Aristide closed a hand over hers and stalked down the long landing to the double doors at the foot, throwing a door wide. ‘This is the master suite for our use.’
‘Our?’Tabby questioned, kicking off her shoes that were pinching a little and stepping back to take in the full impressive span of the spacious bedroom and the selection of doors that opened off it. It was a really lovely room done in masculine shades of silver grey and dark blue, but the giant bed festooned in silvery drapes and crisp white linen would have delighted any princess in search of a suitable setting.
‘Well, obviously we’re sharing,’ Aristide pointed out.
Tabby had assumed they would be sharing a bedroom and had refused to think about what that would be like. But now Aristide had started criticising her behaviour and had riled her up into a mood.‘Obviously?’she stressed out of badness and as Aristide’s eyes flamed like torches, she lifted a brow. ‘There’s a very nice couch over there. You could use that.’
‘Like hell I will!’ Aristide fired back at her.
Tabby gave him a tight little smile and rested her hands down on her hips for emphasis. ‘Right at this minute, you have made me so mad with you that you’re condemned to the couch—’
‘I’m not sleeping anywhere but in that bedwithyou!’ Aristide framed.
‘Andy mentioned dinner and that I could change into something more relaxed,’ Tabby announced, ignoring that statement as she shifted the subject. ‘Afteryou unzip my dress…’
The grudging hint of an appreciative smile tugged at the corners of Aristide’s sensual mouth. ‘Turn around,’ he instructed.
Tipping off her jacket, Tabby acquiesced. The zip ran down, the edges parted, cooler air brushing her heated skin. Lips pressed in a brief, light salute to her slender spine and she gasped, an electrified shiver running through her entire body. He set her back from him and murmured in a husky undertone, ‘Don’t pretend that you’re not feeling the same things I’m feeling,angelos mou.’
In instant denial of the charge, Tabby spun round. ‘The couch is still yours,’ she countered.
‘I need a shower,’ Aristide breathed in a driven undertone. ‘This room has separate bathrooms and dressing rooms, enabling both of us to have our privacy.’
And she needed a shower too, Tabby reflected dizzily, reliving the chemical charge of his carnal mouth on her warm skin, another reflexive shiver rippling through her taut and aroused body. Because there it was, that ferocious attraction that she would have denied but that honesty made her admit… She wanted to rip his clothes off, pin him to that bed and have her thoroughly wicked way with him. But surely that phase of their relationship was over and done with, wasn’t it? Why was it that she had waited for so long to have a sexual relationship and the minute she tasted the flavour of sex with Aristide, she wanted more, more,more? It mortified her to feel like that around him.
In the bathroom he showed her, she found her toiletries already arranged and she smiled in surprise, realising that while she had been downstairs someone had unpacked her luggage for her. She stripped and walked into the shower to freshen up, drying herself on a fresh fleecy towel and reflecting that the life of a jet-setter certainly offered its comforts. With a touch of gloss on her lips and mascara, she was done. Carefully wrapped in the towel, she ventured into the spacious custom-built dressing room next door where her clothing selection for her two weeks in sunny Greece looked ridiculously tiny. She picked a casual long skirt and a tee that skimmed forgivingly over her no longer flat midriff.
Aristide, clad in well-fitted jeans and a tee, surveyed her as she emerged. ‘Classy and simple. That’s your style and it suits you,’ he murmured, disconcerting her. ‘And you really don’t appreciate the damage you did to my opinion of you when you allowed me to believe that you were a money-grabbing cheat.’
‘I didn’t care that night,’ Tabby countered, lifting her chin. ‘As far as I was concerned, I was defending myself the only way I could and back then I still believed that it would be me who had to marry Tore. It wasn’t until I realised that I was pregnant, which broke the contract I’d signed, that I thought it would have to be Violet who married him instead.’
‘You should always care about what you reveal about yourself,’ Aristide censured. ‘Even if you’re simply trying to score points and particularly if it paints you in bad colours.’
‘I didn’t give two hoots about your opinion that night, not after what you had said to me!’ Tabby flipped back without apology, her head high. ‘I have my pride too, Aristide. Why would you suddenly start imagining that I was the kind of woman who would set you up for some sort of a pregnancy trap? Who would want you for your wealth rather than who you are as a person?’
Aristide looked grim, his lean, strong face etched in hard lines. ‘Why?Because something rather similar happened to me once before and that harrowing experience probably left me oversensitive, which is why I lost my temper and assumed the very worst of you.’
Tabby was stunned into silence by that bleak, blunt confession. As she hovered, an apology brimming on her lips, Aristide took charge and urged her to the door. Something similar?Harrowingexperience? His choice of that particular word shocked her and sobered her into deeper thought. ‘Was there a child born?’ she heard herself ask under her breath as they headed towards the stairs.
‘No, the woman concerned miscarried,’ he revealed flatly. ‘Now can we talk about something else? I don’t want to talk aboutthat.’
Typical Aristide, she thought ungraciously. Having finally told her the truth about why he had flown off the handle that first night with her, he was still refusing to share the whole story. But then why should he? His intimate past wasn’t her business. He wasn’t bound to tell her about everything. Intellectually, she understood and accepted that, but she craved further knowledge of that particular episode because it had clearly left a wound.
Dinner was full of chatter and easy conversation. Demetrius asked her how she had met Aristide and she told him about that day at Traxis and the belated discovery that Aristide was not a senior accountant. He laughed but gave her a searching look, as if he was not quite sure whether or not to believe her.
As the meal continued, Aristide seemed to become more preoccupied and then, over coffee, he rose and gave her an apologetic appraisal. ‘I have a visit to make to an old friend this evening. I hope you’ll forgive me for leaving you for an hour or so on your first night.’
In an even more sudden movement, Demetrius Romanos stood up as well. ‘Old Theo? Of course. I’ll come too and pay my respects,’ he announced.
And with that, the two men left the room.
‘Who’s old Theo?’ Tabby asked Andromeda curiously.
‘A fisherman Aristide knew as a boy. He’s dying,’ the brunette explained. ‘Aristide didn’t know that Theo had fallen ill until he arrived.’
Tabby nodded, surprised by the fleeting look of discomfiture on Andromeda’s face, wondering if it was dealing with the old man’s passing that made her that way or whether there was some other complication that she remained ignorant of.
Aristide returned in a volatile mood. Theo had been well enough to reminisce for almost an hour but then Imogen had joined them and his father had stood up to immediately leave, determined to protect his son to the last even if his son no longer needed protecting. He wasn’t a teenager any more, more in love with a woman’s face and body than anything else. He no longer expected perfection either, knowing there was no such thing. Everyone had strengths and weaknesses. Imogen had once been his weakness but that was over and done. In her favour, his former fiancée had been irreproachably polite and charming and had not once alluded to the past. Points to her on that score, he acknowledged, knowing his own reactions had been less presentable and his father’s comments on her afterwards had been unrepeatable.
