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‘No, you look.’
She did—right up at him, emotion still swirling dangerously in her breast. She’d never felt so vulnerable, like every one of her childhood fears was being taken out and exposed to the harsh sunlight.
Ari felt tight. ‘Those women in London—the flowers…They weren’t one-night stands. They were pathetic attempts to negate your effect on me and to keep up appearances.’ His mouth twisted. ‘I’d agreed with Parnassus that it might help distract people from investigating the merger if I was seen to be out and about as usual.’
Lucy’s head went into mind-melt.
‘I’m sorry for leaving you so abruptly the other morning. I’m sorry for the flowers, and I’m sorry for dragging you into that shop and forcing you to choose something you didn’t want.’ Even now he couldn’t understand her reaction, or why he was explaining himself when he never had before. And he couldn’t really believe he’d felt compelled to defend his actions in London. But he wanted Lucy more than he wanted to understand right then…
Fresh tears threatened and Lucy wailed inwardly, Don’t be nice! I can’t handle nice.
She pursed her lips even as her anger drained away spectacularly. He hadn’t slept with those women? She felt very wobbly and vulnerable, and knew her words lacked impact. ‘Your behaviour was unforgivable. Spending that kind of money just to make a point is disgusting.’
His face tightened. He held up the bag. ‘What do you want me to do with it?’
Lucy felt wrong-footed by his immediate response. The Ari she’d thought she knew was morphing out of all recognition. She thought for a second. ‘I don’t think that lady in the shop deserves commission when she couldn’t be bothered to promote local talent. I don’t know…it’d be nice to give it to someone who’d really appreciate…’
She looked around. In the thronged square, back at the jeweller’s shop, she could see a young couple clearly in love, looking wistfully through the window at the engagement rings. Lucy could see the pain on the young man’s face at his girlfriend’s quickly disguised yet crestfallen expression as they walked away. She glanced up at Ari and could see that he had followed her gaze and witnessed the little exchange.
She saw his jaw clench. He let her hand go and strode through the crowd to the young couple. Lucy saw the conversation, saw Ari gesture back to her with a rueful smile and hand the young man the elaborately wrapped box. The young couple’s faces were shocked as Ari walked back to Lucy and took her hand again.
He led her away, but looked back for a moment and said, ‘Satisfied now?’
Lucy nodded jerkily. She couldn’t quite believe he’d done that, and asked a little shakily, ‘How…how much was it worth?’
He tossed back a figure and she felt the colour drain from her face. She bit her lip and said quietly, ‘Oh, well, it’ll buy them a nice engagement ring…or three.’
She felt the earth shift as she realised she was seeing a completely different side to Ari. She was very much afraid that she’d stuck her head into the lion’s mouth and he was about to bite down—hard.
By the middle of the following week Lucy was as drunk as she’d ever felt, and all without touching a drop of alcohol. She couldn’t stop her mind drifting back to last Sunday afternoon, now as she sat waiting for Ari to come out of a private meeting with Parnassus being held in his villa in the hills above Athens.
When they’d got back to the hotel an unspoken inevitability had vibrated between them, intensifying the closer they’d got to her room. Once inside, as if to stave it off, as if she could save herself from the burning flames, Lucy had said breathlessly, ‘Wait…what is this now? What are we?’
Ari had rested back against the door, hands behind him, those lean hips in the low-slung jeans making Lucy’s mouth dry and her head ache with the effort it took not to look down.
‘We are two consenting adults, exploring a strong mutual attraction, and this is…the second time we make love.’
Heat had exploded all around her. He’d pushed off the door and come towards her. Lucy had put out a hand, as if that could stop him, and had watched as he’d nonchalantly stripped off his T-shirt.
She’d swallowed. ‘But…what about us…working together? How can we do this…?’
He’d caught up with her effortlessly and pulled her into him, tight. She had felt the bulge of his arousal pressing against his jeans, pressing just above the apex of her thighs, and her legs had nearly buckled.
He’d bent his head and whispered at the corner of her mouth, ‘This is how we do this…’
Things had escalated swiftly. Clothes pulled and yanked, they’d stumbled and staggered towards the bed, Lucy falling back into the softness, somehow naked except for her underwear.
She’d watched as Ari yanked down his jeans and briefs in one go. She’d gazed at him in all his bronzed, aroused glory, she’d realised in that moment that ever since that day she’d bumped into him in the lift this image had been hidden deep in the recesses of her
darkest fantasies. A fantasy she never might have acknowledged if this man hadn’t wanted her too.
Was that why he’d got under her skin so thoroughly from the start? The revelation sent her pulse soaring, pounding through her veins and under her skin, even now, as she sat on the chair with her legs tight together and Parnassus’ own assistant sitting just feet away.
Even that couldn’t halt the images, though. Ari had come towards her like an avenging god and pushed her legs apart, where they dangled over the bed. On two hands he’d rested over her. After looking down at her for an intensely long moment, he’d pushed down one bra strap and then the other, and then pulled down the cups of her black bra so that her breasts were exposed, upthrust by the confining underwire.
When he’d bent his head to blow softly Lucy had groaned deep in her throat, in between her legs a deep, endless ache. When his tongue had flicked out and teasingly licked around the rapidly hardening peak of one breast she’d arched her back, willing him to suck it deep, like he had before.
When he hadn’t, she’d looked at him, felt sweat breaking out on her brow. He’d smiled devilishly, and she’d cursed him silently, her eyes flashing in a mute appeal.
