Breaking the Greek's Rules

Of course she hadn’t said so. Not then. She’d just met Alex. But she hadn’t wanted the day to end—and he hadn’t, either. She was the bridesmaid who had been deputized to take Heather’s car back to Manhattan after the reception.

“I’m coming, too,” Alex had said in that rough sexy baritone, and his eyes had met hers. “If that’s all right with you.”

Of course it had been all right with her. It was just one more reason to believe he was feeling the same thing, too. Together they had driven back to Manhattan. And all the way there, they had talked.

He was an architect working for a multinational firm, but eager to strike out on his own. He had his own ideas, a desire to blend old and new, to create both beauty and utility and to design buildings that made people more alive, that spoke to their hearts and souls. His eyes had lit up when he’d talked about his goals, and she had shared his enthusiasm.

He had shared hers about her own professional hopes and dreams. She was working for Finn MacCauley, one of the preeminent fashion and lifestyle photographers in the country. It was almost like an apprenticeship, she’d told him. She was learning so much from Finn, but was looking forward, like Alex was, to finding her own niche.

“People definitely,” she’d told him. “Families, kids, people at work and play. I’d like to shoot you,” she’d told him. She wanted to capture the moment, the man.

And Alex had simply said, “Whenever you want.”

When they got to the city, she had left the car in the parking garage by Heather’s Upper East Side apartment, then she’d taken Alex downtown on the subway to the Soho flat she was subleasing from a dental student on a semester’s internship abroad.

On the subway, Alex had caught her hand in his, rubbing his thumb over her fingers, then dipping his head to touch his lips to hers. It was a light touch, the merest promise, but it set her blood on fire. And when he pulled back, she caught her breath because, looking into his eyes, she had seen a hunger there that was as deep and intense as her own.

It had never happened before. A desire so powerful, so intense just grabbed her—and it wouldn’t let go. Daisy wasn’t used to this sort of intensity. She didn’t fall into bed at the drop of a hat, had only once before fallen into bed with a man at all. It had been fevered groping on his part and discomfort on hers.

With Alex, she’d tried telling herself, it would be more of the same.

But it wasn’t.

His kisses were nothing like any she’d tasted before. They were heady, electric, bone-melting. They’d stood on the sidewalk nearly devouring each other. Not something Daisy had ever done!

She couldn’t get him back to her apartment fast enough.

Once there, though, she’d felt suddenly awkward, almost shy. “Let me take your picture,” she’d said.

And Alex had given her a lazy teasing smile and said, “If that’s what you want.”

Of course it wasn’t what she wanted—or not entirely what she wanted. And it wasn’t what he wanted, either. It was fore-play. Serious and smiling, goofing around, letting her direct him this way and that, all the way watching her—burning her up!—from beneath hooded lids.

He wanted her. He didn’t have to say it. They circled each other, moved in, moved away. The temperature in the room rose. The temperature in Daisy’s blood was close to boiling.

Then Alex had reached out and took the camera from her. He aimed, shot, posed her, caught the ferocity of her desire, as well. He stripped off his jacket, she unbuttoned his shirt. He skimmed down the zip of her dress. But before he could peel it off, she had taken the camera back, set the timer and wrapped her arms around him.

The photo of the two of them together, caught up in each other, had haunted her for years.

But at the time she hadn’t been thinking about anything but the moment—the man. Within moments the camera was forgotten and in seconds more the rest of their clothing was gone.

And then there was nothing between them at all.

Alex bore her back onto her bed, settled beside her and bent his dark head, nuzzling her breasts, tasting, teasing, suckling, making her gasp and squirm.

And Daisy, shyness long gone, had been desperate to learn every inch of him. She’d prowled and played, made him suck in his breath and say raggedly, “You’re killing me!”

But when she’d pulled back he’d drawn her close again. “Don’t stop,” he’d said.

They hadn’t stopped—neither one of them. They’d driven each other to the height of ecstasy. And it wasn’t at all like that other time.

With Alex there was no discomfort, there was no second-guessing, no wondering if she was doing the right thing. It had been lovemaking at its most pure and elemental, and so perfect she could have cried.

After, lying wrapped in his arms, knowing the rightness of it, she had believed completely in her mother’s assertion that there was a “right man”—and about knowing instinctively when you met him.

She’d met Alex and—just like her parents, just like her sister and Brent—she had fallen in love.

They’d talked into the wee hours of the morning, sharing stories of their childhood, of their memories, of the best and worst things that had ever happened to them.

She told him about the first camera she’d ever had—that her grandfather had given her when she was seven. He told her about the first time he’d climbed a mountain and thought he could do anything. She told him about her beloved father who had died earlier that winter and about the loss she felt. He understood. He told her about losing his only brother to leukemia when he was ten and his brother thirteen. They had talked and they had touched. They had stroked and smiled and kissed.

And they had made love again. And again.

It was always going to be like that, Daisy vowed. She had met the man of her dreams, the one who understood her down to the ground, the man she would love and marry and have children with and grow old with—

—until she’d said so.

She remembered that Sunday morning as if it had been yesterday.

They’d finally fallen asleep in each other’s arms at dawn. When Daisy had awakened again it was nearly ten. Alex was still asleep, sprawled on his back in her bed, bare-chested, the duvet covering him below the waist. He was so beautiful. She could have just sat there and stared at him forever, tracing the strong lines of his features, the hollows made by his collarbone, the curve of muscle in his arms, the long, tapered fingers that had made her quiver with their touch. She remembered how he’d looked, naked and primal, rising above her when they’d made love.

She would have liked to do it again. She had wanted to slide back beneath the duvet and snuggle up against him, to rub the sole of her foot up and down his calf, then let her fingers walk up and down his thigh, and press kisses to the line of dark hair that bisected his abdomen.

But as much as she wanted to do that, she also wanted to feed him before he had to catch his plane. She knew he had an early evening flight to Paris where he would be spending the next month at the main office of the firm he worked for. She’d hated the thought of him leaving, but she consoled herself by hoping that when he started his own company he would bring it stateside. Or maybe she would follow him to Paris.

Daisy had tried to imagine what living in Paris—living in Paris with Alex—would be like while she made them eggs and bacon and toast for breakfast. The thoughts made her smile. They made her toes curl.

She’d been standing at the stove, toes curling as she turned the bacon when hard muscled arms had come around her and warm breath had touched her ear.

“Morning,” Alex murmured, the burr of his voice sending a shiver of longing right through her.

“Morning yourself.” She’d smiled as he had kissed her ear, her nape, her jaw, then turned her in his arms and took her mouth with a hunger that said, The hell with breakfast. Let’s go back to bed.

But she’d fed him a piece of bacon, laughing as he’d nibbled her fingers. And she’d actually got him to eat eggs and toast as well before they’d rolled in the sheets once more.

Finally in the early afternoon he’d groaned as he sat up and swung his legs out of bed. “Got to grab a shower. Come with me?” He’d cocked his head, grinning an invitation that, despite feeling boneless already, Daisy hadn’t been able to refuse.

The next half hour had been the most erotic experience of her life. Both of them had been wrung out, beyond boneless—and squeaky clean—by the time the hot water heater had begun to run cold.

“I need to go,” he’d said, kissing her thoroughly once more as he pulled on a pair of cords and buttoned up his shirt.

“Yes,” she agreed, kissing him back, but then turning away long enough to stuff her legs into a pair of jeans and pluck a sweater from the drawer. “I’ll go out to the airport with you.”

Alex had protested that it wasn’t necessary, that he was perfectly capable of going off by himself, he did it all the time.

But Daisy was having none of it. She’d smiled saucily and said, “Yes, but now you have me.”

She’d gone with him to the airport, had sat next to him in the back of the hired car and had shared long drugging kisses that she expected to live off until he returned.

“I’ll miss you,” she’d told him, nibbling his jaw. “I can’t believe this has happened. That we found each other. I never really believed, but now I do.”

“Believed?” Alex lifted his head from where he’d been kissing her neck long enough to gaze into her eyes. “In what?”

“This.” She punctuated the word with a kiss, then looked deeply into his eyes. “You. Me. It’s just like my mother said. Love at first sight.” She smiled, then sighed. “I just hope we get more years than they did.”

There was a sudden stillness in him. And then a slight movement as he pulled back. A small line appeared between his brows. “Years? They?”

“My parents. They fell in love like this. Took one look at each other and fell like a ton of bricks. There was never anyone else for either of them. They were two halves of the same soul. They should have had fifty years. Seventy-five,” Daisy said recklessly. “Instead of twenty-six.”

Alex didn’t move. He barely seemed to breathe. The sparkle in his light green eyes seemed suddenly to fade.

Daisy looked at him, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

He’d swallowed. She could remember the way she’d watched his Adam’s apple move in his throat, then the way he’d shaken his head slowly and said, “You’re talking a lifetime, aren’t you?”

And ever honest, Daisy had nodded. “Yes.”

There had been a split second before the world tilted. Then Alex had sucked in a harsh breath. “No.” Just the one word. Hard, decisive, determined. Then, apparently seeing the look on her face, he’d been at pains to assure her. “Oh, not for you. I’m not saying you won’t have a lifetime … with someone. But … not me.”

She remembered staring at him, stunned at the change in him. He seemed to have pulled inside himself. Closed off. Turned into the Ice Man as she’d watched. “What?” Even to her own ears her voice had sounded faint, disbelieving.

Alex’s jaw set. “I’m not getting married,” he’d told her. “Ever.”

“But—”

“I don’t want to.”

“But—”

“No.” His tone was implacable. Yet despite the coldness of his tone, there was fire in his eyes. “No hostages to fortune,” he’d said. “No wife. No kids. No falling in love. Too much pain. Never again.”

“Because … because of your brother?” She had only barely understood that kind of pain. Her parents had been gloriously happily married until her father’s death a month before. And she had witnessed what her mother was going through after. There was no doubt it was hard. It was hard on her and on her sister, too. But her parents had had a beautiful marriage. It had been worth the cost.

She’d tried to explain that to Alex in the car. He hadn’t wanted to hear it.

“It’s fine for you if that’s what you want,” he’d said firmly. “I don’t.”

“But last night … this morning …?” Daisy had been grasping desperately at straws.

“You were great,” he’d said. Their gazes had met for a moment. Then deliberately Alex looked away.

By the time they’d arrived at the airport, there were no more kisses, only a silence as big and dark as the Atlantic that would soon stretch between them. Alex didn’t look at her again. His fingers were fisted against his thighs as he stared resolutely out the window.

Daisy had stared at him, willed him to reconsider, to believe—to give them a chance!

“Maybe I was asking for too much too soon,” she ventured at last as their hired car reached the airport departure lanes. “Maybe when you come back …”

Alex was shaking his head even as he turned and looked at her. “No,” he said, his voice rough but adamant.

She blinked quickly, hoping he didn’t notice the film of unshed tears in her eyes as she stared at him mutely.

“I won’t be back, Daisy. A lifetime is what you want,” he’d said. “I don’t.”

It was the last thing he’d said to her—the last time she’d seen him—until she’d opened the door a few minutes ago.

Now she dared to stare at him for just a moment as she tried to calm her galloping heart and mend her frayed nerves, tried to stuff Alexandros Antonides back into the box in the distant reaches of her mind where she’d done her best to keep him for the past five years.

It wasn’t any easier to feel indifferent now than it ever had been. He was certainly every bit as gorgeous as he had been then. A shade over six feet tall, broad-shouldered in a pale blue dress shirt and a gray herringbone wool sport coat, his tie loosened at his throat, Alex looked like the consummate successful professional. His dark hair was cut a little shorter now, but it was still capable of being wind-tossed. His eyes were still that clear, light gray-green, arresting in his tanned face with its sharply defined cheekbones and blade-straight nose. And his sensuous mouth was, heaven help her, more appealing than ever with its hint of a smile.

“Why are you here?” she demanded now.

“Lukas sent me,” he said.

“Lukas?”

Alex’s cousin Lukas had been her official “other half” at the wedding where she’d met Alex. He’d insisted she stay by his side at the reception long enough so that his mother and aunts wouldn’t fling hopeful Greek girls at his head. Once he’d established that he wasn’t available, he’d given her a conspiratorial wink, a peck on the cheek and had ambled off to drink beer with his brothers and cousins, leaving her to fend for herself.

That was when she’d met Alex.

Now Alex pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and poked it in front of her face. “He said I should talk to his friend Daisy the matchmaker.”

Yes, there it was—her name, address and phone number—in Lukas’s spiky handwriting. But she was more arrested by his words than what he was waving in front of her face. “You’re looking for a matchmaker? You?”

Alex shrugged. “No doubt you’re amazed,” he said easily. “Thinking I’ve changed my mind.”

She didn’t know what to think.

“I haven’t,” he said firmly. “I’m not looking for hearts and flowers, kindred spirits, the melding of two souls any more than I ever was.”

She wondered if he was being so adamant in case she decided to propose. No fear of that, she wanted to tell him. Instead she pressed her lips into a tight line.

“I want a marriage of convenience,” Alex went on. “A woman with her own life, doing her own thing. She’ll go her way, I’ll go mine. But someone who will turn up if a business engagement calls for it. And who’s there … at night.”

“A sex buddy?” Daisy said drily.

Was that a line of color creeping above his shirt collar? “Friends,” he said firmly. “We’ll be friends. It’s not just about sex.”

“Hire a mistress.”

“I don’t want a mistress. That is just about sex.”

“Whatever. I can’t help you,” she said flatly.

“Why not? You’re a matchmaker.”

“Yes, but I’m a matchmaker who does believe in hearts and flowers, kindred spirits, the melding of two souls.” She echoed his words with a saccharine smile. “I believe in real marriages. Love matches. Soul mates. The kind you don’t believe in.” She met his gaze steadily, refusing to look away from those beautiful pale green eyes that she’d once hoped to drown in forever.

Alex’s jaw tightened. “I believe in them,” he said harshly. “I just don’t want one.”

“Right. So I repeat, I can’t help you.” She said the words again, meant them unequivocally. But even as she spoke in a calm steady tone, her heart was hammering so hard she could hear it.

Their gazes met. Locked. And with everything in her, Daisy resisted the magnetic pull that was still there. But even as she fought it, she felt the rise of desire within her, knew the feelings once more that she’d turned her back on the day he’d walked out of her life. It wasn’t love, she told herself. It was something else—something as powerful and perverse and demanding as anything she’d ever felt.

But she was stronger now, and no longer an innocent. She had a life—and a love in it—that was worth resisting Alex Antonides.

“I hope you find what you’re looking for,” she said, holding his gaze. “It was nice to see you again.”

It was, she hoped, a clear dismissal. It was also a blatant lie. She could have gone the rest of her life without seeing Alex again and died a happy woman. She didn’t need a reminder of the stupidest thirty hours of her life. But in another way, she was aware of owing him her unending gratitude.

That single day had forever changed her life.

“Was it?” he asked. His words were as speculative as his gaze. He smiled. And resist as she would, she saw in that smile the man who once upon a time had melted her bones, her resolve, every shred of her common sense, then broken her heart.

She turned away. “Goodbye, Alex.”

“Daisy.” His voice stopped her.

She glanced back. “What?”

The smile grew rueful, crooked, far too appealing. “Have dinner with me.”

CHAPTER TWO

“WHAT? No!” She looked panic-stricken. Horrified.

Not at all like the Daisy he remembered. And yet she was so much the Daisy he remembered that Alex couldn’t just turn and walk away. Not now. Not when he’d finally found her again. “Why not?”

“Because … because I don’t want to!” Her cheeks had grown red in the throes of passion. Her whole body had blushed when he’d made love to her. His body—right now—was already contemplating doing the same thing again.

Which was a profoundly stupid idea, considering what he wanted, what she wanted, considering the present—and their past.

“Do you hate me?” he asked. He remembered the way they had parted. She’d looked devastated, about to cry. Thank God she hadn’t. But what she’d wanted—the hope of a lifetime of love—was his worst nightmare. It brought back memories that he’d turned his back on years ago. What had begun happening between them that weekend was something he wasn’t ready for. Would never be ready for.

So there was no point in making her hope in vain. He regretted having hurt her when he’d left her. But he could never bring himself to regret that weekend. It was one of the best memories of his life.

“Of course I don’t hate you,” she said briskly now. “I don’t care at all about you.”

Her words were a slap in the face. But he supposed he had it coming. And it was just as well, wasn’t it, that she didn’t care? It meant he hadn’t hurt her badly after all.

“Well, then,” he suggested easily, “let’s share a meal.” He gave her his best engaging grin. “For old times’ sake,” he added when he could see the word no forming on her lips.

“We don’t have old times.”

“We have one old time,” he reminded her softly.

Her cheeks grew brighter yet. “That was a long, long time ago. Years. Five or six at least.”

“Five,” he said. “And a half.” He remembered clearly. It was right after that weekend that he’d made up his mind to stay in Europe, to buy a place in Paris.

It made sense businesswise, he’d told himself at the time. But it wasn’t only business that had made him dig in across the pond. It was smarter to put an ocean between himself and the temptation that was Daisy.

She was still tempting. But a dinner he could handle. “It’s just a meal, Daisy. I promise I won’t sweep you off to bed.” Not that he wouldn’t like to.

“You couldn’t,” she said flatly.

He thought he could, but emotions would get involved. So he wouldn’t go there, as tempting as it was. Still, he wasn’t willing to walk away, either. “We have a lot to catch up on,” he cajoled.

But Daisy shook her head. “I don’t think so.” Her smile was brittle. He saw none of the sunny sincerity he’d always associated with his memories of her. Interesting.

He studied her now, wondering what her life had been like over the past five years. He’d always imagined she’d found the true love she’d been seeking, had found a man who’d made her happy. And if the thought occasionally had made him grind his teeth, he told himself a guy couldn’t have everything. He had what he wanted.

Now he wondered if Daisy had got what she wanted. Suddenly he wanted to know.

“Another time then,” he suggested.

“Thank you, but no.”

He knew he was going to get “no” if he asked a hundred times. And the knowledge annoyed him. “Once upon a time we had a lot to say to each other,” he reminded her.

“Once upon a time is for fairy tales, Alex. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”

“Let’s,” he said readily. “I’ll walk with you.”

“I don’t mean go somewhere else,” she said. “I mean I have to go back inside. I have work to do. In my office.”

“Matchmaking?”

She shook her head. “Not tonight.”

“Photography?” He remembered the camera, how it had been almost a natural extension of who she was.

She nodded, smiling a little. It was a real smile.

“You’ve got your own business then?” he pressed.

“Yes.” She nodded. The smile stayed.

“Families? Kids? People of all shapes and sizes?” And at her further nod, he said, “Show me.”

She almost moved toward the door, almost started to invite him in. But then she stayed where she was, gave her head a little shake. “I don’t think so.”

“You took photos of us.” Sometimes he’d wished he had one. To take out and remember. But that was stupid. It was better to forget.

She shrugged and looked just a little uncomfortable. He wondered if she still had the photos.

“Why matchmaking?” he asked her suddenly.

She shrugged. “Long story.” And no invitation to ask her to tell it.

He lifted a corner of his mouth. “I’ve got time.”

“I don’t.”

“You’re scared.”

The color in her cheeks bloomed again. “I am not scared! What’s there to be scared of?”

“I don’t know. You tell me.” He cocked his head. “Temptation maybe?”

She shook her head adamantly. “I’m not tempted. I’m busy. I have things to do. I haven’t seen you in five years, Alex. I barely knew you then. We don’t have a past to catch up on.”

“We had a hell of a lot.” He didn’t know why he was persisting, but he couldn’t seem to leave it alone.

“And we wanted to do different things with it. Goodbye, Alex.” She turned away and started to go back inside.

But before she could, Alex caught her arm, and spun her slowly back, then did what he’d been wanting to do ever since he’d realized who she was.

He dipped his head and kissed her.

It was instinct, desire, a mad impetuous hunger that he couldn’t seem to control. It was a roaring in his ears and a fire in his veins. It was the taste of Daisy—a taste he’d never forgotten. Never. And as soon as he tasted her, he wanted more.

And more.

For a second, maybe two, Daisy seemed to melt under the touch of his lips. She went soft and pliable, shaping her mouth to his. And then, in another instant, it was over.