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All versions of Chloe were sexy and desirable but this particular version was irresistible. It made him realise that even when she let herself go around him, she was still holding a piece back. Wary. Hurt. Once bitten, twice shy, he remembered her explaining.

“Spend the afternoon with me.”

Her eyes went round in her face. “What does that mean?”

Wariness crept back in quickly.

He reached over, tilting her chin. “It means you’re almost finished. The house looks great. Take the rest of the day off.”

“To spend with you…”

“Yes.”

“Doing what?”

His lips tilted in amusement.

“Right, in bed, of course,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. He pushed his door open and stepped out, coming around to her side and unfastening her seatbelt.

“Not in bed, necessarily. But ideally without clothes…”

“Is this part of your usual routine?” she asked, not even thirty minutes later, when she sat in a hot tub she hadn’t realized existed, for the simple reason it was on a terrace that was only accessible from the French doors in his bedroom, and the curtains had always been closed until then.

“What routine?”

“Your seduction routine,” she said, sipping the champagne he’d poured as the water heated up. It was the last thing she needed, but it was sort of nice to let her hair down for a change. Like her own little Christmas party, she decided.

“Hot tub, champagne. Lunches in quaint pubs…”

“I told you, I don’t date.” They were naked save for their briefs, and beneath the water, their legs brushed so Chloe’s pulse fired up.

“Not now, but once upon a time. How did you go about it?”

“There was no set way,” he insisted. “If I saw a woman I was attracted to, I’d go and talk to her. If I was still attracted to her, I’d ask her out. I’d go from there.”

“I bet you had a pretty good strike rate,” she said with a flattening of her lips.

“Why do you say that?”

She put her champagne down and moved across the water, coming to straddle him, wrapping her arms around his neck.

“I can’t be the first woman who’s told you you’re irresistible?”

He laughed. “I think that’s the champagne.”

“No, the champagne just pulls down my filter. This is the real me.” Even as she said it, she knew she should heed the words as a warning. She was being too honest with him, too open. But on some level, she wanted this. For him to know her, for her to know him—to really know each other—before she left. She knew she’d regret it if she went back to London, and her real life, and had left stones unturned with Dimitrios. This was her one chance; she wasn’t going to waste it.

“Why this obsession with other women I’ve been with?”

“I guess I’m just interested,” she said, lifting her shoulders, moving her hips a little. “You said this thing between us was inevitable. Do you feel that often?”

He reached up and cupped her cheek, then drew his hand lower, trailing it along her décolletage and then to one bare breast, which he cupped with easy possessiveness. “You’re asking if this is special,” he said, voice deeper than usual. “You’re asking if you’re special.”

She had been, and she felt embarrassed at how easily he’d spotted that and called her out.

“So?” she said, defensively. Honest and open, just like she’d promised herself.

“And if I say it is? That you are? Then what? Isn’t that opening a can of worms we both want to keep closed?”