Somethingriskier.
If Nelios had expected an unhappy wife at the dinner table when he walked into his dining room after hours of steaming away in his study with an unhealthy amount of righteous indignation, he was mistaken. Pleasantly mistaken—perhaps that even unsettled him.
There was no hint in her manner that him walking away from her, after practically criticising her for bothering to find the silver lining in the cloud of his past trauma, had upset her. He knew his intractability hadn’t sat well with her if the dull light in her eyes had been any indication.
He nearly tripped over his own feet when she looked up…and smiled. Not the blindingly fake one some women used to express their rabid glee to be in his presence. Not the batting-eyelashes one that said a request for a favour lurked just beneath the surface. It was heart stopping, groin stirring—not that he needed help for that to happen. Not when she looked more breathtaking each time he saw her.
And with that smile… He sucked in a slow, control-restoring breath, which failed miserably.
She wore a white halter-neck dress threaded with gold that seemed to reflect off her smooth skin. Her hair was down in gorgeous waves around her shoulders and those hoop earringsthat had driven him insane in Buenos Aires were on show once more. Her perfume, floral and exquisite, called to him and it felt positively sinful not to bend and place a kiss on her cheek. Or on that gentle slope of her shoulder. So that was exactly what he did.
‘If it’s not against your infernal rules, can I say how beautiful you look?’ he said when he lifted his head.
Her smile remained in place but a breathless quality to her breathing surged pleasure through him, increasing the pressure in his groin.
Her teeth toyed with her lower lip and she tucked a strand of hair over her ear before shrugging. ‘I’ll allow it.’
It was absurd that something eased inside him then, as if he’d been on tenterhooks, when he was his own man and had earned the right not to need to placate anyone.Especiallywhen he was in the right. ‘Efkharisto,’he drawled as he sat down and shook out his napkin.
Equally disturbing—and the reason he’d spent hours staring into space when he was supposed to have been working—was that the decades-old weight he’d carried seemed somehow…lighter. A realisation that logic insisted had something to do with unburdening himself to Vayle.
But, now they were back on an even keel, he didn’t need to think about it any more. They were done with the quid pro quo of trauma-sharing. Now they could move onto better things.
She asked about his other humanitarian projects and he gladly told her about the one-thousand-strong children’s charity in Panama, the bird sanctuary in Lithuania and the children’s education funds in a dozen countries. And, dearest to his heart, the camps for orphans and street kids right here in Greece, ably managed by Capaldi’s wife.
‘I’m not sure why I’m so stunned he’s married with kids. He seems so…’ Vayle’s voice trailed off.
‘Fearsome?’ he offered with a hint of a smile—another thing he was doing more and more around her. ‘It’s a prerequisite for working for me.’
She rolled her eyes as she smiled and,thee mou, he wanted to kiss that mouth more than he wanted his next breath.
Which made the words that came out of his mouth as they were enjoying coffee and dessert quite absurd. Because even he knew he was skirting the volcanic rim of temptation. ‘We’ll take the boat out tomorrow—explore the island some more,ne?’
She nodded, and her hair slid over her skin in a silken curtain he wanted to run through his fingers so badly, he had to curl them around his coffee cup to stall the impulse.
‘Sounds good.’
And so their surprisingly delightful evening went, followed by a nightcap in the salon and half an hour of television, until a wide yawn from her had him surging to his feet, his hand held out.
She blinked, a little warily, perhaps also fighting off the charged mood that hovered far too close. But she rose, put her hand in his and let him walk her to their suite door.
Together they checked on their son then, in tones echoing the unnerving yearning he didn’t want to voice, he wished herkalinikta. He watched her blink again before nodding, then she disappeared behind her own doors.
Leaving him standing there—a little shaken, a lot stunned. Because it seemed, in just under seventy-two hours, his wife had slid so effectively under his skin, and he would be so very hard pressed ever to remove her.
And he wasn’t entirely sure he wanted to.
CHAPTER NINE
‘ITHINK YOUeither need a dictionary or a pair of prescription glasses. Because that is definitely not a boat.’
Vayle looked from the massive vessel growing bigger as they neared it to the mildly amused man sitting at the helm of the tender. Nelios shrugged. The heart that’d expanded then wedged itself hard against her ribcage when he’d knocked on her door after breakfast in a pair of designer shorts and a white T-shirt raced harder as her gaze moved over him.
Surprisingly, she’d gone to bed with a smile on her face and had slept sounder than she had in years, rising to feed Angelos before topping off her sleep and waking up delightfully refreshed.
‘It’s a floating device that suits our purposes for the day.’
She snorted. ‘A floating device is a dinghy. This is a…a…’ She shook her head, unable to locate an accurate descriptive for the immense super-yacht in front of them.
