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‘But your phone calls. They came just a few days after I’d contacted my grandfather. I left a message asking him to call.’
Begging him to ring and speak to her mother.
Sophie steeled herself against the memory of those hopeless days. Of the doctor saying there was nothing more they could do to counter the virulent strain of influenza her mother had contracted. Of how Sophie had swallowed her pride and tracked down a phone number for Petros Liakos, the tyrant who’d disowned his daughter, Sophie’s mother.
But still the old man hadn’t called.
Sophie felt the hatred, the searing pain flood her once more and cursed this arrogant stranger for making her relive it all.
He spoke, his deep voice cutting across the whirling turmoil of her memories. ‘I knew of your mother, but not where she was or how to contact her. I needed to speak with her urgently.’
Something about the tension in him, the harsh lines around his mouth, snared her attention, broke through her impotent rage.
‘When you rang Petros Liakos,’ he said, ‘I was able to get your phone number. I called all this week.’
But Sophie hadn’t answered the messages from the Greek stranger that had filled the answering machine. What was the point, when they’d commenced the very day she’d made the funeral arrangements? It was too late for her mother to forgive her family’s neglect. And Sophie had no intention of ever forgetting the way the Liakos family had treated her mother.
The messages had become more imperious, more urgent, but Sophie had trashed them. And taken satisfaction in slamming the phone down the one time the Greek stranger had reached her at home.
Now he was no stranger. She looked up into his impenetrable eyes, felt again his aura of implacable power. A shiver of apprehension feathered down her spine.
He claimed not to be her grandfather’s lackey.
‘Who are you?’ she whispered. ‘What do you want?’
Costas stared into the sparking, troubled eyes of the girl before him and wished he could leave her to grieve in peace. She was wound up tighter than a spring.
He’d released his hold on her reluctantly, on his guard in case she lashed out. If there’d been a knife to hand she’d probably have swept it up and plunged it straight into his heart. She’d looked like a Fury, eager for vengeance. But the next moment she was heartbreakingly vulnerable.
He felt her grief as a palpable force, heard it in the savage, scouring breaths she took. He exhaled slowly, schooling his face against the pity he knew she wouldn’t want to see.
Not for the first time he wished he’d never become entangled with the Liakos family. They were nothing but trouble. Had always been trouble for him. And for her, this girl with the fine lines of pain dragging her mouth down and etching deep around her eyes.
He thrust his hand through his hair and silently cursed this appalling mess.
But he couldn’t walk away. He had no choice but to continue. Even though it meant forcing his problems onto a distraught girl.
A pang of guilt pierced his chest. He should give her time. Respect her need to mourn.
But time was the one luxury he didn’t possess.
She was right to be cautious, Costas decided grimly as tension hummed through him. This situation had never been simple. And now, since he’d met her, it had become even more complex. Dangerous.
He needed this woman. She was his only hope of diverting the monstrous disaster that loomed ever closer.
But now, to his horror, there was more.
He could barely believe it, didn’t want to believe it. It should be impossible. But he couldn’t ignore the sheer potency of his physical craving for her. Of all women!
It was unique. Inappropriate. It was a complication he didn’t need. He didn’t have time for lust. Especially not for a griefstricken girl who saw him as some sort of ogre.
Especially not for a girl from the house of Liakos.
He’d learned that particular lesson long ago.
Look at her! She wore paint-smeared jeans and a baggy shirt. Her trainers were stained and worn and her hair had probably never seen a stylist’s scissors.
Yet he couldn’t drag his ravenous gaze from her. The elegance of her delicate bone structure stole his breath. Her wide-as-innocence honey-gold eyes, her ripe mouth. Beneath the cotton of her shirt he could see her proud, high breasts. Hell! He could almost feel them against his palms, firm and round and tempting. And those ancient jeans clung to her like a second skin, showing off long, slender legs.
