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‘Exactly.’ Nikos’s arrogant expression said it all. ‘The perfect photo opportunity.’
‘What?’ Suddenly the light dawned, bright and sharp. ‘You mean you set that up?’
Nikos shrugged. ‘I happened to mention to someone I know in the newspaper business that we were getting married here today. They must have tipped off one of the photographers they use.’
He couldn’t even be bothered to look at her. Instead he was tapping something into his cell phone.
‘And you didn’t have the decency to ask me first if it was okay?’ Kate hissed back at him.
‘I didn’t want to spoil the surprise.’
Nikos’s silky tone stole over her like a tide of prickly heat. The phone, now finished with, was slipped back into his pocket and his focus moved back to her. Which was a whole lot worse.
His slow gaze swept over her exposed thighs, taking in the way her dress had ridden up when she’d twisted round to confront him. Furiously Kate tugged it down, lifting her bottom off the seat to try and release more of the lacy fabric. This dress was way too short. Whatever had she been thinking?
A glance in Nikos’s direction revealed his thoughts all too clearly. The dark, very masculine gleam in his eyes was unmistakable, deeply sexual, and hot enough to scorch her soul. And the smug expression on his face told Kate he was loving every minute of her turmoil. This was a power game he was playing—displaying his obvious interest and enjoying her confused reaction to the full.
Moving her eyes to the front, Kate primly crossed her legs, feeling Nikos’s stare burn a trail down her calf to her ankle and the red stiletto dangling from her foot. Damn him.
‘Well, I did not appreciate the surprise. You had absolutely no right to tell the press about our wedding without asking my permission first.’
‘No right, eh?’
She heard the rustle of Nikos folding his arms across his immaculately tailored chest.
‘Actually, that’s where you’re wrong. Because by agreeing to marry me you have also agreed to the terms of our relationship.’
‘What terms?’ Alarm caught in her throat as she snapped her head round to face him again. ‘I didn’t agree to any terms.’
‘I think you’ll find that you did.’
‘Our marriage is a purely practical arrangement, entered into for our mutual benefit. I did it solely for the money, Nikos, you know that. Nothing else.’
‘Ah, Kate...’
Nikos raised a hand, delicately stroking her jawline with a lover’s caress. Kate’s breath stalled.
‘You are such a romantic.’ His voice was heavy with sarcasm, but with seduction too, and his Greek accent, which usually gave no more than a hint of his European roots, seemed deliberately deepened to a sexy burr. ‘Whatever am I going to do with you?’
‘Nothing.’ Kate jerked her head back to dislodge his fingers and their velvet touch. ‘You are not going to do anything with me—that’s the point. Whatever you may think, marrying me has not given you the right to take over my life.’
‘Let’s get a couple of things straight, shall we?’ His tone hardened as he placed his hands down on his arrogantly spread muscled thighs.
Kate remembered those hands well. Not immaculately manicured, as they were now, but roughened by his work on the fishing boats, by scrubbing tables and shucking oysters for the diners at Marios’s restaurant.
On the night they had met he had presented her with a plate of oysters sitting on a bed of ice, symmetrically arranged around half a lemon. She hadn’t ordered them. She had tried oysters before and decided they weren’t for her. But with Nikos standing there expectantly, waiting for her to taste them, she hadn’t been able to say no.
Picking up the first shell to examine it, she had been acutely aware of him watching her. And when she’d tipped back her head, letting the oyster slide down her throat, it had suddenly felt like the most erotic experience of her life.
Their eyes had met afterwards, their shared intimacy thrumming in the warm night air. Kate could still remember that moment...still taste the sea on her lips. By the end of the evening those hands had taken her to unknown heights of ecstasy.
