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She pushed herself into a sitting position. “I started it.”
“You are an innocent,” he said dismissively. “You did not know what effect your small touch would have on me.”
That was true. She’d had no idea her touch could affect him at all—small or otherwise. “But it is not something I regret.”
“And you should not. It was not your fault. You must forget about it. Get past it.” He was babbling.
Spiros, Mr. Sophistication himself, was prattling on like a new student on orientation day.
&nb
sp; It would be endearing if he wasn’t trying so hard to pretend nothing of import had happened between them.
She looked down at her clasped hands and said softly, “I don’t think I can forget.”
How could she forget the best moments in her life? She didn’t even want to.
“Please, byba, you must try. For the sake of our friendship, for the sake of our families. I know I should not have kissed you. It was wrong. I cannot believe I did such a thing. I have more integrity than that.” His voice had grown husky and he had to clear his throat. “For those moments I was not myself, and I took you to a place neither of us should have gone, but we do not have to allow the last twenty minutes to have a permanently tarnishing effect on our honor.”
He sounded desolate, more hurt than he’d been in her memory. And there was no mistaking the self-loathing lacing his voice. It tore at her heart.
Oh, man…A Petronides in full guilt mode could be scary. Really, truly frightening. She’d seen it before. Not often, mind you. The men in that family were fanatical about not letting others down. If she didn’t do something soon, it was going to get out of hand.
“It was not your fault. I was with you all the way.”
If anything, his expression turned more pained. “Do not say that,” he instructed her fiercely. “You are years younger than me, and inexperienced. I take all the blame.”
“For what? It was a kiss…with unexpected results, maybe, but still just a kiss.”
“Yes. Only a kiss. Remember that. You have nothing to reproach yourself for.”
She wasn’t regretting anything, but she knew he definitely did not want to hear that. She’d never seen him so distraught.
She stood up and tugged at the hem of her T-shirt. “Okay. No tarnished honor. For either of us.”
Now was not the time to discuss her breaking off things—such as they were—with Dimitri. That was something she had to do on her own anyway. Right now she had to get things back on an even keel with Spiros. She loved him too much to watch him beat himself up like this.
Their parents had done a real number on both Dimitri and Spiros. Not that either had ever admitted it, but how could they help being impacted by a mother who’d been a serial adulterer and a father who had loved her too much to refuse to take her back when the latest affair had ended. Like they always had.
Phoebe had been a baby, but she knew the stories as well as anyone in the two closely knit families.
The pattern had been repeated right up until the end, when the couple had been killed in an accident while trying to return to Greece together. Timothy had followed his wife and her newest paramour to a ski resort, to beg her to come home. What that must have done to his Greek honor Phoebe could only guess, but his behavior and that of his wife had certainly impacted their sons.
Dimitri was glacier-cold in the emotions department. Spiros was warmer, but he had an overdeveloped sense of honor and a fear of being like either parent that was as obvious as glowing neon to someone like Phoebe, who knew him so well. She figured both men’s attitudes could be laid squarely at their parents’ dead feet.
“No more thinking or talking about the kiss,” Phoebe said now in a brisk voice.
“Good. Yes. Right.”
Okay, it really was endearing to see him like this, but it also tugged at her compassion. “Go wait in the living area and I’ll change so you can take me to get something to eat.”
“I do not know if that is a good idea.”
“You would prefer I missed dinner altogether?” She knew it was blatant manipulation, but sometimes a girl had to do what a girl had to do. “Or we could order something in?”
He vehemently shook his head. “No. I will…” He sucked in a deep breath and let it out. “I will take you out to eat.”
“Thank you.”
