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Heat coloured her cheeks. ‘I was only a little girl then.’
‘But you were cheeky,’ he murmured.
‘Yes.’ Her eyes flickered to his. ‘I liked to see what I could get away with.’ She sipped her tea. ‘And I really, really loved chocolate.’
He laughed, this time with more humour. ‘And what about the sneaking out you would do? Stav said you had keys cut to the house when you were fifteen years old, so you could come and go without anyone knowing.’
Her eyes were huge. ‘He knew?’
‘I think your brother knew everything,’ Alex murmured. ‘He was always paying attention.’
‘Yes.’ She sighed heavily, missing Stavros more in that moment than she could bear.
‘You were fifteen,’ Alex pushed. ‘Why not just ask your parents for a key?’
‘Easy for you to say,’ she responded quickly.
‘Why?’
‘You couldn’t possibly understand the way they were with me.’
She bit down on her lip, pretending fascination with the chess board, when the game had momentarily lost interest for Tessa.
‘They didn’t want you dating,’ he prompted, and when she lifted her gaze to his face he was frowning, as if trying to catch the threads of a memory. ‘You had a strict curfew.’
Heat stole into her cheeks. ‘Yes.’
‘Why?’
She lifted her slender shoulders.
‘They didn’t trust you?’
‘They didn’t trust boys,’ she said after a pause. ‘And I guess they also didn’t trust me.’
‘Did they have a reason?’
She twisted her lips to the side. ‘Not really. I was a bit naughty as a kid, but only with silly things.’
‘Like jars of Nutella.’
She nodded, distracted. ‘When it came to the stuff that mattered, I think I was pretty good. I drank from time to time, at parties, but I never had a...’
‘Boyfriend,’ he supplied, after a pause that made Tessa wish the ground would open up and swallow her.
She nodded.
‘But you went away for college. Surely by then, you could have done whatever you wanted.’
‘By then,’ she said quietly, ‘I was way out of my league. I was a nineteen-year-old virgin. I was so embarrassed. I didn’t want to go out with a guy and have to tell him that I hadn’t even been kissed.’
Alex swore softly under his breath, and her eyes flicked to his face as realisation dawned as to what she’d just admitted.
‘Just as well you like doing firsts with me,’ she said with a tight smile.
He reached out and took her hand in his, lifting it to his lips. ‘I do.’
It was sweet, and kind, but Tessa felt like a gauche child again. ‘It wasn’t just my parents. I mean, it was mostly them, but maybe that lack of confidence and experience affected me, because I never really met anyone I felt... I wasn’t...’ She looked at him pleadingly, hoping he understood, but he offered no help. ‘I wasn’t attracted to anyone. A few guys asked me out,’ she said unevenly, ‘but no one ever made me feel as though I couldn’t bear to say no. It wasn’t hard to remain a virgin, all things considered.’
