When Christakos Meets His Match

by Abby Green

  His voice came from behind her, tight. ‘Sidonie, we need to talk about this... I recognise that I was too hasty that day. I didn’t give you a chance to explain.’

  Sidonie let out a half-choked laugh at that understatement and said bitterly, ‘No, you’d obviously made up your mind and couldn’t wait to see the back of me.’

  She heard him sigh. The shadows outside were lengthening into dusk. His voice was gruffer now. ‘The chef has left some food for us. Let’s eat and then we can talk...okay?’

  Like a coward, she felt herself wanting to make up some excuse, say that she was too tired, but in truth she felt fine. She turned round, arms still crossed, and faced him. His eyes were intense and her skin prickled. She couldn’t keep putting off the conversation.

  ‘Okay, fine.’

  Within minutes Alexio was serving them both a light chicken casserole in the dining room off the kitchen area. They ate in silence, but tension was mounting inside Sidonie as she tried to avoid looking at Alexio’s large hands and remembering how they’d felt on her skin.

  Sitting here eating like this was bringing back memories of that first night in London. The sheer fizzing exhilaration of anticipation. And as if her body was some dumb appendage—an assortment of limbs that wasn’t attached to her brain—that same fizzing anticipation was rushing through her right now. Gathering force.

  She was uncomfortably aware of every erogenous zone. Her breasts felt tender, sensitive. Swollen. She couldn’t stop imagining Alexio’s mouth lowering towards one thrusting, naked peak...

  With a spurt of agitation, Sidonie let her knife drop with a clatter to the plate. Alexio looked up, that gaze narrowed on her flushed face.

  Sidonie stood up, feeling feverish. ‘I’ve had enough. Food.’ God. She couldn’t even articulate a sentence.

  Alexio looked as cool as a cucumber while Sidonie felt a bead of sweat trickle between her breasts.

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin and said, ‘Coffee?’

  Sidonie seized on the chance to escape that incisive gaze and nodded her head. ‘Some herbal tea, maybe...the housekeeper brought some today.’

  Alexio got up and left the room. Cursing herself for this very unwelcome resurgence of desire, Sidonie went back into the drawing room to stand at the window. Praying for control. Praying that the butterflies in her belly would cease.

  She put her hand on her belly and was half frowning at how strong the sensation was when she suddenly realised something. She gasped out loud.

  A voice came from behind her, concerned. ‘What is it?’

  Sidonie whirled around, alight with her discovery for a moment, forgetting everything else. ‘For a few days I’ve been feeling butterflies, but I thought it was—’

  She stopped dead, because she’d been about to blurt out just your effect on me.

  She blushed and said, ‘It’s the baby. I can feel the baby moving...’

  Alexio was holding out a cup towards her and she grabbed it before she could see the effect of her words on his face.

  She had a sudden image of one of his hands splayed across her belly and said quickly, ‘It’s not strong enough yet for anyone else to feel...’

  Sidonie took the cup and moved away, taking a sip to hide her burning face.

  * * *

  Alexio gritted his jaw at how Sidonie moved so skittishly away from him, that golden hair looking so much shinier and thicker now, down and shielding her face from him. In the space of only a few days of rest and being well fed she was already looking so much better. The hollows of her cheeks were filling out.

  He felt as if he was going to snap soon with the tension building inside him. With every second that passed he wanted to turn into a feral animal and strip Sidonie bare and take her, sating himself and drowning out the recriminatory voices in his head.

  But he couldn’t. She was pregnant. And she hated his guts.

  She looked incredibly young now, in leggings and a loose T-shirt. Of course she’d refused his offers to get her some clothes, so her Tante Josephine had brought her some.

  When he could finally move his gaze up from those slim shapely legs and over her belly, hidden under the loose material, to her face, she was looking at him with that aquamarine gaze, something determined in their depths.

  ‘Why did you have me investigated?’

  Alexio put down his coffee cup onto a nearby table. Sidonie had her hands wrapped tightly around her own mug.

  He looked into her eyes. He owed her this.

  ‘Because what happened between us made me nervous. Because I’d never taken a woman to Santorini before. Because for my whole life I’ve been cynical and when I was with you I forgot to be. And it freaked me out enough to think that by investigating you I’d still be in control.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  SIDONIE BLINKED. SHE tried to take his words in. Her belly felt as if it was dropping from a height, and she felt unsteady. ‘I’m...you hadn’t taken a woman there before?’

  He shook his head, eyes intent on her reaction.

  She couldn’t even hide it. She thought of something. ‘But...the clothes...I assumed they had belonged to other women...’ Sidonie felt very gauche now.

  Alexio frowned and then emitted a disgusted, ‘Theos. You think I would do that? Buy a wardrobe full of clothes and just hope that they would fit a stream of women?’

  Sidonie glared back at him, stung with embarrassment. ‘Well, how would I know? I thought that was some lovers’ bolthole.’

  Alexio ran a hand through his hair and said, half to himself, ‘No wonder you sounded funny...and yet you didn’t say anything.’

  Now Sidonie was squirming. ‘I didn’t want to look stupid...or naïve. If you’d had lovers who were used to that kind of thing...’

  The clothes had been bought for her alone. The knowledge made her reel. They hadn’t been cast-offs. Sidonie felt increasingly as if she wanted to claim fatigue and run away. But Alexio had a familiar stern look on his face now.

  Sidonie went and sat down on a nearby couch, placing her cup on a table. She clasped her hands on her lap to stop them trembling.

  Alexio walked away and stood at the window with his back to her for a long moment, as if he too had to gather himself. When he turned around he looked bleak.

  ‘My solicitor had rung me with what he’d learned about your past that day... I told him it had nothing to do with you. But then he told me about the fact that you’d taken on your aunt’s debts, and that put a question in my head as to why you hadn’t mentioned this—why you were acting as if you didn’t have this huge thing hanging over you.’

  Sidonie replied, with a trace of bitterness, ‘Because I was escaping from it. I never had any intention of telling you about it. What did it have to do with anything? I knew we were only going to be together for a few days...it was only meant to be one night.’

  That last came out almost accusingly as Sidonie recalled how persuasive he’d been and how easily she’d capitulated.

  ‘I knew my aunt was okay—she was on holiday with a group she travels with every year...’

  Alexio’s voice was hard. ‘My solicitor put the seed of suspicion in my head. I refused to believe the worst, though. I told him that. I was angry with myself for even asking him to investigate you.’ He sighed heavily. ‘I went looking for you. I was going to confess what I’d done and ask you about it...and that’s when I overheard part of your conversation.’

  Sidonie felt as if the wind had been knocked out of her for a moment at hearing this. When she could speak she admitted, ‘I can appreciate how damning that conversation must have been to hear, but my aunt was in hysterics. Someone had fed her with horror stories of being repossessed and worse. I knew she wouldn’t feel placated with any reassurances that I’d be there to take her burden. You’ve met
her—you can see for yourself what she’s like. I knew she’d only understand something emphatic like someone else saving us. She wouldn’t have believed that I could get jobs and pay off the debts over time unless I was physically there to reassure her.’

  Sidonie cringed when she thought of how she’d told her aunt He’s crazy about me and looked down.

  ‘I panicked and said the first thing I thought of.’

  She looked up and Alexio’s face was unreadable. Sidonie hated the suspicion that he still didn’t fully believe her. But then he came and sat down on a chair near the couch and looked at her.

  ‘Will you tell me what happened with your mother?’

  Sidonie was about to blurt out that it was none of his business and then she felt those delicate flutters in her abdomen again. Their daughter. He had a right to the full story.

  She sighed deeply. She’d never told anyone about this before. Feeling it might be easier to talk without Alexio’s cool gaze on her, Sidonie stood up and went to the window, arms hugging her midriff.

  ‘She was born in the suburbs. She and my aunt had an extremely impoverished upbringing. Their father ran out on my grandmother, leaving her to raise two daughters on her own—one with special needs My grandmother had drink problems...mental health issues...depression. Neglect was a feature of their lives. She died when my mother was about seventeen. She had to look after Tante Josephine full-time then...which she resented. She was young and bright. Beautiful. She craved opportunities beyond the grim reality of the suburbs.’

  Sidonie turned round.

  ‘My mother never told me much, but Tante Josephine’s told me enough for me to know that it was pretty tough. When my mother was twenty she won a local beauty competition. Part of the prize was a trip to Dublin for the next round. She went and never came back, leaving my aunt to fend for herself on social protection in their mother’s flat. That’s why my father bought her the apartment when he could. He always felt sorry for her—for how my mother had treated her...’

  Shame rose up within Sidonie but she forced it down and kept looking at Alexio, determined not to allow her mother’s shame to be her shame.

  ‘My father was the married man my mother had the affair with—not the man she ended up marrying. He owned the language school where she’d signed up to do an English course with the prize money from the competition. When he found out she was pregnant he dumped her. She never forgave him for it. My stepfather met my mother around the same time. He was crazy about her and stepped in and offered to marry her.’

  Sidonie’s chin lifted imperceptibly.

  ‘She was avaricious and selfish. No one knows that better than me and my aunt. And my stepfather, who stood by her despite the public humiliation she put him through. She put us all through hell when she ended up being prosecuted, and yet my stepfather never once let me feel anything less than his own child. She was put in jail for two years when I was eight years old. I had to endure taunts at school every day, because we couldn’t afford to move until she was released from prison.’

  Sidonie’s voice shook with passion.

  ‘I spent my whole life dreading someone finding out about her past. That’s why I don’t talk about it. But I am not her, and you had no right to assume I was like her—no matter what evidence you thought you had...’

  She recalled one of the things he’d hurled at her. ‘Not even the fact that I told you I liked jewellery. I’m a woman, Alexio. A lot of women like glittery shiny things. It doesn’t mean we’re all inveterate gold-diggers.’

  Alexio stood up too, and immediately a flare of awareness made Sidonie take a step back. His eyes flashed at her movement and something tightened between them.

  His mouth was a grim line. ‘I’m sorry that I didn’t give you the chance to tell me this, for misjudging you and for leaving you to go through what you have for the past few months. You should never have had to deal with this on your own...’

  The lines of his face grew stark and his voice roughened.

  ‘But I’m not sorry you’re pregnant. I want this baby too.’

  He came closer and everything in Sidonie tightened with anticipation. She tried to ignore it.

  Heavily, Alexio continued, ‘I should tell you why I jumped to such conclusions. My mother was the most cynical person I’ve ever known. She taught me not to trust at an early age, and the world and my peers have only confirmed her lesson. I’m used to lovers as cynical as I have become. You were so different from anyone I’ve ever met before...’

  His words resounded in Sidonie’s head, shocking her. She felt weakened by this mutual confessional. The hard knot of tension and pain inside her felt as if it was dissolving, treacherously.

  Alexio went on. ‘My parents’ marriage was not happy. It was sterile, loveless. I told you why I decided to break with my father...but there’s more to it than that. Once he beat my mother. I rushed in to stop him, to protect her, but she put me out of the room and went back in and closed the door, shutting me out.’

  Alexio’s mouth twisted.

  ‘She didn’t want or need my protection—not even then... And that’s why I wanted nothing more to do with my father.’

  Sidonie’s heart clenched. She felt increasingly vulnerable and was aware that only inches separated them now. When had they even moved that close?

  Alexio’s hand closed around one upper arm, warm against her bare skin, setting off a chain reaction.

  ‘I’m sorry, Sidonie. Truly.’

  Something moved between them. Something fragile and yet something very earthy too.

  But Sidonie was reeling. It was too much. She pulled her arm free and said weakly, ‘I’m tired now. I should go to bed.’

  Alexio just looked at her in the soft glow of the lamps. ‘Yes.’

  Sidonie knew she should move, but for a second she couldn’t seem to. All she could see was that mouth, and all she could think about was how she wanted to feel it on hers right now. She had to get out of there before she did something stupid. Exposed herself.

  Backing away, eyes huge, as if she was afraid he might pounce on her, Sidonie left the room and shut herself inside her bedroom. Her heart was beating as rapidly as if she’d just run a mile. Alexio’s words swirled in her head and every cell in her body was protesting at being out of his proximity.

  Trying her best to ignore the insistent throbbing of her blood and pulse, Sidonie washed herself and put on her nightshirt, got into bed. But as soon as she lay down she knew sleep was an impossibility.

  She clenched her hands into fists. It was as if his words had unlocked something tight and painful inside her and replaced it with pure desire. She needed Alexio with an almost physical pain. Hunger for him made her grit her jaw. Hormones were flooding her body, stronger than anything she’d felt before.

  Almost without thinking, operating on some very base level, Sidonie got out of bed and opened the door of her bedroom. She went back into the drawing room and saw Alexio standing at the window, looking like a remote figure. For a second she hesitated, but then he turned round...and she was no more capable of going back than she was of ceasing breathing.

  Rawly, she blurted out, ‘I need you to make love to me.’

  Alexio thought he was dreaming. He saw Sidonie silhouetted in the light of a nearby lamp. Her flimsy nightshirt clearly showed the shape of her body and the fact that she wore no underwear. His blood boiled, blanking his brain of everything he’d been thinking about. Lust surged, making him so hard it hurt.

  Her breasts looked bigger, he could see the swell of her belly, and something deeply primal within him exulted fiercely. His seed in her belly. After their conversation he’d been feeling ridiculously exposed, but that was incinerated by the heat he felt right now.

  Fearing she might disappear, Alexio instructed her throatily, ‘Come here.’

 
Sidonie moved with endearing jerkiness, and then she was in his arms and Alexio’s mouth was on hers. Her body was pressing into him so hard it felt as if he’d be branded with her shape for ever and he was devouring her...and wondering dimly how he’d survived for as long as he had without this.

  * * *

  Sidonie groaned deep in her throat as sheer wanton pleasure burned up inside her at the feel of Alexio’s arms around her again, his mouth on hers, his tongue stroking hers.

  She barely noticed him lifting her up into his arms, feeling weightless as she wrapped her arms around his neck and sank deeper and deeper into the kiss. They only broke apart so that Alexio could lay Sidonie down on his bed, and she looked up at him as he pulled off his shirt, revealing the hard-muscled perfection of his torso. He looked leaner, harder than she remembered, and everything feminine within her sighed voluptuously.

  He took off his trousers and underwear and he was unashamedly naked and aroused. The dusky light from outside bathed him in a golden glow.

  ‘I need to see you.’ His voice was hoarse.

  Sidonie’s body was on fire. She couldn’t remember feeling so desperate, so sensitised. Her breasts were literally throbbing, aching with need. And between her legs she felt damp and hot.

  She sat up slightly and pulled her nightshirt off, but her hands were awkward.

  Alexio said roughly, ‘I’ll do it.’

  He reached down and pulled it up and then all the way off. She was naked but she couldn’t drum up any embarrassment. She needed him too badly.

  She could see Alexio’s jaw tighten as his eyes devoured her. And then his gaze moved down to the swell of her belly. She lay back on the bed, her breathing tortured. Alexio moved between her legs, forcing them apart slightly, and then came down, resting over her on his hands. Sidonie put her hands on his arms and he bent his head again, kissing her deeply, intimately. His tongue stabbed deep, sliding along hers, making her moan with need.

  When his mouth moved across her jaw and down further Sidonie’s nipples tightened unbearably. Torturously slowly he came closer and closer to that distended hard tip, and when he drew it into his mouth and suckled she cried out. It hadn’t been like this before. This intense.