Like caring, homecoming, sharing, lo...
Warning bells clamoured and Emma knew she had to break the spell of his tenderness. It was enough to make her believe in things she shouldn’t.
Holding tight to his shoulders, she lifted her head and grazed his ear with her teeth. Then, as he’d said he liked hearing her, she whispered to Christo just what she wanted him to do next.
It was like igniting gunpowder. For a millisecond there was breathless stillness, then he erupted in a surge of powerful energy, driving against her in an erotic rhythm that stole her breath as his hand moved first to her breast, then to the sensitive bud between her legs and...
‘Christo!’ His name was a hoarse shout over and over again that faded to a gasp as he took her to a peak, then another, shattering with her in a cataclysmic orgasm that engulfed them in rapture.
When she was back in her body, Emma felt filled to the brim, sated and spent yet emotional and needy, blinking back tears of reaction to the most astounding experience of her life. All she knew as she hugged Christo close was that she wanted to stay this way for ever.
Gradually her breathing eased and her heartbeat too. Still she clung tight, absorbing the scent of sweat and sex and maleness, feeling the slippery silk of her lover’s skin against her.
Not her lover. Her husband.
Or maybe more.
Her breath tore from her throat.
‘Come on, let’s wash the sand away.’ The deep voice murmured in her ear as Christo moved, ignoring her protest and lifting her into his arms.
The water, though not cold, was chilly enough to shock her into full alertness. He waded into the water, carrying her in his arms, and Emma clung to him as if she hadn’t spent her childhood swimming several times a week. She didn’t want to think about why she felt so needy.
Later, as they lay sprawled on flat rocks at the end of the beach drying in the sun, Emma found herself doing what she’d told herself she wouldn’t—seeking more from Christo.
It wasn’t his money she wanted and, while he made her feel like a goddess when he took her in his arms and made love to her, Emma wanted to understand him.
Because she loved him.
She’d tried to stifle the knowledge but it wouldn’t be silenced any more. She’d told herself it was just sex between them, sex and a business arrangement. But she’d deluded herself. The Christo she’d discovered in Greece was the same man she’d fallen for in Australia. It was only the aberration of the loveless marriage that didn’t fit the man she’d come to know and like all over again.
Except, after having heard him describe his parents, she had an inkling about how he could separate love and marriage.
Unfortunately she couldn’t do that and the realisation terrified her. Was she fooling herself again, tumbling into love with this man? Did she really know him or did she only think so?
And, if she did, what did she do next?
* * *
‘Tell me about Cassie.’
‘Sorry?’ Christo opened one eye and squinted down at the damp honey-brown hair on his chest where Emma rested her head. He enjoyed the feel of her there, her body soft against him, one thigh over his so the intimate heat between her legs was tantalisingly close.
‘I wondered about your stepsister.’
Christo frowned. ‘Why?’
Emma lifted her head, her palm on his chest. Her eyes were sombre. As if, while he’d been lazing on a cloud of wellbeing, she’d been in a bleaker place altogether.
‘Glyka mou! What’s wrong?’ Concern rose instantly.
She shook her head. ‘Nothing. I was just thinking...’ She shrugged then looked at him almost defiantly. ‘How much I don’t know about you. You never mention Cassie. But I feel she was important to you.’
Christo stared, stunned at the woman who, once again, turned his world upside down. Any other lover would be snuggled bonelessly against him, enjoying the comedown from that amazing high they’d shared. But not his Emma.
Why was he surprised? Emma was unlike any other woman.
‘You said we’d be honest with each other.’
‘That doesn’t mean I want you prying into ancient history.’
‘I see.’ She didn’t pull away but her luscious body stiffened. Her eyes grew shuttered, no longer reflecting the green of the sea but turning a flat, muddy brown. She turned her head away and guilt stirred in his gullet. He should have tempered his response, not barked at her because she’d touched on what he hated to think about.
Christo’s heart thumped as he waited for Emma to roll away but she simply subsided where she’d been. Though the way she held herself reminded him of an animal nursing a wound, stillness betraying pain.
He lifted a hand to stroke her, then stopped.
Christo had spent half a lifetime not thinking about this. He baulked at opening up the past. Yet this was the first time Emma had asked him for anything.
Except a divorce.
He huffed an amused breath at the memory of her breathing fire as she’d demanded he release her from their marriage. She’d been so outrageously, provocatively sexy. At that moment he’d thought he’d die if he didn’t have her.
Just as suddenly Christo’s amusement faded.
He had her for now. But for how long? He wanted her permanently, and not because of Anthea or words on a legal document. He just...wanted her for himself.
He dropped his hand to her hair, feeling the suck of her indrawn breath against his chest. For some obscure reason, this mattered to her.
And since Emma mattered to him...
Christo turned his head, his gaze drifting across the blue-green sea.
‘She was eleven or twelve when she came to the house. A shy little thing with freckles, plaits and the biggest brown eyes you’ve ever seen.’ Eyes just like Anthea’s.
Against his chest Emma stirred but said nothing.
‘My father and his second wife had just returned from their honeymoon. Cassie had stayed with relatives in the States while they travelled.’
‘How old were you?’
‘Almost eighteen.’ Two years older than when he’d discovered his mother with her teenage lover. At eighteen Christo had worked in the family business and studied, living up to his father’s demand that he excel at both.
‘You really only met her once?’
‘For a weekend. She arrived on Friday and left on Sunday.’ Christo swallowed, the action hurting, as if something sharp had lodged in his throat.
Emma sat up. ‘Christo? What’s wrong?’
He jerked his gaze round to her, biting the urge to say he was wrong.
Get a grip, Karides.
He levered himself up to sit, draping his arms over his knees. ‘Nothing. It’s okay.’
Was he reassuring himself or her? Despite the sun, his nape prickled with cold.
‘She was shy, even with her own mother, and with my father...’ He shook his head. ‘I think I mentioned he was a tough man. He hadn’t a sentimental bone in his body. As for being kind to little girls...
‘She tried to avoid him as much as possible and I helped her.’
He’d felt sorry for the kid, given her mother had seemed more concerned about placating her new husband than helping her daughter acclimatise to a new country and a new family. Christo, used to being alone, had been charmed by Cassie’s hesitant smiles and shy interest. For the first time in his life, he’d felt he could make a difference.
There was a terrible irony there, if only he’d known.
‘I took her swimming and sailing.’ Getting her out of his father’s way. ‘And she used to watch me draw. She found my cartoons amusing.’ That, if only he’d realised, had been his worst mistake. His father was annoyed enough at him ‘wasting’ his time with Cassie, but to have her encourage his scribbling wasn’t to be borne. The old man viewed his interest in art with suspicion, a sign of weakness in his heir, who had to be tough and ruthlessly efficient. Real men didn’t draw or play games. They clo
sed deals, kept a tight rein on business and took hard decisions.
‘She must have enjoyed being with you.’
Christo nodded. ‘Yes. She even laughed, when she thought my father wasn’t around.’ He noticed a pebble on the rock at his feet and threw it, watching it arc over the water, then disappear as if it had never been.
Just like Cassie.
‘But my father noticed.’ Christo found another pebble and threw it. ‘He was concerned about me. Apparently, with my stepsister I was soft and lacking seriousness. He was trying to make a man of me. Not someone who frittered away his time playing games or being sentimental over a kid.’
‘I don’t think I’d have liked your father.’
Christo turned to see Emma sitting, arms wrapped around her legs, chin resting on her knees. Even scowling she made his pulse quicken.
‘He was moulding me so I could face whatever the commercial world threw at me. He lost his own father early and didn’t want me struggling as he had.’
Emma’s eyes met his and something thumped deep in his chest. ‘The world isn’t just commerce. There’s love and friendship and family.’
Not as far as his father had been concerned. ‘The upshot was he decided Cassie wasn’t a good influence.’
‘But she was only a little girl!’ Emma’s gaze widened.
Christo spread his hands. ‘He felt I wasn’t acting like a man.’
That had cut deep, especially as Christo had spent his life living up to his father’s expectations.
‘There’s nothing manly about making a little kid feel alone and scared.’
Christo nodded. ‘I agree. But he didn’t see it that way. He’d never been one for close relationships. His marriages were about possessing beautiful women who enhanced his kudos.’ He paused. ‘Anyway, he decided Cassie couldn’t stay. She was shipped back to relatives in the States.’
Emma looked aghast. ‘Just because you’d been nice to her?’
At last she understood. ‘Because I had to be tough. He wouldn’t allow anything else and I...’ Christo sighed and looked away ‘...accepted that.’ Which made it even worse. ‘So she went to America and I never heard from her again. After a while, I forgot about her. Occasionally I’d wonder what she was doing but I never followed up.’ Bitterness was sharp on his tongue. ‘So I didn’t know the relatives who took her in later decided they didn’t want another kid to look after. She ended up in foster care, shunted from one place to another.’
‘It wasn’t your fault.’ Emma’s whisper slid through him like the serpent in Eden, so tempting.
‘Because of me she was banished to live her life with people who didn’t want her. Meanwhile, I got on with my life as if she didn’t matter at all.’
Christo threw another stone out into the water with such force, he almost wrenched his shoulder. ‘If I’d done the honourable thing, if I’d bothered to check up on her, things might have turned out differently. She might still be alive.’ He dragged in air to fill tight lungs. ‘But I’m stronger now. I didn’t do right by Cassie, but you can be sure I will do my duty by her daughter.’
* * *
Emma curled her arms tight around her knees and stared out to sea. Beside her Christo did the same, clearly not wanting to talk further.
Who’d have thought a simple question about his stepsister would reveal so much? Combined with what he’d told her before, it painted a picture that made her heart lurch with sympathy and pain. It was even worse than she’d thought.
A cold, controlling father and a distant, self-absorbed mother. His family hadn’t been a family at all. It was remarkable they’d produced a man with as much decency as Christo.
Emma had heard his self-reproach as he’d spoken of Cassie. As if he, as a teenager, could have gone against the girl’s mother and stepfather to provide a home for her.
Who’d provided a home for him?
He spoke of doing the honourable thing and about duty. Was that what drove Christo? Emma recalled his words when he’d found her in Corfu. About giving her his name and his word, as if that pledge was more important than love.
Which made sense for a man who didn’t know love at all.
For a man who possibly never would.
The experts said what you experienced as a child coloured your character for life. That lack of caring in a child’s life stunted their emotional growth.
Emma’s abdominal muscles spasmed as the pain intensified. She’d convinced herself she was over Christo, that she could enjoy uncomplicated sex then move on. But she’d given her heart to him in Australia and hadn’t stopped loving him, despite anger and disillusionment.
Contrary to what she’d told herself, she’d secretly hoped Christo would come to love her. She’d taken his kindness, passion and ability to make her feel special as signs he’d begun to feel for her what she did for him.
Emma gritted her teeth as the pain settled into a cold, hard ache in her belly and chest.
She’d thought he was softening towards her. That they’d shared more than sex. There’d been companionship and caring, humour, a sense that they were building something together.
In a flash of blinding clarity she realised she’d seen what she wanted to see.
Christo was driven by an unshakeable sense of duty. It was there in his determination to care for his step-niece. To look to the needs of Dora, of all his staff, and Emma too.
No matter how much she admired him for the honourable man he’d become despite the odds, duty was no replacement for love.
She shut her eyes and pictured him with Anthea, remembering his hesitation. True, his wariness was easing, and hopefully that relationship would blossom even more.
But Emma couldn’t expect miracles. A man driven by duty, who had no experience of love, would never give her what she needed.
They’d found common ground but that was based on sex. Everything, even his desire to be here on the island, hinged on that and his need to portray the fiction of a happy family to the watching world.
Look at the way he’d snapped at her question about Cassie. Christo hated sharing anything personal. Her status as his wife didn’t give her special privileges there.
Her husband was as likely to fall in love with her as snow falling in summer.
Even if theoretically it were possible, could she live with him in a one-sided relationship for the rest of the year, hoping for a miracle?
Emma had never thought of herself as greedy. Yet the idea of giving her all to the man she loved, knowing he felt only a sense of responsibility and lust for her, made her crumple inside.
What if the lust faded? What if someone else caught his eye? That was likely given the glamorous circles he moved in. Emma knew part of the reason he desired her was because she was a novelty to him. Despite the makeover in Athens, she wasn’t cut out for his world.
With a hiss of indrawn air Emma shot to her feet. Seconds later she was stumbling across the sand to the scatter of discarded clothes.
‘Emma? What’s wrong?’
She swayed, struck by a blow of need so strong it almost felled her. The perverse, futile need to turn around and run straight back to Christo.
But what would that achieve? She needed distance. Time to think, to sort out her head and her heart.
‘I’ve just remembered...something.’ She grabbed the froth of her cotton lace skirt and stepped into it, yanking up the zip. ‘I need to get back to the villa.’ Her head spun uselessly as she tried to come up with an excuse. ‘There’s something I need to do.’
‘What is it?’
He was behind her, so close his breath kissed her bare neck and hair as she wrestled with her clothes. She forced herself to take a deep breath and drag the top on, feeling the material abrade her nipples. But she didn’t have time for a bra. She had to get away.
A warm hand closed on her elbow and she jumped so violently, he let go. But now he was before her, those penetrating eyes concerned. It was a terrible temptation to think she w
as wrong. That maybe Christo did feel...
Emma reared back. Her lovesick heart wanted to believe in a happy ending when she knew, when he’d already spelled it out as clearly as he could, that he only wanted sex, and stability for his niece. She’d already fallen for wishful thinking once. She knew better now.
He stood before her, naked and powerfully built, and her longing was so great she had to avert her eyes.
‘Talk to me, Emma.’ His voice was warm velvet, enfolding her.
She stepped back, almost tripping over a sandal. ‘Not now. I have to go—’
‘I’m not letting you go anywhere when you’re clearly upset.’ He crossed his arms over that powerful chest, the picture of masculine obstinacy, and fear crested. Fear that if she wasn’t careful she’d convince herself to stay, to settle for being a mere convenient wife rather than someone he cherished.
‘It’s not up to you to let me go anywhere.’ Emma took refuge in anger, though it was only surface deep. She was too miserable to muster real outrage.
Then he did what she’d feared. Instead of blustering he turned gentle. As if he really cared about her.
‘I’m worried about you, glyka mou. What’s happened?’
Emma drew a slow breath and raised her eyes to his. ‘I can’t go on like this. I can’t—’ she waved one hand in the air ‘—keep up the pretence for a whole twelve months. This isn’t going to work.’
From concerned, his proud features immediately turned stony. ‘How can you say that? It’s working beautifully.’
She shook her head, tugging her gaze away, feeling the instant ease in tension as she did. ‘For you. For Anthea maybe. But not for me. I just can’t do it any more.’
Emma registered a ripple of movement in his big frame, as if from a rising tide of energy. ‘But you will. You gave your word.’
His voice was cooler than she’d heard in ages, each word clipped. The voice of a stranger.
‘No! You forced me into a situation where I had no choice. I took your devil’s bargain because that’s all I could do. But it’s impossible.’
Christo stepped towards her and she shrank back. Instantly he froze.
Modern Romance May 2019: Books 5-8 Page 32