Billionaires: They're powerful, hot, charming and richer than sin...

by Clare Connelly

She dropped her head forward. “I want that too. But … I can’t.” She thought of Jordan and Anita and a fever of anxiety swelled her veins.

  “How long?” He said curtly, his eyes scanning her face.

  “I don’t know.” She sighed. “Three days? You’re serious?”

  He nodded. “Very.”

  “Wow. I really should have called my … friend … by now.” Would he be worried? Undoubtedly. Jordan, on the partner track at her father’s prestigious law firm, Jordan who had political aspirations, Jordan who cared about what everyone thought of him, would be in a panic. But about her, or about the damage she could do to his career and his reputation?

  “Call your friend then,” he said, flopping back against the pillows. “Tell her that you have found a slice of paradise with a man who treats you as a sex-slave, and that you wish to stay as long as you are able.”

  She grinned at the description. “So I’m your sex-slave, huh?” She asked huskily, already pushing the sheet from his legs so that she could straddle his waist. “That’s funny, because all this time I’ve been thinking you’re mine.” She dropped her mouth to his. It was heaven in a kiss. His lips were life-sustaining.

  He tangled his fingers in hers and spread her arms wide, then he pushed up so that he could wrap his arms around her back, holding their torsos close together. “What reality is there beyond this?” He demanded, flicking one of her nipples punishingly.

  She groaned against his mouth. “I would have thought that you’d have work to do anyway, Mr Konstanides. Aren’t you some big-shot tycoon?”

  His smile was distracted. “I am on vacation.” It was an interesting statement and it caused her to look at him with renewed interest. She’d spent so much time thinking about what she was running from that she hadn’t given a moment’s contemplation to his normal life.

  “A vacation? From work?”

  He nodded, but his lips clung to hers.

  “Where are you based?”

  “All over,” he mumbled, reaching down and gripping her buttocks so that he could hold her firm against his growing arousal.

  “Come on. Are you in London? Athens? Rome? New York? Where? Where’s your office? I presume a guy like you has one.”

  “I have several,” he said simply. “And I work from whichever needs my attention most. Until recently I was stationed in London.”

  She swallowed. London. In another life, another time, might they have met? “Where in London?”

  It was the first attempt at conversation they’d had in days. And while he was already craving the sweet release her body offered, he forced himself to slow down. He pulled her down onto the bed beside him and lifted her hand to his lips. He kissed it gently. “My office is at Docklands.”

  “And you live …?”

  “I have a place in Hampstead.”

  “Hampstead?” A flush stole into her cheeks.

  “Yes. Do I take it from your reaction that’s significant to you in some way?”

  She bit down on her lip. “I live in Notting Hill. Not so far from you.”

  He traced an invisible circle pattern over her bare shoulder. “With this friend you need to call?”

  A slight flush spread over her cheeks. “Yes.”

  “Will she be worried that you have disappeared?”

  “No.” She swallowed, and her fragile neck knotted visibly. “I doubt it.” She pushed up on one elbow. “Okay, where’s your favorite place to spend time?”

  “Here. Now. With you.”

  She laughed. “You’re devilishly charming, you know that? I should warn you, I’ve recently become quite cynical about men and their words. So you’d do better not to waste them on me.”

  It was a very telling statement. He filed it away into the little dossier he hadn’t realized he was keeping on her.

  “I’m serious,” she playfully punched his chest. He caught her hand and held it there, against his wall of rock-hard abdominals. “Where do you really live? Where’s that one place you call home?”

  His frown was genuine. “I don’t know,” he said after several moments. He angled his head to face her. Sunlight formed a pretty, golden pattern across his cheek. “I grew up here. On this island. Until I was sixteen, this was home.”

  “Sixteen? Did your family move?”

  “I didn’t have a family as such,” he said, the timbre of his voice thick with memories he rarely gave voice to. “My parents died when I was a boy. They … weren’t close to my grandfather. In fact, when they died, he didn’t know about me at all. It was only that my father had a lawyer, who thought to contact Aristotle.”

  “Aristotle Konstanides?” She said with a small smile. “That’s a formidable and intimidating name.”

  Thad nodded. “He was an intimidating and formidable man.”

  “Was?” She tilted her head onto his chest so that she could hear the steady beating of his heart.

  “He died last week.”

  Her silence was heavy pity. “Why didn’t you say anything? I’m so sorry.”

  “He was ninety years old,” Thad said with a grimace. “But he was as strong as an ox. As bombastic as one, too. I never imagined he would go. He had too much life in his soul yet.”

  “It’s a cruelty, isn’t it, that some people’s bodies fail them when they’ve still got so much to give.”

  He nodded. It was exactly as he’d felt. “Only it was no tragedy. After all, his life was long. Very long. And he lived it well, for the most part.”

  “Oh?” She prompted curiously.

  He shook his head. “You don’t want to hear about this.”

  “I do.” And she did, desperately. That alone should have been a warning; a sign of danger. But she was too far into the rip-tide to realize the ocean had turned.

  “Aristotle disinherited my father. He was only a young man; twenty three. I don’t know the facts; my grandfather never told me. I only knew that my father did something that Aristotle considered to be such a betrayal that he sent his son away, and removed any financial support. They never spoke again.”

  “What could it have been?” She whispered, shaking her head.

  “It is irrelevant. The decision to ostracize his own son haunted him for the rest of his life. I know he came to regret it. After all, once my parents died, there was no longer any prospect of reunion. It was all lost.”

  “But there was you,” she smiled, and buried her fingertip into his chin dimple. “That must have brought him some consolation.”

  His smile was a pale imitation of the emotion. “I believe so. He was an excellent grandfather. He worked hard at being what he felt I needed. And he groomed me to take over the business, so that even at sixteen, when I left the island, I had the skills I needed. I lived and breathed business and finance. That was my life growing up. I sat in on board meetings when I was ten years old.”

  “Even without that, I think this would have been your path.”

  He nodded slowly. “Yes.”

  “Why did you leave the island?” She shifted her weight, bringing her naked body to press against his side. “You speak about it like it was some kind of line in the sand, as though there was a ‘before leaving’ and an ‘after leaving’. Like it fundamentally changed you.”

  “You are so damned perceptive,” he said with a laugh. “I cannot say yet if I like or hate that about you.”

  Her cheeks flushed. “I don’t mean to pry.”

  “The strange thing is that you aren’t. I do not speak often about my childhood. And yet with you … it seems to want to pour out of my mouth.”

  “Maybe you’re in some kind of post-sex coma?”

  He laughed. “Highly possible.” He stroked her hair gently. “When I turned sixteen, the same lawyer who had brought me to my grandfather sent a package. It was a letter from my parents. Of course, they’d written it without any idea that I would ever read it. Who prepares a will actually believing it will be enacted? None of us is born with such pessimism with regards to our o
wn mortality. But write it he did, and undoubtedly when he was in a state of deep anger and resentment.”

  “What did it say?”

  He sighed. “It outlined all of the reasons he hated Aristotle. From the grave, my father turned me against my grandfather. I should have been wiser. I should have let the facts settle before I reacted. But I have always been fuelled by passion. And on that night, I read the letter and I began to blame my grandfather for everything, even my father’s death.”

  “Was it his fault?”

  “Of course not.” He shook his head. “I still don’t know exactly what transpired; my grandfather was too proud to discuss it. Too loyal, as well. But I do know that Aristotle was kind and fair. For him to have exiled my father, there must have been some great wrong committed.”

  Saphire’s sigh made her hair move; it tickled his chest.

  Thad cleared his throat before speaking. “Do you want to go for dinner?”

  “Go for dinner?” She asked, her eyes sparkling as she lifted her face to look at him.

  He made a noise of agreement. “We can go back to Athens. See the town. Explore.”

  “Oh.” She shook her head. In the middle of the summer? Not if it meant she might run into anyone with the slightest connection to Jordan or her.

  “Will you think I’m some kind of sex addict if I say I’d rather stay here, naked with you?”

  His laugh caused her to smile. “No. I shall think you even more perfect than I already do.”

  And then, because the danger was still swirling at her feet, threatening to pull her under the water, she composed her features. “I know this is just sex, Mr Konstanides.”

  “Please, would you just call me Thad,” he begged with a laugh.

  She shook her head and spoke as though he’d said nothing. “It’s just sex.” She swallowed. “For both of us.”

  His eyes narrowed. That’s all he’d ever wanted from a woman. His longest relationship had lasted a month, but during that time, they’d only seen one another three times. So why did her pronouncement make his stomach lurch?

  She didn’t wait for him to speak. There was nothing he could say that would change her mind, and nothing he could ask that she’d be willing to explain. She pushed up and then, as she was about to get out of the bed, thought better of it. She crouched beside him and leaned forward, pressing a kiss against his lips. “I’m very sorry about your grandfather.”

  Again, his heart squeezed. Her kindness was diametrically opposed to her cold detachment; her determination that the only thing they had going for them was sex.

  Fine. If she wanted sex, then that’s what he’d give her. Just sex. Nothing else.

  “Not your fault, nor your problem apparently.” He caught her wrists and flipped her back on the bed. He was moving over her instantly, pausing only to secure protection before plundering her sweet depths once more. She cried out and wrapped her legs around his middle, eager as always to feel his strength stir her soul.

  She squeezed her eyes shut as sensations began to flow through her; though when had they ever stopped? Since coming to the island, her body had been in a permanent state of satisfaction and readiness. Her limbs tingled, her legs ached, everything felt alive and grateful.

  God, when she thought back to the stale sex she and Jordan occasionally indulged in, she practically fell asleep. No wonder he’d cheated! Why hadn’t she? Why had she ever thought that was good enough? Why had she ever thought they had anything worth saving?

  She froze.

  The very idea was utterly wrong.

  She was cheating on her husband to save her marriage. Precisely because she believed it was stupid to throw away so much history over one stupid indiscretion. Because she believed that sex wasn’t everything.

  That surely meant they had something that was definitely worth saving. Didn’t it?

  “Hey,” Thad dropped his head and captured her lower lip between his teeth. “You are doing it again.”

  She blinked up at him. “Doing what?”

  He shook his head. “Did you know that sometimes, when we are together, you cry?”

  “What?” She lifted her fingers to her face in surprise. Sure enough, her cheeks were wet. “I didn’t realize.”

  He pushed into her again and she groaned. “It must just be a reflex or something.”

  “Yes, I’m sure,” he said, disbelief obvious in his tone. And not for the first time, he wondered what was going on behind the curtains. What more was there to this woman he had become completely addicted to?

  It was the sex he was addicted to. Not her. And he had to remind himself of that anytime his intentions started to stray.

  He enjoyed stoking her flames until she burst into an explosion of pleasure. He doubted he could ever tire of seeing her head tilt back and color flush her cheeks. He doubted he would ever get enough of the mewling noises she made low in her throat when she was at the height of pleasure.

  He held her tight and tipped himself into her, and he told himself to stop thinking in such florid terms. He’d had dozens of partners. Prior to Aristotle’s death, he would have only entered into a relationship that was as satisfying as it was noncommittal. So why was he letting this get the better of him?

  It must have been emotional splash-back from Aristotle’s death. And he couldn’t let it sway him. If this was going to work, he had to keep the focus on the physical, just as she was.

  He stared at her, ignoring the beautiful way her eyes danced and her cheeks flushed. “I have a meeting in Paris next week.”

  And for a second, Saphire’s heart almost stopped still. To go to Paris with Thad would be a dream come true. It was ridiculous, for how complicated things were. She couldn’t even go to Athens with him for dinner. How could she possibly contemplate a visit to Paris?

  On the brink of demurring he spoke before she could. “Stay until then. I will take you to the airport when I leave.”

  The pain was unexpected. It lanced her sharply. She felt it like a hot blade, but she nodded.

  He mistook her silence for doubt and expelled an impatient sigh. “What more do you want, Zafeiri?” He demanded, using the Greek pronunciation of her name. It sent threads of warmth knotting through her.

  “I want …” She shook her head. “I want to call my friend,” she mumbled, pushing out of the bed.

  He watched her walk across the room. Naked, as she’d been almost the whole time they’d spent together. “You will stay.”

  It wasn’t a question, but she spun around anyway. “Yes,” she expelled the word as though not saying it might have harmed her. “I’ll stay until then.”

  Thad fell back against the pillows, his expression impossible to read and his feelings difficult to decipher.

  For Saphire’s part, she paused outside his bedroom only to grab a robe from the adjacent bathroom. She wrapped it around herself and cinched it at the waist before padding downstairs. Her handbag was in the entrance way, where it had been since arriving. She lifted her phone out as though it were a bomb.

  Still switched off from the flight, she brought it to life now with a sinking feeling. Sure enough, it began to beep almost instantly. Message after message spurted onto the screen. Anita, Anita, Anita, Jordan, Jordan, Anita, her mother, Jordan, Jordan, Anita. Her stomach rolled.

  She clicked into one randomly.

  Baby, I’m worried. Call me.

  Yeah, right. She deleted it angrily and tapped to the next one.

  Saffy, darling, I can explain everything if you’ll only listen to me.

  Somehow she doubted that.

  Saffy, I love you.

  Love was as love did, she thought bitterly. And his behavior was not that of a loving spouse. As for hers? Well, in some ways, though it sounded ludicrous, she was the one making a sacrifice so that they could make their marriage work.

  How had her parents known he was so untrustworthy? She shook her head. They’d been adamant that she’d regret the marriage. Ice trickled down her spi
ne. Had they known something? Had they, mortifyingly, observed him with Anita in the past? Worse, someone else? How many women had he screwed behind her back? Was her best friend the beginning? Or the end?

  Saff, you’re my best friend. I don’t want to lose you.

  Yeah, right. She erased the message without hesitation.

  Her fingers shook as she pulled up her husband’s name in the phone. His face grinned back at her from the top of the screen. She’d taken the picture on their honeymoon.

  What a joke! They’d gone to Barcelona and spent the whole time walking through the beautiful city; she should have felt alive and enraptured, but she’d simply felt hot and sticky for the most part. They hadn’t even slept together because he’d had a middle ear infection that he claimed affected his balance.

  It began to ring and she lifted the device to her ear and then stepped out of the front door, onto the sand spotted grass lawn that was at the front of the mansion. She walked across the warm ground slowly, right to the edge of the cliff. It was met by spiky trees and bushes; in the distance she could see the watermelons that Thaddeus had told her about, scrambling wildly in the cracks of the cliff. She crouched down and ran her fingers over a blade of grass, pleased when the sharp edge sliced her skin.

  “Saff!” His voice was torn from him and in that moment, she didn’t doubt that he had been genuinely worried. “Where the hell are you? I’ve been calling and calling and getting your damned voice mail.”

  She swallowed. “I’ve gone away.”

  A beat of silence. “You’re angry. I get it.”

  She pulled a face. “Do you? Somehow I doubt that.” She ran her finger over another frond and then plucked it from the base of the tree. “So? What happened?”

  She could hear his anxiety. He was a lawyer, and a damned good one. He was working out how much to reveal. Would the complete truth disarm his wife? Or should he drip-feed her the information.

  “It was a mistake.”

  Ah, excellent. Misinformation. He wasn’t going to admit to anything, then.

  “How many times did you make this mistake?” She pushed, surprised by how calm she was able to sound.

  “Not often.” He was employing his most charmingly reasonable tone.