by Julia James
And she still couldn’t.
The same feeling of regretful melancholy went through her as she’d felt in his apartment. She must learn to subdue her growing longings. She must accept that she had read too much into that brief, fleeting and unrepeated kiss of greeting at the hotel restaurant that first night. For him it had been nothing more than a casual public salutation. It had meant nothing more than that.
‘Pre-wedding nerves?’ he asked.
He’d caught her expression and misinterpreted it, and she was glad he had—because there was no point him thinking anything else.
‘There truly is no need for them,’ he said. His dark eyes held hers. ‘Rosalie, I want you to enjoy the kind of life you’ve never had before.’
His eyes washed over her and she felt their force—impossible not to. Any woman would feel it. Especially one so starved of romance as she was...
But Xandros was making it clear that he didn’t want romance to be a part of their marriage. So, although his eyes were warm upon her, although he always complimented her on her appearance, his attitude towards her was nothing more than friendly, easy-going and companionable.
She must be glad of that—grateful. Grateful that her life of hardship and endless penny-pinching was done with. That, after all, was why she was marrying Xandros. For nothing more.
She must remember that.
Or else torment herself with yearning for what was not going to happen...
So stop mooning over him! Don’t long for what he isn’t interested in! Just match his own attitude towards you—it’s all he wants.
And that was what she did determinedly as they dined—on yet another exquisite gourmet meal of the kind that was now her daily diet.
She would be grateful for that, too—every day—and never take it or anything else about this luxurious life she was living for granted!
Afterwards, he took her back to her hotel, insisting cheerfully that he would see her to her room.
The thickly carpeted corridor leading to Rosalie’s room was hushed and quiet and deserted.
‘You don’t have to walk me to my room!’ she protested good-humouredly. ‘I won’t get lost!’
‘You might totter off down the wrong corridor on those towering high heels,’ he replied at her mild protest.
She gave a light laugh, and acquiesced, yet she was conscious of the empty length of corridor stretching ahead of them and of being alone with Xandros. It made her ultra-aware of him...of his presence at her side. It would have been easier, she thought ruefully, to say goodnight in the lobby.
They reached her door and she fumbled in her bag for her key, nerves jangling out of nowhere. She turned, the key card in hand, ready to say a bright goodnight, but the word died on her lips.
He was standing close to her—too close—but she couldn’t back away. The door was behind her. She was conscious—suddenly, burningly—not just of how close he was, but how she could catch the faint scent of his aftershave, see in the dim light of the empty corridor how his strong jaw was already faintly etched with regrowth, giving him a seductively raffish look in his dark lounge suit.
She felt a flush of heat go through her and was suddenly conscious, too, of how the dress she was wearing—a close-fitting, beautifully tailored cocktail dress—was moulding her body, her breasts and her hips. Conscious, above all, of how breathless she was...
He was smiling down at her—but not with the familiar, nothing more than friendly smile he usually gave her. This was a different smile. One she had seen only once before... That first evening they had dined together...
Her breath caught and she could do nothing at all except let his smile wash over her, his eyes holding hers even as she felt him take her key card from her nerveless fingers and slide it down the lock, pressing the door open with a splay of his hand.
That smile tugged at his mouth...his sensual, sculpted mouth.
‘This time tomorrow,’ he said, his voice low, ‘we shall be married. And it will be fine, Rosalie, I promise you. It will bring us everything we want.’
She could only gaze at him, saying nothing at all. She could hear her heart thudding in her chest and there was not a scrap of air in her lungs. Her eyes were widening...pupils dilating...
She saw something change in his eyes, intensify, and heard him say something in Greek...something that sounded rasping. Then he was speaking in English.
‘You know...’ he said softly.
And out of nowhere she felt the timbre in his voice doing things to her, sending her blood pulsing through her veins in a hot, hectic throb that she could not stop—could not stop at all.
‘You really shouldn’t look at me like that...’
‘Like what...?’
The words were faint on her breath—the breath that was not in her lungs. That throbbing pulse was at her throat, at her temple, in the deep core of her body—the body that was now yearning infinitesimally towards him, her face lifted to his, gazing up at him with wide eyes.
And in his eyes she could see, in the dark, sweeping depths, a glint of pure gold. The tug at his mouth deepened, half-rueful, half-anticipatory.
‘Like you want me to do...this...’ he said.
And as he spoke, in that low, soft voice, she saw his lashes sweep down over his eyes, his face lower to hers.
His lips touched hers and his kiss was velvet silk, brushing slowly, seductively across her mouth, easing her own lips apart, softly and surely, deepening his slow, leisurely tasting of her until he was taking his fill...
Bliss went through her, pure and exquisite, and she gave her mouth to him, let him taste and take her, explore and possess...
She felt her body sway towards his, her eyes flutter shut as she gave herself to what was happening.
Xandros was kissing her...
Kissing her in a way that made that earlier, brief, fleeting kiss seem nothing more than the merest promise of what a kiss could be...
Kissing her as she had never thought it possible for a kiss to be!
And she was melting into it, drowning in it, this the softest, most sensuous sensation in the entire universe, this the exquisite honeyed feathering of his mouth on hers.
It seemed to go on and on, and she was weak with it, faint with it...
And she wanted more...oh, so much more...
A low, helpless moan sounded in her throat, and as if with an instinct of their own her hands reached around him to draw his body to hers, to feel the hard, strong column of his back beneath her fingers—
At her touch he pulled away from her in sharp withdrawal, his mouth releasing hers abruptly, his hand moving away from the door.
Her eyes flew open.
He was looking down at her with an expression that was closed—shuttered, even—and she gazed at him in a helpless haze, lips still parted...
She saw him take a breath. A ragged inhalation. Saw him take a step backwards.
He shook his head. ‘This was a mistake,’ he said.
There was a blankness in his voice, and he took another breath, deeper than the first, his expression changing again.
‘It’s late. You should get some sleep. I must go.’ He reached past her to push her door open wider. ‘Go in, Rosalie,’ he said. His voice was firm and his mouth tightened. ‘You need to get to bed. We have to be with the registrar by eleven.’
She felt his hand on the small of her back. Broad and impersonal. Turning her towards her room.
She caught the edge of the door, instinctively resisting. Trying to turn back to him.
‘I...’
The pulse at her throat was throbbing, and there was a flush of heat across her cheeks. Her lips were still parted. Still yearning for his...
And as her eyes lifted to his she knew yearning filled them. A yearning she could not crush, or halt, or do anything about. For t
he blood was still beating in her veins, blinding her to everything but the kiss they had shared.
‘No.’
There was harshness in his voice. Rejection.
‘Rosalie—goodnight!’
He turned away, and then he was striding down the hushed and deserted corridor, his gait rapid, gaining the end in moments, turning towards the elevator, lost to her sight.
She felt emptiness, desolation, as she went into her room. He had kissed her in a way she had never known a kiss could be. A kiss to melt her to her very core. And then he had set her aside.
His rejection echoed in her head.
‘This was a mistake.’
A cry broke from her.
* * *
Xandros stood out on his apartment’s balcony, staring at the floodlit Acropolis, not seeing it. He was hearing his own words echo in his head.
‘This was a mistake.’
His hands tightened over the railing. Thee mou, one hell of a mistake! It had taken all his strength to push her inside—keeping himself on the outside—and to turn and walk away, with every step wanting to turn around and stride back to her, to step inside her room and—
No! Don’t go there! Not even in imagination! Least of all that...
He took a shuddering breath. He’d been a rash and reckless fool to walk her back to her room—he should have resisted the temptation. But he hadn’t wanted to say goodnight quite yet. Had wanted to prolong the evening with her. Prolong it in a much more intimate way...
No! He was heading down dangerous paths again.
He clenched his jaw, exerting control over himself just as he had since that evening he’d allowed himself the sweet pleasure of greeting her with that all too brief and fleeting kiss. It had taught him that any contact with her would be like a match to tinder. That he must control himself, deny himself, until he had her all to himself.
As he would tomorrow.
Tomorrow night...the start of their honeymoon. The start of their marriage, when she would be his...
That low purring started up in him, so familiar to him now whenever he thought of the breathtakingly alluring woman who would soon—oh, so achingly soon now—be his entirely...
And until then...
He turned away, clicking shut the balcony doors and striding into his bedroom, stripping off his tie as he did so, slipping his cufflinks.
His eyes glinted. Until then the traditional remedy for thwarted passion was going to be very necessary.
He headed for the en-suite bathroom. Time for a cold shower. A very cold one...
* * *
Rosalie gazed, enthralled, as the helicopter started its descent, feeling again the leap of pleasure she’d felt when Xandros had announced, just after their wedding that morning, that he was taking her to his private island for their honeymoon.
She hadn’t thought they would have a honeymoon at all—not in a marriage like theirs. But then she had realised that, just as he wanted her to wear the fabulous diamond engagement ring and also, since the simple brief ceremony that morning, which had passed in a blur of Greek with an English translation for herself in a room at the town hall, her new wedding ring, so a honeymoon would be expected as well. To show the world—show her father—that theirs was a proper marriage.
And she knew she could be glad that it was to be on Kallistris. On Xandros’s private island they wouldn’t be on view for anyone else to think it odd they weren’t all loved-up...
Her eyes shadowed momentarily but she banished her thoughts. Last night had been...difficult. The understatement rang hollow. But in the sleepless hours that had followed she had come to terms with it. She’d had to.
Xandros had kissed her—she’d all but begged him to, and mortification burned in her as she remembered what he’d said to her—and promptly regretted it. Well, she had learnt her lesson. From now on she would be only what he wanted her to be—bright, cheerful, friendly, appreciative, enthusiastic...
She ran out of adjectives to describe the way she would need to be with this man who had called kissing her a mistake, and went back to gazing, rapt, as the little island—the smallest of a small cluster set in the azure Aegean—loomed closer and closer. And then they had landed, setting down on a small helipad by the sea’s edge.
Xandros vaulted out, thanking the pilot, and Rosalie, glad she’d changed out of her tailored wedding outfit into cotton trousers and top at the hotel before setting off, jumped down lightly. Xandros, too, had changed out of his customary business suit into chinos and an open-necked shirt—looking just as drop-dead gorgeous as he always looked.
Rosalie sighed inwardly.
‘Mind the downdraft!’ he warned, and hurried her to the edge of the helipad as the helicopter took off again in a whirl of rotors.
As it disappeared, Xandros turned to her. ‘Welcome to Kallistris,’ he said.
His eyes were warm, his smile warmer. She felt her insides give a little skip, but she only smiled back, and then both of them turned as a Jeep came rattling along the coastal track towards them.
‘Ah,’ said Xandros, looking pleased. ‘Panos.’
The weather-beaten face of his island’s caretaker broke into a huge smile as Xandros introduced him, warning Rosalie that Panos spoke little English, but that his wife, Maria, was more fluent.
‘Kalimera,’ said Rosalie, gingerly trying out her highly limited Greek.
Her hand was taken in a bear grip, and shaken vigorously.
‘Kyria Lakaris!’ exclaimed Panos, and it gave Rosalie a start to hear her married name.
I’ll have to get used to it, she thought to herself.
Just as she would have to get used to living with Xandros...but as friends, nothing more than that.
She dragged her eyes away from him, hoping forlornly that perhaps with time she would stop wanting to gaze endlessly at him, because now they were married she was going to have to inure herself to his constant presence. She swallowed.
They set off in the Jeep. Xandros chatted in Greek to Panos and Rosalie hung tightly to the window frame as they bumped rapidly along the unmetalled track.
They rounded a rocky promontory, and she gave an exclamation of spontaneous delight. ‘Oh, how beautiful!’
They were looking down on to a small but perfectly formed bay, its furthest end bounded by another promontory. Between the two stretched a pristine pebbled beach lapped by the azure sea that girded the whole island. Nestled in the centre, just above the beach, was a small one-storey villa, framed by a mix of silvery olive trees and pink-flowered oleanders.
It was like something on a picture postcard, whitewashed, with a blue door and matching blue window shutters, the whole house festooned with vivid, crimson bougainvilleas.
‘Do you like it?’ Xandros turned to her.
‘It’s perfect!’ she enthused.
She felt her mood lift. However difficult it was going to be to be here, alone with Xandros, having to conceal her hopeless susceptibility to him, surely the opportunity to be in this beautiful place would make it worthwhile! Never again in her life would she have a chance to holiday on a private Aegean island.
Xandros gave a slashing grin as Panos screeched to a halt in a cloud of white dust and helped her down as a stout, middle-aged woman bustled out through the blue door.
‘Welcome, welcome!’ Panos’s wife greeted them, and then embraced Xandros in a bear hug, chattering away to him in Greek, before guiding Rosalie inside the little villa, saying, ‘Come! Come!’ in enthusiastic tones.
Inside it was much cooler, and Maria led the way off to the left, down a tiled corridor and into a room that was, Rosalie surmised, going to be her bedroom. Xandros’s must be the one beyond.
Did Maria and Panos realise that she was not a true bride in any sense? What had Xandros told them about their marriage?
She gave a men
tal shrug—that was his concern, not hers.
Panos delivered her suitcase and Maria hefted it on to the bed to start unpacking. Rosalie moved to help, but was waved away.
‘Go! Go to your husband!’ Maria ordered her.
Giving in, Rosalie ventured out into the corridor, making her way outdoors. The heat of the afternoon hit her immediately, and the crystal-clear sea lapping the pebbled beach beckoned. She kicked off her sandals, turned up her trouser hems, then waded ankle-deep into the cool water.
‘This is joyous!’ she exclaimed.
Footsteps crunched on the pebbles behind her.
‘I’m glad you think so.’
Xandros’s voice sounded warm, and Rosalie turned. He’d swapped his chinos for denim shorts, his open-necked shirt for a pristine white tee, and Rosalie was instantly and vividly aware of how the tee moulded his muscled torso, how the denim cut-offs revealed his lithe and powerful bare legs.
She snapped her gaze away, looking instead at his face—which wasn’t much help, for he was sporting aviator sunglasses. The breeze was lightly ruffling his dark hair, and he looked just ludicrously, jaw-droppingly attractive.
She gave a gulp.
Sexy—the overused word was impossible to dismiss. Impossible to deny. It described him totally. Even though it was a completely pointless way of describing him...given the nature of their marriage...
She gulped again, trying to sound normal as she answered. ‘Who wouldn’t?’ she returned with a half-laugh. ‘Everyone who comes here must think so!’
‘No one comes here,’ Xandros said.
Rosalie’s expression altered and she looked at him, puzzled.
‘This is my sanctuary,’ Xandros was saying now. ‘I don’t bring anyone here.’
Except a wife who isn’t a real wife on a honeymoon that isn’t a real honeymoon...
The words hung in her head, unsaid. Impossible to say. Unnecessary.
He went on speaking, changing the subject, and she was glad.