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Andreas’s eyes glinted. ‘You don’t want to miss that, do you?’
Siena looked at him and saw the challenge. He would stay if she relented over her work. She met it head-on and took her hand out of his. ‘No, I don’t.’ Even though she found herself wishing that they could stay here longer. Not that she would admit it to Andreas.
Andreas’s family bade them a friendly farewell, with Andreas suffering under copious kisses and hugs from his sisters and nieces and nephews. And then his mother came and pulled Siena close again, hugging her tight. When she put her away from her his mother tucked some wayward hair behind her ear in an effortless yet profoundly simple maternal gesture.
She looked at Siena with the kindest dark eyes, and Siena felt as if she could see all the way through to her deepest heart’s desires and pain. A ball of emotion was spreading inside Siena and for a panicky second she wanted to burst into tears and bury her head in this woman’s chest, to seek a kind of comfort she’d only dreamt existed.
But then Andreas was there and the moment was defused. And soon they were back in the Jeep, and in the helicopter, and by the time they’d got to the plane Siena felt as if she was under control again.
‘What did you think?’
Siena turned to look at Andreas, where he was sprawled across the other side of the aisle on the small private jet. She’d been avoiding looking at him because she still felt a little raw. How could she begin to explain to this man that seeing his family had been like a dream of hers manifested? All that love and affection in one place…
‘I liked them very much.’
‘Still,’ Andreas said, with something Siena couldn’t decipher in his voice, ‘it’s not really your scene is it? The rustic nature of a backwater like that and a big, sprawling messy family?’
Siena felt nothing for a second, as if protecting herself, and then hurt bloomed—sharp and wounding. After everything he now knew about her Siena couldn’t believe that he still had her very much placed in a box.
It seemed as if not much had really changed at all, in spite of the last few weeks. She wanted to berate him, ask him what his issues over going home were, but she was feeling too fragile. Clearly she still had to play a part.
Feeling very brittle, Siena forced a short sharp laugh. ‘As you said yourself, we’re from worlds apart.’
And she turned her head and looked out of the window, blinking back the hot prickle of tears, feeling like a fool.
Andreas pushed down the uncomfortable awareness that Siena was upset. Bringing her to see his family had been a mistake. He should have gone on his own. Maybe then he wouldn’t have seen them in another light, and not in the usual suffocating way he usually did. Maybe then he wouldn’t have noticed his father with one of his nieces on his knee, telling her a story. Wouldn’t have had to wonder for the first time in his life what the anatomy of his family would have looked like if his father hadn’t stayed to support his wife and children.
There were plenty of marriages in that town that were fragmented because the men had had to go to Athens to work, leaving their family behind. But his father had chosen to stay, and as a result they’d all had a very secure and stable upbringing.
Andreas didn’t like to acknowledge that seeing Siena in that milieu hadn’t been as alien as he’d thought it would be. She’d charmed them all with that effortless grace, and he could recognise now her genuine warmth.
Andreas glanced at Siena but her face was turned away, her hair spilling over her shoulders and touching the curve of her breast. She was not the woman he’d believed her to be. Not in the slightest.
Andreas looked out of the window beside him blindly, as if she might turn her head and see something he struggled to contain. He thought of how quickly she’d dismissed meeting his family and clung to that like a drowning man to a raft. Of course she’d liked his family, but she would never be a part of that world in an indelible way.
Andreas assured himself that the very ambiguous emotions she’d evoked when he’d seen her cradle his baby niece had merely been a natural response to his realisation that one day he too would have to settle down and produce an heir. For the first time it wasn’t an image that sent a wave of rejection through his body.
But it wouldn’t be with Siena DePiero. Never her.
* * *
In bed that night, Siena and Andreas came together in a way that Siena could only lament at. This heat was inevitable between them, and it was good at hiding the fact that there was little else. She wished she could be stronger, but she felt as if time was running out and so she seized Andreas between her legs with a fierce grip, urging him on so that when the explosion came it was more intense than it had ever been.
When he was spooning her afterwards, and she was in a half-asleep haze, Siena opened her eyes. What she’d said earlier about Andreas’s family hadn’t been truthful, and she was sick of lying to him.
She turned so that she was on her back, looking into Andreas’s face. He opened slumberous eyes and that heat sizzled between them again. Already. Siena ignored it valiantly and put her hand on Andreas’s when it started exploring up across her belly.
‘No… I wanted to say something to you…’
Siena felt the tension come into Andreas’s big body. He removed his hand from her.
She took a deep breath. ‘Earlier, when you said that your home town and meeting your family probably wasn’t really my scene, I agreed with you… Well, I shouldn’t have. Because it’s not true. It’s more my scene than you could ever know, Andreas. That’s the problem. I dreamed my whole life of a family like yours. I longed to know what it would be like to grow up surrounded with love and affection…’
Siena couldn’t read Andreas’s expression in the dim light but she could imagine she wouldn’t like it.
‘When your mother hugged me earlier…she really hugged me. I’ve never felt that before, and it was amazing. I’m glad you took me. It was a privilege to meet them.’
There was a long moment of silence and then Andreas said in a tight voice, ‘You should sleep. You have to be up early.’
