‘Good morning,’ she murmured.
‘Did you sleep well?’
A curious look whispered over her face before she shrugged. ‘Not really. Strange beds and all that.’
He was a bastard to hope she’d experienced a sliver of his frustration as he gestured at the breakfast table. ‘May I join you?’
She shrugged again. ‘It’s your manor for the duration. I can hardly stop you, so go ahead.’
Curbing a curious smile at the cute impertinence, he pulled out a chair and sat down. A waiter approached and Nelios discovered he was ravenous. He made his request then sat back, seeing absolutely nothing wrong with letting his eyes wander over his new wife. So what if the label sent a pulse of pure primitive delight through him? In the light of day, his regret about that no-sex clause had receded. He had his son exactly where he wanted him, with a cast-iron assurance that the trauma and torments of the parents would never be visited upon the son. A reality for which he would raze whole worlds to the ground.
So a small but lavish wedding, a ring on his finger and a woman who now bore his name was a fair price to pay.
Are you sure? You’re so cocky now, in the light of day. But night will come again, all too soon.
He swatted the question away and fixed his eyes on her, cataloguing her from head to toe so he wouldn’t have to dwell on the mocking voice.
The weak summer sun graced her with shafts of light, but as to whether her skin glowed because of it, or it was a leftover from her pregnancy, he didn’t wonder about for long. Because, with each second his gaze lingered on her, the higher he felt the need to sit forward and trail his fingers over her cheek, jaw and over the pulse beating steadily at her throat.
He’d tasted her right there. Had made her breath hitch and her lips part with hunger that he’d greedily and decadently taken delight in assuaging.
‘You?’
He shifted his gaze to her face. ‘Hmm?’
‘I asked how you slept.’
He saw no reason to prevaricate, so he didn’t. ‘Shoddily. For various reasons.’
He waited, for what he wasn’t sure. And, when faint colour stained her cheeks and she looked away, he got that urge to smile. He, who never smiled unless it was at an opponent’s expense.
‘Such as?’
His humour disappeared. Since she was the main reason his sleep had been disturbed, he picked the most pressing reason and offered it to her. ‘The fact that it was our wedding night doesn’t count?’
Her eyes widened a touch and searched his. ‘We agreed on celibacy.’
‘Ne, but perhaps the question is, why the need to stipulate it in the first place?’
‘I’m not rehashing a done deal with you, Nelios,’ she said a little hurriedly.
His pulse jumped at his name falling from her lips. ‘No? I thought that was right in your wheelhouse.’
‘And didn’t you insist I should be happy with what I got?’
Hoist by his own petard.
‘Have you spoken to Agnes yet?’ she blurted.
The douse of ice on his emotions irritated him. ‘If you must know, we encountered one another this morning,’ he said, recalling the very brief interaction with his mother in the hallway when he’d first come downstairs. He’d forgotten she wasan early riser too. Or that perhaps, like him, she’d had a sleepless night, only for different reasons.
‘And?’
Nelios wasn’t certain which disturbed him more—that he’d agreed to this to please Vayle, or that he hadn’t walked away from his mother with as much emotional detachment as he would’ve wished. Especially when she’d insisted there were supposedly important details she needed to give him. ‘I agreed to talk. I didn’t agree to giving you a play-by-play.’
Her face fell just before she sent him a disappointed glare. And he absolutelydid notsquirm in his seat… It was the brisk July air, which should’ve been wonderfully temperate, as it was in Greece, but instead bordered on cold. It reminded him why he disliked the intemperate English weather, and he seized on the other subject on his mind.
‘There’s no rush, of course, but it would be good for you to get a feel of the Nelios Group before you make a decision about which hotel you wish to work in. I thought we’d start in Greece; introduce Angelos to his other homeland. Then wherever in the world you wish to go next.’
