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And when Nikos released one hand, leading her back towards the bed with the other, softly asking if she would stay with him tonight, she knew there was only one answer. She knew she was lost.
CHAPTER NINE
‘HI.’
Kate looked up into the heavily kohled eyes of a pretty teenager.
‘Hello, Sofia.’ Getting to her feet, she stretched out her hand in greeting, but Sofia immediately pulled her into a hug. She smelled of some sort of exotic incense. ‘I am so pleased to meet you.’
‘You too,’ said Sofia, looking around her, scanning the other diners in the smart restaurant.
‘And Happy Birthday!’
‘Thanks.’
‘How does it feel to be sixteen?’
‘Pretty much the same as fifteen.’ Sofia sat down in the chair Nikos had pulled out for her and picked up the menu.
Kate laughed. To be fair it had been a pretty dumb question. She studied the teenager over the top of her menu. The first thing she’d noticed was her hair, shaved over one ear, it was dyed in shades of pink, green and blue, and artfully mussed so that it framed her pretty face like a spiky rainbow. She was wearing skinny jeans with rips all the way down and a skimpy black camisole top. Kate immediately liked her.
‘What are you two going to have?’ Nikos put down his menu. ‘I understand the chateaubriand is very good.’
Kate gazed across at him, trying her hardest to control the silly smile that threatened to creep over her face whenever she looked at him. The last few days had been so lovely she felt like she was floating on a cloud. But clouds, as she had to keep reminding herself, could quickly disappear...
Continuing their grand tour, they had spent three days in Barcelona, visiting all the tourist spots and soaking up the culture.
And even though the paparazzi had been in attendance, snapping pictures of them gazing up in awe at the Sagrada Familia or wandering arm in arm down Las Ramblas, the bustling, tree-lined street in the centre of the city, this time it had been different. When they’d asked her to pose for the camera she hadn’t felt like a fraud, as if it was all a gruesome pretence. This time her smile had been genuine. Her happiness real.
Like a switch being flicked, their relationship had completely altered since that night in Venice. Gone was the cold, harsh Nikos, who’d looked at her with such antipathy, treated her with such callous disregard. He had been replaced by a charming, attentive, funny and deeply sexy lover. The man she had fallen so madly in love with in Crete, in fact.
Except that wasn’t quite true. Nikos had altered—they both had. He was a stronger, more powerful version of himself, and all the more compelling for that. Success had honed him, made him sharper, more astute. And the way he wore his wealth only heightened his allure.
He was unostentatiously generous—particularly with taxi drivers or hotel staff or waiters...people to whom it meant the most. Maybe he remembered what it was like to be a humble waiter himself. Either way, this new Nikos was a whole new heartbreaking force to be reckoned with.
This trip to London—the last on their honeymoon itinerary—had been timed so they could take Sofia out for her birthday. Kate had been nervous about meeting her, especially since finding out that Nikos had told Sofia she had married him for money. Kate could have done without that, even if it was the truth.
But if Sofia had any concerns about Kate and her motives they weren’t showing. Instead she was screwing up her nose as she read the menu. ‘D’you think I could have a burger?’ She put the menu down. ‘That’s what I’d really like.’
‘In that case, that’s what you shall have,’ Nikos said. ‘It is your birthday after all. Kate? Have you decided?’
‘Yes. I’ll have a burger too, please.’ She smiled at him.
‘Three burgers it is, then.’ Nikos signalled to the waiter.
‘And don’t forget the fries,’ Sofia reminded him. ‘Lots of them—I’m starving. And I’ll have a double rum and Coke.’
‘Den tha! You will not!’
‘Okay. I guess I’ll just have to make do with a glass of champagne, then.’ She gave him a cheeky grin. ‘So that we can all toast my birthday.’
