by -Julia James
Her face convulsed again. 'I'm just a body, aren't I? Just a body! Not a person. You didn't care that I was someone having an affair with a married man—and you don't care that I'm not! You just don't care! Whichever woman I was—or am—doesn't matter to you!'
His hand slashed down through the air.
'That isn't true. I've told you I rejoiced to discover you were never Stephanos's mistress! That you are his daughter.'
'You don't care which one I am. You're perfectly prepared to have sex with either of them!'
He wheeled away from her. I don't believe I'm having this conversation.' Emotion stormed through him. What the hell had gone wrong? How the hell had it exploded in his face like this? He turned back to her. 'Listen to me. Out of everything that happened only one thing was true—only one!' His eyes blazed gold. 'This.'
He reached out. His fingers brushed her cheek.
'This.' His other hand slipped around the nape of her neck, stroking with the tips of his fingers.
'This.' He tilted her chin and lowered his mouth to hers.
'This.' He brushed her mouth with his.
For a moment so brief it was less than the space of a single heartbeat she felt the world still.
'This was true!' His voice was soft. As soft as velvet. He brushed her lips again with his. As soft as velvet. 'This was always true. That we took one look at each other and wanted each other. That's what we have to remember— only that. Nothing else.'
He was drawing her closer to him. Or moving closer to her. She could not tell. Could only feel herself being pulled into his orbit, powerfully, inexorably. She looked into his eyes. They were glazing over with the blindness of desire. She'd seen it happen so often before, as he became absorbed in a world where only touch existed, only sensation.
It had been the same for her. Every time. Every time. She had ceased to think, ceased all mental activity except that of focusing with all her being on the sensations, the exquisite, arousing sensations, of Nikos making love to her...
Ice trickled down her spine.
But he hadn't been making love to her. He'd been having sex with the woman he'd thought was the mistress of a married man. Every time.
That, that had been the truth of it. The vile, hideous truth behind the soft words, the softer touch...
Slowly she pulled away.
'Do you know,' she heard herself saying, and her voice was strange—very strange, 'that when you told me just before.. .just before Stephanos arrived, that you wanted to take me back to Athens with you...do you know what I thought, Nikos?'
She lowered his hands away from her.
'I thought you were asking me to marry you. Isn't that amusing? I thought you were asking me to be your wife. But you weren't, were you? You were taking me to Athens to be your mistress—to make sure I never went back to Stephanos. You were prepared to do that, weren't you Nikos? Prepared to go that far to save your sister's .marriage.'
He looked down at her. His face was very strange.
'No,' he said. 'I was prepared to go that far to keep you for myself. I wanted you so much. I want you still so much. I will always want you.'
Her eyes shadowed. 'Whichever woman I am— Stephanos's mistress or his daughter—it doesn't matter. It's just the body that you want.'
A nerve ticked in his cheek.
'I told you that is not true.'
'It has to be!' she hissed. 'It had to be just my body that you wanted—want still. How could you possibly have made love to a woman you'd been sent to seduce, deliberately and calculatedly, and then dispose of? Mission complete! Sister's marriage saved!'
'No!' He ran his fingers roughly through his hair. 'No.'
He turned away suddenly. There was tension in every line of his body. He crossed the room, flinging open the wardrobe door and yanking out a cashmere dressing gown. Without looking back he ripped off his shirt, tossing it at a chair, and then dragged on the gown. He belted it with sharp, vicious movements. Then abruptly he turned back to Janine.
For one long, long moment he just looked at her as she stood there across the room, hand clutching the knot of her towel, eyes flashing with hatred for the man who had taken her to bed thinking she was the mistress of a married man, a woman he had been sent to detach from her married lover by any means possible.
Whatever it took.
Including heartbreak.
A sob choked in her throat.
No! Don't think that. Don't. Or you might say it—admit it—and the torment would kill you.
But it was too late. The last, terrible emotion poured from her. The one she had been so desperately, desperately trying to deny—trying to numb as it lay writhing in agony, deep within her wounded self.
Love.
Love for Nikos Kiriakis.
Love for a man who had never looked at her, never touched her, never kissed her or caressed her without seeing her as the woman destroying his sister's marriage, ensnaring his sister's husband. The woman he had been sent to dispose of.
He didn't intend you to fall in love with him...
But she had all the same. She hadn't wanted to, had been fearful of falling for a man like Nikos Kiriakis. But she had embraced it after all, knowing as she did that whatever happened, however brief a time they had, she would be able to treasure her memories of him all her life. Her dreams might never come true, but her memories would always be there.
A laugh bit in her throat. It had no humour in it. Only-gall—bitter, bitter gall.
Her memories were false. Each and every one of them.
'I haven't even got my memories,' she said accusingly 'They're false memories. In my every single memory of you you're wearing a mask—hiding from what you saw, a married man's mistress, hiding what you felt—'
'No.' His voice was low, intense. 'It wasn't like that. I wanted you from the moment I laid eyes on you.'
She gave a harsh laugh. 'Well, just as well, I'd say— wouldn't you? Would have been a bit of a tough challenge having to seduce a woman you didn't fancy!'
The glimmer, the merest glimmer of a mocking smile haunted his mouth. 'That's what I thought.' The smile vanished. 'But it came back to curse me.'
She looked blank. For a long moment he just looked at her, then with a violent gesture ran his hands through his hair. His hands fell to his sides and he rested his eyes on her.
'Your hell started when Stephanos's helicopter landed. Mine started a lot earlier.' He took a deep breath.
Truth time. She wanted truth.
It was all on a knife-edge now. He felt he was standing at the edge of a precipice. And it was going to be her call as to whether she pushed him off the edge or not.
He looked at her. Despite the enveloping towel he could see so much of her. The gentle swell of her breasts. Her slender figure. Her hair tumbling around her beautiful shoulders. The smooth skin of her thighs.
With sheer effort of will he tore his mind away.
It was hard.
Excruciatingly so.
And he knew why. Ever since Stephanos's arrival had turned his world upside down and inside out, sending him hurtling out into the abyss, only one thought had sustained him. That he had to get Janine back.
Because he wanted her, desired her. Whoever she was, whatever she was—mistress, lover, bride.
If he could just get her back everything would be all right. If he could just possess her again everything would be all right. In bed everything would be all right.
Getting her there had become the entire focus of his existence.
/ told myself that it was the only truth that had been there all along—the only thing we had emerged with. The only thing that counted.
But he'd been fooling himself.
He went and sat down on the edge of the bed, elbows resting on his knees, and ran his hands through his hair once more. Then he looked up.
Truth time.
For her.
And for him.
His eyes rested on her. She looked so beautiful, so
ach-ingly beautiful.
Something churned in him, grinding down through him. The memory of the first moment he'd laid eyes on her leapt in his mind. He saw it—vivid, real.
He'd thought her delectable. So lovely. Spread out there, displaying that soft, sun-kissed body. It had stirred him even then. He remembered his feeling of satisfaction that the mission he'd been sent on would have its compensations. That it would be more than his duty to seduce Janine Fareham—it would his pleasure too.
But it had become much, much more than either.
It had become something he had never, ever before felt for a woman. Women had been for pleasure, that was all. He'd enjoyed them and kissed them goodbye, moved on to the next one.
But Janine—
He had felt the danger. He couldn't even deny that, whatever else he denied. From the moment he'd set eyes on her! Felt it and dismissed it! He remembered standing on the balcony of stephanos's hotel on Skarios thinking how Captivating she was. The word had made him alarmed, he realised. He'd argued around it mentally and had applied it to Janine instead. That she'd be captivated. That way he'd felt safe.
Fool! Fool to think that he could just reassign words— feelings—to other people! Fool to simply ignore what had been happening to him.
Ignore everything about Janine Fareham except the need to seduce her.
Ignore everything except his desire for her.
Fool.
Psychologists had a phrase for it. Displacement activity.
Something you did instead of doing what you wanted to do. Because there was such a block against doing what you wanted to do that you couldn't do it. So you did something else instead.
Well, that was what he had done. He had done something else instead. He'd focused totally and absolutely on the one thing that he'd known he could do with Janine Fareham. He could desire her, and he could seduce her, and he could get her into bed with him and possess her utterly.
And once he had possessed her he would keep her.
Whatever happened he would keep her.
He would do anything, but he would keep her.
And when she was taken away from him, as Stephanos had taken her, then he would do anything to get her back.
And that was just what he'd done. He'd married her.
But he hadn't got her back.
He looked across at her. She stood there so beautiful. Achingly beautiful.
And as remote as a shining, distant star.
Hell closed over him. The same hell that had started the moment he had first laid eyes on her. He hadn't known it— couldn't possibly have known it. But he had walked into it all the same. Step by step.
He had been seducing her. Step by step. And all the while—all the while she had been seducing him. Not his senses, but a far, far more powerful part of his being.
His heart.
His eyes rested on her still. She hadn't spoken, hadn't moved. How long had he been silent? He didn't know. Couldn't tell.
'My hell...' he said, and his voice was very strange. 'My hell started when I fell in love with the woman who was breaking up my sister's marriage.'
CHAPTER NINE
HE HAD said it. Said a word that had come out of nowhere. Shocking him to the core. Shocking him because he had known the moment it came out of his mouth that it was true.
He hadn't known he was going to say it. Any more than he'd known he was going to do it.
Or realised that it had happened.
Why? he thought, with a weird, dissociated sense of strangeness. Why had it happened? It was an alien word to him—totally alien. It had never been part of his life, not with any of his partners. He'd never wanted it to be and he'd never even entertained the idea of falling in love.
It had been unnecessary and he'd never even thought about it.
And so, he realised, with a sinking, deadly hollowness, he had not recognised it.
/ called it desire.
But it was love.
Love all along.
The shock of it buckled through him.
And in the wake of shock, in the slipstream left behind it, pain lanced him like a spear thrown with lethal, mortal accuracy.
Unrequited love.
Because what else could it be? Hadn't she made it clear? After what he'd done to her—even though he hadn't meant to—how could she feel anything for him but loathing?
can't bear your touch!' He'd heard her say it-—her voice shuddering with revulsion.
He'd tried to sweep it aside. Wanted only to push past her defences and dissolve her resistance to him, make her see, feel that the only thing they must focus on was on the one good thing that had come out of this sorry, sordid mess. That in each other's arms nothing else mattered. Not whether or not she was Stephanos's mistress. Not whether or not he had been sent to ensure her defection from his sister's husband.
Just each other.
But she hadn't seen it that way.
She had been revolted by what had happened between them. Revolted by the lie, revolted by what he had thought her then.
Slowly his head sank into his hands.
Despair took him over.
There was a soft footfall on the carpet, a shadow falling over him. A scent of soap and body cream—and Janine. Her own scent, that sweet bouquet that he would have recognised anywhere—in the dark, on the moon... any where.
Fingers smoothed his hair.
'Oh, Nikos.'
Her voice was soft. As soft as her silken skin. As soft as her sweet breasts.
She knelt down beside him, her hand slipping from his head to rest on his knee.
He turned his bowed head towards her.
She was so close, so close. Her lips were parted, her eyes wide and luminous.
He couldn't help himself. Dear God, but he could not help himself.
His mouth reached for hers blindly, instinctively.
She let him kiss her, let his mouth move and taste hers. And then slowly, oh, so slowly, she started to kiss him back.
Be gathered her up to him, drawing her down on the bed beside him. The towel had loosened and he felt her breasts pressing against him. His eyes had shut. He did not want to see, only to feel. To feel the bliss, the sheer bliss, of He had ached for her. With his body. With his heart. "His "hands stroked over her as his mouth went on and on, kissingand kissing her. If he died now, this moment, it would be enough.
Her fingers were at his waist, loosening the tie of his robe, smoothing over his chest, his flanks. He laid her down on the bed, his hands slipping to her breasts, shaping and caressing them. He could feel the beat of her heart, the soft rise and fall of her lungs.
'Janine—'
His voice was a husk. A plea.
She placed her fingers over his lips.
'Shh—no words. No words.'
She slipped her fingers away to let her lips graze along his jaw, his neck, arching her spine towards him. Her legs were easing along his, her other hand smoothing over his back, along each muscled ridge.
He felt himself surge against her, and realised, feeling the exquisite, arousing frottage, that he was still in his shorts.
He groaned, and he felt her smile against his throat.
Wordlessly she eased them from him, her hands coming back to cup over the tensing muscles of his buttocks. He surged again, his flesh seeking hers. Blindly, instinctively.
Sinking within her was paradise. Paradise, and heaven, and home.
Such paradise that he did it again, and again, and yet again.
He felt her head begin to thresh, felt her mouth leave his, her neck arch. Heard, felt all the way through him, the low, vibrating moan that started in her throat and built all through her body, all through his, building and building until his whole body was resonating with hers in one perfect, endless harmony.
A great lassitude filled him. Slackening all his limbs, loosening all his muscles. She slipped from him, her weight pressing heavy against him. Heavy and warm and soft, so soft. He pillowed his he
ad upon her breasts and felt her stroke his hair, her fingers sifting, soothing.
Peace filled him. A peace so profound, so absolute, that it stilled him utterly as he lay there, enfolded and enfolding. His mouth formed one more soft kiss against her breast, and then sleep, sweet sleep, came at last and took him in.
For a long, long time she held him, tears seeping through her lashes.
And in the morning she was gone.
He woke, instantly knowing something was wrong. Desperately, appallingly wrong.
Janine was not there.
Like a terrible yawning chasm her absence swallowed him, devouring him. He clawed around him, as if he might feel her suddenly there, back again.
But she was gone. Gone.
Pain clutched at him.
/ thought I had her back! I thought I had her back!
Black agony sawed through him.
He forced his eyes open. Forced himself to see her absence. See her not there. Not there.
Not her, nor her bag, nor her shoes or her clothes, nor any part of her.
With eyes like death he got out of bed,gropmg for the [ bathrobe that she had peeled from his body when she had 'taken him back-back to that paradise that came in her arms. Only hers.
Pain scissored through him. A lifetime of pain waiting to devour him, day by day. Without her. Without Janine. The woman he loved—and could not win back.
He slid his arms down into the robe's sleeves, yanking the belt across him.
And froze.
There on the chest of drawers, propped up against the wall, was a piece of folded paper. Dread filled him. This was it, then. This was the final moment when he would see, in words, her absolute rejection of him.
He crossed the space in a second, seizing up the paper, opening it with rapid fumbling fingers. The words blurred, resolved, and blurred again.
Then cleared.
And as he read them a gratitude so profound went through him that he wanted to fall to his knees.
She had not left him.
The paper shook in his hands but the words held steady. Shining true and faithful. Filling him with the one thing he craved above all now.