Kate Walker - Chosen by the Greek Tycoon - The Antonakos Marriage / At the Greek Tycoon's Bidding / The Greek's Bridal Purchase

‘And you can do that, can you?’ Theo put in when her voice failed her, lacking the courage to complete the sentence. His tone was dark with cynical scepticism, making his disbelief all too plain. ‘You can pretend that we were never lovers—that we have only ever been stepmother and stepson?’

No! No, I can’t do it—I can’t bear it! Skye’s heart felt as if it were being ripped in two at just the thought. She didn’t want to be Theo’s stepmother. She didn’t feel at all motherly towards him. She wanted…

But she couldn’t have what she wanted. That was forbidden to her. She had to put even the dream of it out of her mind and learn, somehow, to live with what was real.

She found the strength to straighten her back, lift her head. She even managed to look him straight in the face, meeting the black-ice stare of those coldly assessing eyes.

‘Yes,’ she managed, and was stunned to hear an assurance that she could never have felt actually sounding in her voice.

But was it enough to convince Theo? He had to be convinced. She didn’t know how she could go on if he wasn’t.

He didn’t look convinced. But then she didn’t know what he did look. She couldn’t read his still, inscrutable expression. Couldn’t tell a single thought that was passing through his coolly assessing brain. She could only hope and pray.

Still with his eyes fixed on her face, Theo stirred slightly. He drew in a long, thoughtful breath, inclined his head to one side, ever so slightly.

‘Prove it,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Prove it,’ Theo repeated, with a harder, slashing emphasis. ‘If you’re so convinced that you can act as if we’ve never been lovers—as if there is nothing between us—then do it. And get some practice in before my father comes home. He said I would look after you; I think I’d better start doing that.’

‘But…’ Skye tried to protest, but Theo cut through her stumbling attempt to speak.

‘Spend the rest of the day with me. We’ll do a guided tour of the island—that seems like the sort of thing a good stepson would do. Be my stepmother—nothing more. And if at the end of the day you can still say you can live with things that way, then I swear I’ll leave you alone—for good.’

I’ll leave you alone—for good.

Skye’s mind swung violently between hope and despair; agreement and total, desolate rejection of his suggestion. One part of her wanted to do this so that he would leave her in peace—and yet the thing she most wanted in all the world was that he would never leave her. But the way she wanted that was what was totally forbidden to her.

She was going to have to learn to live with that. And perhaps the way that Theo had suggested—the idea of practising, of trying to get used to the idea, without the fear of having Cyril’s eyes following every move—might just work.

She didn’t know. But the one thing she was sure of was that the ruthless, determined set of Theo’s hard features made it only too plain that if she refused then he would put his own interpretation on that fact. An interpretation that spelt death to her hopes of any peace of mind in the future.

It seemed to her that she had only one possible choice.

‘All right,’ she said slowly. ‘I’ll do it.’

Was he really going through with this? Theo asked himself when they were in the car and heading down the rough, winding road that led away from the house. What had happened to his doubts, to the private acknowledgement of the risks he ran, the temptation he would have to endure if he stayed?

The truth was that he wanted that temptation. He couldn’t turn away and just leave it. When he was with Skye he felt more involved with everything, more alive than ever before, and he wasn’t going to abandon a chance to experience that sensation once more, even if it was for the last time.

Besides, he hadn’t been back to Helikos in all the five years he had been apart from his father. He wanted to reacquaint himself with the place, revisit his favourite spots, the places he had loved as a boy. And he would enjoy seeing them afresh through her eyes.

‘We’ll follow the coast road first,’ he told her. ‘That way we can visit the ruined monastery and take a look at some of the caves before we head for the village. I know a wonderful little taverna where we can eat dinner. The people who own it were like family to me.’

And almost more than family, he recalled. Berenice, the oldest daughter, a woman not much more than five years older than himself, had had an intense affair with his father at about the time that the old man had tried to push his son into an unwanted marriage. He remembered how, in one of the last conversations he had had with Cyril, he had flung the fact into the older man’s face.

‘If you’re so desperate to have more heirs,’ he had shouted, ‘then why don’t you marry your mistress? Start a new family with her!’

‘I might just do that!’ Cyril had responded.

But it seemed that now Berenice was out of the picture. Obviously, his father had thought twice about making a simple village woman the fifth Mrs Antonakos.

Instead he had chosen this English girl who was less than half his age. A girl who was not at all the type his father usually went for.

Berenice was much more his father’s type. Cyril Antonakos was drawn to that small, black-haired, dark-eyed, full-bosomed type of woman. Not the tall, slim, Titianhaired seductress that Skye Marston was.

A woman who, simply by existing, made Theo live in a state of constant hunger, of a desire so hot and painful that it was an agony of frustration to sit so close to her in the confined space of the car. An agony of yearning to inhale the delicate fragrance of her skin with every breath he took, and not do anything about it.

A woman who made him want to slam on the brakes, bring the car to a screeching halt and turn in his seat, reaching out for her in desperation. Made him want to drag her into his arms, haul her close and take her mouth, kissing her hard and long, demandingly, until they were both senseless with heady desire, an explosive cocktail of hunger and frantic passion impossible to control.

‘ Theos… ’ Cursing under his breath, Theo gripped the steering wheel so tightly that the knuckles on his hands showed white under the tanned skin. Pebbles flew up from underneath the tyres, clanging against the underside of the car and making Skye look up in stunned confusion.

‘Is there a problem?’

‘I forgot how primitive the island roads can be. You can’t afford to let your concentration slip for a moment.’

‘The view has much the same effect,’ she smiled. ‘I never knew the sea could be so many wonderful shades of blue.’

If she smiled at him like that once more, then he was lost. Theo forced his attention back to the road

‘This is October. You should see it in the summer—it’s like the most brilliant jewel in all the world then.’

‘I’d love to see it.’

Skye’s voice had an odd little break in it, one that made it sound suddenly vulnerable and dangerously appealing so that Theo had to clench his jaw tight against the way that that softness twisted in his guts.

‘You will do,’ he said, the fight he was having with himself making his words come out far more harshly than he wanted. ‘You’ll be living here then—as my stepmama.’

If he had reached out and slapped her hard across the face, it couldn’t have had a more dramatic effect on her. She shrank back inside herself like a small, frightened rabbit retreating into the protection of its burrow. The sudden clouding of her eyes and the way that her sharp white teeth dug into the softness of her mouth were like a reproach to him, making him curse himself for the roughness of his reply.