at her. “Do not spoil a special night doubting my sincerity.”
Her breath caught in her throat. “Special?”
“Yes. Special. Believe it or not, the effort you made here is very special to me. I like it,” he stressed again.
Finally, she let herself believe him. “I’m glad. I wanted you to feel spoiled, but it didn’t occur to me until you’d gotten home that you could have had your housekeeper cook you a meal if you wanted to stay home.”
“But you did it because you wanted me to relax. Because you cared.”
And it occurred to her that sophisticated, or not, she’d tapped into a real well of pleasure as far as her tycoon companion was concerned. He really did appreciate the personal touch. She beamed at him.
“And the night, it is not over. This wonderful dinner is only the beginning.”
She swallowed hastily at the look in his eyes. She didn’t think he was referring to the movie. If he meant what she suspected he meant, she would not deny him. She couldn’t.
She loved him and if she were ever going to make love with a man, it would be Sebastian Kouros.
She licked suddenly dry lips and forced herself to say what needed to be said. “Tonight can be as special as you want it to be.”
Recognition and desire flared in his eyes before a pained expression came over his features. “I want you, but I am not promising marriage here.”
If he had one more ounce of tactlessness and one less of romantic idealism, he would be so basic, he wouldn’t even have a rung on the evolutionary ladder. He was telling her he appreciated what she’d done tonight, would probably like even better the use of her body, but none of it altered the truth between them.
They had no future.
“I never thought you were. How could you? I’m Andrea’s daughter and the last thing your family needs is a constant reminder of the pain she brought you all.”
He opened his mouth to speak again, but she jumped up from the table. She’d had enough of this conversation. “Let me get dessert.”
One more minute in his company right now and she would end up telling him to call one of his sophisticated women friends as commitment phobic as he was to make his night special.
“Rachel.”
She didn’t turn around. “I’ll be right back.”
“I didn’t say it to hurt you, but it wouldn’t be fair to take you to my bed without spelling out the terms.”
“Of course.” But it hurt just the same and she could no more help that than he could help not loving her.
Sebastian watched Rachel disappear through the door to the kitchen, frustration knotting his insides.
Could he have handled that any worse?
He had made her coming to his bed sound like a meaningless encounter between two people intent on scratching a sexual itch. It was nothing like that. He did not love her, could not marry her, but he desired her with a multilayered intensity he’d never known with another woman.
That’s what he should have said, not the tactless spiel about not expecting a marriage proposal afterward.
When she came back in with the dessert, she gave him no opportunity to rectify his error, keeping up an animated flow of conversation about the movie they were going to watch, how kind his housekeeper had been to give up her kitchen and how much Rachel loved the decor in his apartment.
She’d given him an odd look when he’d told her the man’s name who had designed it, but had not asked about him. She was too busy changing the subject to something equally impersonal, but when she moved as if to sit in a chair instead of next to him on the sofa to watch the movie, he’d had enough.
His hand snaked out and grabbed her. “You’re supposed to cuddle next to me, remember?”
Her mouth, which had been mobile for the past twenty minutes, clamped shut.
“It is part of the special night you planned for me.”
Instead of arguing like he expected, would even have welcomed, because it would have given him a chance to clear the air, she nodded jerkily.
He pulled her onto the sofa with him, before pushing the volume button on the remote control. Old movie music filled the room as he tugged her into a reclining position beside him. He couldn’t help himself, but he wondered why she didn’t fight it. She wasn’t happy with him.