Constantine's Revenge
Kate Walker
His plan was to make her his mistress…When Constantine Kiriazis reappeared after two years, Grace thought he'd finally forgiven her for her lack of trust in him - and for canceling their wedding. Certainly Constantine's desire for her had not waned. But neither had his desire for revenge…He fully intended to seduce Grace, but vowed she'd only be his mistress - never his wife. It was only when she melted in his arms that Constantine began to wonder who was exacting the revenge and who was paying the price!
“You couldn’t trust me completely then, and I cannot trust you now. And that is why you will never be my wife.”
Well, she’d asked for it, Grace told herself unhappily.
“So that’s it,” she said drearily. “That’s all there is to say.”
“Not entirely.” Constantine surprised her by coming back swiftly. “The question is, where do we go from here?”
“Go? Is there anywhere to go?”
“Of course.” He sounded stunned that she should have doubted it.
“But—but you don’t love me. You don’t trust me. So what basis do we have for any sort of relationship?”
“The perfect basis for the kind of relationship I have in mind.”
Constantine’s Revenge
Kate Walker
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER ONE
IT HAD begun with a knock at the door.
Such a simple thing and yet it had changed Grace’s life for ever. It had taken her happiness, her dreams of a future, and ripped them into tiny shreds. And as a result, even now, two years later, she still had to nerve herself to answer any summons from someone on the outside of the house.
‘Gracie, sweetie!’ Ivan’s voice reached her from the kitchen, where he was busy creating his own devilishly intoxicating version of a fruit punch. ‘Are you going to answer that or just stand and stare at the door all day?’
‘Of course I am!’
She hadn’t even been aware that that was what she had been doing, Grace realised as, with a fierce little mental shake, she pushed herself into action. It was stupid to react in this way. After all, it was fully twenty-four months since that appalling day. This wasn’t her father’s house, the place she had used to call home, but the elegant Victorian building where Ivan had the ground-floor flat. And nothing could be more different from the careful preparations for the elaborate society wedding of the past than the casual, noisily crowded atmosphere of the party her friend was giving to celebrate his thirtieth birthday.
‘I didn’t know we were expecting anyone else!’ she tossed over her shoulder, using laughter to disguise the irrational uncertainty that still clutched at her stomach as she hurried to answer a second imperious knock at the door. ‘Just how many people have you invited? The place is bursting at the seams already.’
‘A party isn’t a party until you don’t have room to breathe!’
Grace barely heard Ivan’s response. Joking hadn’t helped. If anything, the crazy feeling of apprehension had grown worse. She felt like some nervous cat, scenting the approach of an aggressive intruder into its territory, every fine blonde hair lifting at the back of her neck, her soft grey eyes clouded and shadowy.
Lightning couldn’t strike twice! she told herself. At least not the sort of lightning she had in mind.
White teeth digging sharply into the softness of her lower lip, she dragged in a deep, fortifying breath before grasping the handle firmly and pulling at the door.
It came open far more swiftly than she had anticipated, flying back towards her with a force that almost knocked her off balance, so that she staggered slightly, struggling to keep upright.
‘Steady…’
A deep, drawling voice, rich as honeyed cream, was the first thing she registered. Then two other facts hit home at the same time, with the force of a devastating blow in the pit of her stomach.
Two frighteningly significant facts. Two disturbingly familiar and shockingly vividly remembered details about the man before her that made her thoughts reel, her head spinning sickeningly.
Deep, dark eyes. Eyes black as jet, and every bit as hard. Their stunning colour and blazing intensity had been etched into her memory long ago, impossible to erase. And that sensual voice, exotically accented, seemed to coil around her nerves, tightening and twisting them until they screamed.
Other images bombarded her. Smooth olive-toned skin, a strong jaw, a beautiful mouth with a surprisingly full lower lip. Hair black as a raven’s wing, cropped uncompromisingly short in order to subdue a rebellious tendency to curl. Suddenly it was as if some cruel hand had reached out from the past, snatching hold of her and dragging her back into the tumult of emotions she had experienced then.
‘Are you all right?’
Strong hands had fastened over her arms, supporting her, and only when she was secure on her feet did the tall, dark man actually look into her face.
‘You!’ he said sharply, his expression changing instantly from one of concern to a look of pure contempt that seared over Grace’s already rawly sensitive skin. ‘I didn’t recognise you, looking like that.’
Every vital function in her body seemed to have shut down in shock. She had to tell herself to breathe, her heart to beat. Lightning could strike twice, it seemed. Certainly Greek lightning could. Because the force of the most violent electrical storm had always been the effect that this man had had on her.
‘Constantine!’
Her tongue felt clumsy as it tangled around the name that she had refused to speak for so long. The name she had promised herself she would never, ever use again if she could help it. But now sheer shock and a sense of unbelieving horror had forced it from her against her will.
‘What are you doing here?’
The look he turned on her burned with cynical disbelief. Only an idiot would have had the stupidity to ask that question, his lofty disdain declared. And if there was one thing that Constantine Kiriazis was quite unprepared to tolerate then it was the presence of any sort of a fool.
‘I was invited,’ he declared, his voice as curt as his movements as he belatedly became aware of the way that he was still holding her, long, tanned hands on her arms, the immaculately manicured fingers incongruous against the shabby, well-worn leather of her jacket.
With a fastidious gesture that communicated only too clearly the feeling that simply to touch her had somehow contaminated him, he abruptly let her go and stepped away from her side. The move spoke eloquently of a mental distance that was far, far greater than the few centimetres that actually separated them.
‘This is where the party’s being held?’
With a brusque nod of her head Grace dismissed the unnecessary question. The sheer volume of noise behind her, the music and laughter, the loud buzz of fifty or more different conversations made a nonsense of the fact that he had even asked it.
‘But Ivan wouldn’t have invited you!’
The cynical lift of one black, straight brow mocked at her vehemence, shaking the certainty of her conviction without a single word.
‘Tell me, my sweet Grace, do you really believe that I would appear here, dressed like this…?’ An arrogant sweep of his hand swept down the powerful length of his body, drawing her clouded grey eyes unwillingly after it. ‘Without the excuse of your crazy friend’s theme party to justify it?’
Silently Grace cursed herself for being every sort of a fool. She hadn’t wanted even to look at him. But with that single haughty gesture he had forced her to do just that. And, having looked, she found herself incapable of turning away again.
She didn’t want to be reminded of the lean power and strength of Constantine’s body. Didn’t want to recall the honed muscle and hard bone that she had once known so intimately. It hurt just to remember how it had felt to be held in those arms, to be crushed close to the wall of that chest, feel that sensual mouth on her own.
‘I don’t think you’ve exactly understood the theme of tonight.’
Furious control gave her words a biting coldness, and her clear grey eyes were like shards of silvery ice as she let her gaze run back up the length of his tall frame in an expression of disdain that matched his own of only moments earlier. Matched and outstripped it as she let her full mouth curl derisively.
‘The idea is that this is a Turn Back the Clock party. Ivan’s painfully aware of the fact that at midnight he’ll be thirty, that he’ll have left his twenties behind for ever. Everyone is to dress in the sort of clothes they would have worn ten years ago, so that just for tonight he can pretend…’
‘Do you think I don’t know that?’ Constantine snapped, his accent deepening as anger marked his voice. ‘I do not need you to explain what I already understand perfectly. And if I had any doubts then the distressingly unflattering outfit you are wearing would erase them once and for all.’
‘At least I entered into the spirit of things!’ Grace flashed back at him, her chin lifting in angry defiance.
She didn’t need to be reminded that what she was wearing was so very different from the way he was used to seeing her. The way anyone was used to seeing her. Ten years ago she had been a mere fourteen, and then the skin-tight denim jeans worn with a white sleeveless tee shirt and a leather biker jacket over the top had been her ideal of relaxed weekend clothing.
Dressing to come to the party tonight, she had actually thought her chosen costume was quite fun. That the uncharacteristic way she had done her hair, tousling the blonde sleekness into wild disarray, together with the use of much more make-up than usual, particularly around her wide grey eyes, made her look younger and more relaxed. She had smiled to see herself looking totally unlike the elegant, controlled Grace Vernon her workmates at the advertising agency would have recognised.
But now, faced with Constantine’s obvious censure, she felt the bubble of euphoria that had buoyed her up burst painfully sharply, leaving her limp and miserably deflated. What had seemed light-hearted and fun now seemed gauche and unsophisticated in the extreme, making her shift uncomfortably from one foot to another as once more Constantine’s jet-black gaze seared over her in a way that brought a burning rush of colour to her pale cheeks. How she longed for the protection of her usual refined way of dressing.
If she had known he would be here tonight she would have worn something that oozed sophistication and would have knocked him dead. Something that would have shown him just what he was missing. What he had discarded so brutally when he had tossed her aside, declaring that she wasn’t fit to be his wife.
If she had known he would be here…!
Who was she kidding? If she had even so much as suspected that Constantine Kiriazis was in England, let alone in the capital, where she and Ivan lived, she would have turned and run, putting as much distance as was possible between herself and the man she had once loved so desperately.
‘I bothered to dress up, while you…’
‘And what, precisely, is wrong with what I’m wearing?’ Constantine enquired with a silky menace that sent a sneaking shiver down her spine.
‘It’s hardly fun, is it? I mean, it’s so…’
Words failed her. The only ones that sprang to mind were such that she clamped her mouth tight shut on them, refusing to let them out.
The truth was that his outfit was pure Constantine, somehow displaying outwardly the very essence of the man.
The long black cashmere overcoat he wore against the unexpectedly bitter winds of the last evening in March had to have been handmade and superbly tailored into its perfect fit on his athletic form. It spoke of wealth, more wealth than the average person could even begin to dream of, but an affluence that was very definitely old money. Riches that had been in the family for so long that they no longer even registered on their owner’s mind. And they certainly needed no show or ostentation to draw attention to their existence.
Constantine Kiriazis had never flaunted the trappings of the fortune she knew he possessed, both from having grown up as the son of a very rich man and from having earned a second, equally huge amount in his own right. His clothes, like the rest of the man, were always exquisite but severely restrained, the heavy, square-faced gold watch he wore on his wrist the only ornament he ever indulged in.
Underneath the luxurious overcoat he wore equally stark black and white: a pristine shirt, bow tie, close-fitting black trousers and, unexpectedly, a tailored waistcoat, but no jacket. In contrast to the weird and colourful assortment of clothing worn by the other guests in response to Ivan’s choice of the theme for his party, he looked polished, sophisticated, totally disciplined, not at all in the mood for a party.
‘So…?’ Constantine echoed, a dangerous edge to his voice.
‘So—controlled, so…’
She was only too well aware of the way that her own complicated feelings were setting her nerves on edge, making her take exception over what was in fact very far from her real preoccupation. She wanted—needed—to drag her thoughts away from their wanton fixation on the very masculine body beneath the fine clothes, the devastatingly sexual male animal that she knew Constantine to be.
‘You look like nothing so much as a waiter.’
Something violent flared in the depths of those stunning eyes at her tone, and she actually heard his strong white teeth snap together, as if he had bitten back the furious outburst he had been about to make. She knew her remark had caught him on the raw, stinging the fierce pride that was so much a part of his character.
‘It runs in the genes,’ he had told her once. ‘The ancient Greeks were cursed with it—the hubris that so often brought about their downfall. These days we call it perifania, but the feeling is exactly the same.’
‘It might interest you to know, my sweet Grace,’ he said now, ‘that that is exactly how I am supposed to look.’
His tone was surprisingly soft, but laced through with a thread of darkness that revealed only too clearly the ruthlessness with which he had reined in his volatile temper.
‘Ten years ago, when I was twenty-one and fresh out of university, my grandfather insisted that I learn about every aspect of his business empire—from the bottom up. I spent my first six months working as a waiter in one of the hotels owned by the Kiriazis Corporation.’
‘Oh…’
It was all she could manage. Her lips were suddenly painfully dry and she moistened them nervously with her tongue. The movement froze as she saw those intent black eyes drop to fix on the small action that betrayed the chaotic state of her thoughts, and at the same moment the significance of what he had said came home to her on a rush of shock.
‘Then—then Ivan did invite you?’
‘Ivan invited me,’ he acceded, moving at last into the small hallway and kicking the door shut behind him. The thud it made slamming home into its frame had such a sound of finality that Grace shuddered on a feeling of irrational dread. ‘You didn’t know that?’
Grace shook her head, sending her blonde hair flying.
‘I didn’t know.’
How could he? How could Ivan have done such a thing and not told her? He must have known how Constantine’s appearance would affect her, the pain it would inflict. Ivan of all people would know how far from being fully healed were the scars of the past, and yet he had behaved in a way that was the emotional equivalent of ripping open the old wounds.
‘But believe me, if I had known—if I’d had so much as the faintest suspicion that you might be here—then I wouldn’t have come. I would have gone anywhere rather than here—anywhere at all. After the way you behaved, I never wanted to see you again…’
Constantine’s beautifully carved mouth twisted in an expression of scorn that was heightened by the flare of fury in the inky depths of his eyes.
‘After the way you behaved…’ he returned silkily ‘…the feeling is entirely mutual. The question is, where do we go from here?’
‘You could turn round and walk out.’ Grace made the suggestion with little hope that it would be taken up, her fears confirmed as she saw the uncompromising shake of his dark head. Constantine Kiriazis would have known she must be here, and would have had his strategy worked out well in advance. He had never backed down before anyone. She had never really expected that he was going to start now.
‘Then…’
‘Gracie?’ It was Ivan’s voice, coming from very close behind her. ‘Are you—? Constantine! You made it! So tell me…how is my favourite Greek tycoon?’
‘I am well.’
Grace watched as Constantine submitted to the exuberant hug Ivan gave him with resigned patience. But one dark, straight brow did lift in questioning amazement at the other man’s costume of a school uniform, complete with two-coloured cap.
‘Ivan, my friend, were you truly still at school ten years ago? I thought that at the age of twenty you were actually at university…’
‘Strictly speaking, that’s true.’ Ivan laughed back. ‘But I was much happier at school, so I went for that. And if that’s bending the rules, who cares? After all, this is my party, so I can do as I like.’
‘Fair enough.’ Constantine’s amusement was evident in the warmth of his tone. A warmth that had been distinctly lacking when he had talked to her, Grace registered miserably.
This was one of the ways he had surprised her in the past. She had never expected that such a blatantly macho male as Constantine was would ever tolerate her friendship with the other, openly gay man. But Constantine had not only accepted it, he had apparently warmed to Ivan himself too.
In that, at least, he hadn’t behaved at all in the way she had expected. But in other ways, she reminded herself bitterly, he had been pure arrogant Greek male through and through. And when that pride had been turned on her it had savaged her life, ripping it apart.
‘I wasn’t sure if you would make it,’ Ivan was saying. ‘I thought you might be somewhere the other side of the world.’
As if that would stop Constantine going anywhere he wanted to be. This was a man who used his private plane to fly from country to country with the casual ease that other, lesser mortals might take a bus or the Tube. And wherever he was he always had a fleet of chauffeur-driven cars at his disposal. He had probably expended less effort to get here tonight than Grace herself.
But her thoughts had distracted her from what Constantine was saying. Too late she registered his words with a sense of horrified shock.
‘…major problems in the London office. I expect they will take three months or more to sort out.’
No! Grace barely caught back her response before the single word revealed her feelings. The only way she had coped over the past two years was by knowing that Constantine was thousands of miles away, in his office in Athens, or the family home on Skyros. The thought of him being practically on her doorstep for the next few months was a prospect that appalled her.
‘So we can hope to see more of you,’ Ivan continued, blithely ignoring the look of alarmed appeal Grace shot him. ‘Can’t be bad. Now, let me relieve you of that gorgeous coat.’
But as Constantine shrugged himself out of the elegant garment the sound of a buzzer from the kitchen brought Ivan’s platinum blond head swinging round.
‘The food! I’m sorry, darlings, I must dash or it will all be ruined. Gracie, you’ll see to this for me, won’t you?’
And, dumping Constantine’s coat in the arms she had no option but to hold out—it was either that or let it fall to the floor—he turned and with an airy wave in their vague direction hurried away again.
‘I see Ivan hasn’t changed.’ Constantine’s tone was dry. ‘Outrageous as ever.’
‘That’s Ivan…’
Grace prayed that her response didn’t sound as shaken and upset to Constantine as it did in her own ears. She was having to struggle to control the unexpected reaction that had assailed her simply as a result of holding the coat. It felt too personal, somehow, too intimate.
Soft and sensuous, it was still warm from the heat of Constantine’s body, and the tangy scent of the cologne he always wore still clung to the material, agonisingly familiar. It was impossible not to recall how in the past, when she had been held close to him, that fragrance had always filled her nostrils, intoxicatingly blended with the more subtle, personal aroma of his body. If she closed her eyes she could still feel the heat of his skin under her fingertips, the brush of his black hair against her cheek…
‘Grace?’
Constantine’s husky-voiced question intruded into the torrent of sensual memories that had flooded her mind, snapping her back to reality with a painful jolt. Wide and startled, her eyes flew open to clash sharply with his frowning black ones.
‘Where did you go?’
‘Nowhere!’
Her sharp response was too fast, too spiky, arousing his suspicions instead of subduing them. She saw his dark brows draw together swiftly and hastily set herself to covering her tracks.
‘I—I’m just a little tired,’ she invented hastily. ‘It’s been a difficult week at work. We’ve been having problems with a new campaign…’
‘You are still at Henderson and Cartwright?’
‘Yes…’
That was better. Her voice was back under control, calm and even.
‘I was promoted recently. Now I’m in charge of… But you don’t want to know this.’
She didn’t want him to know it. She didn’t want to let him know anything about her life or what was going on in it. He had relinquished that right when he had turned his back on her, and she had no intention of ever letting him in again.
Constantine’s shrug dismissed her comment as irrelevant.
‘I thought you were making polite conversation,’ he drawled indifferently. ‘It is something you are so good at here in England. It is so very civilised, especially in an uncomfortable situation.’
‘I’m not uncomfortable!’ Grace snapped defensively, grey eyes flashing defiantly.
‘Perhaps I meant myself,’
‘Oh, that I can’t believe!’ With a wave of her hand she dismissed Constantine’s silky murmur. ‘I’ve never seen you fazed by anything. You wouldn’t have got where you are if you let anything get to you. And you’ve been trained by an expert—your father.’
But she was on dangerous ground there. She knew it from the way his proud head went back sharply, the flare of something menacing in his eyes. But when he spoke no trace of his inner feelings shaded his tone.
‘Nevertheless, this could be somewhat…’ He hunted for the right word. ‘Awkward for you.’
‘That’s something of an understatement.’
Biting her lip, she wished the careless words back as she realised the advantage she had thoughtlessly given him.
He was quick to pounce on it, of course, that sensual mouth curving into a sardonic smile at her discomfiture.
‘You are clearly at a disadvantage here—Ivan gave you no warning of the fact that he had invited me, and I presume that some people here will know what passed between us.’
He knew only too well that almost everyone Ivan had invited would be aware of the fact that two years ago she had been about to marry this man, but that the wedding had never taken place. They might be unclear on the gruesome details, but after that final, appallingly public scene in the foyer of the agency, no one could be in any doubt that Constantine had tossed her aside and walked out of her life, ignoring her pleading for a second chance.
The fact that she had also been at fault in the beginning brought the additional complication of a guilty conscience to an already volatile mixture of emotions roiling inside her. Under the cover of the coat, her hands clenched tightly, crushing the expensive material.
‘That was two years ago, Constantine,’ she told him coldly. ‘Two years in which I have got on with my life, as I presume you have with yours.’
His nod of agreement was curt to the point of rudeness.
‘I’m over it,’ he declared bluntly.
‘And so am I.’ Grace wished she could sound as assured as he had done. ‘People have short memories. You and I might once have been a nine-day wonder, but now we’re stale news. Neither of us can leave—it would upset Ivan too much. So we’re just going to have to make the best of things. Don’t you agree?’
The look that seared over her was icily assessing; black eyes narrowed thoughtfully for a moment.
‘It should be easy enough,’ he said at last, his tone a masterpiece of indifference. ‘I shall simply do what I have done every day for the past two years, and that is to wipe your existence from my mind, forget I ever met you.’
‘In that case, why come here at all? You must have known…’
‘Obviously I knew you’d be here, but the wish to please Ivan on his birthday was strong enough to overcome the repugnance I felt at the thought of seeing you again.’
It was meant to hurt, and it achieved its aim with all the ruthless efficiency for which Constantine had achieved his reputation in the business world. Grace was deeply thankful for the protective concealment of the coat she still held as she crushed it close to her, feeling almost as if she needed to stem some agonising internal bleeding that had sprung from the wound he had deliberately inflicted on her.
‘But I don’t have to spend any more time with you. There are enough people here to distract us…’ An autocratic wave of one hand encompassed the crowded room at the far end of the hall. ‘And the room is quite large enough to keep us apart for some time.’
‘I couldn’t agree more.’ She had to force herself to say it. ‘If we’re really lucky, we won’t even have to see each other again.’
She would do it if it killed her, would rather die than let him see just what it was doing to her to have him here like this. Constantine nodded slowly, his gaze already drifting away towards the other room where other, obviously more attractive company awaited him.
‘That would make it possible to salvage something from this appalling evening.’
‘Then don’t let me hold you back!’
Her tartness drew that black-eyed gaze back to her for one more of those uncomfortably probing stares, a faintly cynical smile playing around Constantine’s firm mouth.
‘To be honest, my dear Grace, I sincerely doubt that anything you could do would ever affect me again.’
Was it possible? Grace asked herself as he strolled away without so much as a backward glance. Could he really feel nothing for her, not even the dark anger she had seen blazing in his face at their last, cataclysmic meeting? Did she now mean so little to him that he could dismiss her from his thoughts in the blink of an eye? What had happened to the love he had once declared so eloquently, the passion he had been unable to hide?
It was dead, she told herself drearily, dead and gone, as if it had never existed. Which seemed impossible when her own feelings were in such agonised turmoil that she felt as if there was a raging tornado where her heart should be, a monstrous tidal wave of shock and distress swamping her stomach. She could only pray that she was enough of an actor to hide her misery from Constantine. That she would be able to get through what remained of this evening without giving herself away completely.
CHAPTER TWO
IT WAS impossible.
There was no way at all that she could pretend, even to herself, that she was oblivious to the fact that Constantine was there in the room with her. His presence was like a constant dark shadow, always hovering at her shoulder, following her everywhere she went.
If she paused to talk to anyone she felt him there, just out of sight, driving all thought of what she had been about to say from her mind. If she tried to drink some wine, or taste some food from the extensive buffet Ivan had laid on, her throat closed over what she was trying to swallow, threatening to choke her.
And the worst thing was that, for some private reason of his own, Constantine hadn’t kept to his declaration that he was going to wipe her existence from her mind. She had only to glance across the room to meet the intent stare of his watchful black eyes following every movement she made, every smile, every word she spoke.
In the end she sought refuge in the kitchen, privately admitting to her own cowardice as she used the excuse of the mounting pile of washing up to keep her there, hidden away. She was filling the bowl with hot water for the second time when Ivan wandered into the room.
‘Uh—oh! I wondered where you’d got to. Does this mean I made a mistake?’
‘In inviting Constantine?’ Grace turned a reproving look on him. ‘What do you think? Ivan, how could you?’
‘No chance of you two making it up, then?’
‘Was that what was in your mind when you asked him here? If that was the case, you couldn’t be more wrong. It’s over, Ivan, and has been for years.’
‘Are you sure? He was pretty keen to accept. I thought perhaps—’
‘Well, you thought wrong,’ Grace inserted hastily, as much to squash down her own foolishly weak heart as it leapt on an absurd flutter of hope as to disillusion her friend. ‘Whatever reasons Constantine had for coming here today, seeing me wasn’t one of them. I mean, does he look like a man who can’t let me out of his sight?’
‘He looks like a man with something on his mind, if you ask me,’ Ivan returned, with a nod towards the open door.
Reluctantly Grace followed the direction of his gaze, her eyes fixing immediately on the tall, muscular figure of Constantine leaning against the wall. With a glass in one hand, he had his attention firmly fixed on the woman in front of him. Small and curvaceous, with long dark hair, she was wearing a nurse’s uniform with a skirt so indecently short she would never have been allowed on to any hospital ward.
‘And what he has on his mind is very definitely not me,’ she said, unable to erase the bitterness from her voice.
Her stepsister Paula was dark and petite, she recalled on a wrench of pain at the memory. And Constantine had always admitted to being attracted to small, curvy brunettes, so much so that Grace had never quite been able to understand just what he had been doing with her.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Ivan, leave it!’ Grace pleaded, unable to take any more.
The words had barely left her lips when Constantine looked up suddenly, deep-set eyes meeting Grace’s clouded grey ones. For a fleeting, tormenting moment their gazes locked, and she shivered before the cruel indifference in their ebony darkness. Then with a cold travesty of a smile Constantine lifted his glass in a grim mockery of a toast, one that had her biting down hard on her lower lip to keep back an expression of pain.
Swinging round so that she no longer had to see him or his companion, she squirted washing-up liquid into the bowl with a force that made bubbles boil up wildly.
‘Constantine has no thought of any reconciliation on his mind,’ she said through gritted teeth, blinking hard against the burning tears that stung her eyes. ‘Just get that into your head, will you?’
And just who are you trying to convince? her conscience questioned reproachfully, distracting her so that she was barely aware of Ivan leaving her alone again.
Was it true? Was it possible? Had she really been fool enough to harbour even the faintest hope after all this time? Oh Grace, Grace! You fool! You crazy, weak-minded fool!
How could she ever have been so stupid? Hadn’t Constantine made his feelings, or rather his lack of them, brutally clear? Had she spent so many long, lonely nights lying awake with that final callous dismissal still sounding in her thoughts, and yet not been convinced by it? She had to be out of her tiny, crazy mind if that was the case.
We have no future together… The words Constantine had flung at her, the coldly contemptuous voice in which they had been spoken lacerated her soul all over again, making his feelings for her patently clear.
Clear enough even for the most foolish, naively besotted heart, Grace told herself miserably. In spite of being blinded by love, as she had been then, she had heard the conviction in his voice, recognised the finality of the emotional life-sentence he had been handing her. So why should she allow herself to dare to question it now, when surely the two years’ silence, two years’ distance on Constantine’s part, was added evidence of just how much he had meant what he’d said?
‘If you wash that plate any more, you will erase the pattern from it.’
The dryly amused voice, instantly recognisable as Constantine’s, broke into her reverie with such unexpected suddenness that she started violently, dropping the plate into the washing-up water in a plume of spray.
‘Don’t sneak up on me like that!’
‘I did not sneak. You must have a guilty conscience to jump like that. Or perhaps you were daydreaming. Is that it, agape mou? Were you thinking of some man—someone deeply important to you, to judge by the look on your face?’
‘I wasn’t thinking of anyone!’ Grace objected, terrified that he would suspect the true nature of her thoughts. ‘And don’t call me that! I’m not your love any more!’
‘So you remember the Greek I taught you?’
She remembered that particular phrase! How could she ever forget it? Her thoughts skittered away from memories too painful to bear. Memories of tenderly embracing in the warm darkness of a mild early spring evening on Skyros, her head pillowed on the strong frame of his chest, hearing that softly accented voice whispering those words in a way that resonated with barely suppressed desire.
‘Oh, yes, I remember that, and so many other valuable lessons you taught me.’ Grace laced the words with vinegar, deliberately taking them miles away from the sort of lessons he had originally had in mind. ‘And believe me, I don’t ever intend to forget them. I— What are you doing?’
She flinched back as Constantine moved suddenly, one hand coming out towards her face.
Her instinctive panic earned her a sharp-eyed glance of reproof, Constantine’s mouth twisting cynically.
‘You have soap bubbles on your nose…’ A long finger gently flicked the froth away. ‘And on your brow… They might have gone into your eye.’
‘Thank you.’
It was muttered ungraciously because she was struggling with the shock waves of sensation, the recollection of other, very different feelings that this man’s lightest touch had once sparked off inside her. Times when it had seemed that those long, square-tipped fingers might have been made of molten steel, so intense had been the force of her reaction. She had felt as if the path they had taken was scorched deep into her flesh, branding her irrevocably as his.
‘It was no trouble,’ Constantine returned, the elaborate courtesy deliberately mocking at her stilted response. ‘Would you like some help in here?’
It was the last thing she wanted. Standing so close to her, she was sure he must sense the unevenness of her breathing, hear the heavy pounding of her heart. Just when she most wanted to appear unmoved and totally indifferent to his proximity, her traitorous body seemed determined to go into sensual overdrive, responding to the nearness of his with all the hunger of a famine victim suddenly presented with the most tempting banquet.
‘Won’t that rather spoil your plan to behave as if I don’t exist?’ she demanded, hiding her unsettled feelings behind a show of aggression. ‘Anyway there’s no need. There’s nothing left to do.’
To demonstrate the fact she removed the last plate and plonked it down on the drying rack before upending the bowl in the sink so that the soapy water drained away with a faint gurgling sound.
‘Then shall I fetch you a drink?’
Nerves on edge, Grace swung round suddenly to glare into Constantine’s unreadable black eyes.
‘Just what game are you playing now, Constantine? What exactly are you doing here?’
‘No game, I assure you. Perhaps a compromise…’
‘Compromise!’ Grace scoffed. ‘I thought such a word didn’t exist in your vocabulary. You wouldn’t know a compromise if you came face to face with one.’
‘I am trying to be reasonable here.’ Constantine’s careful restraint was obviously slipping slightly, traces of the barely reined in temper escaping his ruthless control. ‘I do not feel comfortable being at a party where the woman who is one of the host’s best friends spends all her time hiding in the kitchen, especially when I suspect that—’
‘Suspect what?’ Grace broke in, definitely rattled. ‘That you’re the reason I’m “hiding” away in here? I always knew your ego was excessively healthy, but…’
‘Grace, this is meant to be a Turn Back the Clock party. Surely it should be possible for two mature, civilised adults to abide by the theme of tonight.’
‘And turn back the clock until when, precisely?’
It was scary to realise how much she wanted to do just that. Frankly terrifying to admit that her heart had leapt in anticipation of the prospect.
If only they could! If only they really could go back to the time when he had been her life and she had believed herself his. The time when they had been so much a couple that they had thought, acted, almost even breathed as one. The time before Paula’s lies and her own fears had ripped them apart, driving a chasm between them that it seemed nothing could bridge.
‘Well, the idea of the party is that everyone comes as they were ten years ago, but I’m afraid I have problems trying to imagine you at fourteen.’
Constantine’s sudden brief flash of a grin was devastating in its impact, winging its way to Grace’s already vulnerable heart like an arrow into the gold at the centre of a target. In spite of herself, she couldn’t hold back a faint sigh of response, regretting it at once as soon as she saw those brilliant black eyes narrow in swift calculation.
‘So what if we settle on half of that time? Five years ago we would have been complete strangers. We’d never even met.’
The faint flame of hope that had lit inside Grace’s heart flickered briefly then abruptly went out. If she had needed any warning that their thoughts were running on entirely different lines, then he couldn’t have given it more clearly.
Turn back the clock. She had taken that phrase to mean going back to the beginning of their relationship, to the time when their love had been fresh and new, intoxicating in its heady delight. To Constantine, the idea was that they should act as if they had never met, as if they were total strangers to each other.
‘All right,’ she managed, swallowing down the burning disappointment that seemed to eat at her like acid. ‘That should be okay.’
Gravely she held out her hand to him, schooling herself to make sure it showed no betraying tremor.
‘I—I’m Grace Vernon. Pleased to meet you.’
Constantine fell in with her pretence with an intuitive ease that made her heart ache with the memory of how it had once been, when that easy understanding had been used on other, far more important matters.
‘Constantine Kiriazis,’ he replied, taking the offered hand and executing a small formal bow over it. ‘Can I get you a drink?’
‘W-white wine, please.’
The last thing she wanted was anything alcoholic. Already she felt as if every one of her senses was on red alert, hypersensitive to the sensual force of his physical presence, and she needed no stimulation to add to the sensations that were sizzling through her.
But what she did need was a brief time to herself. A few moments in which to draw breath, try to slow the frantic, erratic pulse of her heart. Constantine had only to touch her and she felt as if she had foolishly grabbed at the exposed end of a live electrical cable, violent shocks running up her arm, along every exposed nerve. Instinctively she cradled the hand he had released against her breasts, nursing it as it if had actually been burned.
Just what was he up to? Because he had to be up to something. Less than an hour ago he had declared his intention of ignoring the fact that she was at the party. Now, he was actively seeking out her company.
‘White wine…’
Far more quickly than she had anticipated, and certainly long before she was mentally ready, Constantine was back, two glasses in his hands.
‘Dry white, of course,’ he added with a wry twist to his mouth. ‘Though I suppose that technically I shouldn’t have known that and should have asked what you’d prefer. This isn’t going to be as simple as I thought.’
‘Not if we’re going to play it strictly by the rules.’
Rules? What rules? Precisely what rules came into play in this sort of situation?
‘I think we can allow a little leeway,’ Constantine was saying, his words coming dimly through the fog of misery dimming her thoughts. ‘After all, I’ve already asked you about your work, so there’s really no need for the “And what do you do?” conversation. One thing I did wonder, though…’
‘What was that?’ Grace asked, swallowing a much needed sip of the cool, crisp wine, and feeling the effect of the alcohol spread through her body with unnerving rapidity.
She must be much more on edge than she had realised. Better take it steady. Or perhaps her response was to the brilliant smile Constantine had turned on her, and not the wine at all. In that case, she needed to be even more careful. The last thing she wanted was to end up tipsy and not fully in control.
She had to keep a clear mind and all her wits about her if she was to cope with Constantine at his devastating social best. She had seen him turn on the charm so many times, seen far more sophisticated, more blasé personalities melt underneath its potent warmth not to be wary of the powerful spell he could weave with the force of his personality.
‘Did you really dress like that when you were fourteen? I find it hard to believe that the elegant Grace Vernon ever deliberately chose to appear in public looking…’
‘Such a sight?’ Grace finished for him when he seemed uncharacteristically uncertain of how to finish his sentence. ‘I think that was the idea.’
In spite of herself a small, wry grin surfaced as she looked into the darkness of his eyes.
‘I was rebelling as hard as I could. Going against everything my mother wanted. She insisted on my dressing smartly, as she did. She hated me in trousers, and jeans were anathema to her. So, naturally, I took every opportunity to annoy her by wearing them.’
‘Your mother was still married to your father ten years ago?’
‘Just. The marriage was already on the rocks, though. She’d already had more than one affair and my father had just met Diana. Mum and Dad separated very soon afterwards.’
‘And you went to live with your father. Isn’t it more usual for the child to live with her mother?’
‘I wasn’t exactly a child, Constantine.’
They had never talked about this when they had known each other before. Perhaps if they had things might have been different. He might have understood about Paula. But, no, she couldn’t let her thoughts go down that path. It led to too much pain.
‘I was old enough to have some say in the matter. I chose to live with my father and, deep down, I’m sure my mother didn’t mind. She already had her sights set on a new life in America, and a teenage daughter would just have held her back. My school was here in London, all my friends, naturally I wanted to stay.’
‘Even when he married Diana?’
‘Even when he married Diana!’
Grace moved to deposit her glass on the worktop with a distinct crash. They were getting into dangerous territory. Talk of Diana led inevitably to thoughts of Paula, her stepmother’s daughter.
‘I was really happy that he was getting married again. I thought that…’
But she never completed the sentence. At that moment their private haven was invaded by a bunch of laughing, joking party guests.
‘Come on, party poopers! You can’t stay in here all night! Ivan’s going to cut the cake, and he says that instead of it just being him who gets a wish, we can all have one too!’
Grace could only watch and follow as Constantine was led away into the next room, her friends urging her after him. It was as if a sheet of glass had come down between her and the rest of the people in the room. She could see them, hear their voices and their movements, but the sounds were blurred and incomprehensible so that she felt completely cut off from reality.
A wish. If she had been offered a wish by some fairy godmother only a couple of hours ago—less—she would have said that what she wanted most in the world was to make peace with Constantine. That if she could just come to some sort of accord with him, it would be enough to satisfy her. She had truly believed that if they could come to an understanding where they could be on civilised terms, she could be content.
But they had achieved that truce, those civilised terms, and all that it had taught her was that it was not enough. It could never be enough. She didn’t want peace with Constantine; she didn’t want civilised. She wanted so much more.
‘Happy birthday, dear Ivan…’
All around her Ivan’s guests joined in the traditional singing of ‘Happy Birthday’, and Grace forced herself to open and close her mouth along with them. But no words would form, her tongue seeming to have frozen, her lips as stiff as board.
There was no backing away from it. No avoiding the realisation that had hit her hard, like the splash in her face. The two intervening years might as well have not existed. They had had no effect on the way she was feeling. No effect at all.
‘Grace?’
‘W-what?’
Somehow she dragged her thoughts out of the shocked daze in which they were hidden, forcing her eyes to focus on the man who had come to her side.
Constantine. Hastily she veiled her eyes, hiding her feelings behind her lids, her heart jerking into a rapid, jolting beat at the thought that he might be able to read what was in her mind. The cake-cutting ceremony was over, and the party had moved on, the pulsing music starting up again.
‘Dance with me?’
Say no! Every instinct screamed the warning at her, every nerve instantly thrown into panic mode. Say no—back away—just turn—run! Anything other than expose her already weakened defences to the potent onslaught of his sensual appeal. She already knew how vulnerable she was to the sight, the sound, the scent of him. How her body reacted to just the slightest touch. She couldn’t risk…
‘Yes, okay.’
How had that happened? Just what was she doing? Grace could find no answers for her outraged sense of self-preservation. She was acting on a far deeper, more primitive level, responding purely on instinct, unable to force her mind into any form of rational thought.
So she let Constantine take her hand and draw her towards the part of the room that had been cleared for dancing. And when the music changed just as they started to dance, turning from a rhythmic beat to a slow, seductive number, she made no objection to the way he turned to her and took her into his arms, drawing her close to the warmth and strength of his body.
She fitted into his arms as if she’d been born there. And it felt like coming home. The rest of the room, the noise and all the people around her, blurred into one indecipherable mass. There was no one in the world but herself and this man, whose strength enclosed her, whose heart beat under her cheek, the strong wall of his chest rising and falling with every breath he took.
‘Grace…’ he murmured softly, her name just a sigh against her hair.
‘Don’t talk…’ Grace heard herself whisper back. ‘Just hold me…’
She had no idea whether it was simply one dance that seemed to last for ever, or if there were many such dances, impossible to count, while she was lost in a dreamy haze of sensual delight. She only knew that when at last the music faded into silence and the world around her righted itself again she was no longer in the big main room where the party was centred, but had been subtly manoeuvred out into the hall beyond.
‘Where…?’ she began in confusion.
As her eyes focused again she discovered that she and Constantine were in the shelter of the wide flight of stairs up to the next floor, hidden from everyone.
Immediately the dream world that had enclosed her vanished, evaporating swiftly like a mist before the sun. Reality came rushing back with a speed and force that rocked her on her feet, made her shiver convulsively.
‘What are we doing here? I can’t—’
‘Grace…’ Constantine silenced her by laying strong tanned fingers across her mouth. ‘I want some time alone with you.’
‘You!’
Grace wrenched her head away from the gentle pressure of his hand, grey eyes blazing up into his black ones, seeing the way that the heavy lids came down over them, concealing his feelings from her.
‘You want! You want! Isn’t that always the way with you? What you want comes before everything else. “Dance with me…”’
Deliberately she mimicked his own words of earlier, emphasising the autocratic note, the lack of any ‘please’ that had turned the phrase into a command rather than a request.
“‘I want some time alone with you.”’
‘I got the impression that was what you wanted too.’
‘And how, precisely, did you come to that conclusion?’
Constantine’s proud head bent until his mouth was level with her ear, and his voice was softly husky, his warmth breath caressing her skin as he whispered, “‘Don’t talk… Just hold me.”’
His echoing of her own foolish reaction was uncannily accurate, making her head go back in shock.
Had she really been so stupid? Had she really let her feelings get the better of her? Had she been so weak as to put that pleading note into her voice, the one that Constantine had just reproduced with merciless exactness? How could she have betrayed herself in that way?
‘I—I was enjoying the dance,’ she blustered frantically, desperately trying to cover her tracks. ‘But that doesn’t mean I wanted anything more.’
‘No?’
The lazy lifting of one dark brow questioned the truth of her spluttered declaration.
‘You must forgive me if I don’t believe—’
‘You can believe or not as you want!’ Grace tossed back at him, ignoring the ominous thread of warning that shaded the softly accented voice. ‘I don’t care. I know my own mind, and I don’t want anything more to do with you! As a matter of fact, what I really want right now is to go home.’
‘Then I will take you,’ Constantine returned smoothly.
‘No!’
That was definitely not what she had in mind. Desperately she shook her head, so that her fair hair flew out wildly.
‘I can make my own way home. It’s just a short walk.’
‘You no longer live with your father?’
‘No.’
Living at home would have meant living with Paula, and that was something neither of them could have handled.
‘I have my own place now—about ten minutes away from here. I can walk.’
‘And I will escort you.’
Grace groaned inwardly. She knew this mood of old. When Constantine set his mind on something like this, he was immoveable. A dog with a bone had nothing on him. But she couldn’t give in to him. If she did, then he would only take it as evidence that his own interpretation of events was the real one.
And wasn’t it? her own unforgiving conscience threw at her, refusing to let her off the hook, no matter how much she mentally squirmed. Hadn’t she admitted to herself that she wanted…’
But what she wanted and what was safe were two very different things. She might dream of more time with Constantine, of letting him know her feelings for him, but to do any such thing would be emotional suicide.
Whatever feelings he might once have had for her, they were obviously now all dead. All, that was, except for the burning sexual attraction that had once flared between them, and which time had not dimmed at all. Weakly, stupidly, she had let Constantine see that it was still there, and with characteristic opportunism he had decided to turn that fact to his advantage.
‘Grace, I have never in my life let a woman walk home alone at this time of night. I don’t intend to start now. Get your coat. I am coming with you.’
‘Do I have any choice?’ Wearily she accepted that, short of creating the sort of scene that would have everyone at the party talking for weeks to come, she had no option but to do as he said.
‘None at all,’ Constantine returned on a note of satisfaction that sounded rich as a tiger’s purr. ‘I know that we’ve only just met, but I must insist that you humour me in this.’
Only just met. What…?
It took Grace a moment or two to realise exactly what Constantine meant.
Grace, this is meant to be a Turn Back the Clock party. His words sounded inside her head like a lifeline as she went reluctantly to fetch her coat from the bedroom. Five years ago we would have been complete strangers.
So Constantine was still playing according to the rules they had laid down earlier that evening. They were still pretending that they were complete strangers who had met for the first time tonight.
That being so, perhaps she could cope with letting him take her home after all. Surely even Constantine wouldn’t pounce on what was supposedly their very first meeting?
It was little enough comfort, but it was all that she had. And Constantine wasn’t about to back down, so she could only pray that it was enough.
CHAPTER THREE
‘OVER there.’
Grace lifted a finger to point, then immediately dropped it again when her hand showed a worrying tendency to shake in a way that revealed her inner turmoil.
‘It’s the last house on the right. The one with the blue door.’
Constantine’s nod of acknowledgement was curt and silent as he steered the car to a halt precisely opposite the door she had indicated. Perhaps, like her, he was already regretting the impulse that had pushed him to insist on taking her home. Perhaps he too had found what stiff and hesitant conversation there had been during the brief journey so uncomfortable that he was glad their time together was almost over.
Which suited Grace fine. All she wanted was to get out of the car and get inside, into the safety and privacy of her small flat. If she had to sit next to Constantine for a moment longer, listen to his stilted, one-word responses to the few remarks she had managed to force herself to make, she was going to scream with frustration.
‘That’s perfect. Thank you.’
Already she was fumbling with the seatbelt, even before the powerful vehicle had fully come to a halt at the side of the kerb, anxious to be out of the car and away from his unsettling presence.
‘It was kind of you to see me home… What did you say?’
The question was jolted from her in response to something Constantine had muttered. Something incomprehensible in Greek that had sounded rough and impatient, stilling her nervous movements suddenly.
But even as she asked the question, she saw the change in his mood. With an obvious effort he smoothed away the frown that had drawn his brows, the cynical twist to his carved mouth.
‘I’ll see you to your door,’ he said, his voice retaining nothing of the disturbing intonation of moments before.
‘There’s no need.’
But she was talking to thin air. Already Constantine was out of the car and moving round to open the passenger door for her.
It was only a few yards from the edge of the kerb to the threshold of her house. Just a few short steps, but they seemed to take an eternity, every sound of their feet on the pavement ringing unnaturally loudly in the midnight silence of the street. At her side, Constantine was a dark, silent figure, his long stride outstripping hers so that she had to hurry to keep up with him.
To her intense annoyance she found that her inner tension had communicated itself to her hands, so that she fumbled clumsily as she tried to insert her key in the lock. Supremely conscious of Constantine’s eyes, dark as the night sky, watching every awkward move, she cursed herself silently under her breath, trying again. Luckily this time she succeeded, and turned back to face him, relief evident in her smile and her voice.
‘Well, here I am. Safe and sound, as you can see. Thank you again for seeing me home.’
If this really had been a first meeting, she would have added something about having enjoyed her evening, perhaps even a suggestion that they could do it again some time. But of course the idea that they could turn back the clock in that way was a pure fiction, throwing her mind into total confusion as she hunted for a way to say goodbye that fitted the circumstances.
‘I—I’ll say goodnight, then.’
‘Is that all?’
‘All? You— I mean, what else is there? After all…’ She aimed for flippancy and missed it by a mile, her voice becoming high-pitched and shrill. ‘We’ve only just met tonight.’
‘So would it be too forward to ask for a kiss goodnight?’
The question sounded light, friendly even. The way he’d been earlier in the evening, in the kitchen, when they’d been pretending that they really had just met.
A goodnight kiss; nothing more. She could cope with that.
But underneath all the carefully rational, logical reasoning lay something darker, something more disturbing. Something that lurked like the jagged rocks at the bottom of a still, calm sea, just waiting to catch at the base of her thinking and rip it apart, laying open the real truth. The one she hardly dared acknowledge to herself. The fact that she wanted this, wanted Constantine’s kiss more than she would ever admit.
‘Okay.’ She nodded—casually, she hoped. ‘One kiss goodnight…’
Constantine’s head lowered, blocking out the light from the nearby streetlamp, and instinctively her lips parted slightly.
But it was her cheek that his mouth made contact with, the kiss brushing against it warm and soft and so painfully familiar. And heartbreakingly brief.
‘Goodnight.’
Before she even had time to think, even as she was steadying herself for the real kiss, the one her lips were aching for, the one that had already quickened her heartbeat in anticipation, he had stepped back.
‘Goodnight,’ he said again, his voice harsh and flippantly dismissive. ‘See you around.’
Grace couldn’t believe it. She shivered inside as pain, raw and cruel, ripped through her, lacerating her heart. She had actually let herself believe—had hoped… Bitter tears of humiliation burned in her eyes, blinding her.
‘G-goodnight.’
She forced herself to say it. Forced herself to turn the handle and open her door. Felt the rush of warm air from the hall out into the coldness of the night.
But she couldn’t make herself step over the threshold and into the house. Even now she couldn’t turn and move away from him.
It was not enough! She wanted more, so much more. That one kiss had sparked off all the need, the hunger, the passion she had once felt for this man and which she had thought was safely buried, out of sight.
But it seemed that Constantine had spoken nothing more or less than the truth when he had said so casually, ‘I’m over it.’
‘I—I’ll…’
Go! Her mind screamed at her. Out of here now, before it gets any worse!
But, no, her heart pleaded. Let me have just a little bit more. Just one moment longer in his company. After these two long, empty years, let me have one more chance to hear his voice, see him smile.
Before she knew she had even formed the thought she had acted impulsively. The aroma of Constantine’s cologne and the warm, clean scent of his body reached her nostrils as she leaned towards him, making her head swim with the force of its sensual impact. His eyes were deeper, darker pools in the shadows of the night, and she could hear the soft, regular sound of his breathing.
‘Goodnight,’ she said on a very different note as, taking her cue from him, she pressed her lips to the hard, lean plane of his cheek. The warm satin of his skin was slightly roughened by the result of a day’s growth of beard that brushed abrasively against her mouth.
‘And thank you…’
But that one unthinking act proved her undoing. With a phenomenal speed of reaction, Constantine turned his head so that her lips were forced to move. Unable to do anything but slip over the bronzed skin, as if on ice over a frozen pond, they found themselves sliding inexorably towards the heated softness that was his mouth.
‘Grace…’
He muttered something thick and rough in Greek against her lips before taking them harshly, urgently, crushing her mouth under his.
‘You should have gone—headed for safety—while you had the chance. Now it’s much too late.’
Too late! Grace echoed inside her head on a note of disbelief. It had already been too late in the moment that he’d kissed her. Even such a desultory peck on the cheek had told her all she needed to know.
No, it had been earlier than that. It had happened in the moment when she had opened Ivan’s door and looked into the black depths of his eyes and known that, no matter what had happened, Constantine was still the only man in the world for her.
‘Sweet Grace…’
A cold sneaking wind wound itself around Grace’s legs, but she was beyond noticing it. The bulk of Constantine’s strong body protected her from the cold, and the heated race of her blood through her own veins warmed her skin until she felt as if she was on fire. Her heartbeat was staccato with excitement, the coming and going of air in her lungs feverishly erratic.
‘You really should have gone in.’ Constantine’s breathing was every bit as uneven as her own, his voice hoarse and jerky. ‘Now there’s no turning back. Grace, agape mou…invite me in.’
Invite me in. It was a command, not a request. She knew exactly what was behind it, what was uppermost in his mind.
So why wasn’t she saying no? Why wasn’t she telling him to get out of there and out of her life? The thought slid into her mind very briefly, but then, just as swiftly, slid straight out again.
‘D-do…?’
Her voice failed her, drying painfully, so that she had to moisten her lips before she could speak again. In the light from the hall she saw Constantine’s black eyes drop to her mouth, to follow the tiny, unconsciously provocative movement with an intensity that made her heart jerk convulsively against her chest.
‘Do you want to come in?’
‘Do I…?’ It was a shaken, husky laugh. ‘Grace, I swear to God that if you don’t let me in with you right now, I’ll—’
‘There’s no need for that!’ Grace broke in hurriedly, shaken, breathless, half terrified of what he might be about to say. ‘Come in, out of the cold.’
It seemed to her that the slam of the door behind her, shutting out the world and closing them in together, was a sound of decision, defining a moment that would change her life for ever. It was now too late to go back, to even think of changing her mind.
And she didn’t want to. All she wanted was right here, with her, at her side. His arms enclosed her. His heart beat under her cheek, and she felt as if she had come home.
But once inside the mood changed sharply. She had barely closed the door before Constantine released her so abruptly that she felt as if she had been dropped from a great height, landing, stunned and disbelieving, on a very hard floor.
She could only watch as he pushed his way into her flat and prowled around it like some caged wild beast, scenting out the borders of its new territory.
Slowly, deliberately, he turned on his heels so that his dark-eyed gaze could take in the comfortable living room with the pale cream armchairs—the room was too small to take a settee—peach velvet curtains, and softly polished pinewood dresser. On the far wall, opposite the big bay window, was a Victorian style cast-iron open fireplace set in a tiled surround.
‘It’s not very big…’ he murmured at last, his survey completed.
‘It’s all I could afford!’ Grace protested indignantly. ‘We can’t all have homes on every continent and a private plane to ferry us between them.’
‘Half of the houses are owned by my parents,’ Constantine pointed out, his tone coolly reasonable. ‘I only have the use of them.’
‘But what you do own my poky little flat would fit into a hundred times over.’
‘Did I say it was poky?’ he murmured smoothly, continuing his exploration.
He didn’t need to, Grace was forced to reflect, ruing her foolish tongue. What she had really meant was that now she saw him in her flat it was as if his tall, imposing presence so dominated the room that it appeared it had shrunk around him, becoming impossibly small and claustrophobic.
‘W-would you like coffee?’ Belatedly she remembered her role as hostess.
‘No.’
Stark and uncompromising, it was tossed over his shoulder at her as he studied the collection of paperbacks on her bookshelf.
‘Tea, then?’
‘No…’
‘Something stronger?’
The question was high-pitched and uneven, coming from a throat that had tightened uncomfortably over the question she knew she was really asking. This was his opportunity to say no, he couldn’t drink any more because he was driving.
‘Some wine, perhaps?’
An autocratic gesture dismissed the question; Constantine’s attention was still fixed on her book collection. But then a moment later he shook his dark head.
‘Perhaps—yes…’
‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Constantine!’ Grace exploded, more on edge than she had allowed herself to admit. ‘Yes—no—perhaps… Which is it?’ she added, braving his swift frown. ‘Make up your mind.’
‘Cristos, I am trying to be civilised, that is all! But I feel—’
‘You feel?’ Grace echoed when he broke off abruptly. ‘What do you feel?’
Unexpectedly those black eyes avoided her questioning grey ones. It was such a shock to see the confident, self-assured Constantine Kiriazis so uncharacteristically at a loss for words that it gave her the determination to go on, push him a little harder.
‘Constantine? What do you feel?’
For the space of another heartbeat he still hesitated. But then, just when she was sure he was going to ignore her completely, or change the subject, a dismissive lift of the broad shoulders under the elegant coat shrugged off whatever restraint he was imposing on himself.
‘I feel totally uncivilised,’ he muttered, his voice thickened and rough. ‘If you want the truth, I feel wild, pagan—primitive.’
Well, she’d asked!
‘And why…?’
‘You know why!’
Constantine flung the words at her as if he hated having to speak them. Yellow flames of emotion flared in his eyes, burning away the control he had been imposing so ruthlessly up until this moment, and his proud head went back in a gesture of defiance.
‘I feel this way because of you. I want you! I’ve wanted you all night! I’ve always wanted you—and I doubt if I’ll ever be cured of this need. The two years we’ve been apart have been hell. Not having you has been like an ache in my gut, always there, always reminding me of how it used to be.’
‘Me?’
She couldn’t believe what she had heard. It wasn’t a declaration of love, but right now it was enough. He wanted her. He had missed her. He had hurt being without her.
‘Grace.’
Her name was a raw, rough-voiced sound.
‘Grace, come here!’
Common sense screamed at her to be careful, to hesitate, to allow time for second thoughts. But her heart brushed aside such foolish considerations impatiently.
She wasn’t even aware of having moved before she was across the room and in his arms, feeling them close around her, holding her tight.
His mouth claimed hers in the same second, shocking in its wild, hungry demand. And Grace responded in kind, all the pent-up longing, the loneliness, the agony of the past two years exploding into a white-hot, raging conflagration of need. She kissed him back with all the force of her emotions laid bare for him to see.
‘Grace, pethi mou…beautiful Grace…’ Constantine muttered against her mouth. ‘You are mine. You always have been mine. I will let no one else…’
‘There is no one else,’ Grace managed breathlessly, dragging in air in a brief respite from the calculated assault upon her senses. ‘No one now, no one—’
Some sixth sense had her snatching back the final word before she spoke it. She wanted Constantine to know that there was no other man in her life right now. Whether she also wanted to admit that there had been no one else since he had walked out on her was quite another matter entirely.
Oh, there had been plenty of interest. She had even been out on a few dates. But they had been short and not particularly sweet. No matter how hard she’d tried, she’d found it impossible to put on even a show of an interest she was very far from feeling.
And now she knew why. For the past two years she had been slowly starving inside, wasting away emotionally without a sight or sound of Constantine to nourish her. She had been in suspended animation, like Sleeping Beauty, waiting only for his kiss to bring her alive again.
And she never wanted to go back to those empty days. Never wanted even to think of them. Particularly not now, with Constantine’s arms enclosing her, his hands caressing her body, his mouth following a heated trail from her lips, across the soft skin of her cheek and down her throat to where her heightened pulse beat frantically in the scooped neckline of her tee shirt.
‘I lied, you know…’ he muttered against her hot skin.
‘What?’
Adrift on a warm sea of pleasure, Grace only registered that he had spoken. But then the true import of that lied hit home, slashing into her delirium.
‘You what?’ Fear clutched at her heart. ‘Constantine?’
His laughter feathered over her tightly stretched nerves, softly reassuring.
‘I lied. When I said I didn’t like what you were wearing.’
“‘Distressingly unflattering” were the words you used, I believe,’ Grace managed, the words sounding strangled and uneven as long-fingered bronzed hands smoothed over the offending outfit, making her writhe in responsive delight.
‘Distressingly provocative is more like it!’ Constantine growled. ‘Do you know what it does to me to see the way those jeans hug your pert little backside, the sway of your breasts underneath your tee shirt?’
‘I never wore a bra when I was fourteen.’
Her reply broke in the middle, cracking noticeably as those wickedly knowing fingers found the small gap between the bottom of her shrunken tee shirt and the tight-fitting waistband of the denim jeans. Shuddering in response to the tiny electric shocks of pleasure his touch sparked off along her sensitised nerves, she caught her lower lip between her teeth in order to hold back the cry of delight that almost escaped her.
‘And every time you moved, this tiny patch of skin could just be seen…tormenting me, tantalising, just begging to be touched.’
He was touching it now—with a vengeance! Making her shiver and writhe against him in a way that made the heated force of his desire only too obvious through the fine fabric of his well-cut trousers. Her blood raced through her veins, making her heart pound, her thoughts swim.
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