I tug at my seat belt and stare pensively out the front window of Christos’s Mercedes. “Are you sure about this?” I ask him for the hundredth time.

He smooths a palm over my knee, the heat of his hand warming my skin even though my white cotton pants. “I’m sure, Juliet.” He pulls to a stop at the light and leans over to kiss the side of my neck. “They will love you.”

I bite the inside of my cheek. How had I let him talk me into this? I hadn’t met a man’s family since my ex-husband’s, and here I was, on my way to meet Christos’s.

“It’s a lot of pressure.” Didn’t he understand the seriousness of the step he’s taking? He doesn’t bring women home. And now he’s showing up with me? Their expectations had to be sky-high.

He slides his palm around the back of my neck, kneading a spot with his thumb as the light turns green and he steps on the gas. “No pressure. It’s a simple party. We eat. We drink. We talk. I’ve seen you do that a million times and you’re quite charming.”

“That’s different!” I insist, once again gearing up for the argument I’ve been making all day.

“I know.” He squeezes the nape of my neck. “And I’m reminding you—you’re good at this. You know how to talk to people, how to make small talk and polite conversation.”

“I’m good at business talk.” I cross my hands over my chest. “Do you think your parents want to discuss corporate restructuring?”

“My parents will be so thrilled you’re there, they won’t care if you sit in the corner and don’t say a word.”

“That would make a great impression,” I say with considerable sarcasm.

He laughs and I sigh, turning to stare out the window as we drive down the congested River North streets. Of course he’s right. I’m making a big deal out of nothing. I do small talk with the best of them, but this is different.

Everything about Christos is new. For almost two years I’d been viewing him as a threat, an adversary. Now I’m meeting his family. The drastic swing in our relationship is giving me whiplash.

Last night had been like a dream, a fantasy come to life. We’d slept. Talked about everything and nothing. I relaxed around him for the first time since I met him. He made me laugh. He’d let me take pictures of him, despite his protests, charming me with the look of horror he’d given me when I’d taken out the camera. At one in the morning we’d ordered pizza and devoured it as though we’d never seen food before. Then we’d gone at it as if we’d never touched, as if we hadn’t had wild, passionate sex numerous times already. Unable to make the trip upstairs to my bedroom, he fucked me on the kitchen table until I was once again screaming his name in ecstasy.

It was hands down one of the best nights of my life, and when we’d finally gone to bed for good, I’d slept like a baby.

But as soon as we’d woken, I’d started waiting for the other shoe to drop. That the world hadn’t crashed around me made me almost more nervous than if it had. Now I was on my way to his parents’ house and I had no idea what to do with myself or the panic jumping around in my belly.

“You’re still fretting.” It isn’t a question. He moves from my neck to rest his palm over my thigh, entirely too high for comfort.

“I can’t help it.” I look back at him and just kind of stare dumbly at him for a moment in amazement. Was I really having this conversation with him? How had I gotten here? A month ago he’d been my mortal enemy. Today, he sits next to me, touching me as though he owns me, looking gorgeous and composed and not the slightest bit anxious.

Irrationally, I want to smack him. “Seriously, why do you have to be like this?”

The corners of his mouth twitch. “Like what?”

“All this calm is grating, you should be nervous.”

“Why?” His hand drapes over the steering wheel, dark sunglasses hiding his green eyes. In all black, he looks like sex and sin, completely unaware of his overwhelming appeal.

With a frustrated snarl, I tuck a stray lock of hair behind my ear and smooth over my white sleeveless blouse.

“Would you worry if I came home with you?” He grasps my hand and brings it to his lips.

The thought of Christos Constantine sitting in my beat-up childhood kitchen back in my parents’ small Ohio home is almost enough to make me break out in hives. “You’re kidding, right?”

The car crawls a couple of feet forward before coming to a stop. He smiles at me. “So, you’re intent on worrying, is that it?”

I shrug, resisting the childish “duh” that springs to my lips.

See, this is what I hate. I have no composure around him, no sense of control that infuses my interactions with other people. I can’t trust that some scathing remark won’t pop out of my mouth and embarrass me in front of his parents.

Who knows what he might say to irritate me to rash behavior?

“I should have remembered who I was talking to.” The muscle of his thigh flexes under his dark pants as he presses on the gas and the car once again begins to move. “Since I’m such a great guy, I’ll tell you what I’ll do.”

Sensing a trap, I narrow my gaze. “I don’t like the sound of this.”

He squeezes my thigh and grins at me so devilishly all my nerves start to tingle. He makes a right turn down a one-way side street. “Clearly you need a distraction, something else to worry about.”

“Ha!” I’m unable to come up with a better response as his fingers move higher up my leg. Despite my nerves, my clit swells, starting the now familiar pulsing that seems to beat out the rhythm—Touch me, touch me, touch me. I go to push his hand away, but he catches it in his strong grasp.

He makes another right and pulls into a spot that magically appears as though the gods have saved it just for him.

“We’re here.” He points to a converted brick brownstone before taking off his sunglasses and tossing them into the console.

I glance at it, my heart sinking down into my stomach, and I’m suddenly thankful for the comfort of his hand on mine. This is it.

“Look at me, Juliet.” I do, and he clasps my fingers. “I promise you this will be fine. They will adore you.”

My pulse thuds in my neck and all I can do is nod.

He pulls me closer to him and leans to meet me halfway, kissing me softly on the lips. “Now about that distraction I promised.”

Not really paying attention, I close my eyes, placing my free hand over his heart. The combination of his breath and the steady beat calms me.

“Tonight, I’m going to take you back to your house.” His voice strokes over my skin, soothing me with its deep timbre. “I’m going to spread you out on your bed and strip you naked.”

Excitement seeps through my blood, washing away some of my nervousness. He is right. This does help. The corners of my mouth lift when the rise and fall of his chest quickens. “Do you want to know what I’m going to do next?”

“Yes,” I whisper.

“I’m going to tie you to that fantastic headboard and make you beg for me.”

My lids fly open and I shake my head. “No. No way.”

He nods. “Yes, Juliet.”

I don’t know which is stronger, my desire or my fear, but they mix inside me and create a lethal cocktail. I can’t do that. I’ll be completely vulnerable to him, unable to get away. It’s one thing to feel his power and control over me, quite another to experience it. Once again I shake my head.

“Yes.” He kisses my mouth, slow and deep. I want to melt under him, but I can’t because I know he’s serious. This is his plan, to have me bound and helpless under him. “I’m going to tie your hands together over your head, clasped on either side of that metal scroll.”

His gaze searches my face, gauging my reaction, but all I can do is blink back at him like a deer in the headlights. “Then I’m going to tie your legs apart so your thighs are spread open to me. So your cunt is exposed and I can see how wet you are.”

Unbearable excitement rushes through my veins. Do I want this? No, I couldn’t. It’s too much. “No, I don’t want that.” If I say the words out loud, maybe they would make them true.

“But you do.” He looks into my eyes and his hand goes to my neck, his fingers pressing into my pounding pulse. “I can feel your need. I can feel how you crave it. And how much it scares you.”

I swallow, hard, feeling the press of his thumb on my throat, I flood with heat. Why had I ever told him how this affects me? Now I’m at his mercy.

“You’re wet for me right now. Thinking about how it’s going to feel, what I’m going to do to you.” He kisses me again, and I can feel his control slipping away. “I could fuck you right here in this car. On another day, I will, and you’ll let me, but now I’m going to make us both wait because it will make your total surrender that much sweeter.”

---

He is right, the jerk. As we walk up the front steps of his parents’ house, our hands clasped tightly together, I’m not worried about meeting them anymore.

Well, I am, but not with the same single-minded obsession I had been because, as he’d promised, I have something new to worry about. How can I possibly survive being tied up and helpless? I’m sure I don’t want it but can’t quite deny how my stomach jumps every time the image of me spread out before him comes unbidden into my mind.

Christos twists the knob of the front door and flings it open into a wide, spacious foyer. I hold my breath as I step over the threshold, praying I will survive this party and this night.

He squeezes my fingers, and lets go, sliding his arm around my waist to pull me close. “You’ll do fine,” he whispers in my ear as a beautiful little girl in a pink-and-white-flowered party dress flies into the room.

“Uncle Christy,” she says excitedly, black curls bouncing as she dances around him.

Uncle Christy? I raise a brow at him, and he shrugs.

Suddenly the little girl stops on a dime, plants her hands on tiny nonexistent hips and taps the toe of her white shoe. “Where’s my present?”

He laughs, bending down to smooth his hand over her glossy hair. “And why would I bring you presents, little one?”

“It’s my birthday,” she glares up at him with dark eyes. “I’m six!”

“It is?” He frowns, looking concerned and utterly serious. “Are you sure?”

Thoroughly charmed at the sight of him with the little girl, I can’t help but smile. Bit by bit, Christos is becoming human to me—no longer the enemy, the adversary. No longer the Greek god cast upon us mere mortals. He is simply a man, and his realness continues to chip away at my barriers.

She blows out a puff of air, sending her dark bangs flying. “Yes!”

“Have you been a good girl?” he asks her.

“Yes,” she nods vigorously. “Very good.”

“I don’t know,” he says with exaggerated suspicion, but his affection for her is written all over his face. “That’s not what your mama says.”

Dark brown eyes with thick long lashes narrow. “I know you brought me something. You never forget.”

Christos points at me. “And where are your manners, Nicolette? Say hello to my Juliet.”

The little girl turns to look up at me and my heart fills my throat when she grasps handfuls of her dress and curtsies. “It’s nice to meet you, Ms. Juliet.”

Christos laughs and rubs a palm over her gleaming black hair. “She’s a princess in training.”

A whisper tries to sneak into my mind, but I slam the door shut, refusing to let it enter. Those are not the kind of fantasies I allow myself about the man next to me.

I lean down and hold out my hand to the little girl. “Happy birthday, Nicolette.”

That tiny hand slips into mine. “Do you know where my present is?” she asks with a six-year-old’s single-minded focus.

“Nicolette,” a woman speaks in accented English before continuing on in what I assume is Greek.

The little girl turns and beams a brilliant smile at the older woman, responding in the foreign language before waving to us and trotting down a hallway.

I straighten and smooth my pants, my palms turning clammy in an instant. I hadn’t thought I had any expectations about what Christos’s parents would be like, but I’m wrong. Somewhere along the way I’d begun to picture a caricature of an old immigrant.

Nothing like the stunning woman standing before me.

Although I know she’s in her sixties, she looks far younger as she glides toward us in a flowing red sundress. Glossy black hair falls to her shoulders, setting off clear green eyes that remind me of a cat with the sharp bite of intelligence shining in them.

“Mama,” Christos says, his fingers tightening on my waist as though reassuring me. “This is Juliet Russo.”

She offers me a brilliant smile that transforms her face into something so indescribably radiant I want to take her picture. If I’d held my camera, it would have been impossible to resist capturing her. “Ah, this is the Juliet I’ve heard so much about.”

I cast a startled glance at Christos, who merely shrugs and grins.

Unable to think about what he might have said about me on top of all the other thoughts swirling in my mind, I put on my most sincere smile and outstretch my hand. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Constantine.”

She ignores my hand and envelopes me in a warm hug where she whispers a few words in Greek, squeezing me tight before pulling back and grasping my face in her hands. “You’re right, Christos,” she says, rolling his name over her tongue. “She’s lovely.”

Caught off guard by her warm openness, I fight the instinct to pull away and step out of her embrace. Off kilter, I long for the safety of politeness but am able to mummer, “Thank you.”

“I insist you call me Amara.” She drops her hands from my face and tucks her hand around my arm. “Come, we’ll get acquainted in the kitchen.” She waves a hand at Christos. “Everyone is out back, go.”

Panic rolls through my belly, and I cast him a silent Help me plea. I’m not ready to be alone with her.

“Mama.” Christos trails after us despite his mother’s order. “Let me introduce Juliet before you steal her away from me.”

“Oh very well,” she says, her tone warm. “He’s scared of what secrets I’ll reveal once we’re alone.”

The idea of Christos being scared of anything is foreign enough to me to probe deeper. “Like what?”

Amara casts an evil smirk back at her son. “Perhaps I’ll bring out the baby pictures.”

“Oh sweet Jesus,” Christos says, making me laugh so I relax fractionally.

She leads me down a narrow hallway, and I’m thankful for the steady sound of Christos’s steps behind me. At the end of the corridor, she opens a door that leads to a veranda. Stepping onto the terrace is like stepping onto a Greek isle.

White furniture, blue and white stone and tile accented with lush pink flowers and high hedges. A sitting area overlooks a small pond, and in the center of the space a large teak table sits under a billowy canopy. Transported to another time and place, it is impossible to believe an entire city sits on the other side of this haven.

“Oh,” I breathe out in a hushed voice. “This is beautiful.”

Christos comes beside me and slides his hand on my waist, placing a soft kiss at my temple while his mother lets me go and her son draws me close. “I knew you’d love it.”

A sea of faces stares back at me, curious but welcoming. Christos walks me forward to the group and introduces me. Two sisters, their husbands and children surround me with warm smiles. My head swims as I try to remember names and faces as they envelop me like a long-lost friend. The warmth and casual acceptance soothing over my frayed nerves like a salve.

Suddenly I stand in front of an older man with salt-and-pepper hair and black compelling eyes, so handsome I can only stare. The man could only be Christos’s father, so similar in looks and build it’s like staring at Christos twenty years in the future.

What would it be like to grow old with him?

As soon as the thought crosses my mind, I push it away. Why were these thoughts creeping in? I don’t want them. I don’t want any expectations. I’ve made up my mind to enjoy the moment, the time I have with him, and spinning fantasy about our future will only ruin that.

“Juliet, this is my father Nickolas.” Christos presents his father as if he’s a gift.

“So this is the lovely Juliet.” The older man grasps my shoulders and pulls me close, kissing me on each cheek. “Come, sit with me.” He gestures me over to a sitting area overlooking the quiet little pond.

Christos pulls me onto the white loveseat while his father settles into a chair across from us, his mother joining us next to her husband so we form a circle while the rest of the party goes on behind us. Children laugh. The low buzz of conversation flits behind us like a bumblebee.

Unable to relax after being wound so tight for so long, I sit rigid.

Christos drapes his arm over the back of the couch, gently brushing the curve of my neck. I grasp my hands tightly in my lap and resist the urge to brush him away like a pesky fly. It isn’t that his touch doesn’t comfort me, it does, but his parents sit across from us with hope and interest bright on their faces, and I don’t want to give them the wrong impression.

For all I know, I’ll never see them again.

I attempt a smile that gets lost somewhere around the middle and dies on my lips. Remembering what Christos had said, I force myself to respond to the situation the way I would a business lunch. I straighten my shoulders and Christos’s fingers stroke over my skin. “Thank you so much for inviting me, Mr. and Mrs. Constantine. Your home,” I sweep my hand over the oasis terrace, “this garden, it’s beautiful. It’s hard to believe we’re in the middle of the city.”

Amara, glances over her yard, her expression serene. “Yes, a little bit of home to keep us company. But please call us Amara and Nickolas, we might be strangers, but I am confident it is a temporary arrangement.”

Beside me, Christos chuckles and runs a palm down my bare arm. “She’s very subtle.”

I nod, wishing he’d stop touching me. With a forced smile, I say, “Thank you, I’ll try to remember.”

“I understand you and Christos are in the same business?” Nickolas asks.

“Yes.” I wonder when Christos has spoken of me. We’d been in each other’s constant company since he’d shown up at my office Friday afternoon, so when could he have discussed me with his family? “We’re competitors actually.”

Nickolas’s dark eyes gleam while his face lights with delight. “Ah yes, that’s bound to make things very interesting.”

Latching onto this safe subject, I scowl up at Christos, momentarily taken aback by the intensity in his eyes as he looks down at me. My mind flashes to an image of me tied to my bed, spread and open to him while he hovers over me with that very expression. Heat steals over my skin.

Wicked and evil, he grins. He knows what I’m thinking. He can see it in my eyes.

Clearing my throat, I shift my attention back to Nickolas, whose lips quirk as though trying to contain his amusement. I refuse to become flustered. “Not very interesting, really, he always wins, so it’s not much of a challenge for him.”

“Oh, I have a feeling you’re plenty of challenge for my son,” Nickolas says with a teasing lilt to his tone.

“Yes, she is.” Christos runs his palm down my bare arm, pulling me close and kissing my temple.

I want to stomp my foot and tell him to stop. Why does he have to be so familiar with me? He’s increasing my discomfort, he has to know that, but doesn’t seem to care. I dig my elbow into his ribs but he doesn’t even budge. “Besides, Juliet would hate it if I let her win.”

Nickolas raises a brow. “A strong-willed, competitive woman is always a good thing. It will keep you on your toes.”

Unable to resist the need to defend myself, I blurt, “I’m not competitive, he’s just annoyingly smug, and I feel compelled to put him in his place. I consider it my gift to the female population.” Horror flashes through me.

Why in heaven had I said that?

To my shock, before I can start spinning apologies, all three of them laugh.

“Oh, I like you,” Amara says, a huge smile on her face. “You will be good for him.”

I shake my head. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

Christos squeezes my shoulder. “You can’t help yourself.”

Amara leans over as though making me her conspirator. She casts a fond look at Nickolas. “My husband and son are cut from the same cloth so to speak. Believe me, dear one, I understand. I too consider it my personal duty not to give my husband his way too often.”

Nickolas casts a hooded glance at his wife before saying something in Greek.

I glance at Christos with a silent question.

He smiles. “He told her she’ll pay for her comments.”

Same cloth indeed. From the look passing between them, I guess this is something Amara will gladly pay.

His parents are nothing at all as I expected, but now that I’ve met them, they seem exactly right. Chic and a bit European, Christos makes a little more sense to me.

Curious, I ask, “How did you two meet?”

“Once upon a time,” Nickolas says, “I fancied myself an artist. I took a class and she was the model.”

I had no trouble believing that. As stunning as Amara is now, she had to have been breathtaking, movie-star gorgeous as a young girl.

“One look at her and I knew she was mine.” Nickolas reaches over and takes her hand before flashing me a wry smile. “Just as every other young man in the class believed.”

I imagine their eyes catching across the room and them falling in love at first sight. A ridiculously romantic notion, but somehow, as they look at each other with such love, I have no trouble believing it.

“Of course she wanted nothing to do with me,” Nickolas continues, disabusing me of the story my imagination had weaved.

I blink at Amara, who laughs at my startled look, making a flush spread up my neck. She pats Nickolas’s hand. “I had other plans that didn’t include an arrogant Greek man.”

“The other boys, she didn’t say yes to them either,” Nickolas says. “But for me she had a particular dislike.”

“Juliet, surely you can sympathize.” Christos chuckles.

I ignore him.

Amara rolls her eyes and scoffs, “Do you know what he did the first time he talked to me?”

I lean forward, on the edge of my seat at this not-so-smooth telling of their romance. “What?”

“He walked over to me after class, strutting through the room like a peacock.” She straightens in her chair, squaring her shoulders, transforming her features into an arrogant, dominant mask I’ve seen on her son’s face hundreds of times.

The image, so startlingly realistic of husband and son, I laugh, not forced this time, but with genuine pleasure that tightens my stomach.

She winks at me. “Ah, so you know this look?”

“I do,” I say, unable to stop the camaraderie shared between two women who understand the ways of a certain type of man.

Nickolas sighs and shakes his head at his son. “I believe we’re being mocked, Christos.”

“It seems so.” Christos’s tone is amused.

“And then,” Amara continues, disregarding the comments, plopping back against the back cushion of her chair. “And then, he did the worst thing imaginable.”

Nickolas groans and scrubs a hand over his jaw as though he’s unable to bear the follies of his youth. “Please, darling, she’ll think horribly of me and we’ve just met the dear girl.”

“Ha!” Amara rambles something off in Greek that makes Christos laugh but leaves me out of the loop. She wags a finger at me. “Some transgressions are unforgivable. So he walks over to me, thinking he’s…”

She glances around and gestures. “What do these young people call it today?” Her expression brightens and she snaps her fingers. “Ah yes, I remember, like he’s sex on a stick, and examines me as if I’m a goat for purchase before he says,” she drops her voice several octaves, mimicking the tone of a man, her face alive and animated in a way that makes me want to photograph her again, “come with me.”

I roll with laughter, slapping my knee with my hand as the uncontrollable waves of giggles overtake me. I can so picture it, so see the scene, feel how she felt, as I felt the first time I’d had a conversation with her son. Like her, I’d experienced the mixture of emotions in the face of an arrogant, far-too-handsome-to-be-true man who wasn’t used to taking no for an answer.

“But it gets worse.” Amara leans back over toward me again with narrowed eyes. “Of course I refuse. But he tries again, this time telling me that while I’m very beautiful, I also have generous hips and thinks I’ll make a good mother.” She rolls her eyes at her husband, love and affection on her face despite the exasperation.

“You do have lovely hips, my darling,” Nickolas says before looking at me. “You must understand, Juliet, different time, different culture. This was a compliment.”

Amara snorts. “What a foolish man you are.”

Warmth steals over me, taking me by surprise, making my guard slip, so I say quite without thinking, “Christos told me that I can’t beat him because I lack passion and couldn’t understand why I took offense.”

Amara’s brows instantly snap together as a darkness clouds her face. “Christos!” She begins a tirade of Greek, arms waving as she yells at her son.

While I don’t understand the words, her disapproval is plain and Christos starts to sputter under the onslaught.

“Wait. Hang on, here, there’s more to—”

More yelling.

“No. Wait. I did not. You don’t understand,” Christos pleads through his mother’s rant.

Amara doesn’t even slow, and I hide a smile behind my fingers, thoroughly charmed by Christos’s flustered protests.

He turns and scowls, running his hands through his hair so he is rumpled, boyish and disgruntled. “Tell her, Juliet, tell her the entire story.”

In that moment, the foundation under my feet shakes as my world tilts on its axis and the knowledge I’ve been fighting sinks in, shaking me to the very core.

I love him. I’m irrationally, truly, deeply, passionately, insanely in love with Christos Constantine.

Something shifts inside me, making room for the wealth of emotion brewing that threatens to overflow.

Our eyes meet. Catch. Cling.

He goes still, the green of his irises growing bigger as his pupils contract.

I love this man.

It wells like a tsunami, swelling with a force that threatens not only to drown me but sweep me away forever. The realization is brutal, raw and passionate, just like all my emotions with Christos. No gentle lapping of tides with him.

I love him.

I wait for the panic, the swell of fear to crush me.

I sit in this private Greek isle oasis, his family in the background, the breeze blowing over my cheeks, rustling the strands of my hair, frozen in my anticipation and expectation.

Christos’s gaze is probing, as though trying to reach into my mind and pull free my thoughts. He brushes his fingers over my hand.

Electricity snaps between us.

I brace for the rush of terror. The flood of fear. Tears. The urge to run.

Only it doesn’t come.

One thought wraps around me, enveloping me in comfort and warmth.

I am home.