With a rush of water, he pushed away from her, his strong arms taking him further away, further out of her reach. She should be glad because she’d been on the brink of kissing him, of allowing her body to beg for the kind of satisfaction she knew instinctively only he could give. But until she could tell him what had happened to her after the recital, there was too much between them still, even if the desire was burning higher than ever before.
She pulled herself out of the water, fighting the disappointment that he had kept his word. Annoyed with her warring emotions, she wrapped herself in a large towel, needing to calm the shivers that had more to do with Lysandros than the cool water. With a final glance back at his sexy body surging through the sea, she headed up onto the main deck. Even though she wanted to look back, to watch him, she couldn’t. Not when she was losing her foolish and innocent heart to him all over again.
* * *
Lysandros had stayed in the sea long after Rio had gone back up on deck. He swam until nearly all his strength had gone, knowing he couldn’t fight his desire for her much longer. Whatever it was between them, it was far more powerful than anything he’d ever known, and as she’d almost gone beneath the surface of the water, the overwhelming need to protect her, keep her safe from everyone and everything, had almost crushed him.
So much so that when he’d held that sexy body close to his all he’d wanted was to make her completely his, to show her that passion wasn’t something to be afraid of, that desire—their desire—was something to be cherished.
But he’d let her go. He hadn’t trusted himself. Not after the promise he’d made to her that nothing would happen she didn’t want to happen. The only person who could set light to the passion that simmered between them was Rio. He’d given her his word and never went back on it.
When he joined Rio on deck he’d regained his control and that sexy black one-piece was thankfully well covered with a long black dress. Even so, the image of her as she’d stood at the stern of his yacht was there each time he blinked, as if he’d just looked into the brightest of lights.
Music, he decided, would take his mind off the erotic thoughts of Rio that crowded in on him, and he pressed the remote on the sound system. He stood with his back to Rio as the notes of the piano began to drift on the sea breeze. It would calm him and he fully expected it to please Rio as it was after all her instrument, but when he turned she looked more agitated than he’d ever seen her.
‘This is one of Xena’s favourites,’ she said, her brow creased in worry, and all the desire he’d been fighting since he’d held her in the water threatened to take over. But he couldn’t allow it, couldn’t be the one to start things. It had to be Rio’s choice, especially when the cloud of fear he’d seen on her face the day he’d arrived at the hospital still lingered around her.
‘You should play for Xena when we return to the villa.’ It was only now he realised he hadn’t heard her play since she’d arrived.
‘I’m not about to sit down and play for Xena when she has no hope of playing the violin for a long time.’ The anger in her words raised his suspicion levels.
‘Her wrist will heal, but it is more important to help her recover her memory. Listening to you play might do that.’
Rio paced away from him, the black dress moulding itself against her long limbs in the late afternoon wind, but their discussion meant he had to ignore that. She turned to look at him and he knew there was far more she was keeping from him.
‘What is it, Rio? What are you worried about? Scared of even?’ He watched her as she paced away from him, agitation in every step. Her whole body was tense and he knew for sure she was keeping something from him. Something big.
‘You can tell me, Rio. Whatever it is.’
She turned to look at him, her face pale. ‘That’s just it. I can’t.’ Her voice had risen in exasperation and every nerve in his body was alert to the danger of being drawn into her emotions. But he’d been right. There was something she was keeping back.
Behind her the sun was sinking lower, creating a fusion of oranges across the sky, but all he could think about was his inability to deal with emotions. He didn’t know what to do, what to say. Not when he’d spent his entire adult life hiding from all emotions but those that drove him in business, made him successful. Even as a child he’d remained behind a barrier so high that only the most determined family members had reached him.
His father had never been one of them. His father had been equally as unreachable.
As an adult Lysandros had decided his father must have been as emotionless as him, the pair of them so similar they’d retreated even further from one another. As a child, the only kind of sensible excuse for his father’s aloofness he’d come up with had been that he’d never wanted to be a father.
That theory had been blown away after Xena had arrived. A baby his parents hadn’t planned or expected, but one his father seemed able to shower with love and affection. The exact opposite of what he had received from his father.
Convinced he was somehow at fault, he’d buried his emotions. Now Rio’s obvious distress was slowly chipping away at his armour.
‘Why can’t you, Rio?’ He wanted to go to her, take her hands in his and reassure her. He wanted to look into her eyes while stroking his thumb over the back of her hand, wanted to offer the kind of comfort she wouldn’t be threatened by, but his long-held instinct to stand in the shadows of emotion prevented him from moving.
‘I just can’t.’
‘Is it to do with Xena? The accident?’
She looked at him, wide-eyed with shock. She held his gaze as she hugged her arms around herself, giving herself the kind of reassurance, the comfort he should be giving her right now.
Again, there was that hesitation he was quickly realising Rio hid behind when forced to admit difficult things.
‘As I told you, Xena and I had had a falling-out that night.’ Her eyelashes covered her eyes, shielding her emotions from him as she looked down. He should be furious, should demand why, force her to tell the truth, but he couldn’t summon any of those feelings. Strange new feelings were filling him and he crossed the deck and went to her.
Slowly he lifted her chin with his thumb and finger, wanting her to look into his eyes. When she did it was like being struck in the solar plexus. Never had he experienced such a strong urge to protect, to comfort.
‘Why?’ he asked gently, coaxing her, needing to know why she was so upset, so fearful.
‘I should have supported her, but we’d been arguing and it seemed best to leave her to sleep. If only I’d known she would go out later, after I had gone to bed myself.’ She tried to look down, but he kept her looking into his eyes.
‘What were you arguing about?’ Everything she was saying showed how jumbled her emotions were, and even though it would be pushing her when she was so very vulnerable, he needed to know this, sure it was crucial to Xena’s memory loss.
‘We’d fallen out over the man Xena was seeing.’
‘Xena was in a relationship?’ This was news to him.
‘Yes, but it’s over between them now,’ Rio said almost in a whisper as she looked at him, panic in her eyes. ‘Please don’t let on to Xena that you know.’
A swift and uncomfortable knowledge that his own sister hadn’t wanted him to know about her romance, that she hadn’t felt able to confide in him, all but knocked the breath from his body.
‘And has Xena remembered this man?’
Rio shook her head, the movement forcing him to let her go. ‘He is just another of the bad events she seems to have blocked out.’
‘Another bad event?’ There were other things Xena couldn’t remember besides the accident? Besides this man? Things that Rio clearly could.
Rio realised her mistake and moved away from him, away from his scrutiny. He needed to know what those bad things were but didn’t kn
ow what to ask first. Should he demand to know the name of the man Xena was seeing? Or should he ask what other things his sister was blocking out?
The soft strains of the piano filled the warm evening air, the romantic notes in complete contrast to the wild emotions Rio had unleashed in him. The angry kind of emotions he was far more accustomed to dealing with.
‘His name is Ricardo,’ Rio began as she went and sat on the large luxury sofa, offering a view of the stunning sunset. ‘He and Xena had been dating for several months.’
‘Why didn’t Xena want me to know?’ He asked the question that had been racing round his mind. What had his sister been hiding?
* * *
Rio didn’t know what to say. Tell him the truth and betray Xena’s confidence or push Lysandros further away from her when she was finally beginning to rediscover the romance that had been between them before Hans had destroyed it?
Lysandros looked at her and for the first time she saw this powerful businessman, who was used to having everything exactly as he wanted, was struggling to understand what he’d learnt. He looked as vulnerable as she felt.
‘Why, Rio?’ His tone was soft but full of desperation. He really did love Xena. Even if he kept it well hidden from everyone—including himself. He loved his sister. Rio’s heart wrenched and the need to go to him, to hold him, to let him know it was okay to be vulnerable, okay to feel love, rushed through her.
‘You must never tell Xena I have told you,’ she said with a firmness that surprised both her and him. ‘I would never normally betray a friend’s confidence like this, but Xena’s amnesia isn’t a normal circumstance.’
He frowned, his eyes full of questions. ‘What is it, Rio?’
‘Ricardo was married,’ she said softly, allowing the implications to settle between them, to infiltrate the cracking barriers around him.
He turned from her and she dragged in a sharp breath. She hadn’t expected that. Rage maybe, definitely anger, but not this. Xena had filled her in on his first engagement, on the fiancée who had had an affair and left him just days before the wedding ceremony. It was little wonder he was so against infidelity.
She crossed the distance to him, her attention fixed on his broad, tense shoulders. ‘Xena told me why you would be angry she was seeing a married man. She said it was because of your father, the way he broke up the family when Xena was very young.’
He glanced down at her, the expression in his eyes unreadable. ‘But she got involved with him? Continued the affair?’
Rio placed her hand on his arm, feeling the heat of his tanned skin beneath her fingers. ‘She never wanted to hurt you. That’s why she didn’t tell you.’
For a moment his eyes searched hers, all barriers down, all the emotion he kept locked away showing in them.
‘You must have loved your fiancée very much,’ Rio said, hardly able to voice it. She was now his fiancée. His temporary fiancée. But he would never love her like that.
‘My fiancée?’ The barriers slammed back down. Firmness filled his voice.
‘Yes. Xena said...’ Rio stumbled over her words, caught off guard by the sudden change in him. ‘She said you were engaged once.’
‘I was, yes.’ Now he sounded as if he was talking to a stranger. About a stranger. Every trace of gentleness had gone. ‘She didn’t want to get married—at least, not to me. Instead of being honest, telling me, she left with her new lover.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered.
‘It was one big web of deceit.’ He looked at her, that dark coldness filling his eyes again.
‘But we aren’t being truthful to anyone now.’ She grasped at her reasons for not wanting to accept his fake engagement deal—all the people who were going to be upset when he ended the engagement. Xena. His mother. Thank goodness she hadn’t told her parents anything yet. They had always harboured hopes she’d meet the right man and would get married.
‘Maybe we are,’ he said softly as he turned to her, taking her hand from his arm, holding it in his. The expression in his eyes had changed. The coldness had gone, the building intensity of desire replacing it.
If only she could trust his desire, that softening of his demeanour. She blinked back the tears threatening to spill in the emotion of the moment, because when he looked at her like that she could forget everything.
‘There is one truth, though, Rio.’ His voice softened, the seductive sound making her heart flutter, raising her hopes, making her fall for him that little bit more.
‘There is?’ Was that husky whisper really hers?
His thumb caressed her hand, the sensation making her want so much more. She wanted him to hold all of her, not just her hand.
‘I’m very attracted to you, Rio. That is very much true.’
She looked up at him, his declaration only confirming that for him what was between them was simply physical. She might have once started to hope it could be different, but those words warned that wasn’t possible. And if it was, would he really want her after she’d given him such a clear message of wanting to sleep with him and then standing him up? He had no idea she was a virgin, no idea just how big a step that was for her. If they did continue their romance—for real, not because of a fake engagement—would he expect to go back to that moment? Expect her to sleep with him straight away?
She might be regaining the confidence to admit she was attracted to him, that she did want to have the night she’d almost had in his bed, but she wasn’t ready to put her heart on the line yet. Before she could even think of being intimate with him, she had to tell him. Had to risk him turning his back on her for good.
‘I know I said I wouldn’t do anything you didn’t want to do, but...’ He paused, gently brushing her hair back from her face, and she couldn’t take her eyes from him. ‘I want to kiss you, Rio.’
Heaven help her, if she didn’t move away, she would kiss him.
She could feel herself leaning towards him, feel the heat of need firing up within her. His gaze was fixed to hers, his eyes darkening rapidly, intensely. ‘Lysandros...’ she whispered huskily.
He took that as an invitation, brushing his lips teasingly and tantalisingly over hers. She closed her eyes as her need rose to new heights, and kissed him gently. He didn’t reach for her, didn’t take her in his arms, and for that she was thankful. Whether he intended it or not, he’d left her in complete control and she took it, opening her eyes and stepping back away from the temptation of all his kiss had offered—all she wanted.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE IMAGE OF RIO, looking up at him as they’d stood so close together on his yacht, passion and doubt filling her eyes, had haunted Lysandros all week. The feel of her lips still burned on his as she’d lightly kissed him, almost relenting, almost giving in to desire. Then she’d stepped back from him, forcing him to honour the promise he’d given her. Her doubt, her pure vulnerability, had made him cut short their weekend and return her to the safety of Xena’s company on the island late that evening.
He’d left for Athens immediately afterwards, needing to put as much distance as possible between him and the temptation she represented, hoping that a week of meetings and deals would smother the emotions, the need that just looking into her eyes created within him.
As soon as Rio had arrived at his penthouse apartment this morning, he’d known that hope had been futile. The desire between them now so high it was like tinder-dry grass being scorched in the summer sun. One tiny spark and it would ignite, but after his promise, the only one of them who could produce that spark was Rio.
He took a deep and steadying breath and waited for her to emerge from her room. Since she’d arrived, the apartment had become a flurry of activity as deliveries of everything from dresses to shoes and bags had arrived for her. She and Xena had obviously been busy after he’d left the island and, needing space and time to strengthen his resolve not to
touch Rio, he’d left for the office. This evening, when she accompanied him to the charity ball, was going to test that resolve to the absolute maximum.
The door to her room clicked and opened and he turned to her as she emerged, but nothing could have prepared him for the elegant vision that stood on the threshold of her room, regarding him apprehensively—or the way his body reacted as lust throbbed urgently through him.
‘You look stunning,’ he said, walking towards her. The dark blue silk dress complemented her complexion perfectly and the plunging neckline did little to calm the desire he was already struggling to control for this woman. He wanted her with a passion he’d never known before. A passion that threatened to consume him totally.
All he could think of was how her body had moulded to his as he’d held her in the sea. The look on her face, her hair wet and slicked back, her eyelashes holding droplets of water, had created such a sexy image it would be branded for ever in his memory. Now this new sophisticated and daringly sexy version of Rio would join that memory.
‘Xena assured me it was perfect for this evening’s party.’ She looked down at herself, picking up the soft silk of the skirt, pulling out the folds of the fabric, before dropping them and trying to adjust the daringly low neckline. So he was right about Xena’s influence on all the purchases. She looked back at him nervously, the sexy and confident woman of moments ago slipping away. In her place was a woman very vulnerable, very innocent.
‘Beautiful.’ He wasn’t referring to the dress but the woman wearing it.
‘It is beautiful, but I haven’t ever worn anything so daring. Xena is so much more adventurous than I am and you know how she is once she gets an idea into her head.’
He moved closer to Rio, unable to stop himself. He’d punished himself all week by throwing himself into his work and he hadn’t realised how much he’d missed her company. ‘You look amazing, Rio. Every man there tonight will be looking at you.’
Seducing His Convenient Innocent Page 9