Because she had the terrible fear that despite all her tough talk, she was more in danger when it came to Constantine Skalas than she ever had been, even back when they’d lived together in Skiathos the first time.
Because the teen girl she’d been then had never imagined he would look twice at her. Not really. Whereas the grown-up version of Molly was a little too aware that at any moment, there was the possibility he might kiss her again.
Or more.
Why hadn’t he done more?
She had spent ten days wandering around naked all over his estate in Skiathos, pretending she didn’t feel half-feverish at the thought, waiting for him to put his hands on her at any moment. To her dismay, it was nearly all she thought about, unable to understand why it was that he simply kept her...wanting.
Maybe the wanting was why.
If so, it worked. It drove her mad. She had lounged about near the pool every day, near the sun if not quite in it, imagining that every stray breeze was his touch. And even though ten days of forced idleness should have driven her crazy, she had never felt particularly idle. Too busy was she...imagining.
Because the things that had happened inside of her the first time he’d put that sunscreen on haunted her. Not to mention the things she’d done. God, the things she’d done... She still daydreamed about it. Those hands of his, all over her breasts. That hard thigh thrust between her legs. Her absolutely shameless display as she’d rocked herself against him... How she’d moved her hips, making no secret of the fact that she was pressing the molten, aching core of her femininity against his hard-packed muscles.
Deliberately. Desperately.
Molly wasn’t sure why she hadn’t died from embarrassment. Instead, she had lived. And now relived those moments, over and over and over again, and if she was honest with herself, not because she was attempting to browbeat herself with guilt and shame. Not at all.
She had managed to keep herself contained every other time he ran those hands, slicked with lotion, all over her skin. She had simply packed those sensations away as she did every time she stepped in front of a photographer. She felt as she was told to feel. She moved as she was told to move. She was a canvas who existed for others to paint their vision all over her.
It was harder than it sounded, but during the day, it worked well enough. Even at their typically fraught dinners, she did her best to funnel her feelings away while she dressed in what he’d left for her. And because she was dressed for his pleasure, she took the evening meal as an opportunity to vent her spleen.
The truth was, she’d gotten used to it. She had gotten used to Skiathos, and while the fact she had no choice but to be there again could never make her love it, she found herself becoming something like affectionate for the place, after all.
But it was when she went to bed in that bedroom that had been hers once before that everything she kept at bay all day long swamped her.
At first she thought it was just as well. He might excite her to a fever pitch, but there was nothing to say she couldn’t handle her own pleasure as she pleased once she was alone.
Except she didn’t.
Because Constantine had told her not to. It was as simple as that. And her own obedience to this man who made no secret of the fact that his aim was to destroy her appalled her. It made her wonder, not what spells her mother might have worked back in the day, but why she, personally, was cursed with an inability to treat Constantine as he deserved in turn. Or even think of him as she ought to.
But however appalled she might have been, she didn’t disobey him.
And as they rode in the back of a limo through Los Angeles, a city she knew well, she had to assume that all of this was part of his game. Her uncertainty. Her feeling of being forever off balance. Even his rules about sunscreen and the clothes he insisted she wear, so that at all times, whatever touched her body was his. It was a game, all right.
What Molly didn’t understand was why she kept playing right into it.
The house he took her to sat propped up high in the Santa Monica Mountains that ran through the center of California’s largest, most sprawling city. They took one of the canyon roads up from the valley floor, a winding, slow affair. Slowly they climbed into the foothills, one tight curve after the next, passing houses that defied gravity and nature as they clung to the sides of cliffs. A grand, if vertical, mansion next to what looked like an old cottage, all tucked away in that southern California lushness that always surprised her. Think of Los Angeles and what came to mind was traffic, but the city was much more than that. The mysterious hills, where coyotes roamed and some nights, it could seem as if civilization was far, far away. The famous beaches and beyond them, surprising pockets of charming little places that still felt small and close-knit. Old flower-children’s retreats in far-off canyons, beautiful architecture, and the smell of citrus and salt on a sweet spring breeze. As she looked out her window now she saw hummingbirds darting between one blossom and the next, all of them bright and plush, and around them, great swathes of green and fruit-bearing trees. Outside, the air was scented with a hint of smoke, rosemary and sage, and the sweetness of too many flowers to name.
They made it to the top of the hill and stopped at its crest. The house they’d arrived at looked wholly unremarkable from the winding street outside. It was overgrown with exuberant vines of bougainvillea that reminded her of Greece, thick curtains of jasmine she knew would bloom at night, and an invitingly green arched trellis that led to the unassuming front door of what appeared to be a very modest bungalow.
Molly knew it wasn’t. Even before she exited the limo she knew that despite appearances, there would be nothing modest about any place Constantine Skalas frequented.
And sure enough, the house cascaded down the side of the cliff, a jumble of sleek modern levels flowing in and out of each other, creating a poetry of indoor and outdoor space. Rooms that were enclosed had as few opaque walls as possible and the rest was all glass, looking out over the enduring tangle of the City of Angels, stretched out as far as the eye could see. And because the day was clear, she could actually see the thick blue ribbon of the sea in the distance.
It was stunning. Because it was his. How could it be anything else?
“We leave for the red carpet in two hours,” Constantine informed her. And shook his head as she began to speak. “I don’t want to hear excuses about how much time you need to make your appearance. You claimed you could appear in a garbage bag, did you not?”
“I was being facetious.”
He smiled, nothing but challenge in his gaze. “I want to see magic.”
“Garbage bag magic?” She kept her voice light. “Who knew such a thing existed?”
But the intensity of Constantine’s stare did not waver. “Magic, Molly.”
“Then magic it will be,” she assured him. What else could she say?
“My staff will assist you.” He nodded toward a woman who waited there at the edge of the glass room, her gaze lowered.
Molly smiled at him. “You are too good, Constantine. Really.”
And her reward was a searing, almost painful blast from those coffee-dark eyes.
A warning she really should heed, she knew. But she couldn’t seem to do that.
Molly followed the woman down a series of exposed staircases, moving in and out of the glass enclosures. Then she led the way into a room that had been transformed into the kind of salon Molly knew best. Racks of clothing stood ready, and more, she saw a fleet of men and women she instantly recognized as stylists and beauty estheticians, armed with the tools of their trade.
Very well then. This was a test he wanted her to pass, and Molly did not pass tests. She aced them.
“What is this red carpet for, exactly?” she asked the woman beside her as she scanned the clothes provided. She recognized most of the designers from the cut of their garments, as clear
to her as if they’d been labeled.
“It’s a gala event,” the woman told her, and then outlined exactly what charity the gala supported and more importantly, the expected celebrity content of its guest list as well as the kind of press expected.
“We do have some suggestions,” the woman began.
Molly smiled at her. “I think I’ve got it. But thank you.”
She remembered being interviewed by a journalist once who had spent the better part of the interview making snide, not particularly passive aggressive remarks about how low-maintenance and carefree she, the journalist, was. She couldn’t imagine spending twenty whole minutes on her appearance, much less the hours and hours that Molly did. And she certainly didn’t waste so much brainpower worrying about clothes.
Though, of course, she’d been speaking to Magda.
That is why, Magda had told her imperiously, it is the words you type with your unmanicured fingers that go into magazines. While it is my face that graces the cover.
There were a lot of things Molly found herself uncertain about lately, but fashion, style, and how best to use both as her best weapons were not among them.
She changed swiftly into the smock waiting for her, and then handed herself over into the clutches of the beauticians, making her preferences known when it came to nail polish, toenail polish, brow shape, and the cosmetics themselves. She and a makeup artist had a robust discussion about lip shade and a smoky or un-smoky eye. And when she told the hairstylist her concept for hair, he agreed, his eyes lighting up.
And then all of them got to work.
One hour and fifty minutes later, she stood before the mirror with her hastily assembled team around her. She took a look at herself from each side, critically. Then she lifted her gaze so she could see everybody standing behind her. And beamed.
“You are all absolute stars,” she said, and meant it. “This is complete perfection.”
Then she walked upstairs to present herself for Constantine’s inspection, two hours to the second after she’d left his side.
And had the distinct pleasure of watching him do a double take.
He had been waiting for her with a drink in one hand, looking out one of the enormous windows over the city that lay before him as if displayed on a platter. He glanced at her, then looked back outside—only to whip that gaze back to her again.
She strode toward him, letting him take in the look she’d selected. “Does this garbage bag meet with your approval?”
For his part, Constantine was dressed in what should have been sober black tie, unremarkable in any way. But it was Constantine wearing it, so he looked not only faintly rumpled but as if the effort of standing upright was almost too much for him, so profoundly was he a creature who ought to have been horizontal. Stretched out lazily in the nearest bed, and not alone.
“I expected something ornate,” he said, but she didn’t think it was criticism.
Molly turned in a full, slow circle for him before he asked—or twirled that finger of his—so he could see the full effect. “You asked for starry-eyed adoration. And I think we can agree that I’ve delivered it.”
She already knew how the pictures would look. She had picked the simplest gown on offer, in a deep, luxurious blue. It looked like nothing much on a hanger, but she knew the designer well and had known at a glance that it would hug her perfectly and more, make her skin look luminous. She had the makeup artist make her look fresh and dewy, with a little bit of glamour around the eyes, on the off chance she couldn’t quite pull off full-on adoration at all times. And to top it off, the hairstylist had created a breathtaking bit of ponytail art that made her look like the girl next door.
Molly looked like innocence personified, and next to Constantine, she might as well have taken out a billboard announcing that she was Little Red Riding Hood, and he the Big Bad Wolf.
She could see by the way he grinned, slow and sure, that he agreed.
“The only question,” he said as he drew close, then took her arm in a possessive grip that made her whole body tighten, then melt, “is whether or not anyone will believe that a woman such as Magda could ever be innocent.”
“Love makes innocents of us all,” Molly said quietly, wishing those words sounded as arch as they had in her head. “Isn’t that the story you’re selling here? Magda, a known whore who is also the daughter of whores, is rendered into a Disney heroine at one touch of your wicked hand. What tabloid could resist such a lovely tale?”
He was still holding her arm, that hard palm of his wrapped around her bicep, which meant he was much too close. She knew his scent, now. She knew his heat. And the danger of his heavy-lidded gaze that only seemed to grow worse with time.
Or perhaps it was that she grew more susceptible with each day that passed.
“Why would anyone resist?” he asked, his voice rough.
And for a moment, while he gazed at her, she forgot where she was. She forgot who she was. The California sun streamed all over them both, but all she saw was the rich dark of his gaze. Her heart thudded. Her blood seemed to sing in her own veins, loud and clear.
When he turned away, steering her toward the door, she realized she had been holding her breath. And more, that she’d wanted absolutely nothing in that moment but to feel his mouth on hers again.
But Constantine did not kiss her that night. He waited.
First there was the red carpet in Los Angeles. Then it was a jaunt across the Pacific to Singapore, then on to Dubai, and then, in quick succession, Rome, Madrid, and then finally to Paris.
They had made exactly the splash Constantine had wanted. The world was obsessed with them. No one had ever seen Magda look so sweet, so smitten. No one had ever seen Constantine look even remotely possessive—of anything.
The public was hooked.
What worried Molly was her dawning realization that she was, too.
She was careful to remind herself—she tried to remind herself—that if he expected her to put on an act, he was likely doing the same. No matter how it felt sometimes.
In all, the trip took two weeks. It was a jumble of time zones, flashbulbs, and the flights in between, tucked up in that jet of his. Kept stocked, after the first week, with tabloids from too many countries to count. All featuring their faces.
“It makes a difference to actually try to make it on the cover of the tabloids, I suppose,” Molly had said somewhere in the beginning of their second week. “A bit inside out, if you ask me.”
“I want to be certain that for the rest of your career, no matter what happens, you will be asked about me,” Constantine had told her, with that smile of his that let her know this was a part of his revenge he loved the most. He liked to study her over the edge of his laptop, where he did who knew what. “Of course, a girl can only model for so long. As you might imagine.”
Molly had not shared with him that no one knew the expiration date on a model’s career more intimately than the model in question.
“Handy, isn’t it, that you can go right on being a bastard forever,” she replied instead, smiling wide.
And had pretended not to notice it when she’d gotten a real laugh out of him for her trouble.
Because all the while, the tension between them grew. A tension she tried to tell herself had to do with his great revenge and only that revenge...but she knew it didn’t. It was rooted in the way he touched her. Every time skin met skin, an electricity that only seemed to rage brighter and longer between them flared. And never dimmed. It was every event where they were stood next to each other, always touching, always gazing adoringly at each other.
Always acting, she told herself.
Only acting, surely—though more and more, she feared that wasn’t what she was doing at all.
They landed in Paris in the early afternoon and because it was Paris, Molly took extra time preparing herself
for the evening ahead. That night, she went for more drama overall, but compensated for that with an understated face and a flat shoe that would be seen as edgy. Particularly amongst the fashionistas of France.
It was a typical evening. Too many pictures taken. Too many faces, all of them avid and insinuating, not much more than a big blur before her. Another formal dinner where she ate heartily no matter if she liked what she was served or not. Because Molly distinctly disliked the fact that as a model—a woman whose job it was to maintain a certain body shape—she was constantly observed when food was around. It tired her.
We must take our rebellions where we can, she told herself as she smiled at a sharp-eyed society doyenne seated near her, then ate a huge forkful of creamy pasta just to watch the other woman recoil.
Like many of these events on their little tour, there was also dancing. And no matter how many times she told herself that she was used to it, she wasn’t. No matter how many times Constantine gathered her into his arms and looked down at her as if nothing else existed save the two of them, she wasn’t ready.
You will never be ready, a voice inside her pronounced.
And in another sense, she’d been ready since she was sixteen.
Maybe that was why, when they made it back to a Parisian penthouse apartment that, like all of the Skalas properties she’d sampled on this trip, commanded astonishing views, Molly...lost it.
If this night went the way all the other nights went, she and Constantine would sit about drawing blood and scoring points over drinks. Then he would take himself off and she would find herself lying wide awake in another strange bed, her hands between her legs yet unable to give herself the relief she craved.
Tonight, she thought that going through this same routine of hers might kill her.
“I was promised a very specific kind of torture,” she said, standing in the great living area with the City of Light shining in all around. Molly could hear that her own voice sounded...distinctly unhinged. “You made it perfectly clear this was supposed to be a real affair, or else how could you possibly destroy me at the end of it?”
Her Deal With The Greek Devil (Mills & Boon Modern) (Rich, Ruthless & Greek, Book 2) - Caitlin Crews Page 9