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He smiled down at her. Taking her hand, he brought it to his lips.
“Nothing is inconvenient to me if it gives you pleasure,” he said, and softly pressed his mouth against her skin.
He felt her shiver beneath his touch in the warm afternoon sun. The air was salty and fresh. In the distance, he could hear the calls of seagulls, hear the distant chiming of medieval church bells.
“You’re so good to me,” she whispered, visibly affected by the way he’d kissed her hand. The realization that she was almost like an innocent, easily swayed by sensual desire, lit a dark fire in his heart.
The femme fatale she’d once been had disappeared along with her memories, it seemed. Dressed in the red dress and lipstick she still looked just like the same arrogant, cruel, fascinating creature she’d been three months ago, but she’d changed completely. With her skittish reactions, her youthful naïveté, she was almost like a virgin.
Except she wasn’t—she was pregnant with his baby. And while she’d certainly been a virgin before they’d met, she’d never been innocent!
Remembering how they’d conceived that baby, all of his limbs suddenly seemed to burn where he had contact with her. Looking down into her beautiful face, he saw the vulnerability in her blue eyes, saw her pupils dilate. He was reminded of those hot breathless weeks in Athens when her naked body had been beneath his own. When he’d thought that beneath her achingly beautiful, shallow surface something existed that might be truly rare—truly worth possessing.
And he’d kept right on thinking that up until the day he’d seen her having breakfast with his rival, coldly giving him evidence to destroy Talos’s company.
Remember that moment, he told himself harshly. Remember how she betrayed you—and why.
But as Eve looked up at him dreamily beneath the elegant, decrepit palazzos of Venice, with the sunlight shining off the canals, all he could suddenly think was that he wanted to kiss her. Now. Hard. To brand her permanently as his, to punish those cherry-red lips until she gasped and cried out in his arms.
His hands tightened around her shoulders, his fingers gripping into her slight frame as he remembered their days and nights in June. He’d been addicted to bedding her. He’d been lost in a woman, in a way he’d never experienced before or since.
He considered himself ruthless. He considered himself strong. But she’d bested him and he’d never seen it coming.
Now, he hated her with all his heart.
But he still wanted her. Wanted her with a consuming desire that could destroy him, if he ever let down his guard.
He would never give in to her temptation. Even if his weeks of bedding her had been the most erotically charged experience of his life, he would never take her again. If he ever even kissed her, he might be lighting a flame that he could not control.
He watched her nervously lick her lips—those full, cherry-red lips that had once made him shudder and scream with desire so intense he’d literally thought it might kill him.
He could tell she was bewildered by the electric connection between them. She didn’t understand it. Unlike the Eve he’d known, who’d kept her feelings so carefully hidden, this girl didn’t guard her expression. Her thoughts were clearly bare on her angelically beautiful face.
Good, he told himself harshly. The perfect weapon to use against her. He would convince her to marry him. He would romance her. Woo her. Court her. Lure her. He would take her as his wife—today. By any means necessary.
Except one.
He would not take her to his bed. He would not.
Eve turned her face up toward the bright Italian sun from the windows of the boat, leaning back against Talos’s strong, powerful body as the motoscafo bounced across the waves. The leather seat hummed beneath her thighs from the vibrations of the engine.
She took a deep breath of the sharp, salty air. Her skin felt warm. Her body felt hot all over as she leaned against Talos’s hard chest. Even through his black shirt she could feel the heat off his skin.
Then he smiled down at her. His smile did all kinds of strange things to her, making her heart pound. Her days of darkness and emptiness in rainy London now seemed like a lonely dream. She was in Italy with Talos. And their baby. She placed her hand on her still-flat belly.
The water taxi slowed, pulled near the dock of a fifteenth-century palazzo. She stared at the high pointed windows that embellished the crumbling red stucco facade with awe at its exotic Gothic beauty. “Is that where we’re going?”
His black eyes gleamed as he looked down at her. “Our hotel.”
Oh. Their hotel.
She swallowed as she climbed from the taxi to the dock, picturing what it would be like to share a room with this man. To share space. To share a bed.
Just thinking of it, she stumbled on the dock.
“Careful,” Talos said gruffly, grabbing her arm to steady her. “You don’t have your sea legs yet.”
All the colors of Venice, the twisting, sparkling water, the bright blue sky and tall, red campanile tower of the nearby piazza, seemed to fade into the background with a swirl of color behind him.
“You’re right,” she said over the lump in her throat. “I don’t.”
They stood on the dock as his bodyguard-assistant, Kefalas, paid the young Italian taxi driver and organized the luggage. But all Eve could see was Talos.
He was so handsome and tall and strong, she thought. She felt his arms tighten around her, and she suddenly wondered if he was going to kiss her. The thought scared her. She jerked away from him nervously. “We will, um, get separate rooms, won’t we?”
She heard a low, sensual laugh escape him as he shook his head.
She licked her lips. “But—”
“I don’t intend to let you out of my sight.” He came forward toward her on the dock, and it took every ounce of her courage not to back away. He loosely brushed a tendril back from the blowing salty breeze. Kissing her temple, he whispered, “Or out of my arms.”
Enfolding her hand in his own, he drew her toward the palatial hotel, where they were whisked inside by the waiting staff.
As Eve walked through the exquisite lobby, past soaring gilded arches and the sweeping staircase, she became slowly aware of men’s heads whipping around to stare at her, almost like spectators following a tennis match.
It would have been funny, if she hadn’t felt like the yellow ball.
Why were they staring at her?
What was wrong with her?
The doorman gaped at her, then jumped to open the door.
The male clerk did a double take from the elaborate desk before he looked away, clearing his throat.
The group of Italian businessmen crossing the lobby weren’t so discreet. Three young men in pinstriped suits stopped in place on the marble floor, staring at her with open jaws. One man jabbed another in the ribs with a grin. Speaking rapidly in Italian, he started to come toward her. His friend stopped him by grabbing his wrist, gesturing toward Talos with palpable fear. Apparently too cowed by Talos to approach her, all three men continued to stare at her, murmuring soft words of appreciation.
Eve felt vulnerable.
Exposed.
Her cheeks went hot beneath all the scrutiny. She was grateful when Talos took her hand and led her toward the elevator. She could feel all the men in the lobby stare after her, hear their mournful sighs meld with the click of her stiletto heels on the marble floor. They were probably staring at her backside right now.
Her neck broke out into a cold sweat.
Why were they staring at her?
Then in a flash, she knew.
The dress.
The tiny red dress that she’d taken from her bedroom closet in Buckinghamshire. Compared to the rest of the wardrobe, she’d thought it the simplest, easiest choice, comfortable and casual. It had seemed like a nice, though somewhat small, sundress in stretchy fabric. And since she apparently owned no comfortable shoes whatsoever, she’d chosen the black stiletto sandals, which at least wouldn’t squeeze her toes. After her shower, she’d brushed out her dark hair and tentatively put on the lipstick in her handbag.
She’d hoped she would get used to her own clothes, feel confident in them.
Boy, had she been wrong.
Though the knit fabric was indeed soft and stretchy, it was no match for her pregnant breasts, which spilled out quite distressingly over the top. The stiletto heels made her legs very long but also caused her hips to thrust forward and sway with every commanding step.
Comfortable? Casual?
Her clothes cried out for male attention, and no matter where they went, men’s eyes centered on her. No matter their nationality, no matter their age or profession, men couldn’t stop staring!
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