The Greek's Secret Son

Anatole came and sat down beside her. ‘Time to relax,’ he said genially, flicking on the TV with a remote.

He hefted his feet up onto the coffee table, disposing of his tie over the back of the sofa. He wanted to be totally comfortable. The mix of champagne and sweet wine was creaming pleasantly in his veins. He hoped it was doing so in Tia, as well, allowing her to enjoy the rest of the evening with him before he took himself off to his hotel.

Idly, he wondered whether he should phone and tell them to expect him, but then he decided not to bother. Instead he amused himself by channel-surfing until he chanced upon a channel that made his unexpected guest exclaim, ‘Oh, I love this movie!’

It was a rom-com, perfectly watchable, and he was happy to do so. Happy to see Tia curl her bare feet under her skirt on the sofa and lean back into the cushions, her eyes on the screen.

At what point, Anatole wondered as he topped up her glass again, had he moved closer to her? At what point, as he’d stretched and flexed his legs, had he also stretched and flexed his arms, so that one of them was now resting along the back of the sofa, his fingertips grazing the top of her shoulder?

At what point had his fingers started idly playing with the now dry silky-soft pale curls around her neck?

At what point had he accepted that he had no desire—none whatsoever—to go anywhere else tonight?

And all the caution and the warnings sounding in his head, in what remained of his conscience, were falling on ears that were totally, profoundly deaf...

The film came to its sentimental end, with the hero sweeping the heroine up into his arms, lavishing an extravagant kiss upon her upturned face, and the music soared into the credits. A huge sigh of satisfaction was breathed from Tia, and she set down her now empty glass, turning back towards Anatole.

Emotion was coursing through her, mingling with the champagne and with that deliciously sweet wine she’d been drinking, with the gorgeous food she’d eaten—the best she’d ever tasted—all set off by candles and soft music and with her very own prince to keep her company.

It was foaming in her bloodstream, shining from her eyes. The rom-com they’d watched was one of her favourites, sighed over many times, but this—this now, here, right now—with her very own gorgeous, incredibly handsome man sitting beside her, oh, so tantalisingly close, was real! No fairytale, no fantasy—real. She’d never been this physically close to a man before—let alone a man like this! A man who could make fairytales come true...

And she knew how fairytales culminated! With the hero kissing the heroine...

Excitement, wonder—hope—filled her, and her eyes were shining like stars as she gazed up into the face of this glorious, gorgeous man who represented to her everything she had ever longed for, dreamt of, yearned for.

The man who was looking down at her, his dark eyes lustrous, his lashes long and lush, his sculpted mouth so beautiful, so sensual—

She felt a little thrill just thinking of it, her breath catching, her eyes widening as she looked up to his.

Anatole looked down at her, seeing the loveliness of her face, of the loose, long pale hair waving like silk over her slender shoulders, seeing how the sweet mounds of her breasts were pressed against the contours of her cotton tee shirt, how her soft tender lips were parted, how her celestial blue eyes were wide, gazing at him with an expression that told him exactly what she wanted.

For one long, endless moment he stayed motionless, while a million conflicting thoughts battled in his head over what he should do next. What he should do versus what he wanted to do.

Yet still he held back, knowing that what he wanted so badly to do he should not. He should instead pull back, make some gesture of withdrawal from her, get up, get to his feet, increase the distance between them. Because if he didn’t right now, then—

Her hand lifted, almost quivering, and with trembling fingers she let the delicate tips touch his jaw, feather-light, scarcely making contact, as if she hardly dared believe that this was what she was doing. She said his name. Breathed it. Her eyes were pools of longing. Her lips were parted, eyes half closed now. Waiting—yearning... For him.

And Anatole lost it. Lost all remaining shreds of conscience or consciousness.

He leaned towards her. The hand behind her head grazed her nape, his other hand slid along her cheek, his fingers gentle in her hair, cupping her face. Her eyes were wide, like saucers, and in them starlight shone like beacons, drawing him into her, into doing what she so blazingly wanted him to do.

His eyes washed over her, his pulse quickening. She was so lovely. And she so wanted him to kiss her... He could see it in her eyes, in her parted lips, in the quivering pulse in her delicate white throat.

His lashes swept down over his eyes as his mouth touched hers, soft as velvet, tasting the sweet wine on her lips, the warmth of her mouth as he opened it to his questing silken touch. He heard her give a little moan, deep in her throat, and he felt his own pulse surge, arousal spearing within him.

She was so soft to kiss, and he deepened his kiss automatically, instinctively, his hand sliding down over the curve of her shoulder, turning her towards him as he leant into her, drawing her to him, drawing her across him, so that her hand now braced itself against the hard wall of his chest, so that one slender thigh was against his.

He heard her moan again and it quickened his arousal. He said her name, told her how sweet she was, how very lovely. If he spoke in Greek he didn’t realise it—didn’t realise anything except that the wine was coursing in his bloodstream, recklessness was heady in his smitten synapses, and in his arms was a woman he desired.

Who desired him.

Because that was what her tender, lissom body was telling him—that was what the sudden engorgement of her breasts was showing him in the cresting of her nipples that were somehow beneath the palm of his hand.

Without realisation, she was winding her hand around his waist. He laid her back across his lap, half supported on his arm as he kissed her still, one hand palming her swelling breast until she moaned, eyes closed, her face filled with an expression of bliss he would have had to be blind not to see. He lifted his mouth from hers, let his eyes feast on her a moment, before his mouth descended yet again to graze on the line of her cheekbones, to nip at the tender lobes of her ears.

He let his hand slip reluctantly from her breast and then slide languorously along her flank to rest on her thigh, to smooth away the light cotton of her skirt until his hand found the bare skin beneath. To stroke and to caress and to hear her moan again, to feel her thigh strain against him—feel, too, his own body surge to full arousal.

Desire flamed in him...strong, impossible to resist...

And yet he must. This was too fast, too intense. He was letting his overpowering desire for her carry him away and he must draw back.

Heart pounding, he set her aside.

‘Tia—’ His voice was broken, his hand raised as if to ward her off. To hold himself back from her.

He saw her face fill with anguish. It caught at him like a blow.

‘Don’t...don’t you want me?’ There was dismay in her voice, which was a muted whisper.

He gave a groan. ‘Tia—I mustn’t. This isn’t right. I can’t take advantage of you like this!’

Immediately she cried out, ‘But you aren’t! Oh, please, please don’t tell me you don’t want me! I couldn’t bear it!’

Her hand flew to her mouth and her look of anguish intensified. Her breathing was fast and breathless and she felt bereft—lost and abandoned.

He caught her face between his hands. ‘Tia—I want you very, very much, but—’

But there’s more than one bedroom in this apartment and we have to be in separate bedrooms tonight—we just have to be! Because anything else would be...would be...

Her face had lit like a beacon again. ‘Please...please!’ she begged. Her face worked. ‘This whole evening with you has been incredible! Fantastic! Wonderful! And now...with you...it’s like nothing I’ve ever experienced in all my life! You are like no one I’ve ever met! I’ll never meet anyone else like you again, and this...all this...’

She gestured at the room, softly lit with table lamps, at the candles still on the dining table, the empty bottle of champagne, the glow of the lights on the terrace beyond.

‘All this will never happen to me again!’ She bit her lip, mouth quivering. ‘I want this so much,’ she said huskily, her eyes pleading with him, her hand fastening on his strong arm as if she might draw him back to her again. ‘Please,’ she begged again. ‘Please don’t turn me away—please!’

And yet again Anatole lost it.

Unable to resist what he did not want to resist, what he could not bear to resist, he swept her back up to him, his mouth descending to taste again the honeyed sweetness of her mouth which opened to his instantly, eagerly...hungrily.

She wants this—she wants this as much as I do. And, however briefly we have known each other, my desire for her is overpowering. And so is hers for me. And because of that...

Because of that, with a rasp deep in his throat, he hefted to his feet, holding her in his arms, his hand sweeping under her knees to cradle her against him as he carried her away.

Away not to the guest room but to his own master suite, where he ripped back the bedcovers to lay her gently upon cool sheets. She was gazing up at him, blindness in her eyes, her pupils flared, lips bee-stung, breasts straining against the moulding of the cotton tee.

He wanted it gone. Wanted all her clothes gone, and all his—wanted no barriers between himself and this lovely woman he wanted now...right now...

CHAPTER THREE

TIA GAZED UP at him—at this incredible, unbearably devastating man—her mind in whiteout. Her body seemed to be on fire, with a soft, velvet flame, glowing with a sensual awareness that was possessing her utterly. She reached her arms up to him, yearning for him, beseeching him to take her back in his arms, to kiss and caress her, to sweep her off into the gorgeous bliss of his touch, his desire for her.

He was stripping off his clothes and she could feel her eyes widen as his shirt revealed the smooth, taut contours of his chest. And then his fingers were at his belt, snaking it free...

She gave a little cry, turning her head into the pillow, suddenly desperately shy. She had never dreamt that a man like this would ever be real in her life, and he was suddenly only too real.

Then she felt the mattress dip, felt his weight coming down beside her, heard him murmur soft words, urgent words, seductive, irresistible...and then his hand was curving her face back towards his, and he was so close to her, so very close, and in his eyes was a light she had never seen in a man’s eyes before. She’d never seen a man’s eyes so filled with blazing, burning fire...

I can’t stop this—I can’t stop it—and I don’t want to! Oh, I don’t want to!

She wanted it to happen, wanted what would happen now—what must happen now—wanted it with all her being, yearned and longed for it. It had come out of nowhere—just as the whole encounter with this amazing, fabulous man had come out of nowhere.

And I can’t say no to it. I can’t and I don’t want to. I want to say yes—only yes...

Her eyes fluttered closed and she felt his mouth feather-light on hers, like swansdown. She felt his hands move to her waist, lift the material of her tee shirt from her, easing it over her head with hardly a pause in his sweet kissing. She felt his hands—warm, strong, skilled—slide around her back, unfasten her bra and slip it from her, discarding it somewhere. She knew not where and she did not care—did not care at all except that now he was doing the same with her skirt, skimming it from her, and then... Oh, then he was easing her panties from her quickening thighs.

He lifted himself from her, one hand splaying into her hair as it spread in tumbling golden curls across the pillow. His eyes burned into hers. ‘You are so, so beautiful,’ he said. ‘So beautiful...’

She could say nothing, could only gaze upwards, hearing her mind echoing his words... He was beautiful! He with his sable hair and his sculpted cheekbones, with eyes you could drown in. His hard, lean body that her hands were now lifting themselves to of their own accord.

Her fingertips traced every line, every contour of the smooth, honed muscles. He seemed to shudder and she felt his muscles clench, as if what she was doing was unbearable, and then his mouth descended again.

Hungry...oh, so hungry.

And there was a hunger in her too. A ravening hunger that was as instinctive, as overpowering, as her need to be held and kissed and caressed by this most blissfully seductive of men. It was making her body arch to his, the blood rush like a torrent in her veins, drowning her senses, turning her into living flame. Never had she imagined that passion could feel like this! Never had her daydreams known what it was to be like this, in the arms of a man filled with urgent desire.

And she desired him.

She clung to him, not knowing what she was doing, only that it was what she burned to do. Her body arched to his, her thighs parting. She heard him say something but was lost to all coherence.

He seemed to pause, pull away from her, and it was unbearable not to have his warm, strong body over hers. And then, with a rush of relief, she felt him there again, kissing her again, his hands urgent, every muscle in his body tautening. She felt his body ease between hers, felt his hips move against hers, felt—

Pain! A sudden, piercing stab of pain!

She cried out, freezing, and he froze too. He gazed down at her, his eyes blind, then clearing into vision. Words escaped him. He was shocked.

He lifted from her and the pain vanished. Her hands reached for him, her head lifting blindly to catch his mouth again. But he was still withdrawn from her.

‘I didn’t know—I didn’t realise—’ The words fell from him. Shocked. Abrupt.

She could only gaze up at him. Devastation was flooding through her.

‘Don’t you want me?’ It was all that was in her head now—the devastation of his rejection before.

‘Tia...’ He said her name again. ‘I didn’t realise that I would be the first man for you—’

Her hands pressed into his bare shoulders. ‘I want you to be! Only you! Please—oh, please!’

Conflict seared in him. He burned for her, and yet—

But she was pressing her body against his, crushing her breasts against the wall of his chest. Lifting her hips to his in an age-old invitation of woman to man, to possess and be possessed.

‘Please...’ she said, her voice a low husk, a plea. ‘Please—I want this so much—I want you so much.’

Her hand slid around the base of his skull, pressing against it, drawing his head down. She reached up with her mouth, feeling as her lips touched his a relief go through her that sated all her ardent yearning, all her desperate desire.

She opened his mouth under hers and Anatole, with a low, helpless groan, abandoned all his inner conflict, let himself yield to what he so wanted to do...to make her his.

* * *

It was morning. The undrawn curtains were letting in the light of dawn. Drowsily, wonderingly, Tia lay in Anatole’s arms. There had been no more pain, and he had been as gentle with her as if she were made of porcelain—though the soft tenderness of her body now proclaimed that she was flesh and blood. But there was only a fading ache now, and in the cocoon of his strong arms it mattered not at all.

His arm was beneath her shoulder, her head lax upon it, and she smiled up at him, bemused, enchanted. His dark eyes were moving over her face, his other hand smoothing the tendrils of her silken hair from her cheeks. He was smiling back at her—a smile of intimacy, endearment. It made her feel weak with longing.

Bliss enveloped her, and a wonder so great that she could scarcely dare to believe that it was true, what had happened.

‘Do you have to return to work?’ Anatole was asking her.

She frowned a little, not understanding. ‘The agency will open again at nine,’ she said.

Anatole shook her head. ‘I mean, do you have to take up another position? Are you booked to be a carer for someone else?’

Her frown deepened. She was understanding even less.

He smoothed her silken hair again, his eyes searching her face. ‘I don’t want you to go,’ he said to her. ‘I want you to stay with me.’

He watched her expression change. Watched it transform before his very eyes. Saw her cerulean blue eyes widen as she took in the meaning of what he’d said.

His smile deepened. Became assured. ‘I have to go to Athens this week. Come with me—’

Come with me.

The words echoed in his head. He was sure of them—absolutely, totally sure. He felt a wash of desire go through him—not for consummation but for continuation.

I don’t want to let her go—I want to keep her with me.

The realisation was absolute. The clarity of his desire incontrovertible.

‘Do you mean it?’

Her words were so faint he could hardly hear them. But he could hear the emotion in her voice, see how her expression had changed, how her eyes were flaring wide, and in them hope blazed, dimmed only by confusion.

He brushed her parted lips. ‘I would not ask you otherwise,’ he said, knowing that to be true.

His arm around her tightened. She was so soft in his arms, so tiny, it seemed to him, nestling up against him.

He smiled at her. ‘Well?’ he asked. ‘Will you come with me?’

The shadow of confusion, of fear that she had misunderstood, that he did not really mean what he’d said, vanished. Like the sun coming out, her smile lit up her face.

‘Oh, yes! Yes, yes, yes!’

He laughed. He had had no fear that she would say no—why should she? The night they had spent together had been wondrous for her—he knew that—and he knew that he had coaxed her unschooled body to an ecstasy that had shocked her with its intensity. Knew that her ardent, bemused gaze in the sweet, exhausted aftermath of his lovemaking betokened just what effect he’d had on her.

And if he wanted proof of that today—well, here it was. She was gazing at him now with a look on her face that spread warmth through his whole being.

He brushed her lips with his again. Felt arousal—drowsy, dormant, but still present—start to stir. He deepened his kiss, using slow, sensuous, feather-light touches to stir within her an answering response. He would need to be gentle—very careful indeed—and take account of the dramatic changes to her body after their first union.

He felt her fingertips steal over his body, exploring...daring...fuelling his arousal with every tentative touch and glide...

With a deep, abiding satisfaction he started to make love to her again.

* * *

It was several days before they went to Athens. Days in which Tia knew she had, without the slightest doubt, been transported to a fantasy land.

How could she be anywhere else? She had been transported there by the most gorgeous, the most wonderful, the most shiveringly fabulous man she could ever have imagined! A man who had cast a glittering net of enchantment over her life.

That first morning, after he had made love to her again—and how was it possible for her body to feel what it did? She’d never known, never guessed that it was so—they’d breakfasted out on the little terrace, with the morning sun illuming them.

Then he’d whisked her off to one of the most famous luxury department stores in the world, from which she’d emerged, several hours later, with countless carrier bags of designer clothes and a new hairstyle—barely shorter, but so cunningly cut it had felt feather-light on her head, floating over her shoulders. Her make-up had been applied by an expert, and Anatole had smiled in triumphant satisfaction when he saw her.

I knew she could look fantastic with the right clothes and styling!

His eyes had worked over her openly, and he’d seen the flush of pleasure in her face. The glow in her eyes. Felt the warmth of it.

I’ve done the right thing—absolutely the right thing.

The certainty of that had streamed through him. This breathtakingly lovely creature that he’d scooped off the road and taken into his life was exactly right for him.

And so it had proved.

Taking Tia to Athens would only be the first of it.

He’d sorted out a passport for her—or rather, his office had—and they were now flying out...first class obviously.

For the entire flight she sat beside him in a state of stupefied bliss, sipping at her glass of champagne and gazing out through the porthole with a look of enchanted disbelief that this could really be happening to her.

In Athens, his chauffeured car was waiting to take him to his apartment—he did not use the Kyrgiakis mansion, far preferring his own palatial flat, with its stunning views of the Acropolis.

‘Didn’t I tell you that you should see the Parthenon one day?’ he quizzed her smilingly, indicating the famous ruins visible from all around. ‘It’s not in the best of shape because the Ottomans used it as a gunpowder store, which exploded...’ He grimaced. ‘But it’s being preserved as well as possible.’

‘Ottomans?’ Tia queried.

‘They came out of what is now Turkey and conquered Greece in the fifteenth century—it took us four hundred years to be free.’ Anatole explained.

Tia looked at him uncertainly. ‘Was that Alexander the Great?’ she asked tentatively, knowing that the famous character must come into Greek history somewhere.

Anatole’s mouth twitched. ‘Out by over two thousand years, I’m afraid. Alexander was before the Romans. Greece only became independent in modern times—during the nineteenth century.’ He patted her hand. ‘Don’t worry about it. There’s a huge amount of history in Greece. You’ll get the hang of it eventually. I’ll take you to the Parthenon while we’re here.’

But in the end he didn’t, because instead, business matters having been attended to, he decided to charter a yacht and take her off on an Aegean cruise.

His father had commandeered the Kyrgiakis yacht, but the one upon which he and Tia sailed off into the sunset was every bit as luxurious, and it reduced Tia to open-mouthed, saucer-eyed amazement.

‘It’s got a helicopter!’ she breathed. ‘And a swimming pool!’

‘And another one indoors, in case it ever rains,’ Anatole grinned. ‘We’ll go skinny-dipping in both!’

Colour flushed in her cheeks, and he found it endearing. He found everything about her endearing. Despite the fact that after a fortnight together she was way past being the virginal ingénue she’d been that first amazing night together, she was still delightfully shy.

But not so shy that she refused to go for a starlit swim with him—the crew having been ordered to keep well below decks—nor declined to let him make love to her in the water, until she cried out with a smothered cry, her head falling back as he lifted her up onto his waiting body.

For ten days they meandered around the Aegean, calling in at little islands where he and Tia strolled along the waterfront, lunching in harbourside restaurants, or drove inland to picnic beneath olive groves, with the endless hum of the cicadas all about them.

Simple pleasures...and Anatole wondered when he had last done anything so peaceful with any female. Certainly not with any female who was as boundlessly appreciative as Tia was.

She adored everything they did together. Was thrilled by everything—whether it was taking the yacht’s sailing dinghy to skim over the azure water to a tiny cove on a half-deserted island, where they lunched on fresh bread and olives and ripest peaches and then made love on the sand, washing off in the waves thereafter, or whether, like today, it was drinking a glass of Kir Royale and watching the sun set over a harbour bar, before returning to the yacht, moored out in the bay, for a five-course gourmet meal served on the upper deck by the soft-footed, incredibly attentive staff aboard, while music played from unseen speakers all around, the yacht moved on the slow swell of the sea and the moon rose out of the iridescent waters.