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.
Tia gazed at Anatole across the damask tablecloth, over the candlelight between them.
‘This is the most wonderful holiday I could ever have imagined!’ she breathed.
Adoration was obvious in her eyes—for how could it not be? How could she not reveal all that she felt for this wonderful, incredible man who had brought her here? Emotion swelled within her like a billowing wave, almost overpowering her.
Anatole’s dark eyes lingered on her lovely face. A warm, honeyed tan had turned her skin to gold, and her hair was even paler now from the sun’s rays. He felt desire cream within him. How good she was for him, and how good he felt about her...about having her in his life.
‘Tell me,’ he said, ‘have you ever been to Paris?’
Tia shook her head.
Anatole’s smile deepened. ‘Well, I have to go there on business. You’ll love it!’
It felt good to know that he would be the first man to show her the City of Light. Just as it had felt good to take her on this cruise, to see her enjoy the luxury of his lifestyle. Good to see her eyes widen, her intake of breath—good to bestow his largesse upon her, for she was so appreciative of it.
King Cophetua, indeed.
But he liked the feeling. Liked it a lot. For her sake, obviously, he was finding pleasure in bestowing upon her the luxury and treats that had never come her way in her deprived life. But not just for her sake—he was honest enough to admit that. For himself too. It was very good to feel her ardent, adoring gaze upon him. It made him feel—warm.
Loved.
His mind sheered away from the word, as if hitting a rock in a stream. His expression changed as he negated what he’d just heard in his mind.
I don’t want her to love me.
Of course he didn’t! Love would be a completely unnecessary complication. They were having an affair, just as he’d had with all the women who had been in his life...in his bed. It would run its course and at some point they would part.
Until then—well, Tia, so unlike any other woman he’d known, was just what he wanted.
His only source of disquiet was that she remained so clearly uncomfortable whenever they were in company, wherever they travelled. He didn’t want her feeling out of her depth in the inevitably cosmopolitan, sophisticated and wealthy circles he moved in, and he did his best to make things easier for her, but she was always very quiet.
Thoughts flickered uneasily in his head. Had anyone ever thought to ask the Beggar Maid how she’d felt after King Cophetua had plucked her up into his royal and gilded life?
And yet when they were alone she visibly relaxed, coming out of her shell, talkative and at ease. Happy just to be with him and endlessly appreciative. Endlessly desirous of him.
He was in no hurry, he realised, to part with her.
Will I ever be? he thought. Then he put the question out of his head. Whenever that time came, it was not now, and until it did he would enjoy this affair—enjoy Tia—to the full.
* * *
Tia sat at the vanity unit in the palatial en suite bathroom, gazing at her reflection. She was wearing one of the oh-so-many beautiful dresses Anatole had bought for her over the past months of their relationship. His generosity troubled her, but she had accepted it because she knew she couldn’t move in his gilded world in her own inexpensive clothes.
And besides, none of these outfits are really mine! I wouldn’t dream of taking them with me when—
Her mind cut out. She didn’t want to think about that time. She didn’t want it spoiling this wonderful, blissful time with Anatole.
Anatole! His very name brought a flush to her cheeks, a glow to her eyes. How wonderful he was—how kind, how good to her! Her heart beat faster every time she thought of him. With every glance she threw at him or he at her, she felt emotion burn in her, coursing through her veins.
She felt her expression change, and even as it did so her gaze became more troubled still, her eyes shadowing.
Be careful! Oh, be careful! There is only one way this affair can end when it does end—like fairy gold turning to dust at dawn! And the end will be bad for you—so, so bad.
But it would be worse—and the shadow in her eyes deepened, a chill icing down her veins—much, much worse, if she let her heart fill with the one emotion that it would be madness to feel for Anatole.
I long for the one thing that would keep me in Anatole’s life for ever...
* * *
Anatole’s mood was tense. They were back in Athens, and the annual Kyrgiakis Corp board meeting was looming. It never put him in a good mood. His parents would pester him for more money—sniping at each other across the table—and only the calming presence of his Uncle Vasilis would be any balm.
Putting in long hours at the Kyrgiakis Corp headquarters, closeted with his finance director going through all the figures and reports before the meeting, meant he’d had little time to devote to Tia lately, but when he did spend time with her he could sense that something was troubling her.
He’d had no time to probe, however—he’d told himself he would get this damn board meeting out of the way and then take her on holiday somewhere. The prospect had cheered him. But not enough to lift the perpetually grim expression on his face as he’d prepared for the coming ordeal.
Now, today, over breakfast, he was running through his head all that had to be in readiness for the meeting that morning,
As well as the official business his family would expect a lavish celebratory lunch, to be held at one of the best hotels in Athens where his father liked to stay. His mother, predictably, never stayed there, but at a rival hotel. They ran up huge bills at both, for they both put their stays on the business account—much to Anatole’s irritation.
But his parents had always been a law unto themselves, and since he wanted as little to do with them as possible he tolerated their extravagance, and that of their current respective spouses, with gritted teeth. The only person he actually wanted to see was Vasilis, who’d been preoccupied in Turkey for some time now, helping one of the museums there in salvaging ancient artefacts from the ravages of war in the Middle East.
He’d invited Vasilis to lunch the day after the board meeting, knowing that even though his scholarly uncle would be far too academic for Tia his kindly personality would not be intimidating to her.
He reached for his orange juice and paused. Tia was looking at him, her fingers twisting nervously in the handle of her coffee cup, with an expression on her face he’d never seen before in the many weeks they’d spent together.
‘What is it?’ he asked.
She didn’t answer. Only swallowed. Paled. Her fingers twisted again.
‘Tia?’ he prompted.
Was there an edge in his voice? He didn’t mean there to be, but he had to get on—time was at an absolute premium today, and he needed to eat breakfast and be gone. But maybe his tone had been a bit off, impatient, though he hadn’t intended it to be, because she went even whiter. Bit her lip.
‘Tell me,’ he instructed, his eyes levelling on her.
Whatever was troubling her, he would deal with it later. For now he’d just offer some reassuring words—it was all he had time for. He set down his orange juice and waited expectantly. An anguished look filled her eyes and he saw her swallow again, clearly reluctant to speak.
When she did, he knew why. Knew with a cold, icy pool in his stomach.
Her voice was faint, almost a stammer.
‘I... I think I may be pregnant...’