by Maya Blake
‘Is that how you greeted your husband when he returned from work?’ he rasped.
Her shocked gasp made him freeze. She watched a contrite grimace cross his face.
‘Forgive me, that was beyond tasteless,’ he rasped.
‘Not to mention extremely disrespectful. You know nothing about my life with Morgan.’ And she intended it to remain that way.
He clawed a hand through his hair. ‘No, I didn’t. I’m sorry.’
With jerky movements, he loosened then yanked his tie off and flung it on the sofa where she’d been sitting.
Not expecting his immediate apology, Perla was left floundering. ‘Apology accepted,’ she murmured, a little absently because suddenly she found herself wondering what it would be like to have a real husband come home to her.
A husband like...Arion?
Hell, no. They would drive each other homicidal within weeks.
But during that time too they would have hot, exquisite, mind-melting sex.
The heat that rushed over her made her take a step back and give herself a mental slap. She wasn’t here to reminisce over dreams that wouldn’t come true in a million years. She was here to save Terry and Sarah’s home—her home—before the bank made good on their threat of repossession.
Focus.
But then how could she, when Arion, having discarded his tie, was now in the process of undoing his top buttons, revealing the gloriously sleek muscled chest she’d explored without shame or inhibition a little over three months ago?
He caught her stare and a look passed through his eyes. One she didn’t want to interpret. One that made her rush to speech.
‘I’m sorry if I seem to be rushing you but I’m hoping to catch the last train back to Bath tonight.’
He sauntered over to the drinks cabinet and poured a large whisky. She shook her head when he indicated the extensive array of drinks with a lifted brow.
She needed to keep her wits about her. The memory of what had happened the last time she’d shared a drink with him was a reminder never to indulge around him. Ever.
‘I had Sakis’s people look into it.’
‘And?’
He knocked back the drink without taking his eyes off her. ‘You said he signed the part of his contract that allows you to receive spousal income on his death?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you’re not aware he signed the Under-Forty waiver thereafter?’ he asked.
Unease dredged through her stomach. ‘What’s an Under-Forty waiver?’
‘All employees under forty can take the option of death insurance or a yearly double bonus in place of compensation to family on death. Once an employee turns forty the option is no longer available. Your husband was—’
‘Morgan was a long way from forty when he died,’ she supplied through numb lips.
Ari nodded. ‘According to his line manager, he asked for that clause to be amended in favour of receiving the double bonus and he never reinstated the original clause. Therefore, you are not entitled to receive funds.’
* * *
Ari watched her expression go from shock to disbelief to anger, then back to disbelief. She opened then shut her mouth. Then her gaze narrowed suspiciously.
‘Please tell me you’re not toying with me or making this up because...because of...’
‘For someone who seems intent on making me believe our incident is behind you, you seem to leap back to it at the slightest opportunity.’
‘I wasn’t... I just...I can’t believe Morgan would do that to his parents.’
To his parents. Not to her. The curious statement set off alarm bells in his brain. He didn’t like alarm bells. They reminded him that he’d refused to listen to them clanging long and hard in the years before his father’s real character had been brought to light.
They reminded him that in the end he’d lived in false hope that the father he’d looked up to wouldn’t attempt to throw him to the wolves to save himself.
‘You think that the husband you were so happy to betray was less than honest with you? Need I point out the irony there?’ he bit out more sharply than he wanted to, the memory of betrayal and devastation growing rawer by the minute.
‘I didn’t betray Morgan.’ Again an expression a lot like pain crossed her face. He hardened himself against it. Much like he’d hardened himself against thinking about her all the way through his meeting. A meeting he had barely been able to control because he hadn’t been able to tear his mind away from the fact that she was here, in his living space, touching his things, leaving the hypnotically seductive scent of her body all over the place.
Theos, what had he been thinking, offering her the use of his apartment when he could just as easily have sent her across the street to the luxury guest apartments they used for visiting executives? Because he hadn’t wanted to risk her strutting into another bar, catching the eye of another hungry predatory male and offering them a taste of what she’d offered him.
Stasi!
The admonition did nothing to lift his mood. ‘I have no interest in lying to you, nor do I take pleasure in prolonging this meeting. You came here seeking information. I’ve provided it. What you do with that information is now up to you. I suggest you come clean with your in-laws and find a way around it.’
Her eyes darkened further as she stared at him. ‘Find a way around it, just like that? You think it’s that easy?’
He shrugged. ‘I fail to see how any of this is my problem.’
She raised both hands and slid them through her long vibrant hair—hair she’d released from its tight bun at some point in the last few hours.
Ari found himself helplessly following the seductive ripple. Heat speared through him as he watched her pace to the window and back to where he stood, her agitated, breast-heaving breathing doing incredibly groin-hardening things to him.
She glared at him, the beginning of fire sparking those amazing green eyes. ‘Surely I should’ve been informed of this change in his contract since I stood to lose from the amendment?’ she railed at him.
The blatant statement of avarice made bitterness surge through him. Arion’s father had torn their family apart, ripped it from its very foundations. All because of greed for money, carnal pleasure and power.
In the three months since his last encounter with Perla, he’d tried to blot the chaotic memories her actions had brought from his mind. He’d told himself that reacting to her the way he had at Macdonald Hall was because he’d been caught on the raw.
But, watching her now, he felt the same insidious desire creeping through him, damning him for being weak and helpless against his body’s reaction to her.
When he’d finally been brought to justice, his father, although he hadn’t shown an ounce of contrition, had confessed that he hadn’t been able to help himself in the face of temptation.
A wave of despair washed over Ari now as he contemplated that perhaps he had a similar trait.
Hell, no!
But even that thought wasn’t enough to stop his gaze from dropping to the hectic rise and fall of Perla’s breasts as she paced his living room.
An image of her perfect rosy nipples and how they’d tasted in his mouth smashed through his mind.
Smothering the recollection, he took a few, much needed steps to his bar. ‘It is what it is. Have you eaten?’ he asked, then wondered why he was prolonging this meeting.
She dropped her hands, her expression incredulous. ‘My life is in tatters and you’re asking me if I want to eat?’
‘Cut the melodrama. I was merely attempting to be courteous. I have nothing else to say to you on the matter of your husband’s employment. Feel free to leave. Or stay and join me for dinner.’ His hand tightened around the decanter as the invitation slipped out, almost without consciou
s thought.
‘Why do you snarl every time you say the word husband? Morgan was your brother’s tanker pilot, and I know things didn’t end well...’
Ari raised a brow. ‘You think things didn’t end well?’
He knew Sakis had done a stellar job in saving the company’s reputation and hidden the true extent of Morgan Lowell’s sabotage from the press. But was she also oblivious to her husband’s betrayal? Or had she merely blinded herself to her husband’s true nature, the way she’d blithely hidden the fact that she was newly widowed when she’d climbed into his bed?
‘I’m not trying to belittle what happened. I just don’t understand why you look as if you have dog poo on your shoes whenever I use the word husband!’
‘Perhaps I don’t wish to be reminded of the dead.’ Death had brought too much suffering, had left devastation in its path, wounds that could never be healed. Knowing it was death that had made their paths cross in the first place didn’t ease the vice around his chest.
His answer seemed to sober her. ‘No, neither do I,’ she said.
Her steps were decidedly less agitated when she went to retrieve her large bag from the corner of his sofa.
She was leaving, walking out of his life again. That single thought sent a spark of fierce rebellion through his stomach. He didn’t realise he’d placed himself between the lift and her until she stopped in front of him.
‘Thank you for your help, Mr Pantelides.’ Her words were polite enough and her eyes were determined enough but he didn’t miss the slight wobble to her mouth.
Ari wanted to slide his thumb over that mouth, loosen it until its velvet plumpness slid smoothly against his skin.
‘What are you going to do?’ he asked.
Her eyes narrowed. ‘I thought you didn’t care?’
‘People tend to get litigious in your circumstances. For your own sake and the in-laws you claim to care about, I would hate for you to take that route.’
She hitched her handbag up onto her shoulder, her eyes back to full glare. ‘I detect a veiled threat in there. But, from where I’m standing, I have nothing to lose so I may or may not speak with a lawyer to weigh my options.’
‘From where I’m standing, you have none. Do you have a job?’
Her gaze slid away and he got the distinct feeling she was about to be less than truthful. ‘Kind of.’
‘Kind of? Doing what?’
She carefully avoided his gaze. ‘Oh, this and that. Not that it’s any of your business.’
‘And does this and that not provide you with enough to keep a roof over your head?’
Her eyes darted back to his, defiance burning in their depth. ‘If you must know, I’m not working at the moment. But I had a job before I got married. Morgan encouraged me to take a leave of absence for a while so his mother wasn’t left alone for long periods of time. Terry was a long-haul lorry driver.’
‘Right, so your husband convinced you to abandon your career to play babysitter to his mother. And you agreed?’
‘There’s that tone again. Why the hell am I even bothering?’ She tried to move past him. ‘Goodbye, Mr Pantelides. I hope you don’t get a nosebleed from that super lofty position on your high horse.’
He caught her by the waist. The slide of her cotton shirt over her skin reminded him of how it’d felt to undress her, to bare her softness to his touch. Ari’s mouth watered with the fierce need to experience that act again.
Weak... Theos, he was weak, just like his father.
‘Let me go.’
‘No,’ he said, feeling a thread of real fear in that word. He should let her go. Forget about her. Forget how she’d made him feel that night. Because everything that had come after that moment of bliss had brought him nothing but jagged pain.
‘Yes! I refuse to talk to you when you act like I’m some lowlife who’s wandered into your perfect little world.’
‘The circumstances of our meeting—’
‘Can be placed squarely at your feet. I told you to leave me alone in that bar. But you were too busy playing the alpha me-big-man-you-little-woman role to listen to me. If you’d left me alone to have my drink we wouldn’t be in this position.’
He whirled and propelled her back against the wall next to the lift. He didn’t like that description of him. Didn’t like that he’d seen what he wanted and just gone for it. It struck too close to home, made him too similar to the man he’d desperately tried to forget all these years.
And yet, as if from another dimension, he heard his reply. ‘You mean this position when all I can think about is tearing that prissy little skirt off you, yanking aside your panties and slamming inside you?’
Her gasp was hot on his face. He welcomed it. Welcomed the excuse to plunge his tongue between her lips and taste her the way he’d been longing to taste her since she’d walked into his office today.
She pushed frantically at his shoulders but Ari wasn’t in the mood to be denied. Not until he’d taken a little bit of the edge off this insane, pulsating need. Besides, her lips had started to cling, to kiss him back.
He groaned as her tongue dashed out to meet his, tentatively at first, then with progressively daring thrusts that made his blood rush south with dizzying speed. He hitched her higher up on the wall, felt her moan vibrate through them as he palmed her breast.
God, she was hot. So damned hot. Her nipples were already hard nubs beneath his thumbs as he teased them. Her cries of pleasure made him thankful she was here with him, not in a bar somewhere being hit on by other men.
Her fingers scraped over his nape and up through his hair, then dropped back down to restlessly explore his shoulders.
Theos, she was as hungry for him as he was for her.
With impatient fingers he slid up her skirt. The scrap of lace he encountered made his blood boil some more. With a rough growl, he shredded them.
‘Oh, God! I can’t believe you just did that,’ she gasped and stared down at the tattered lace in his hand.
‘Believe it. My hunger for you is bordering on the insane, glikia mou. Be warned.’ He took her lips in another kiss, bit down on the plump lower lip and felt her jerk with the sensation.
Without giving her time to think, he sank to his knees and parted her thighs.
Her eyes widened as she read his intention. ‘Arion...’
He hadn’t had time to explore her like this last time. But this time he fully intended to gorge on her.
‘No,’ she said, but he could read the excitement in her eyes.
He managed to drag his lips from the velvet temptation of her inner thigh and the seductive scent inches away. ‘Why?’
‘Because you’ll hate yourself if we do this again. And you’ll hate me. For whatever trivial reason, you think I soiled something for you by sleeping with you three months ago. Frankly, I don’t want to have to deal with whatever that was again.’
The reminder sent a spear of ice and jagged pain through his heart. Before he could stop himself, he rose and his hand slid to her throat.
Her eyes widened, not with fear, but with wariness at the look he knew was on his face. Every condemning thought he was trying to keep at bay came flooding back.
‘Trivial? You think my reason for blaming you for sullying that day is trivial?’ Pain made his voice hoarse, his heart thud dully in his veins. He distantly registered the quickening pulse beneath his palm but he was too lost in his own turmoil to react to it.
‘I don’t know! You never told me why. You were only interested in shredding me for—’
‘For sleeping with a soulless wanton and ruining my wife’s memory for ever?’
CHAPTER FIVE
PERLA FELT THE blood drain from her face. From head to toe she went numb. So numb she couldn’t move. Or speak. Or do anything apart fr
om stare at the pain-racked face of the man who held her upright.
When the full meaning of his words sank in, she jerked from him, pushing him back with a strength that felt superhuman but only made him take one single step back.
‘Your wife? You...you’re married?’ The word choked out of her throat.
His nostrils flared and the skin around his mouth whitened. ‘Was. Same as you. Bereaved. Same as you. The night we met, I was mourning. Unlike you.’
The accusation slashed across her skin, waking her numbness. The tingle of pain came with a healthy dose of anger. ‘What makes you think I wasn’t in mourning too?’
‘Let me see, you were discussing cocktails with the bartender and doing nothing to bat off his very clear interest in you.’
‘And you think that automatically makes me less of a person? Because I wasn’t snarling at a total stranger?’
‘Your actions weren’t those of a bereaved widow.’
‘Everyone handles grief differently. Just because you chose to sit in a corner nursing your whisky and demanding silence doesn’t mean you have the monopoly on heartache.’
She watched his face harden further. ‘And what of the events afterwards? Which step of the grieving process did you tick by sharing the bed of a stranger before your husband was even in the ground?’
Despite her reeling senses, she fought to keep her voice steady. ‘That’s what bothers you, isn’t it? The fact that I committed some cardinal sin by seeking solace before I’d buried my husband.’
‘Was that what you were doing? Seeking solace?’ His gaze bored into her, almost as if he was willing her to answer in the affirmative.
Because that would make him see her in a better light?
She shook her head and started to straighten her clothes. ‘Does it matter what I say? You’ve already judged and found me guilty. I slept with you three days before my husband was in the ground. Trust me, you don’t detest me more than I detest myself. But tell me, what’s your excuse? Why did you sleep with me, other than that I was a willing body with a fascinating hair colour you couldn’t resist?’