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Chloe glanced sideways at his face...and wondered what he was seeing as he stared out to sea. For a while there was nothing but the hissing sound of the waves breaking a few feet away, and she had the impression he had forgotten she was there.
When he finally spoke his deep, strong voice held a rusty crack.
‘He met Helena through me. Her family are part of the London Greek expat community too, but like us they have relatives who still live here on the island. When I was a kid staying with my grandparents I used to hang around with her brothers. That was one of them with her back at the airport—Andreos. Helena used to tag along with us,’ he recalled. ‘A nice kid.’
And the nice kid had grown up to be a beautiful young woman with everything to live for, except now she didn’t want to live.
‘She and Charlie hit it off straight away. I was surprised as they were total opposites. Charlie was an extrovert and she was thoughtful, quiet and...’ He swallowed hard, the muscles in his brown throat working.
It really hurt her to see him struggle. ‘So it was a whirlwind romance?’
‘Actually more of a slow burner,’ Nik recalled. ‘They had an on-off thing that lasted eighteen months or so, the sort of thing that often fizzles out. But then something changed... I don’t know what it was, but they got engaged.’
She watched as he silently wrestled with the emotions inside him. Finally, she prompted softly, ‘You were surprised.’
He turned his head, his dark eyes glittering with self-contempt as he contradicted her. ‘I was irritated. We were a team and Charlie had announced that he was quitting and moving to a safe job where there was no risk of being kidnapped or shot.
‘It was me who persuaded him to take that one last assignment together. I was convinced that he’d realise that he couldn’t survive without the adrenaline rush, that he’d resent Helena if he gave up a life he loved for her. Oh, I was a really caring friend.’ Nik squeezed his eyes closed, still seeing Charlie’s dead eyes, his nostrils flaring at the remembered metallic iron scent of blood. ‘So it did turn out to be his last assignment after all, and he was only there because of me.’
Chloe swallowed the lump in her throat and turned her head to hide the tears that filled her eyes before picking up a handful of sand and letting the silver particles slide through her fingers, watching them vanish into the billions of identical grains. Risking a look at him through her lashes, she saw his expression was completely remote as though he’d retreated to another place entirely.
She didn’t attempt to react to his words until she had full control of her emotions again. Nik didn’t want her tears or her sympathy; he’d made that obvious. The only thing he wanted from her was her body, which rather begged the question as to why she was getting involved with his problems, seeing as it was the one thing she couldn’t give him.
‘What happened was a tragedy.’ She winced at the triteness of her comment. ‘But how exactly is it your fault?’
He vented a hard laugh and looked at her incredulously. ‘Have you listened to a word I said?’ He still didn’t know why he’d said those words—any of them.
He was already regretting it.
He was a private man living in a world where people were tripping over themselves to expose their innermost thoughts and feelings, mostly for public scrutiny. You couldn’t turn on a television or a computer, or open a newspaper, without finding some celebrity revealing all, but the idea of turning your personal tragedies and failings into entertainment for the masses made his blood run cold.
Getting to his feet, he brushed the sand off his clothes and stood there looking down at her. ‘Tatiana will be wondering what has happened to us.’
Chloe uncrossed her legs and raised herself gracefully to her feet. ‘Do you think you’re honouring your friend in some way by beating yourself up for being alive? The way you talk about him, it doesn’t make it sound as though your friend Charlie would have approved.’
‘Helena might disagree.’
‘Come on, you’re an intelligent man—it doesn’t take a professional to see that the poor woman needs help. She’s attacking you because she wants someone to blame.’ She shook her head in disbelief as he turned and walked away. ‘Nik!’ Cursing softly under her breath, she picked up her shoes from the sand and ran after him. ‘Fine,’ she said, falling breathlessly into step beside him. ‘Deal with it by ignoring the problem. That always works, doesn’t it? It’s very adult of you!’ How the hell could you help a man who was too stubborn to admit he needed it?
He stopped and swung around to face her, feeling a twisting feeling in his chest as he looked down into her angry face. ‘I did not invite you into my head, so stay out!’
‘Or what?’ she charged, pitying the woman who one day actually wanted to reach him, whose heart ached to help him.
He reached out and cupped a hand around the back of her head, drawing her up onto her toes until their lips were a whisper apart. ‘Or this.’
Her gasp of shock was lost in the warmth of his mouth as it came crashing down hard on hers. He kissed her like a man starving for the taste, kissed her as though he’d drain her. One big hand slid down the curve of her back, coming to rest on the smooth curve of her bottom, dragging her up against the grinding hardness of his erection. His free hand moved to the back of her head to hold her face up to his as the kiss continued on and on until her head was spinning.
Her body arched against him as her shoes fell from her nerveless fingers. Mouths still sealed, they took a few staggering steps together as the ferocity of their desire intensified. Chloe’s knees were on the point of buckling when without warning he suddenly let her go.
She slid down to the sand and sat there, arms wrapped around herself as she looked up at him, her big eyes wide and shocked. Bleeding control from every nerve ending, Nik’s hands clenched by his sides... He wanted to shed the pain, lose himself inside her—but he knew he would be using her in exactly the same way he’d used other women...using sex to gain a few moments’ oblivion.
Why couldn’t he bring himself to use Chloe?
* * *
‘That’s my way of dealing with it, agape mou,’ he told her harshly, staring at the pouting line of her lips, which were still swollen from his kisses. ‘So if you’re feeling sorry for me and fancy a bit of pity sex...?’
Even as she winced at the deliberate crudity of his suggestion, shameful excitement clenched low in her belly.
‘It was just a thought,’ he drawled.
She watched him stalk away, wondering how anyone managed to look rock-hard, tough and vulnerable all at the same time, but then he was a man of massive contradictions. Her energy levels felt as though they’d moved into negative territory as she began to slowly slog her way through the sand after him. It wasn’t until the car came into view with Nik standing beside it looking impatient that she realised what the tight feeling in her chest was—fear. She had never felt more scared in her life, which was saying something.
She couldn’t be in love with Nik. She lifted her chin in defiance at the idea... She refused to be in love with him.
As she approached he opened the back door for her.
She tipped her head in acknowledgment and murmured sarcastically, ‘What a gentleman,’ before slamming the door behind her just in case he thought he was going to ride in the back with her.
