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‘Please don’t dismiss this,’ she asked.
His jaw clenched, anger and something like fear rearing their heads at her words. He stood and started to stalk towards the bathroom.
‘Wait. Please?’
He stopped, but refused to turn, bracing himself for what he knew was to come.
‘I think... I think that it might be what you are doing too.’
He rounded on her then. ‘One conversation withyourmother convinces you that you knowme? That you know my—’ He cut himself off before he could release the word he refused to admit to.
‘Pain? The pain of being ignored by a parent? Of being rejected?’
‘I wasn’t ignored by my mother, Célia. She chose to leave. She chose to accept the money my father offered her in exchange for sole custody.’
‘What?’ she asked, horror dawning in her eyes as her hand flew to her mouth as if to stifle a gasp.
‘Ten million euros. That was the price my mother accepted to be free of me. I had no culpability in that whatsoever. It was not my doing, my offer, or my suggestion.’ Because there was no financial amount that would have made him reject his mother. No matter what highs or lows she had inflicted on him.Thatwas the weakness he feared.Thatwas the bitter truth he’d realised about himself that day. That he would have done anything to keep her with him. Anything. And Meredith had done nothing.
‘No. You’re right. It wasn’t your doing, Loukis.’
‘I know that. I just said—’
‘Do you?’
It infuriated him that she was so calm. She could have been talking about the weather. Her gentle words were tearing gaping holes in his heart and she sat there poised and perfect.
‘Do you really?’ she asked again. ‘Or, deep down, do you blame yourself?’
‘What do you want me to say, Célia? You want me to say that I didn’t learn, at the age of fifteen, my value was ten million euros? That it didn’t hurt to be sold to my father in exchange for her freedom? To admit that I wasn’t enough to keep her?’
The words were ripped from his throat, burning and tearing at the soft flesh, making his tone guttural and harsh, even to his own ears.
‘No. I want you to admit that youdodeserve more. That youareworthy of her love.’
That you are worthy of mine, his greedy, desperate inner voice filled in the silence between her words.
‘You might not be ready to and that’s okay. But I want you to know that I think you are. Worthy. Of that, of more than what you have limited yourself to.’
He turned back towards the bathroom, his jaw clenched so hard, he feared he might crack a tooth. His fists balled where they hung at his sides, the pulse raging through his blood so loud it blocked out the sound of her leaving the bed and coming up behind him, so that when he felt her hand on his shoulder he flinched.
He let himself be pulled around to face her. Let her seek out his gaze, unable to shutter the effect her words had had on him.
‘I see so much when I look at you, Loukis. I see—’
He cut off her words with a kiss fuelled with need, pain and want. Need for her, pain for himself and want for what he couldn’t have. Because he couldn’t, wouldn’t hear the words that would follow. The promise of feelings, of love, he believed she wouldn’t be able to fulfil, for the sheer simple fact that no one else in his life had done so. Not his mother, nor his father, changed for ever after his wife’s betrayal. And if they couldn’t...
His chaotic thoughts veered away from the darkness as a starburst of light burned through him at her touch, at the way her hands—placed either side of his face—anchored him to her, focusing him on her.
How did she do this? How did she take his hurt and wash over it with acceptance and more? How did she see to the heart of him, yet join him rather than abandon him? The answer, he feared, would be more devastating than any lie he could tell himself. Because if she could love him, then why hadn’t his parents? Somehow that thought only compounded the pain. All of it.
Within the kiss, her tongue teased, and fingers taunted, the little moans of pleasure falling from her lips found safe haven within him as he greedily consumed everything she had to give, despite his thoughts and fears.
He was done roasting himself over hot coals, the sensual web Célia was weaving drawing him in deeper to her, demanding more. Demanding everything. And as he laid her back on the bed, he feared that he would do it. Pay any damn price for everything she had to offer.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DURINGTHECOURSEof the week on the island, Célia had worked a magic over Loukis that he couldn’t account for. Under her steady gaze, full of a confidence in something he didn’t want to put name to, a sense of rightness that he’d never felt before settled in his chest.
