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“I don’t want to go to Greece, dammit! Didn’t it ever occur to you to consult me before you made these plans?”
Damian looked at his wife’s face. Her eyes glittered, with an emotion he could not define.
Fear. She was terrified, and of him.
God, why was he being such a mean son of a bitch? He had forced her into this marriage for the best of reasons but that didn’t mean he had to treat her so badly. She was right, he should have consulted her. He should have told her, anyway, that he was taking her to Greece, to his island, Actos. He should have told her that for some reason he couldn’t fathom, he wanted her to see where he had lost the boy he’d been and found the man he’d become.
He felt a tightening inside him, not just in his belly but in his heart.
“Laurel,” he said, and touched her shoulder.
She flinched as if she’d been scalded.
“Don’t touch me,” she snarled, and he pulled back his hand, his face hardening, and thought that the place he was taking her was better than she deserved.
* * *
The plane landed on a small airstrip on Crete. A car met them and whisked them away, past hotels and streets crowded with vacationers, to the docks where sleek yachts bobbed at anchor.
Laurel smiled tightly. Of course. That was a Greek tradition, wasn’t it? If you were what Susie had called a zillionaire Adonis, you owned a ship and, yes, Damian led her to one—but it was not a yacht. The Circe was a sailboat, large, well kept and handsome, but as different from the huge yachts moored all around her as a racehorse is from a Percheron.
“Damian,” a male voice cried.
A man appeared on deck, opening his arms as they climbed the gangplank toward him. He was short and wiry; he had a dark beard and a bald head and he wore jeans and a striped T-shirt, and though he bowed over Laurel’s hand and made a speech she sensed was flowery even though she couldn’t understand a word, he greeted Damian with a slap on the back and a hug hard enough to break bones.
Damian reciprocated. Then, grinning, the two men turned to Laurel.
“This is Cristos. He takes care of Circe for me, when I am away.”
“How nice for you,” Laurel said, trying to look bored. Not that it was easy. Somehow, she hadn’t expected such relaxed give and take between the urbane Damian Skouras and this seaman.
Cristos said something. Damian laughed.
“He bids you welcome, and says to tell you that you are Aphrodite come to life.”
“Really?” Laurel smiled coolly. “I thought it was Helen who was carried off against her will.”
If she’d thought to rile Damian, she hadn’t succeeded. He grinned, told her to stay put, clattered below deck and disappeared.
Stay, she thought irritably, as if she were a well-trained puppy.
Well, she wasn’t well trained. And the sooner he understood that, the better for them both.
She rose from the seat where he’d placed her and started forward. Instantly Cristos was at her side. He smiled, said something that sounded like a question and stepped in front of her. Laurel smiled back.
“I’m just going to take a look around.”
“Ah. No, madam. Sorry. Is not permitted.”
So, he spoke English. And he had his orders. What did Damian think, that she was going to dive overboard and swim for her freedom?
Actually it wasn’t a bad idea.
Laurel sighed, wrapped her hands around the railing and gazed blindly out to sea.
It was too late for that.
She was trapped.
* * *
She didn’t recognize Damian, when he reappeared.
Was this man dressed in cutoff denims, a white T-shirt and sneakers her urbane husband? And why the change of clothing? It was hot, yes, and the sun beat down mercilessly, but surely it would be cooler, once they set sail.
But Damian’s change of clothes had nothing to do with the climate. Every captain needed a crew, and Cristos’s crew was Damian.
Except she had it backward. In seconds, she realized that Damian was in charge here, not just in name but in fact. There was a subtle change that took place between the two men as soon as Damian came up the ladder. Even she could sense it, though the men worked together easily. Still, there was no question about who was the leader.
It was Damian, and he led not by command but by example.
She watched him as he took the boat through the narrow channel that led to the open sea. His dark, wind-tossed hair curled around his face. Sunlight glinted on the tiny stud in his ear and when the sun grew too hot, he pulled off his T-shirt and tossed it aside.
Laurel felt her breath catch. She’d blocked the memory of how he’d looked, naked, during the night they’d spent together. Now, she was confronted with his perfect masculinity. He was the elemental male, this stranger she’d married, strong, and powerful, and beautiful to see.
The breeze caught at her hair and whipped it free of the pins she’d carefully replaced during the drive from the airport. She put her hand up to catch the wild curls and suddenly Damian was there, beside her.
“Are you all right?”
Laurel nodded. He was so close to her that she could smell the sun and salt on his skin, and the musky aroma of his sweat. She imagined pressing her lips to his throat, tasting him with the tip of her tongue.
“Yes,” she said, “yes, I’m fine.”
His hand fell on her shoulder. “You’d tell me if you felt ill, wouldn’t you?”
“Damian, really, I’m okay. The nausea is all gone, and you know that Dr. Glass man gave me a clean bill of health.”
“And the name of a physician on Crete,” he said, and smiled at Laurel’s look of surprise. “I told her where I was taking you, and she approved.”
He wouldn’t have taken her on this trip otherwise. Still, out here on the sea, with the wind blowing and the waves rising to slap against the hull, he was struck again by his bride’s fine-boned delicacy.
“Go on,” she said, with a little smile that might almost have been real, “Sail your boat. I don’t need watching.”
His lips curved in a smile. He bent his head and put his lips to her ear, and she shuddered as she felt the soft warmth of his breath.
“Ah,” he whispered, “you are wrong, my beautiful wife. Watching is exactly what you need, if a man is to feed his soul.”
She tilted her head back and looked at him and when she did, he wrapped his hand around the back of her neck, bent his head and kissed her, hard, on the mouth.
“Leave your hair loose for me,” he said, and then he kissed her again before scrambling lithely back to the helm.
Laurel waited until her heartbeat steadied, then raised her head and found Damian looking at her. This was the way a flower must feel, she thought dazedly, as its tightly closed petals unfurl beneath the kiss of the sun.
His final words whispered through her head. Leave your hair loose, he’d said, just like the night they’d made love, just before he’d undre
ssed her, with such slow, sweet care that her heart had almost stopped beating.
But that night was far behind them, and it had no meaning.
Her shoulders stiffened. Defiantly she raised her arms and began to pin up her hair again.
And then the wind gusted, and before she could prevent it, the pins sailed from her hand and disappeared into the sea.
CHAPTER NINE
THE ISLAND ROSE before them an hour later.
“Actos,” Damian said, coming up beside Laurel. She knew, from the way he said it that this was their destination.
She shaded her eyes with her hand and gazed over the narrowing strip of blue water that separated the Circe from a small, crescent-shaped harbor. No yachts bobbed at anchor here; the few boats moored were small, sturdy-looking fishing vessels. Square, whitewashed houses topped with red tile roofs stood clustered in the shadow of the sunbaked, rocky cliffs that rose behind them. Overhead, seabirds wheeled against the pale blue sky, their shrill cries echoing over the water.
All at once, Laurel thought of how she had wept last night, as she’d thought of the unknown days and years that lay ahead, and she shuddered.
Damian put his arm around her and drew her against his side.
“What is it? Are you ill?”
“No. No, I told you, I’m fine.”
He stepped in front of her, leaned back against the rail of the boat and drew her between his legs. His body felt hard and hot, and the faint male smell of his skin rose to her nostrils. Another tremor went through her. This man was her husband.
Her husband.
“You are ill! You’re as white as a sheet.” His mouth twisted. “I should have realized. The motion of the boat...”
“Damian, really, I’m okay. It’s just—too much sun, maybe.” She smiled brightly. “I’m used to the concrete canyons of New York, remember?”
“I wasn’t thinking. We should have made this trip in two days instead of one.” The wind ruffled her hair and he caught a strand of it in his fingers. It felt silky, and warm, and he fought to keep from bringing it to his lips. “I should have considered your condition when I made these plans.”
His hand dropped to the curve of her shoulder and he stroked his thumb lightly against her neck. She had the sudden desire to close her eyes, lean into the gentle caress and give herself up to his touch.
