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‘The reason I stopped you wasn’t because I was scared, or regretting things, or faking it, or worried that it might hurt—well, maybe a bit...’ She took a breath. ‘I don’t know how to say this.’
‘Go ahead!’
‘Well, I wasn’t...’ She stopped herself again.
‘Please,’ he invited, ‘let’s just have it out here and now.’
‘I wasn’t going to stake my sexual health on a slut like you!’
There—she’d said it. In fact, she’d shouted it. And for the first time in almost for ever she’d let her temper out.
‘God help me...’ Costa muttered, because she was the most confusing person ever placed on this earth!
‘I’ve known from the start that we’re not going anywhere,’ Mary said. ‘I accept that.’
‘Oh, youacceptthat, do you? Mary, it was never even up for negotiation.’
He wasn’t just angry with her, but with himself too—because he’d have had her in the pool and they both knew it. And he never had unprotected sex.Never.
‘Are you even on the Pill?’
‘I started it the night you left.’
Costa gave a black laugh, but then changed it to a somewhat incredulous smile. ‘I admire you, Mary,’ he said, only he knew he didn’t sound particularly complimentary. ‘When you go for something, you really go for it, don’t you?’
‘Perhaps...’
‘Perhaps?’ He turned in simple amazement at her complete understatement. ‘Diving off the top board, a birthday night out with a brute, a weekend in Greece as an escort when you’ve never even—’
He stopped, because he could not focus on her innocence; it was much easier to allow his natural suspicion to take over than to indulge in dangerous thoughts about the intoxicating woman in front of him.
His eyes narrowed, he said, ‘Were you hoping this would last longer than a weekend?’
‘Oh, now you think I’m here to trap you?’
‘I don’t know what the hell to think!’
If anything, Costa dared not think too hard. Because suddenly it wasn’t Mary’s sexual inexperience that was the issue, it was these damn feelings that were getting in the way. The same feelings that had been getting in his meticulously planned way since he had first laid eyes on this woman who had introduced herself as ‘Mary from London’.
‘I don’t want to get involved with anyone,’ he told her as they arrived back at the villa.
‘So you’ve said. Several times.’
‘And we’re too involved already.’
‘Hardly...’ Mary refuted.
‘Yes, we are,’ Costa said. ‘Look, I don’t want the responsibility of a relationship and this is starting to look like one.’ He hoped it was too honestly said to sound selfish. ‘I don’t want all the panic of one.’
‘Panic...?’ She frowned.
‘Wrong word.’ He corrected his English. ‘Drama.’ Then he corrected the situation. ‘Look, whether Yolanda believed us or not doesn’t matter,’ he said. ‘She’s just going to have to deal with the fact when I tell her that we broke up.’
‘What will you tell her?’
‘The truth.’ Costa looked at her then. ‘That we are completely incompatible.’
He’d expected pleas and protests, and yet Costa was coming to understand that he had absolutely no clue when it came to Mary.
