‘Nothing.’ She paused and summoned a smile, pulling back a little till his hand fell away. ‘What are you going to do about the prize?’
For a long moment Christo studied her, as if probing to discover what went on inside her head.
‘Give it to Giorgos.’
‘Giorgos?’
‘Our building’s concierge. I introduced you to him today. His wife lost her job two weeks ago and their youngest is just out of hospital. They could do with a treat.’
Emma nodded as Christo turned to the event organiser who’d come up to talk with him.
Every time she reminded herself Christo wasn’t worth pining over, he surprised her. Such as now, with his plan to give the holiday to his concierge. How many people who lived in the luxury apartment building even knew the man’s name? Christo knew it and far more. He was genuinely interested in people. It wasn’t the attitude of a man who viewed others as pawns.
Then there was his willingness to give Anthea’s nanny a second chance. His patience with his little niece, despite his initial reserve. Plus there’d been his surprise gift for Dora, a bright-red motor scooter she now used whenever she needed to travel the several kilometres between the villa and the nearest town.
Emma had been stunned by his thoughtfulness. And by her lack of perception. Dora had mentioned she didn’t like driving Papou’s big car that sat gleaming in the garage. But Emma had forgotten the local bus only went by twice a day. Nor had she noticed the older woman was often fatigued or that she often made the trip on foot. Being distracted by her own problems was no excuse. Nor was the fact she’d grown up thinking Dora indomitable. That she’d come to rely on the housekeeper too much. It was Christo who’d arranged extra staff to assist Dora now the villa was occupied.
It was discomfiting, discovering her husband was more perceptive and generous than she’d credited. That he’d taken it upon himself to help out with something she should have dealt with.
The trouble was, Christo wasn’t just a ruthless tycoon. There were times when he was plain likeable. That made him hard to resist. Especially when tonight all her not so dormant longings reawakened.
His arm tightened around her shoulders and he leaned in, breath tickling her ear and sending shivers of erotic awareness rippling through her.
‘Ready to go?’
‘But the auction?’ She swung around towards the stage, belatedly registering the wave of applause that signalled the end of the event.
‘We can skip the final speeches. I want to be alone with you.’ Christo’s eyes locked onto hers and the sizzle in her blood became a burst of fire.
Emma opened her mouth to protest. But what was the point? She’d tried and tried but resisting had become impossible.
Maybe it was time to reach out and take what she wanted. She was a woman with a woman’s needs. Surely she could satisfy this physical craving and reduce the stress of trying to resist the irresistible?
She couldn’t love Christo after what he’d done but she wanted him. She had nothing to lose by sleeping with him.
In fact, that contract he’d signed made it a condition of her escaping his influence. Though right now she had no thoughts of escape.
Nervous, she licked her lips. Instantly his attention dropped to the movement. Emma heard his breath catch.
Suddenly it was so easy. Because for the first time they were equals.
‘I’d like that.’
The words were barely out of her mouth when he scooped her up to stand against him. Their farewells were rushed and she saw knowing glances as she grabbed her bag and wrap and said goodnight.
She’d liked the people at their table and enjoyed their conversation, but she was as eager as Christo to leave. So eager that she didn’t protest as he guided her through the crowd with one arm still round her, his broad palm on her hip. Heat splayed from the spot, up her side, round to her breasts and straight down to her achy, hollow core.
Emma didn’t even mind when photographers pressed close as they left the building and got into a waiting car. All her attention was on Christo and the charge of erotic energy sparking between them.
Finally they were alone, a privacy screen cutting them off from the driver.
‘At last.’ The words were a groan, as if from a man exhausted. But Christo didn’t look worn out. He looked taut, thrumming with energy.
When he reached out his hand, palm up, she put her fingers in his and felt that pulse of power race through her. It was like thunder rolling in from a massive storm front, a deep vibration heavy with building promise.
Emma couldn’t prevent a shiver of reaction. She’d never experienced the like.
Christo nodded as his fingers clamped round her hand, as if he too felt that overwhelming inevitability. His smile of understanding looked strained.
That strain on his severely sculpted features flattened any final hesitation. This wasn’t Christo seducing her. This was the pair of them caught in something elemental and all-consuming.
‘Come here.’ His voice was a rough whisper that did crazy things to her insides. Yet, despite the peremptory command, even now Christo didn’t haul her close or try to force her. This was Emma’s choice, as he’d promised.
She slid across the seat till she came up against the steamy heat of his big frame. One long arm wrapped around her, turning her towards him. She needed no urging. Her palm slipped under his jacket, moulding the rigid swell of his chest muscles through his fine shirt. Emma shivered at how good that felt. How much more she wanted to feel.
For a second those thundercloud eyes held hers, then Christo lowered his head and took her mouth.
Despite the urgency thrumming through them, his kiss was restrained, as if he fought to control the elemental storm that threatened to sweep them away.
He tasted of black coffee and something indefinable that set Emma’s senses ablaze. Her hands clutched and she leaned in, needing more, far more than this gentle caress. Inside she was a threshing mass of need.
‘Kiss me properly,’ she hissed against his lips. She’d craved this so long. All that time he’d been carefully courting her she’d yearned for the taste of his unbridled passion. ‘Please.’
Christo pulled back just enough to look deep into her eyes. Then, as if reading the hunger she could barely express, he planted his hands at her waist and hoisted her up to sit sideways across his lap. Emma had a bare moment to register his formidable strength, to lift her so easily in such a confined space. Then he kissed her again and nothing else existed but Christo and the magic he wrought.
There was fire. Emma felt it lick her insides, flaring brighter by the second. Frenzy. Rough demand and eager response. Tongues sliding together and mouths fused. Hearts thundering in tune. The roar of blood in her ears and bliss in her soul. Steely arms binding her to him.
This was the kiss she’d dreamed about in her virginal bed. No wonder she’d been frustrated and jittery all this time, unable to settle to anything useful after nights with too little rest and too many hours imagining Christo making love to her.
He tasted glorious. He felt even better. But there was more. Passion far beyond her experience, beckoning her deeper, simultaneously satisfying her desire and increasing it.
Emma’s ribs tightened around her lungs as she forgot to breathe. But she couldn’t have stopped if her life had depended on it. She clutched him as if she could meld their bodies through sheer force of will. She twisted closer, stymied by her fitted dress. There was something she needed even more than his lips on hers and those satisfyingly hard arms pinioning her close.
Emma shifted on Christo’s lap, trying to ease that compelling restlessness.
Then without warning he tilted her back so she was no longer upright but supported only by his arm. Foggily she wondered why this felt so insanely perfect when at any other time she’d chafe at a show of superiority by her husband.
Her husband.
The word snapped her brain into a belated stir of worry, till Chri
sto’s hand on her bare knee obliterated extraneous thoughts.
Instantly that restless, needy feeling between her legs intensified. Her breath stalled as Christo plunged his tongue into her mouth in a lascivious swirl that made her nipples ache and tighten. At the same time his big, warm hand stroked up her thigh, rucking the silk dress higher and higher till air wafted...
A sudden hubbub erupted. Christo jolted upright, taking her with him as he ripped his hand free of her dress. She heard strange voices, questions and, like a dark undercurrent to the unfamiliar noise, the sound of Christo cursing quietly but ferociously.
For a second nothing made sense. Then out of the darkness a light flashed and then another.
Emma realised the back door of the limo was open. An attendant stood holding it wide. Behind him a huddle of people surged close, cameras snapping.
Paparazzi. Taking photos of her lying sprawled across Christo, his tongue down her throat and his hand up her dress.
In that instant glorious elation turned to wordless embarrassment. She shrivelled and couldn’t quite get her body to move, to cover herself.
But Christo was already doing that. Not covering her, since there was nothing at hand to drape over her, but leaning forward, putting himself between her and those avid faces.
He said something she didn’t hear and moments later the door slammed.
As if that movement released her from her shocked stasis, Emma suddenly found the strength to slither off his lap and onto the seat, scrambling to put some distance between them.
Eyes wide, she stared up at Christo. They were parked outside a brightly lit building and there was enough light to see his face. Far from being distressed or self-conscious at finding himself photographed in the act of making love in the back seat, he looked as solid and calm as ever.
As if making love to her had been an act?
Pain stabbed her heaving chest, transfixing her. Desperately she searched for some sign of annoyance or embarrassment on those proud features. She found none.
Had he expected the intrusion on their privacy?
Could he really be so calculating?
Everything inside Emma froze. She’d have sworn the moisture in her mouth turned to icicles as the idea hit.
Christo was breathing heavily, but that was understandable, given how their mouths had just been fused together. His hair was rumpled where she’d tunnelled her fingers along his scalp. His bow tie was undone and his shirt askew. But he looked unfazed by the furore outside the car. Unfazed and insanely hot.
Eyes on her, he pressed a button and gave instructions to the driver. His voice was crisp. Emma knew if she tried to talk right now it would emerge as a breathless squawk.
He watched her closely, as if trying to read her reaction. Was he wondering if she realised this had been a set up? Just like their wedding?
Had he really used her so callously? But then, given his track record...
The last shreds of heat inside Emma disintegrated, leaving her chilled to the marrow.
Even her fury, emerging from that white-hot sear of mortification, was cold. It whipped through her like the icy winter wind that swept Melbourne from the Antarctic.
‘I apologise, Emma. The driver’s original instructions were to take us to a restaurant where the press would be waiting to take photos.’ Christo lifted his wide shoulders a scant centimetre. ‘I was distracted when we left the auction and forgot to tell him to take us straight home instead. It was my mistake.’
* * *
‘How very convenient.’
‘Pardon?’
Emma lifted her hand to her hair, hauling up the soft waves he’d dislodged as he’d kissed her and jabbing in pins so hard Christo almost winced, imagining the grazes on her scalp. He wanted to reach out and grab her wrists, tell her the haphazard attempts to rectify the sophisticated hairstyle weren’t working, and that besides he preferred it down. But she was upset enough. She wouldn’t thank him.
The horror on her face smote his conscience. He shouldn’t have let it happen. Should have protected her better. Even a woman who’d grown up in the public eye would cringe at the sort of pictures he knew would cover the tabloids in the morning.
Emma had looked wanton, beautiful and thoroughly aroused and the thought of anyone but him seeing her that way was like a knife to his gut. She was his and his alone.
‘How incredibly convenient that you should forget to change the instructions. And that the doorman from the restaurant should open the car without a signal we were ready.’
Christo registered the acid in her tone and frowned. ‘That’s what doormen do. They open doors.’
He tamped down annoyance at her implication. She’d had a shock.
Emma’s mouth turned mulish and her chin reared high in an attitude he knew too well. Stubborn defiance. ‘And I suppose you had no idea we were outside the restaurant, even though you know Athens so well?’ Her voice dripped shards of sarcasm that grazed his already smarting conscience.
‘Let me get this straight. You’re accusing me of luring you into a compromising situation just to embarrass you publicly?’ Christo picked the words out slowly, barely crediting her implication.
‘Of course not.’ The vein of righteous indignation pulsing through him slowed. He’d been mistaken to think Emma could believe... ‘Not to embarrass me specifically. I’m sure that was just collateral damage as far as you’re concerned.’ She dropped her hands to her lap and belatedly snicked her seatbelt closed as if to reinforce the distance between them. ‘You did it to prove we’re hot for each other, didn’t you? That all’s well between the bride and groom and any rumours that I’d left you were laughable.’
Her voice wobbled on the last word, but Christo couldn’t feel sympathy.
Her accusation impugned his integrity. What sort of man did she think he was? So desperate he’d let the world into such a private moment?
A ripple of distaste coursed through him, starting from the bitterness filling his mouth and ending down at the soles of his feet.
He’d been vilified and taunted by his father whenever the old man thought he wasn’t callous or committed enough to shoulder the mantle of the Karides corporation. He’d grown accustomed to press reports that misinterpreted or even invented facts about him. He accepted as inevitable that there were probably only a handful of people in the world, like his PA and his old friend Damen, who really knew him. But that didn’t mean he’d shrug off such a deliberate insult.
An insult from the woman who, fifteen minutes ago, had all but begged him to take her in the back of this car.
A woman who’d driven him crazy these last weeks with lust and frustration.
A woman whose actions in running from him after their wedding had left him using all his influence and ingenuity to avoid a scandal that would damage them both.
The limo glided down into the underground car park of his apartment building. The increased lighting showed Christo a woman who was not only defiant but sneering.
Something cracked inside him.
‘We’ll continue this in the apartment.’ He opened his door and got out, leaving the driver to get Emma’s door.
The trip to the penthouse was completed in thick silence. The sort that wrapped around the lungs and squeezed mercilessly.
What was it about this woman that made him feel so furious, so resentful, so blindsided?
So gutted. As if, despite being in the right, he could have done better?
Christo had spent a lifetime learning to be top of his game, top of any game he played. He’d survived thirty-one years riding the rough with the smooth, learning never to expect too much. But nothing had prepared him for Emma.
Christo held the front door open to let her sweep past, nose in the air, green jewels swinging from her ears with each step. She crossed the foyer and entered the sitting room with an undulating sashay of her hips in that tight dress that might have been due to her high heels but which instinct told him was a deliberate
provocation.
Did she know she played with fire?
In the car she’d driven him to the brink of insanity with her untrammelled eagerness. His wife kissed like an angel, but a woefully inexperienced one. He’d bet his last dollar Emma hadn’t thought through the effect of such blatant sexual challenge. If she had, she’d probably run and lock herself in her bedroom.
The separate bedroom he’d arranged because he’d foolishly agreed to let her make the first move.
Christo gritted his teeth but made himself close the door quietly before following her.
She swung around, face flushed, eyes febrile and hair a delectable mess that made her look as though she’d just got out of bed.
His belly clenched painfully, re-igniting frustration. Even now his wife couldn’t conceal the fact she wanted him. She devoured him with her eyes, her tongue darting out to slick her lips. Her breasts rose so high with each breath they strained the strapless bodice and her hard nipples signalled arousal. Anger, yes, but desire too.
It struck him that her indignation was a convenient shield for other emotions.
Christo shoved his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels. ‘I’ve had enough, Emma.’
‘You’ve had enough? I—’
‘It’s my turn to talk.’ His tone was even but held the note of authority he’d honed over years as a CEO.
She took another hefty breath that made him wonder if her breasts might pop free of the green silk, then nodded.
‘Maybe I should have been more upfront with you.’
Emma’s eyes rounded, as if stunned at his admission.
‘Maybe I should have spelled out exactly why I wanted to marry you.’
Not that it would have changed anything. He’d been determined to find the right woman and Emma was definitely it, despite her annoying habit of throwing up obstacles and questioning his motives.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t have assumed you knew there was a business element to the arrangement. I shouldn’t have assumed, wrongly, that your grandfather had discussed that with you.’ He paused. ‘I could have told you myself about Anthea.’
Modern Romance May 2019: Books 5-8 Page 27