Julia James - Irresistible Greeks - Secrets and Seduction

She stalked out of the bathroom. He had knocked her for six with that accusation. He had also taught her that she didn’t know him as well as she had always believed she did. Although she had recognised his reserve she had never dreamt that he might have the capacity to keep such big secrets from her. What else didn’t she know about Cristo? And what else had happened that had caused him to doubt her loyalty? What were those other ‘things’ he had grudgingly mentioned? Yanking the bedspread off the bed, and lifting a pillow, she made up the sofa on the far side of the room for her occupation.

‘You’re not sleeping over there,’ Cristo told her tautly.

‘I’m certainly not getting back into a bed with a man who thinks I’m a slut as well as a thief!’ Erin replied with spirit, pale hair bouncing on her shoulders as she spun round to face him.

Stark naked, Cristo was hauling fresh clothing from drawers. He shot her a censorious appraisal from brilliant dark eyes. ‘We have a deal—’

‘But I intend to add my own conditions,’ Erin declared thinly. ‘I’ll keep to our agreement if—’

‘Too late—we already have a deal.’

‘If that’s your attitude I’m sleeping on the sofa.’

His thick sooty lashes lowered on stunning golden eyes while he surveyed her. ‘Do you cheat at cards too?’

‘You ought to know—you taught me to play,’ she reminded him.

The silence buzzed like an angry wasp. Cristo continued to watch her, his attention locked to the sultry pink pout of her mouth. He wished he had kept his own shut and could not think why he had admitted that he knew of her betrayal. Everything had been going so well until she decided that honour demanded she now prove that she was pure as the driven snow. In exasperation he scored long brown fingers through his damp black hair. ‘What conditions?’ he demanded impatiently.

‘I’ll get back into that bed if—and only if —you agree to talk to Tom, who will verify that he passed the key card for the room to his brother and later dropped me off at the hospital a hundred miles away to be with my mother.’

Cristo looked pained. ‘That’s ridiculous.’

Erin tilted her chin. ‘No, it’s the least of what you owe me.’

‘I owe you nothing.’ He was poised there insolently, still half naked but for the jeans he had pulled on. Just looking at Cristo made her heartbeat pick up speed and her breathing quicken: he was so physically gorgeous. White-hot sex appeal was bred into his very bones. Even more disturbingly, the wilful line of his beautiful mouth was remarkably like her son, Lorcan’s, she registered in dismay, rushing to suppress that unnerving sense of familiarity. Inside himself Cristo was seething with anger, she did know that, but Cristo rarely revealed anger on the surface, deeming that a weakness. And one thing Cristophe Donakis did not do was weakness.

‘I deserve that you check out my side of the story,’ Erin proclaimed as regally as a queen. ‘You didn’t give me the opportunity three years ago, so the least you can do is take care of the omission now.’

A winged ebony brow quirked. ‘And if I agree, you’ll get back into bed?’

‘I have just one more thing to say.’

‘You’re pricing yourself out of the market.’

Erin gazed back at him, remembering when she had loved him, when she had simply lived for his quick easy smile and attention and shrinking from the recollection, fearful of ever laying her heart out again. ‘No, I’m worth waiting for.’

Cristo dealt her a hungry appraisal that made her triangular face burn as though he had turned an open flame on her skin. ‘Speak …’

‘Ask yourself why I would commit fraud and put myself at risk of a prison sentence while refusing to accept the valuable diamond jewellery you tried to give me on several occasions,’ she advised softly. ‘If I wanted money that badly, keeping the diamonds and selling them would have been much more sensible.’

Cristo held her eyes coolly without reaction and then released his breath on a slow measured hiss. ‘Get back in bed,’ he breathed.

Erin retrieved her pillow and undid the tie on the robe, letting it fall as she scrambled onto the divan. Cristo watched, desire igniting almost simultaneously to raise his temperature. Surely there had never been any woman with paler, more perfect skin or more delicate yet highly feminine curves? He lay down on the bed beside her with a sense that all was right in his world for the first time in a long time. Erin studied the stark beauty of his features, knowing why no other man had tempted her, knowing why she was still heart whole. Nobody had ever come close to comparing to Cristo either in looks or passion. Eyes drowsy, she lifted a hand in the simmering silence and with her forefinger gently traced the volatile curve of his full lower lip. His gaze smouldered and his hand came up to entrap hers, long fingers wrapping round her smaller hand with precision.

‘Go to sleep,’ he breathed ruefully, noting the shadows that lay below her eyes like bruises. ‘You’re exhausted.’

Why should it bother him that she looked so tired? Why had he even noticed? His expressive mouth tightened.

They were enjoying the equivalent of a two-night stand: finer feelings of any kind were not required. Nor had he any intention of getting caught up in discussing their previous relationship. There was nothing to discuss. But Erin had looked so shocked when he accused her of cheating on him. Perhaps she had been shocked that he had found her out. Clearly her partner that night had stayed silent about Cristo’s entry to the hotel room. And Erin had always had a talent for playing innocent and naïve. Once that had charmed him, fooled him. Now it merely set his teeth on edge with suspicion.

What was Erin hoping to get out of this weekend? She was a survivor. As was he and he didn’t like the fact that he was enjoying her company so much.

The next day they had breakfast on the terrace mid-morning. Erin had slept so late she was embarrassed. Sleeping in, after all, was a luxury she no longer enjoyed at home. The twins woke up at the crack of dawn demanding attention and since their birth Erin had learned to get by on short rations of sleep. Casually garbed in white cotton trousers teamed with a colourful silk top, she spread honey on her toast and enjoyed the picturesque landscape of rolling hills covered with mature chestnut and oak woods at the rear of the villa. It occurred to her that she might as well have been on a pleasure trip, for the accommodation and food were superb and even the company was acceptable.

Acceptable , jeered a little mocking voice in her head as she glanced at Cristo, lean and darkly magnificent in a black polo shirt and tailored chinos, predictably pacing the terrace as he ate and drank, the restive spirit that drove him unable to keep the lid on his sheer energy this early in the day. He had let her sleep undisturbed, had already been up and dressed when he finally wakened her. As his spectacular dark golden eyes surged her she went pink, something akin to panic assailing her as she felt her treacherous body’s instant response to his powerful masculinity. There was an ache at the heart of her, a physical reminder of the wild passion they had shared. Yes, shared , she labelled, refusing to overlook her own behaviour. The sleazy weekend of her worst imaginings had come nowhere near reality and it had also proved surprisingly informative, she acknowledged wryly as she continued to think deeply about Cristo’s admission that he had believed she had cheated on him. How could he not have confronted her about that? And yet she knew why not, she understood the bone-deep unforgiving pride that was so much a part of his nature. He had successfully hidden his anger from her at the time, refusing to vent it, something she could not have done in his place. He had accepted her supposed betrayal and, even now, his lack of faith in her when she had loved him appalled her. As Cristo had reminded her, though, it was the past and she thought it was wiser not to dwell on it.