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“We are.”
“So wouldn’t you rather lean on them?”
“I don’t need to.”
“Fine, you’re too big and macho to ‘need’ support, but what about their counsel?”
“You think they’d urge me to act differently?”
“Perhaps.”
“What would you have had me do?”
She pursed her lips. “Not accuse me of sleeping with him before I had a chance to explain?”
He pushed back his chair and stood, the lines of his body showing frustration. “I feel as though someone has shaken a bottle of soft drink and is now opening the lid. It doesn’t matter what I do, I can’t get the lid back on and I can’t stop the spray from going everywhere. I admired my father a great deal and yet he has left the most unholy mess behind.”
“And I’m a part of that?”
“Even if I were to play devil’s advocate for a moment, and to say that I believed your version of events—,” the moment of light-heartedness was short lived. “Which is not to say that I do, I’m speaking hypothetically,” he continued. “Just the appearance of the money he left you, the bronze sculpture in your possession, make it highly unlikely anyone else would believe your friendship was innocent. If there weren’t proof of Anna, then perhaps. But his character has changed now, beyond repair.”
“I’m collateral damage,” she murmured.
“Perhaps.” The word showed he was far from convinced. “If that’s the case, I would owe you an apology.”
“Wow. I’m shocked. You’re sounding almost human.”
“But it would also complicate things,” he said with a seriousness that took her breath away.
“Oh?”
“Believing you and my father slept together is all that’s stopping me from kissing you—no, from dragging you to my bed and making love to you until you can barely breathe.”
Her breath hitched in her throat as her eyes went rounder than saucers. She stood, but her knees knocked together and she had to press her fingers into the tabletop.
“I didn’t sleep with him,” she said uneasily.
“The problem is, I’ve seen your apartment. His painting, the sculpture. I saw how you reacted when I told you about him. There is some friend of yours trying to sell the story, and promising you on a silver platter, for an additional payment. Only an idiot would believe you had no relationship with my father, given all that, and I’m no idiot.”
“Aren’t you?” She couldn’t help the jibe, to cover the hurt dousing her in acid. She’d wanted to go to him. She’d wanted to lift up onto the tips of her toes and kiss him senseless, to press her body to his and silently implore him to do everything he’d just promised.
“You’re asking me to take a leap of faith, but it’s beyond me. I’m not someone who acts on trust alone. I need proof. Rock hard, solid evidence.”
“I’m not asking you to do anything,” she corrected after a moment. “I’m just standing here, telling you the truth. Whether you believe it or not, is up to you.”
He made a gruff sound, showing his frustration better than any words could. “Would you honestly expect me to make love to you knowing that you’ve been in his arms, welcomed him with your body?”
She looked away from him, the words he used invoking imagery of Anastasios welcoming her to his bed, of her body taking his, so she shuddered a little, from desire and need, rather than anything else.
“Have I asked you to make love to me?”
She felt his gaze rake her body, the way he looked from her head, lower, sweeping his eyes over her face with lavish fascination, then dropping to the slender column of her throat, her exposed decolletage, the generous swell of her breasts and narrow waist, the hips that were displayed by the white shorts, and her shapely, athletic legs. Her heart was in overdrive as he inspected her with a possessive heat that was completely inappropriate, all things considered.
Yet she didn’t move.
She didn’t argue.
She stood her ground, and her body gradually came to life. Her skin lifted in goosebumps, her blood pounded through her veins, her stomach twisted tightly and moist heat pooled between her legs, muscles there clamping in a silent, desperate plea. Her breasts throbbed, and her nipples tingled against the soft cotton of the halter neck, so that when his eyes raked back up her body and they hovered on the swell of her cleavage, his expression was one of obvious admiration, eyes steady on the hardened peaks. Warmth flooded her there, almost as if he was touching her, and in fact, her back swayed forward a little, as though he’d squeezed one nipple and sent her into overdrive.
