by Sarah Morgan
‘You told me he disapproved of what you were doing and I had no reason not to question that. You were dressed in a nun’s outfit—’ his eyes gleamed with self-mockery, ‘—I assumed that what came out of your mouth was the truth.’
‘But you knew I wanted to keep my visit to you a secret.’
‘I didn’t even think about it. There is a world of difference between a disapproving father and an abusive father. I thought you wanted to make your mark on the world. I didn’t know he was leaving marks on you.’ There was a brief pause. His mouth tightened. ‘You should have shared that with me.’
‘Apart from that one abortive attempt to tell the authorities, I’ve never shared it with anyone.’
‘But you shared something else with me you’ve never shared with anyone.’ His fingers brushed her cheek, surprisingly gentle. ‘You could have trusted me, Selene.’
She felt her body respond instantly and knew that the biggest danger to herself came from him.
‘So you’re saying what happened is my fault?’
‘No, it was mine.’ His hand dropped. ‘And I apologise because the possibility of photographs should have occurred to me and it didn’t. But the reason it didn’t was because I’ve lived with it for so long I don’t notice it any more.’ His leg brushed against hers. Her mind blurred.
Melting inside, Selene pressed herself hard against the wall in an attempt not to touch him. ‘It really doesn’t matter. I’ve moved on.’
‘But you’ve moved on without me,’ he said softly, ‘and that isn’t what I want. Your mother seems well.’
‘She’s very well. She’s been staying in the same artists’ community she lived in when she first arrived in Athens as a teenager. She’s painting again and her confidence is returning. It’s wonderful to see that after—’ She broke off, eyes wide. ‘Wait a minute, how do you know she’s well? You’ve followed her, too?’
‘Naturally we are concerned. Unlike you, she welcomes the protection. It has allowed her to relax and enjoy her new life and her old friends.’
Selene thought about how frightened her mother had been. ‘All right—’ her voice sounded stiff ‘—maybe I’m grateful to you for helping my mother, but don’t think it’s going to change the way I feel about you.’
‘You’re very cynical all of a sudden, koukla mou. It doesn’t suit you. It isn’t who you are.’
‘It is now. And it was being with you that made me this way.’
‘So you’ve changed personality in a matter of weeks? I don’t believe that. You are the most open, trusting person I’ve met.’
‘You mean I’m stupid.’
A frown touched his brows. ‘No. I do not mean that.’ He took a deep breath. ‘I realise we have some obstacles to overcome, but it would be much easier to overcome them if I wasn’t worrying about your safety all the time. I want you to come and stay at my villa, at least for a while.’
The temptation was so great it horrified her. ‘No, thanks.’
‘I don’t want you living on your own.’
‘Well, I want it. I’ve lived under my father’s rules for so long I want the freedom to come and go as I please. I can wear what I like. See whoever I like. Be who I want to be.’
‘And who do you want to be?’
She’d thought about nothing else.
‘Myself,’ she said simply. ‘I want to be myself. Not someone else’s version of who they think I should be.’
‘So if I ask you—the real you—out to dinner, will you say yes?’
Selene swallowed, unsettled by how much being this close to him affected her. What scared her most in all this was how badly she lost her judgement around him. She didn’t want to be the sort of woman who lost her mind around a man. ‘Why are you bothering? Why are you so persistent?’
‘When there is something I want, I go for it. That’s who I am.’
‘And you’re pretending that’s me? Come on, Stefan, we had one night. A whole night. I’m already the longest relationship you ever had.’
‘And I’m the only relationship you’ve ever had.’ His eyes were dark and not once did they shift from hers. ‘Are you telling me you don’t want to explore that? Are you telling me you don’t think about it?’
The heat went right through her body. ‘I try not to because when I remember I also remember how you used me to score points with my father.’
A muscle flickered in his jaw. ‘You don’t believe that it was not intentional?’
‘No, I don’t.’ She didn’t dare. She was not going to be gullible. ‘I think you’re trying to talk your way out of trouble.’
He stared down at her for a long moment. ‘Even if you don’t want to eat with me you’re working yourself to the bone trying to afford to live. Let me help you.’
‘I don’t need or want your help. I’m doing fine by myself.’
‘Working in a taverna?’ He lifted his hand and touched her cropped hair. ‘What about your scented candles? What happened to the dream?’
‘The dream is still there. I’m working to get the money I need to set up in business.’
‘You’re determined to do things the hard way?’
‘I’m determined to do things myself.’
‘I said I’d give you a business loan. That offer still stands.’
‘I no longer want anything from you.’
His gaze was suddenly thoughtful. ‘You’re worried you can’t control your feelings around me?’
‘You’re right about that. There’s a possibility I could punch you. I can’t be sure it won’t happen.’
For some reason that made him smile. He stepped back and glanced up at the run-down building. ‘This is where you’re living?’
‘Where I’m living is none of your business. Neither is where I’m working or who I’m seeing. This is my life now and I’m not sharing the details with anyone.’
His mouth tightened as he took in the paint blistering on the woodwork. ‘I want to help you and that help is not linked to what happens between us.’
‘Nothing is going to happen between us. Next time I get involved with someone it will be with a man who has strong family values and who doesn’t treat commitment as a contagious disease to be avoided at all costs.’
‘Family. You still believe in family after what he did to you?’ Lifting his hand, he traced her lower lip with his thumb, a brooding look in his eyes. ‘Love just makes you vulnerable, koukla mou. You are hurting because you loved.’
‘I’m not hurting.’
‘I saw your face that day on the island. I saw the way you looked at him.’
‘He’s my father. You can’t just undo that.’ How did they come to be talking about this? It was something she’d never talked about, not even to her mother. It felt wrong to want love from someone for whom you had no respect. ‘But it’s—complicated.’
‘Emotions are always complicated. Why do you think I avoid them?’
Despite herself, she found herself wondering about him. She saw the shadow flicker across those moody eyes and the sudden tension in his shoulders as he let his hand drop.
‘My advice? Forget your father. He isn’t worth a single tear from you. And as for family—’ he eased away from her ‘—travel through life alone and no one can hurt you.’
His words shocked her. ‘Thanks to my father I’ve been alone for the best part of twenty-two years and that sucks, too. He alienated everyone. My life was a lie. For the first time ever I’m making friends and I’m loving it. No one knows that my surname is Antaxos. No one cares. I’m Lena.’
A noisy group of tourists surged down the narrow street and she flinched.
He noticed her reaction instantly. ‘And you’re looking over your shoulder all the time. Come with me and you won’t have to look over your shou
lder.’ He stepped closer to her, protecting her from the sudden crush of people. His thighs brushed against hers and her stomach clenched. ‘I can protect you from your father.’
But who would protect her from Stefan?
Suffocated by the feelings inside her, Selene lifted her head and their eyes met.
The noise of the crowd faded into the background and all she could think was that he was the most insanely good-looking man she’d ever seen. And then he was kissing her, his mouth possessive, skilled, explicit as he coaxed her lips apart in echoes of what they’d shared that night at his villa.
When he finally lifted his head she had to put her hand on his chest to steady herself.
‘I want to start again,’ he said roughly, cupping her face in his hands and lowering his forehead to hers. ‘I’ve never felt this way about a woman before. Everything that happened between us was real. All of it. And deep down you know it. Give me a chance to prove it to you.’
His body was pressed up against hers, and it was an incredible body. Hard muscle, height, width—he was exquisitely proportioned. Even though the night was oppressively warm, she shivered.
He lifted a hand to her short hair, toying with the ends. ‘I’m attending a charity ball tomorrow on Corfu. It’s going to be glamorous. Men in dinner jackets, champagne in tall, slim glasses. Your kind of evening.’
Once again temptation pulled at her but this time she pulled back. ‘No, thank you.’
His eyes gleamed with exasperation. ‘What happened to the sweet, trusting girl who drank too much champagne and tried to seduce me? She would never have said no to a good night out.’
‘She grew up the night you used her to score points over a business rival.’ Terrified by her own feelings, she pushed past him but he caught her arm, his fingers holding her still.
‘What if my feelings for your father have nothing to do with our conflicting business interests?’ He spoke in a tone she’d never heard him use before and it made her pause.
‘Of course they do. You’re just two alpha males who have to win, and because two people can’t both win it’s never going to end.’
‘Your father ruined my father.’ His voice was hoarse and not entirely steady. ‘He took everything from him, starting with my mother.’
When Selene simply stared at him, he carried on. ‘I was eight years old when Stavros Antaxos landed in his flashy yacht and tempted her away with the promise of a lifestyle beyond her imagination. And just in case she ever changed her mind and considered returning to her husband and son he made sure there was nothing to return to. He destroyed my father’s fledgling business, his self-respect and his dignity, and the irony was he didn’t need to. The day my mother walked out my father lost everything that mattered to him. He loved her so much that his life had no meaning once she’d gone. So before you judge me remember I have more reason than most for knowing just how low your father will stoop.’
Selene was welded to the spot—and not just by the shock of that unexpected revelation and by the pain she saw in his face. It was the first time she’d seen him display any real human emotion. ‘I—I didn’t know.’
‘Well, now you do.’ His tone was flat. His expression blank.
‘There have always been women, of course. Before his marriage and afterwards.’ She said the words to herself as much as him. ‘It was one of the things I hated most—that my mother just accepted it as part of her marriage. I wanted her to have more self-respect, but she was dazzled by him to begin with and then ground down by him. He sucked the personality from her.’
‘Yes. That’s how he operates.’
‘It’s driven by insecurity.’ She saw it clearly now and wondered why she hadn’t before. ‘He doesn’t believe someone will stay with him if they can leave, so he stops them leaving. He makes them feel weak. As if they can’t survive without him.’ And suddenly she knew and the realisation made her feel sick. ‘There was a woman—a woman who was in love with him years before my mother ever came on the scene—and she drowned on the rocks off Antaxos.’
He released her suddenly. ‘We never knew if it was an accident or if she jumped.’
Without waiting for her to respond he strode away from her, leaving Selene staring after him in appalled silence.
Your father ruined my father.
The woman who had drowned was his mother.
‘Stefan, wait—Stefan.’ But her voice was lost in the crowd and he was already out of sight, his long, powerful stride eating up the ground as he walked out of her life, leaving her with nothing but the knowledge she’d been terribly, horribly wrong about him.
CHAPTER NINE
STEFAN sat sprawled in his chair at the head of the table, his features stony as he listened to his executives discussing a business issue that should have interested him but didn’t. His mind was preoccupied with memories he himself had unlocked. It was like ripping open an old wound, tearing through healing tissue and exposing raw flesh. It wasn’t just pain, it was screaming agony. But worse than that was the thought of Selene struggling on her own, looking over her shoulder all the time, never able to relax and just enjoy her new life.
Despite the efficient air-conditioning, sweat beaded on his brow.
As well as watching Selene they’d been watching Antaxos but her father hadn’t shown his face since their encounter on that day.
What the hell had possessed him to get involved with Stavros Antaxos’s daughter? It was a decision that had ‘trouble’ written all over it.
‘Stefan—?’
Hearing his name, he glanced up and saw Maria in the doorway.
It was unheard of for her to interrupt him in a meeting and Stefan rose to his feet in a cold panic. He told himself that Takis would not have let anything happen to Selene, but still his limbs shook as he walked to the door.
‘What’s wrong? Have you heard from her?’ His voice trailed off as he saw Selene standing in his office, the sun sending silver lights shimmering through her newly shorn hair. She wore a simple cotton strap top and a pair of shorts that revealed endless length of tanned leg.
Tears streaked her pretty face.
His world tilted. ‘Theé mou, what has happened?’ He was across the room in two strides, his hands on her arms. ‘Has he found you? If he’s threatened you in some way then I’ll—’
‘He hasn’t threatened me. I haven’t seen him.’ She choked out the words. Sniffed. ‘Nothing like that.’
‘Then what the hell is wrong? Tell me.’
The quiet click of the door told him that Maria had left the room, which meant that he was alone with someone who repeatedly made him feel as if he were poised on the top of a slippery slope about to plunge to his doom.
‘I was so wrong about you and I’m sorry.’ Her eyes lifted to his. ‘I— This is all my fault. After I met you that night and you were so nice to me I built you up in my head as some sort of hero. I thought about you all the time, I dreamed about you, and then I met you and you were this amazing guy—’ Her voice cracked. ‘And we had that night, and it was fun, and you were so incredibly sexy, and being in your bed was—well, I just—I never thought anything could feel like that—’
‘You need to breathe, koukla mou.’
‘No, I need to tell you this because I feel horrible and I’m not going to stop feeling horrible until I’ve said what I have to say and you have to listen.’
‘I’m listening,’ Stefan assured her, ‘but I need you to calm down. I thought you only cried when you were happy?’
‘Turns out that’s another thing I was wrong about. But mostly I was wrong about you. I was so panicked when I saw those photos, and you were so unconcerned about it I assumed you were responsible. I didn’t even think about it from your point of view. Of course you didn’t know about my father. Why would you? And I was so used to playin
g my part in this so-called happy family that I didn’t even know how to tell someone that it was all fake.’
‘None of this matters now. It’s fine.’
‘No, it isn’t fine. Because you came to that island to rescue me and all I did was yell at you, and then I found out you’d got me the job and had people watching me so that I was safe, but did I thank you?’ Her voice rose. ‘No! I yelled at you again.’
‘You wanted to be independent. I understand that.’
‘I was embarrassingly unrealistic. I have no experience, no credentials, nothing that would make an employer take me on, and yet I thought I’d be able to just walk into a job and when I did I didn’t even question it. If it hadn’t been for you I probably would have been sleeping rough—’
‘I’ve done that and I didn’t want it for you.’ He wiped that image from his mind.
‘You’ve been so kind to me,’ she mumbled, ‘and I didn’t deserve it. I was mean and I’m not a mean person. But I can see it all more clearly now.’
‘You have been through more than anyone should have to. Why would you trust me? I was your father’s enemy—that’s why you came to me in the first place.’
‘But I never saw you as that. I knew you weren’t. I knew you were good. You are good.’ She was standing so close to him he could smell the scent of her hair and see the flecks of black in her green eyes.
‘Don’t start that again.’
‘I’m not. I know you’re not a hero, but you are good. I also understand now that your mother walking off like that when you were so young must have put you off relationships for life.’
‘I have had plenty of relationships.’
‘I mean real ones, not just sex. You don’t let anyone close because of it and that breaks my heart, because you deserve to have a lovely family.’
Stefan felt a flash of panic. ‘Believe me that is not what I want. You are far more sensitive about this than I am. It was a long time ago and my mother was just another of your father’s many conquests. It happened long, long before he met and married your mother.’