Page 4 of Seasons of Sin

“Almost there.”

The words, short and clipped, reassured her. She sighed and let her eyes drift closed again.

His speedboat made short work of the journey tol’isola ouranos. He watched her the whole time.

In his experience, the women who hit the liquor bottles hard and decided to try their luck with one of the wealthiest eligible bachelors in Europe were all a certain type. Beautiful like Saphire Arana – he had seen her name when she’d flashed it unsteadily at the passport control – but without hervulnerability. It was that softness and sweetness that spoke to him. It was her obvious innocence that set his blood raging in his body.

Thaddeus Konstanides was a strong man. He ran eight miles every morning. He’d had a weights room installed next to his office so that he could break up the sedentary obligations of his corporate requirements with a burning workout whenever he sought it.

And he made love often, and with athleticism and strength.

He lifted Saphire as though she weighed no more than a child and stepped smoothly off the luxury craft. It was his private pontoon and his mansion was at the edge of the garden. He strode over the grass quickly.

Saphire stirred a little and had a brief impression of the most beautiful hotel she’d ever seen. Huge, with rustling palm trees in the foreground and a soft golden glow from within. But her eyes felt like they were weighted with cement and again she dipped back into slumber.

Only when they reached his room and he put her down in his bed did she stretch her arms above her head and smile. “Are you going to sleep with me now?” She murmured, and her words were both husky with invitation and slurred by alcohol.

He deserved a God-damned medal, Thaddeus thought with a low growl. How easy it would have been to push the ridiculously frothy dress up around her waist, slip aside her underwear and plunge inside of her.

But he would loathe himself for indulging that weakness. She was in no fit state to have any idea what she was asking for. Instead, he slipped her shoes from her feet and placed them at the foot of the bed.

“Soon,” he promised, running a hand over her dark hair. “Very soon.”

CHAPTER 2

The sun was her enemy. It burned through her eyes making her corneas sting. Her mouth was thick with fur and tasted of dirty socks. When she sat up and pushed her hair from her face, her brain gave an unparalleled screech of complaint.

“Ugh,” she moaned, blinking one eye shut as she scanned the room and tried to remember what the hell had happened in the last twenty-four hours.

And then, piece by piece, it began to hammer into her consciousness. Anita and Jordan. Her beautiful best friend and her stunning husband making love in Saphire’s picture-perfect room, destroying her picture-perfect, no-good marriage.

Then what? She’d got a cab to the airport and decided to come to … to come to … Greece! It had been the first flight she could get onto. A first class ticket had been available on a plane bound for Athens that had been leaving almost immediately and she had been desperate to get as far away from her staid life in Notting Hill as possible.

And then?

Mr Konstanides, her brain taunted, and she lifted a hand to her breast to feel the nipple that he’d tormented on the flight. Itdrifted higher, to her lips. He’d kissed them until she’d thought she might pass out from the strength of sensation.

Mr Konstanides.

She looked down at her body. She was still wearing the black dress. Which meant they hadn’t slept together after all, didn’t it?

His side of the bed was unrumpled. In fact, her shoes and her body were the only signs of life in this incredibly luxurious hotel suite. She stood up gingerly.

No.

They hadn’t slept together.

Saphire could tell that having sex with a man like Mr Konstanides would have been an invasion of all of her senses. It would be life-altering, yet she felt very much as she had yesterday, except for the throbbing headache. And as that was self-inflicted, she refused to allow that to cower her back to bed.

No, her body had only ever known one lover, and he had, she was beginning to suspect, treated her with kid gloves. Why? Had she bored him? Had she given him some silent, unknowing impression that she couldn’t handle being treated like a red-blooded, adult woman?

Flashes of their calm, missionary sex-life made her face pale now. She pushed them aside.

Possibly the sexiest man Saphire had ever met had wanted to sleep with her. And even if she couldn’t go through with it in broad daylight, his interest still meant something.

Hell, she couldnevergo through with it, broad daylight or not. She’d be a huge disappointment to someone like him. He might have thought she was ready to jump into any willing man’s bed, but the truth was, she had no damned idea what to do when she got there.

Enormous windows behind her framed a stunning view of the beach. Saphire squinted past her pain to give it a slow appraisal. Despite the pounding headache, she couldn’t helpbut marvel at the pristine ocean and crisp white shore. The sand stretched for about the same distance in both directions, forming a sweeping cove. There were pale-cultured rocks at the cliff-face, and spiky green plants bursting from them. There was no sign of other guests, though far, far in the distance she could make out the stately silhouette of an enormous cruise ship.