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Or maybe she was feeling a bit wobbly herself. She was clinging to the rail, though she told herself it was because it was his neck she would like to wring, not because her knees felt much weaker than they ought to have.
Because Constantine was here. Here, at her door. And he looked even more darkly beautiful than she remembered.
And all she seemed to do was remember him.
She had spent a lot of time imagining him in different places, and different poses—and a thousand differentpositionsbecause her body longed for him in ways that made her shiver—but she hadn’t imagined him here. All of that simmering Greek glory, out on the cobblestones with London brooding about in the background. Rumpled and hot-eyed and almost too recklessly masculine to look at directly.
It was almost too much to take.
“This isn’t aboutdebts,” he retorted.
A bit loudly, to her surprise.
Almost as if he...felt something.
But this was Constantine Skalas. There was more likely to be a sudden stampede of unicorns along her cobbled street than there was for him to catch a terrible case offeelings, like a bad flu. And it was even less likely that if he did, he would come here to share them with her.
After all, their relationship had been a lie when she was sixteen and more recently nothing but debts and dares. Ahetairaindeed.
Because she’d looked that word up once she’d come home, thinking he’d used an endearment. She should have known better.
“Then there’s no reason for you to be here, is there?” she asked coolly, glaring down at him. “After all, ours was a transactional relationship at best.”
“I’m not here to talk about transactions!” he thundered at her.
Even more loudly.
She responded by going arctic. “My mistake. Are you here totalk? Do you dotalking, Constantine? Is that part of your revenge fantasy?”
His eyes blazed. And she had the strangest notion he was about to explode. Right out in the open.
Molly wanted to see that more than she wanted her next breath. And equally wanted to protect him from it. She despaired of herself and her endlessly stupid heart.
“Do you truly wish to shout at each other?” he asked her, biting off each word as his gaze incinerated the world around him. “In public?”
And she had to think about it.
Because she was certain no good could come of letting that man into her house. No good could come of letting herself get close to him again. Physically, that was.
Does anyone get close to Constantine Skalas?the bitter voice inside her asked.
Still, the last thing she needed was to have someone make a video of this confrontation and splash it over the internet, which she knew they would. Because who needed the paparazzi when everyone had a mobile in their hand? She scanned the windows opposite her and didn’t see any telltale twitching curtains, but that didn’t mean anything.
Eyes were everywhere. That had been the first lesson Constantine had taught her.
She turned on her heel and slammed her way back into her house, running down the stairs to the front door and then waiting there a moment, desperately trying to get her breath under control.
But she gave it up as futile and tossed the door open.
Constantine brushed his way inside, then stood there, glowering at her in her own hallway as she slammed the front door shut, locking them in.
Together. And alone.
Not that it mattered if they were alone or with ten thousand people, surely. Not anymore.
Her heart, predictably, beat too hard anyway.
“There’s no reason for you to be here,” she told him, her voice hot and potentially unhinged, but she couldn’t worry about that. “The note you left me in Paris did all the talking you could ever need to do. My debt was paid. Is that how ahetaira’s term was usually ended? I’m not conversant on the finer points of relinquishing a courtesan.”
