by Pippa Roscoe
‘What would you like to drink?’
As if the waiter had sensed it was safe to return, he appeared on the balcony to take their order.
Célia seemed to take a deep breath, turned smilingly at the man and ordered a martini. It surprised him; her choice bold, the drink dry, and the request for a twist of lemon rather than an olive seemed to suit her.
‘Same,’ he stated to the waiter without taking his eyes off Célia, who was clearly uncomfortable with his constant gaze.
‘I’m surprised that you didn’t order for me,’ she said, placing her hands on her lap beneath the table. Probably, he assumed, turning them within each other as she had done before.
‘That was for speed and efficiency. This is not.’
‘What is this for, then?’
It was then that he decided not to tell her of his plans for that evening. He would need her to be as natural as possible—and even before they had ordered drinks she’d had a streak of tension through her as if she were ready to bolt.
‘This is so that we can get to know each other a little more.’
‘Is that necessary?’ she asked, still unable to meet his gaze.
He reached across the table and placed his hand on her neck to cup her jaw. As expected she almost jumped right off the chair. But he kept his hand in place, feeling the flickering of her pulse, smoothing it slightly with a swipe of his thumb that caused a sensation within him that he had to fight to temper.
‘It is if you’re going to stop jumping every time I touch you. We’re supposed to be...we are engaged. And we’re going to have to start acting like it. So,’ he said, finally removing his hand, ‘I have a game of sorts for us to play.’ He waited for her to take this in. ‘You will ask a question, and for each one I answer, I will touch you.’
The look of fear that crossed her face bit him hard. ‘Not like that, not...’ He shook his head, trying to find the words. Where was his usual charm? Where was the man reported to have seduced women in their hundreds? ‘We’re in public, Célia, it’s not as if I’m going to ravish you. Consider it the opposite of aversion therapy. For every question of mine that you answer, you will touch me.’
Célia’s heart thudded in her chest, her cheek still warm from where he had caressed her. She knew that he was right, that she had to stop being so...overly sensitive to his touch. They would have to put on a performance in public eventually. And out here, beneath the night sky, where the air was warm and there was no one to see them, was surely a safe place to...to...
‘You agree?’ he cut through her thoughts and she nodded her assent even as she feared what his first question might be.
‘What is your favourite colour?’
She laughed then. At the ridiculousness of his question, of her fear. Couldn’t help but catch the way his lips had quirked up in a smile as if he’d expected her reaction.
‘Orange.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes,’ she laughed.
He nodded, as if impressed somehow. ‘I thought it would have been—’
‘Don’t you dare say it,’ warning him away from saying beige.
‘Entáxei—okay.’ His eyes were lit with mischief and the laughter on the air between them had broken some of the tension that had built since she’d first felt the heat from his body as he held out a chair for her.
Loukis laid his arm on the table, his palm outstretched for her, challenging her.
She stared at it as if it were something strange and new. An inexplicable urge took over her then. The desire to touch, to feel, to know... She pressed her thumb into the palm of his hand and drew it upwards along the length of his middle finger, his palm curling in gently as if wanting to prolong their connection, her touch. His skin felt smooth and warm beneath hers and it sent little starbursts across her hand and forearm. She resisted the urge to shiver.
‘Your turn,’ he said, breaking the spell that had held her in silence.
Her mind strangely blank, she searched for something as bland and unchallenging as the question he had posed, not quite ready to delve deeper.
‘What is your favourite food?’
‘Baklava.’ He answered too quickly for it to be a lie.
‘Really?’
‘I’m Greek. It would be criminal for me to say otherwise.’
Célia couldn’t help but smile at the prideful, playful tone and the trace of starlight in his eyes.
Hesitantly she placed her arm out the way that he had done and laid her hand open on the table before him. It was then that she realised what he had done. That in allowing her to be the one to touch him first, he had ensured that she would not be subjected to anything he wouldn’t receive himself. It made her feel...strangely safe. Until he touched her.
Receiving exactly the same touch that she had given sent sparks down her arm to her core, unable this time to prevent the shiver that wracked her body. Her palm flared then curled beneath his finger, just as his had done. Her nipples drew to stiff peaks as arousal, swift and sharp, pierced her and she flinched, withdrawing her hand suddenly.
He masked it quickly, but she saw something pass his features. Frustration, she thought, disappointment perhaps.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘Don’t be. That’s why we’re doing this. We need to become accustomed to each other,’ he stated simply as if he had not been devastated in the same way as she had by something so basic as one touch.
‘My turn. Where did you go to school?’
Célia’s body spun within some strange vortex as she forced herself to answer the question. ‘Switzerland. With Ella. Boarding school.’
‘Not France?’ he queried, probing for more details.
‘No, my fa—My parents wanted me to go to “the best of schools”,’ she said, adopting her father’s imperious tone. She cast a glance to Loukis, and if he noticed the slip, he was kind enough not to press.
He placed his arm on the table again, but this time face down. She hesitated again, then steeled herself for the impact, knowing what to expect this time. She placed her hand over his, smoothing her way up over his wrist and forearm, her fingers dipping beneath the rolled-up shirtsleeves, all the while braced against the sensations that drenched her.
Questions came and answers went, each time eliciting a touch here, there, an elbow, a little finger hooked around another, a thumb, a hand held, and a palm kissed gently. Loukis had moved his chair next to hers, so that the table no longer lay between them. Small plates of delicious food went ignored as the awareness and knowledge of each other deepened.
‘What three things would you save in a fire?’ Célia finally asked.
‘Annabelle.’
Célia smiled. ‘That’s just one thing,’ she chided.
‘I don’t need anything else.’
His answer struck her more deeply, more viscerally than any other from that night. And suddenly she feared him asking her the same question. Feared that she wouldn’t be able to answer it because she didn’t have anyone to take with her like that. Anyone who was enough. Belongings seemed insipid in comparison to his answer, the items in her apartment only five years old, nothing from before. Nothing from her childhood. Because in the last five years, she realised, she’d made herself an island. New, shiny, determined, but unanchored, untethered.
Loukis seemed not to realise that she hadn’t taken her due, hadn’t touched him in turn, because he pressed on with his next question.
‘Why do you dress the way you do? What are you hiding from?’
His head was bent towards her as if listening to her unspoken response. Everything, she mentally replied, shocking herself. Inexplicably as thoughts of her father’s betrayal, of Marc’s desertion, of the absence of her mother from her present life rose up around her and she felt the hot press of tears gathering at the corners of her eyes.
Lou
kis reached up a thumb and gently swept away a tear that had escaped. The warmth and comfort of his palm against her cheek, this time so much more familiar, so much more wanted than earlier in the evening. His face was so close, the lips that had pressed into her hand, her wrist to answered questions, tempting her, teasing her, making her want them, making her want him.
Her heart pounded, crying and demanding for what he was so clearly willing to offer.
Breath left her lungs in defeat as she closed the distance between them, giving up the fight, which she had known would only end one way. Her supplication and his dominance.
The moment his lips met hers, her mind stopped. Thoughts were lost beneath the heady indulgent sensations of his mouth across hers, his tongue gently sweeping, asking and gaining entrance.
A need, shocking in its intensity, reared in her breast. More. She wanted more. Her hands rose to either side of his face, needing to touch, to explore. Her fingers threaded through the fine strands of his hair, relishing the softness, at the same time as riding a wave of something inexplainable, something almost euphoric.
A bright white flash cut through her closed eyes, startling her. Again and again it popped, causing her to rear back in shock.
Her eyes wide, her mouth thoroughly kissed, Loukis had never seen anything so beautiful, before something like fear covered Célia’s features. Even though he’d known it was coming, he’d still felt the intrusion of the paparazzi’s flashbulb. The photographs he’d assured would be taken, now unwanted and frustrating.
It was then that he realised that his bright idea, the one that would cement their engagement publicly and assuredly, was a mistake. He saw it as Célia would see it. A betrayal. But as his conscience lashed at him, his need to win, his need to secure custody of Annabelle over Meredith rose hard and fast.
He swiped his lower lip with the pad of his thumb, sure that some of her lipstick had transferred from her mouth to his. As he looked down at the red mark on his skin, he wondered just how badly he had wounded her this evening.
He pushed up out of his chair, ignoring the way that Célia stared out into the distance trying to find the invisible photographer who had caught them in such an intimate, private moment.
‘What do we do?’ she asked, her voice trembling in the same way that her body had beneath his.
‘We leave.’
He placed a guiding arm around her and ushered her from the rooftop, back into the dimly lit interior of the busy restaurant. It seemed impossible to him that there had been upwards of one hundred people on the other side of the glass. He guided her through the tables, noticing the way her skin had become cold, goosebumps pebbled her arms, where previously soft warmth had been all he could feel.
As he stopped by the small desk to the right of the entrance, passing over his credit card, the manager looked up. ‘Did you get what you need?’
‘Nai,’ Loukis said, swiftly cutting off anything further the man might give away. He felt, from where his arm was still placed around Célia, her body stiffen.
As he stalked from the restaurant towards the bank of elevators in the hallway, her footsteps slowed, her face transforming from confusion to disgust.
‘What did he mean?’
‘I’m sure that he meant to ask if we enjoyed our meal.’
‘I don’t think so. If that were the case, he would have used those words.’
Something horrifyingly like guilt lashed at him.
‘What was it that you needed from this evening, Loukis?’ she demanded.
The elevator doors swung open and he stepped inside, studiously ignoring her question.
‘What, you no longer want to play your game?’ she said, her voice hoarse with emotion as the doors closed behind her.
He inhaled, his mind a swarm of thoughts all the while he could still taste her on his tongue, her scent wrapping around him in the small enclosed space.
She pushed him then, double handed, shocking and no less than he deserved.
‘Answer me!’
‘I needed the press to have a photograph of us together. I needed us to be seen as a couple,’ he growled through clenched teeth, the answers insipid and unsatisfying even to his own ears. ‘It needed to seem natural. It had to be perfect.’
‘But you didn’t have to lie to me. You didn’t need to set up some silly game just to get me to...’ She seemed unable to bring the words to lips that he’d so thoroughly kissed. He watched her bring herself under control, tried to avoid the way her chest pressed against the silk lining of the dress as she levelled her breathing.
‘No more lies, Loukis. I won’t be lied to again.’
And something in her tone spoke of more than just his actions that evening. Something deeper and darker. But he refused to delve into it, no matter how much he might want to ask who had hurt her. He had done enough for now.
CHAPTER SIX
LOUKIS RAN A weary hand through his hair as his eyes focused on the bright laptop screen glowing like some unworldly portal in the dark room. He checked the time on the watch on his wrist. Two forty-five in the morning. Anger was keeping him awake. Anger, frustration and an unhealthy dose of discomfort swirled in his empty stomach. He now regretted not touching any of the delicious morsels that had been presented to him and Célia earlier in the restaurant.
In the car on the way home, he had messaged his housekeeper and given her a few days off, realising that there was no earthly way he could make good on his demand that Célia share his bed.
He might be many things, but crass was not one of them.
A few days would give them time to...adjust to one another. But by the time Annabelle was safely back from Texas and away from the clutches of his mother, there would most definitely have to be a united front.
He checked his watch again. Time had slowed to almost imperceptible increments as he waited for the moment when he could video call his sister. And after that, he would collapse into one of the spare rooms upstairs and hope that sleep would somehow dull the way that the evening loomed in his mind. It had taken on a technicolour quality, the vivid slash of Célia’s red lipstick, the forest-green silks of her dress, the impact of their kiss still vibrating through him like earthquake tremors long after the fact.
He didn’t regret his decisions that evening. The paparazzo was as necessary as getting to know and getting used to Célia. But just when their game had turned from one of necessity to one of expectation, want even, he couldn’t tell. And even now he wondered at the answer to the question he had not had time to ask her. What Célia would have saved in the fire.
The screen of his laptop changed as Annabelle’s video call appeared, the sudden pings echoing loudly, intrusively in the quiet estate. He grabbed a quick mouthful of cold coffee and accepted the call.
‘Hey, Nanny,’ he said, using the nickname they’d had for the last three years. Where or how it had come about forgotten beneath the impact of those first few months. ‘Have a Texan accent yet?’
Her face filled the screen, bright, shining and happy. She was clutching a bright, torrid-pink fluffy bear, and Loukis’s first thought was, And so it begins. The buying of Annabelle’s affection would have been Meredith’s first and obvious move.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she laughed.
‘And who have you got there?’
‘His name’s Jameson.’
‘Jameson? That’s an interesting name. I like his fur.’
Célia woke up, startled and unable to tell where she was or what had woken her. Her heart was pounding and a thin sheen of salty dampness was rapidly drying in the cool room. Loukis. The photographer. The kiss... All these things seemed to crash down in her mind.
It needed to seem natural. It needed to be perfect.
The word had sliced through her like a knife. Perfect. It had been too close. Too reminiscent of Marc, of her father. It was suppose
d to be different with Loukis. They had an agreement. She knew the terms. And now he did too. No more lies. She just had to hope that she could live up to her end of the bargain. To be the one thing that she had failed at before. To be...perfect.
Her mouth was bone-dry and she knew she’d not be able to go back to sleep now. She shrugged on her new silk robe and, on bare feet, made her way towards the staircase that led downstairs.
A sound pulled her up short. Startling and rich, Loukis’s laughter cut through her. It was conspiratorial in a way that made her jealous. Perhaps he was on the phone to his lover. And she suddenly felt horrified. They’d never talked about that, and why wouldn’t he have one? He was clearly a deeply sensual man—but he’d kissed her? She rubbed her forehead, her thoughts chaotic after an unsettled brief bite of sleep.
In a fit of unfamiliar pique, she continued down the stairs, not disguising her footfalls on the cool marble. She rounded the bottom of the staircase and saw Loukis through the doorway to the living room, illuminated in the darkness by a shaft of light from his laptop screen.
The moment she heard Annabelle’s voice echo through the speakers, she felt guilty. Guilty and intrusive. She made to retreat, but the move must have caught his eye, because Loukis looked up, a smile lighting his features momentarily. And then, as if he too remembered how they had left things, how she had stormed off to the room and slammed the door shut on him as if she were a child, the brightness of his smile dimmed.
‘Who’s that?’ she heard Annabelle demand. Almost reluctantly he beckoned her over and Célia, unable to refuse the command, went to stand behind where Loukis sat so that she could see the screen.
‘Bonsoir, ma chérie,’ Célia greeted the ten-year-old, expecting and receiving the peal of giggles that the girl emitted.
‘She calls me Cherry,’ she cried to Loukis in delight.
‘You’re getting quite the collection of names, Nanny. I hope you can keep track of them,’ Loukis said, jokingly chiding.