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Kate’s eyes had darted frantically across his face. ‘If you truly believe that, Nikos, then you don’t know me at all.’
‘No?’ He would show her no mercy. ‘Or does being faced with the truth hurt, Kate?’
‘Everything hurts.’
Her simple statement, the tortured look on her face, had torn into Nikos so that he’d almost weakened. Almost.
But suddenly Kate had rallied, moving over to the door and flinging it open with the last of her strength.
‘Get out.’
‘Very well.’
He had been beside her in a couple of strides. When she’d refused to look at him he’d reached out, gently raising her chin with a single fingertip, searching her eyes. His heart had slowed to a dull beat at the huge significance of that moment.
‘But just so you know, Kate, if I leave now I won’t be coming back.’
He’d waited, his breath locked in his chest. Waited for Kate to say something, to do something to stop this landslide of misery.
But instead she had remained silent. A silence that had pressed down on him more firmly with every passing second.
‘If I walk out now our relationship will be over.’
He’d driven home the point to make sure she understood, forcing the words through a closing throat, through lips tight with concealed emotion.
And as Kate had looked up at him he’d seen the truth, heard the words before they were spoken.
Her lower lip had wobbled, her voice had cracked, but her eyes had been like stone. ‘Our relationship is over already, Nikos.’
Three years might have passed since then, but as Nikos stared at Kate now he knew that the brutal emotions of that night were not dead and buried. Far from it. One heavy look from those sea-green eyes, one whisper of her breath against his cheek, one pout of those soft, sexy lips and he was right back there. Caught up in her power. He might be older now, and he was certainly richer, but where Kate was concerned he was no wiser.
He took in a breath of the sweet night air, silently cursing the way Kate held his gaze, looking at him with a wide-eyed honesty that was guaranteed to mess with his head even more. She wasn’t being deliberately provocative. If anything she appeared nervous, unsure, standing there with the whole of Paris behind her, her head slightly to one side, her mouth tightly closed.
She held herself carefully, as if she didn’t trust her high heels on these uneven ancient steps. Or she didn’t trust herself. Which made Nikos’s libido soar even further off the scale.
He had to find some control—fast.
Pushing back his shoulders, he marshalled his behaviour into line. ‘It’s getting late. We should be heading back to the hotel.’
He turned abruptly and started down the steps, without looking at Kate, without waiting for her to reply. Because if she subjected him to so much as a hint of temptation as to what might happen back at the hotel, where this night might end, he was a dead man.
CHAPTER SEVEN
RAISING HER CAMERA, Kate took another great shot. It was almost too easy—Venice had to be the most beautiful place in the world. Paris had not disappointed her, nor Rome, from what she had managed to see during the whirlwind couple of days she and Nikos had spent there. But Venice took her breath away.
Behind her the gondolier, wearing the traditional blue-and-white-striped jumper, skilfully manoeuvred their gondola through the busy traffic of the Grand Canal, pointing out various landmarks. The grand palazzos and the Baroque churches, the Doge’s Palace, the Rialto Bridge... There was something stunning everywhere she looked—like the most glamorous film set brought to life.
Taking a sharp turn off the main thoroughfare, the gondolier started down a smaller canal, so narrow in places that he had to use his hands to push away from the sides of the ancient buildings to keep their course straight. Away from the hustle and bustle, all was peaceful—just the soothing sound of the oar in the water, muffled voices in the distance. These were the back streets of Venice and, to Kate, every bit as fascinating as the showy Grand Canal.
Craning her neck, she gazed up at the old buildings with their wrought-iron balconies and wooden shutters flaking with peeling paint. She wondered what it would be like to live there, whether the people behind those walls were happy. Everybody had their problems—she knew that. Sometimes she just felt as if she had more than her fair share.
