by Lynne Graham
Vanessa grinned. 'Of course. Ben treats me like a mate but he definitely has the hots for you. I think it's great that he's finally getting tired of the party girls and wakening up to the idea of a real woman.'
'I don't think Ben feels that way about me.' Hope was emanating embarrassment in visible waves. 'He likes me and, although he shouldn't, he feels a little guilty that Andreas made wrong assumptions about how well we knew each other.'
'Nah…' Vanessa elevated a mocking brow in disagreement. 'Ben's not that nice. He gets a kick out of having rattled Andreas's cage. We both think Andreas has acted like a callous bastard. But Ben also genuinely wants a chance with you.'
'Even if that's true, and I don't think it is, Ben loves to tease people. Well, I'm not in the notion of anything else right now anyway,' Hope fielded awkwardly. Vanessa fixed exasperated brown eyes on her. 'Ben won't be interested for ever. Andreas isn't coming back, Hope. He's history.'
Hope's creamy skin was pale as milk. 'I know that.'
'I don't think you do. Have you any idea how worried I've been about you? Instead of living in your little world, you should be facing some hard facts.'
'I think I've faced quite a few of those in recent times,' Hope slotted in ruefully, wishing the other woman would just stand back and give her the time to heal.
'But let's recap,' the other woman said with determination. 'Andreas accused you of sleeping with Ben and he wasn't interested in letting you defend yourself.'
'He believed his sister,' Hope countered tightly. 'I can be very hurt about that but I can't hate him for trusting his own flesh and blood.'
'I reckon Andreas was ready for a change and his sister's lies gave him a fast and easy exit.'
Hope thought back to the fierce emotion that Andreas had betrayed at their last encounter and pain squeezed her heart so hard that she could hardly breathe. Had only his ego been stung by the belief that she had betrayed him?
'Take a look at this…' Vanessa settled a newspaper in front of her. It was folded open at the gossip page and a photo of Andreas with a beautiful skinny blonde. Hope felt as if someone had pushed her below the surface of a pool without giving her the chance to first take in a breath.
'I don't want to look at that,' she whispered shakily. The redhead grimaced. 'I didn't want to do this to you but you've given me no choice. You won't even open the papers I keep on leaving around for you. But you need to know. Andreas is out partying like mad here in London and in New York. He's been seen out with a string of gorgeous models and celebrities. He's not grieving, he's not sitting in nights missing you.'
'I get the message… OK?' Hope breathed chokily. 'I didn't expect him to grieve. I doubt if many men grieve over a woman they think slept with some other man and Andreas is too proud.'
'I just want you to know and accept that you've seen the last of him.' Her friend squeezed her arm in a show of affection. 'It'll help you get over him more quickly.'
The doorbell buzzed. Momentarily, Hope shut her eyes; she had been plunged into the most terrifying tide of despair by Vanessa's lack of patience and tact. In what way was the excruciating spectacle of Andreas in the company of a breathtakingly lovely blonde supposed to help her heal?
'I'm Vanessa, isn't it amazing that we've never actually met until now? Hope's not expecting you, is she?' Vanessa was saying in a curiously loud and incredibly cheerful tone from the hall. 'She's only just got out of bed. In fact, she's wrecked and you'll be lucky if she can string two words together in a single sentence. She's been out to dawn every night this week!' Transfixed by the sound of her friend giving vent to that rolling tide of outrageous lies, Hope lifted her lashes. What she saw paralysed her to the spot. Andreas stood in the doorway. Andreas isn't coming back… you've seen the last of him. Shock seemed to bounce her heart inside her, making it a challenge to catch her breath. Feeling the race of her heartbeat, she trembled. The breeze had tousled his cropped black hair. His lean, strong features were bronzed, his gleaming golden eyes veiled but intent. He looked every inch the heartbreaker he was.
'Thank you,' Andreas drawled smoothly as he snapped the door shut in Vanessa's madly inquisitive face.
'I wasn't expecting you,' Hope framed unevenly and she could have winced at the inanity of unnecessarily stating the obvious.
Andreas watched the light catch the faint track left by a tear on her cheek. Although her eyes still had the luminous intensity of turquoises, her familiar happy glow was gone. In response, the razor edge of his cold, aggressive mood mellowed. If she was miserable, it was only what she deserved. If she was missing him, regretting what she had stupidly thrown away, even better. If she were ready to beg for forgiveness, he would enjoy it even more.
Vanessa poked her head round the door that communicated with the kitchen. 'Would you like me to stay, Hope?'
For all the world as though she were a little kid in need of support around the grown-ups, Hope reflected in an agony of mortification. Recognising Andreas's derisive disbelief at that interruption, Hope almost cringed and took immediate action to avoid any further embarrassment. 'No, thanks. Actually, we're going into my room.'
'Don't be silly, there's no need for that! Naturally you can stay in here,' her friend exclaimed in an offended tone while treating Andreas to a sharp and unfriendly appraisal. 'I just thought you might need support.'
'I'm fine.' Mortified as Hope was by Vanessa's behaviour, she was determined to speak to Andreas in private and without fear of being overheard. She pulled open the door that led into the hall. 'This way,' she urged him in a rather harried undertone.
'We could always go and sit in the limo,' Andreas drawled sibilantly, flicking a chilling glance at Hope's friend. An interfering brazen bully, who he could see walked all over Hope in hobnail boots.
'No, really, that's not necessary,’ Hope declared breathlessly.
It was becoming obvious to Andreas that on one score at least Hope had not lied to him. Ben might own the apartment but his cousin, Vanessa Fitzsimmons, did indeed appear to be the current tenant. Of course the flat could still have been regularly used to facilitate Hope's affair with Campbell. Only as time passed and his powerful intellect continued to dwell on and question the few facts at his disposal, Andreas was finding it increasingly hard to credit that a lengthy affair had even taken place.
For a start, Hope had appeared to be her usual sunny self right up until the week before his sister's party. Hope had an honest and open nature and it would be wildly out of character for her to have engaged in long-term serious deception. He found it much easier to believe that she had simply succumbed to temptation that evening. He was also highly suspicious of the fact that the male involved was closely related to her best friend. After all, before he had even met Vanessa, Andreas had guessed that the woman was hostile to his relationship with Hope. Had Ben Campbell been encouraged to target Hope with his attentions? Had Campbell pretended to be a friend to win Hope's trust and wear down her defences? In short, had Hope been set up to fall?
'In here… ' Hope pushed open the door of her bedroom and hoped it wasn't in too much of a mess. Why had Andreas come to see her? Even the most vague and far-fetched possibility that Andreas might want her back reduced her mental agility to zero. Her tummy filled with fluttering butterflies of nervous tension.
Andreas studied his surroundings with eyes so keenly intent and precise that after ten seconds he could have accurately enumerated every visible item right down to the tiny corner of the chocolate wrapper protruding from a drawer. His tension dropped several degrees and his vigilance relaxed as he appreciated that there was nothing in the room that suggested even occasional male occupation. In fact the bed was clearly only occupied by one person. One person with a fondness for cuddly toys. He could not credit that any male would willingly share space with the shabby pink rabbit that had survived Hope's childhood.
As Hope stepped away from the door the disturbingly familiar scent of her herbal shampoo flared his nostrils. Her pale silky
blonde hair shimmered across her shoulders like a fall of satin. His every physical sense suddenly on full alert, he studied her. Her fabulous hourglass curves looked more pronounced than ever but he assumed his memory was playing tricks on him. Of recent he had been surrounded by some very thin women, he reminded himself absently, while he fought the treacherous buzz of his powerful sexual arousal. Such comparisons could only make Hope seem more luscious in contour. Regardless, the bountiful swell of her generous breasts below her pink T-shirt was nothing short of spectacular. His even white teeth gritted.
'Would you like to sit down?' she asked nervously, bending down to scoop a pile of magazines off a chair. Her top rode up a few inches at the back to reveal a slender strip of pale creamy skin.
'No…' His drawl was thickened by his Greek accent and his hands clenched into defensive fists. He wanted to touch that smooth, tantalising stretch of naked flesh in view. In fact he wanted to do a whole hell of a lot more than just touch Hope. After weeks of enduring a worryingly uninterested libido, he was rampant. He wanted to drag her down on the bed, rip off her clothes and have sex with her. Hot and deep and fast, out of control, mind-blowing as it was only with her.
Rigid with the force of the appetite he was containing and the temptation he was resisting with every aggressive fibre of his body, Andreas backed away until she was out of his natural reach. In an effort to control the biting heat of his unsated hunger, he focused on the magazines she had pushed onto the carpet. Evidently she was still obsessively reading interior magazines. Publications stuffed with photos of period country dwellings groaning with oak beams and crammed with anachronistic kitchens and bathrooms. She was mad about houses. Her nest-building instincts would have terrified a weaker man. Andreas had contrived quite happily to ignore them. But now a taunting, infuriating voice was coming out of nowhere inside his head and asking him why he hadn't given her that fantasy and bought her a country house. Had he given her the opportunity to wallow in chintz and walled gardens, he was willing to bet that she would still have been with him.
'Coffee?' Hope mumbled, her mouth running dry at the high-wire tension in the atmosphere. She could not take her eyes from his extravagantly handsome features. A tinge of dark colour highlighting his striking high cheekbones, Andreas lowered thick black lashes over his brilliant eyes. 'I won't be here that long.'
'Are you sure? I'd like you to stay,' she heard herself say without any forethought or pride whatsoever. 'A while…' she added jerkily, hoping it made her sound a bit less desperate.
His lashes lifted, revealing his sizzling golden gaze.
A combination of sexual desire and fierce resentment held him fast. If he dragged her down on the bed, would she say no? She had never, ever said no to him. Like an executioner letting the guillotine blade fall, he clamped down on that dangerous train of thought.
'I just want to know how you're doing.' Hope flinched, thinking of the blonde in that newspaper photo with all her bones on display. She breathed in hurriedly, afraid that he might already have noticed that her stomach was not as flat as it had been. Once comfort eating had kindly bestowed its largesse in less noticeable amounts on her hips and her breasts, but now visible surplus flesh was creeping onto her middle section as well.
'I've only one reason for being here. I couldn't get in touch any other way,' Andreas asserted with chilling cool, his beautiful mouth compressed with impatience, his defiant libido willed into subjection. 'What happened to your mobile phone?'
'It broke,' she confided.
'The number here is ex-directory,' he pointed out. 'Why did you want to get in touch with me?' Her nerves could no longer stand the suspense of waiting.
'Your brother has left several messages for you on the phone at the apartment. I believe he's visiting London next week. When he couldn't raise you on your mobile phone, he got worried.'
'Jonathan? Oh…' The colour in Hope's cheeks evaporated as severe disappointment claimed her. She felt very foolish and rather humiliated. Andreas had had the most pedestrian of reasons for coming to see her and his visit had no personal dimension whatsoever. But she could not have foreseen the likelihood of her brother suddenly trying to get in touch with her. As a rule she only heard from Jonathan with a card at Christmas and a catch-up phone call after New Year. If Jonathan were visiting London, he would be on a business trip, she thought dully.
'Make sure that you call him. That line has now been disconnected.'
Her brow indented. 'But why?' 'The apartment is for sale.'
That news hit her like a slap in the face. It made everything so dreadfully final. The apartment had been her home for two years. For her, it was still a place full of happy memories. Only now was she forced to acknowledge that she had still cherished secret hopes of returning to live there. She tried and failed to find consolation in the evident fact that at least he wasn't moving some other woman in.
'Don't you still need it?' she prompted tightly.
In silence, Andreas lifted and dropped a broad shoulder in continental dismissal of the topic. Her turquoise eyes lifted and she noticed the way his gaze was welded to her mouth. Her lips tingled, felt dry. As the tip of her tongue snaked out to provide moisture his golden eyes smouldered and he reached for her in a sudden movement that stripped the breath from her lungs with a startled gasp.
'A-Andreas…?' she stammered, feverishly conscious of the lean, strong hands clamped to her wrists and the scant few inches separating their bodies.
'Don't make yourself cheap trying to turn me on,' Andreas delivered with derisive bite, setting her back from him in a mortifying gesture of rejection and releasing her from his hold.
Hope reeled back in shock from that icy rebuff.
Somehow, heaven knew how, the distance between them had narrowed. Had she unconsciously drifted closer to him or was he the one responsible? Whatever, she had never been made to feel more humiliated than she did at that moment. 'You actually think…but I wasn't trying to-'
'It's such a waste of your time,' he murmured silkily. 'I'm over you.'
'I wasn't trying to turn you on!' Hope persisted, writhing with horror at the charge. Her temper surged up in response to her discomfiture. 'It's ridiculous to accuse me of that. You're the last guy in the world I'd want to make a play for. You're lucky that I'm even willing to still speak to you!'
Dark deep-set eyes gleaming gold, Andreas angled his arrogant head high and loosed a derisive laugh that gave her a shocking desire to kick him. 'And how do you make that out?'
'Well, for a start, you've insulted me beyond any hope of forgiveness. You misjudged me and you dumped me for something I didn't do. The night of that party, I hardly knew Ben Campbell but you refused to listen to me,' she condemned with helpless bitterness. 'When Ben found out what happened between us, he said he was willing to go and speak to you for me.'
Unimpressed, Andreas grimaced. 'How cheap…is he now wishing he had kept his hands off my property?'
'I'm not and I never was your property!' Hope shouted back at him so shrilly and in so much distress that her voice broke. 'Now get out of here!'
Ben had made a grudging offer to speak to Andreas on her behalf but she had decided that dragging the younger man into her personal problems would have been unfair, embarrassing and probably pointless. Andreas's derisive crack about Ben had confirmed Hope's conviction that Ben's intervention would have been unsuccessful. Andreas believed his sister's version of events and would discount any other. He had swallowed his sister's lies hook, line and sinker. Nothing she could do or say would alter that.
'With pleasure,' Andreas spelt out.
As Andreas strode to the door it opened, framing Ben Campbell. 'Are you OK?' he asked Hope, ignoring Andreas.
Tears were dammed up inside her like a threatening floodtide. She thought if she let them out, she might wash both Ben and Andreas away. For the space of a heartbeat, the two men were side by side. With his slighter build, fair hair and fine features, not to mention his trendy jea
ns, Ben looked boyish next to Andreas, but the concern in his eyes warmed her. Andreas subjected her to a chilling glance of contempt as if Ben's mere presence was an offence.
'I hate you…' Hope mumbled tautly. 'I've never said that to anyone before… I've never felt this way before either. But what you've done to me and the way you've treated me has changed me.'
'You shouldn't be here upsetting Hope. Leave her alone,' Ben said abruptly.
And the glitter in Andreas's stunning eyes blazed as hot as the heart of a fire. A satisfied smile driving the inflexible hardness from his shapely mouth, he stepped back and hit Ben so hard that the younger man went crashing out into the hall where he fell back against the wall.
'Theos…I owed you that,' Andreas growled with seething emphasis, aggression etched into every taut and ready line of his big, powerful body.
'How could you do that?' Hope gasped in horror, appalled at his violence and guilty that she should have been the cause of it.
'If I wasn't averse to spilling blood in front of women, I'd kill him,' Andreas intoned without a shred of shame. Grimacing, Ben hauled himself up out of his slump with a groan. Flushed with anger, he launched himself away from the wall, but before he could attempt to strike a blow in retaliation Hope had stepped between him and Andreas.
'I'm so sorry about this. But please don't sink to his level,' Hope begged Ben frantically, terrified that masculine pride would press him into a fight that she was certain he would lose.
'Spoilsport,' Andreas growled between clenched teeth, outraged by the sight of her rushing to protect the other man, the freezing cool of his innate strong will icing over the outrage and denying it.
'And to the winner goes the spoils,' Ben countered, closing his hand over Hope's to anchor her to his side in a deliberately provocative statement. 'I don't need to hammer anyone into a pulp to impress her.'
'That is fortunate. You're usually too drunk even to try,' Andreas riposted with lethal distaste.
Shell-shocked by the amount of bad feeling between the two men, Hope watched Andreas stride out of the apartment and out of her life all over again. He did it without a backward glance or a word. She shivered, feeling cold and crushed and bereft.