‘She’s not worth this,’ he threw down the phone line. ‘She’s a cold, frigid—’
‘Setting aside the fact I have much evidence to the contrary, if you ever say anything like that about my fiancée again, if you so much as utter her name in anything but the most complimentary of ways, my threat will come to fruition. This is not an idle promise, Senator. I will ruin you in every way you hold dear if you ever make a single move to hurt her. If you threaten or bully her, if you breathe a single word of anything she told you in confidence, when she was trying to make your pathetic marriage work, I will destroy you. If you ever attempt to contact her, if you see her walking on the street and don’t immediately turn and go the other way, you will wish, with every fibre of your being, to be someone else entirely. Do I make myself clear?’
The silence that greeted him made the hairs on the back of his neck stand to attention once more.
‘I said, do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes.’ It was belligerent but also, Nikos was certain, terrified.
‘Good boy,’ he drawled condescendingly. ‘Now get back to your hollow little life, screwing shallow, meaningless women, and think about the fact you had someone very special in your life, for a time, and you ruined it. And then, burn in hell.’
He disconnected the call and threw his phone against the cushions of the sofa, his chest puffing up with outrage at even the sound of the man’s voice. And then, in the reflection of the windows, he saw a movement that had him turning around, heart ramming hard against his ribs.
Chapter Twelve
SHE UNDERSTOOD THAThe was talking about himself. That the anger he felt towards himself for having not been able to appreciate Isabella was at the root of his defence, but, at the same time, just hearing him say those things to her ex-husband—for clearly that was who was on the other end of the line—set a fire in her soul. Hearing the way he threatened James, promising to ruin him financially and politically, knowing that was probably the most likely to get through to him, had underscored something very simple to Genevieve. For all she had wanted to stand on her own two feet and walk away from James, he was just the kind of misogynistic horror of a man who would only be affected by this sort of thing.
But it wasn’t even about James, and it wasn’t about Isabella.
The magic of Nikos’s words, his passion, his respect, flooded her veins so she was running across the room and hurling herself at him, fighting floods of tears as she practically scrambled up his body and into his arms, so she could kiss him and hold him and thank him as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
Surprise held him still a moment, but then their predictable, reliable passion flared to life and he was kissing her back, holding her now against him, feet off the ground as he moved them to the sofa and laid her down, before bringing his body weight over hers and nudging her thighs apart with his knee.
‘I meant every word, Genevieve,’ he said, pushing up to stare into her eyes. ‘Even when this is over, and you are back in the States, if he so much as calls you, I expect to know about it. If he ever gives you even a hint of trouble—’
‘He won’t,’ she said, and her smile was enormous because, for the first time in a long time, she truly felt that everything would be okay. Her divorce hadn’t given her that freedom. James had made sure of it. He’d found a way to extend his control and manipulation, his cold hurtfulness, well after their legal union had been dissolved. She’d left America, and come to Greece, but his shadow had been over her the whole time.
Until now.
‘I can never thank you enough.’
He shook his head, his throat shifting, and she held her breath, waiting for him to say whatever he was obviously thinking, but instead, he offered a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. ‘Thank me by shouting my name as loud as you can,koukla. Shout it so loud he can hear it, all the way in Washington.’ And he dragged his mouth down her body, to her sex, and proceeded to make it impossible for her to do anything but what he’d suggested.
Over and over his name tripped from her tongue, a poem she was writing and feeling in her heart, both a joy and a burden. He drove her wild with his mouth, and then his hands, and then his mouth, before finally arranging her on the sofa so he could claim her from behind, his whole body intimately connected with hers as his hands came and clutched her breasts, before one roamed to her sex and made her halfway forget her own damned name. Even as he gave her such pleasure, over and over, she heard the words he’d spoken, and felt them like a blade in her side:Even when this is over.
And it just served to clarify for Genevieve the truth of her feelings. The problem wasn’t that she’d trusted someone with her heart, it was that she’d trusted the wrong someone. She’d given herself to a man who’d never deserved her. But Nikos was so different. He was her perfect other half, in every way, but it was almost impossible to imagine him recognising that, far less accepting it.
* * *
Though she knew she loved him, Genevieve was too proud to stay, if she was truly not wanted. Or perhaps it was that she was seeking breadcrumbs of affection, in the form of his trying to prolong this. Either way, when he said, later that afternoon, that they had reservations at another Athens hotspot, she found herself hesitating before saying, ‘Nikos, you’ve done so much for me. But he knows now, and I’m pretty sure he won’t be bothering me again. If you wanted…if you want to go back to the island, I won’t keep you here.’
His expression had barely shifted, except for a slight darkening in those stunning grey eyes of his. ‘He understands his situation, it’s true,’ he murmured. ‘But wouldn’t you like to have the fun of making him suffer now?’ he asked, lifting a single brow. ‘Every photo of us—of you, living your best life, with me—will be like the twisting of a knife. Don’t you think you deserve that?’
Genevieve’s agreement had nothing to do with James, though. Whatever Nikos might think, for Genevieve, it was simply a chance to spend more time with Nikos. To lose herself to him, in the hope—albeit a very, very small one—that the more they were together, the more he would see that he deserved this second chance. That the grief he was stubbornly clinging to, the guilt he insisted he must wallow in, were an insult to his late wife, a cruelty to himself, and a deprivation to Genevieve.
‘Yes,’ she said, simply, and his smile was her reward.
‘Then get dressed,’ he said, pulling her against his body. ‘And let me have the pleasure of watching you.’
Her heart rushed against her ribcage. ‘It will be the same dress I wore last night,’ she said, with a lift of one shoulder.
‘Believe me, I barely notice the clothes you have on—most of my energy is spent imagining how quickly I can remove them.’
Heat flushed her cheeks as he led her to the shared master bedroom, and, rather than watching her get ready, he chose to help her undress, kiss her all over, before slowly, tantalisingly sliding the red slip in place. But as he did so, he removed her lace thong, his eyes clashing with hers.
‘For me,’ he said, and the heart that was already rushing began to gallop so hard it hurt.
* * *
