She threw her head back and laughed.
“I do not see what is so funny.”
But she just kept laughing as she disappeared into the bathroom.
He scowled after her. Then tossed the blanket off him, jerking on the discarded boxers and ignoring the rest. He would need a shower and quite a few cups of coffee to get his head on straight.
He texted instructions to his staff as he walked across the hall to the guest bath, since she was in his. When he was done with his shower, a mug of steaming coffee waited for him in the adjoining room.
He sipped it, not sure how he had ended up in the guest room and not his own. Still, when he stepped back into his own, the staff had set out breakfast on the patio as he’d instructed.
He poured himself another cup of coffee and drank it looking out over Corfu. Except he didn’t see the buildings or the sea. He was thinking of last night.
He could not get a handle on this strange phenomenon. He was not used to physical pleasure lingering, twining with other feelings he could not parse. He was certainly not used to womenlaughingat him—in or out of the bedroom.
Ariadne—Ari—prompted so many different feelings he was struggling to find the right compartment for them all. Some were familiar: his frustration any time she seemed put upon by his offers of help. After all, he’d lived with that all his life. Sexual chemistry was also no stranger. He had been attracted to many a woman, acted on it in whatever ways he desired.
It was just this underlayer of something else.
Perhaps it all stemmed from the fact that there were some things she accepted from him without that put-upon air. She hadn’t complained about the clothes or the meals. And really, he supposed, with the trips her only complaint was related to work, not being too proud to take help.
He could deal with that. He could even understand it. She was very dedicated to her work.
He thought of the bruise on her rib and tried not to scowl. Who in their right mind dedicated themselves to pain?
She stepped out onto the patio. Her damp hair was carefully braided tightly to her scalp. She wore athletic shorts and an overlarge T-shirt. Her feet were bare, her jewelry gone—no doubt since she was going to the boxing gym soon to handle her morning class.
She surveyed the table he sat at. “Oh, is breakfast real?” she asked, feigned innocence in the raise of her eyebrows.
He scowled at her, despite a glimmer of humor at her impertinence. “It is an important distinction,glikí mou. You would not be the first woman to misunderstand a situation.”
She lowered herself into the chair opposite him. “Perhaps the common denominator is not a woman’s misunderstanding but you.”
For a moment, he simply couldn’t think. There were no retorts in his mouth. Nothing in his brain.
Perhaps the common denominator is you.
Ridiculous.
She sighed, the sound overly content as she put an arrangement of food on her plate. Not as much as he’d like to see her eat—choosing fruits and yogurts over the more decadent pastries—but again, she had a commitment to her profession. She was feeding an athlete’s body.
Like the morning in Mykonos, she did not take any coffee or juice. Just drank ice water. He wished to see her glut herself on everything at this table and even opened his mouth to say so, but herperhaps the common denominator is youstopped him.
He was no one’s common denominator. He drank his coffee and ate a piece ofbougatsaas if in protest of her choices.
She hummed happily to herself as she ate and watched the sun finish its rise above the sea.
“This is like a totally different Corfu,” she said thoughtfully, as if she didn’t have a care in the world. “Quiet. Clean. Beautiful.”
“Yes, perhaps you should stay here for the foreseeable future.”
Wariness crept into her gaze, the way she held her shoulders. A little tighter. “Stay here?” she said, not looking at him.
“A next step in our little playacting.”
“Stay here for the optics, but I would have my own room, yes?” She moved her gaze to his. Direct. Intent. But for a flicker of a moment, he thought he saw that careful mask of hers slip.
The question, the slight hesitation and that tension still in her shoulders did something to ease some of his frustrations. She may have laughed at him, but she was not quite so flippant about last night.
