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But he couldn’t help it as memory gathered speed through his brain.
He’d grown up depending on his father, looking up to him, hanging on his every word. For most of his early years, he’d wanted nothing more than to follow in his father’s footsteps, only to find out that they were the shoes of a philanderer, an extortionist and a fraudster. A man who would take his son’s idolisation and attempt to use it against him...to manipulate it for his own selfish needs.
His gut tightened against the ragged pain he’d thought long buried but that seemed to catch him on the raw much too often these days. It didn’t help his disposition to know that Perla was always present when it happened. That perhaps they shared a connection with hurt and betrayal.
‘If you’re talking about your husband, he was just one man. Don’t let him cloud your judgement about everyone else. Trust your instincts.’
‘Trust my instincts? I don’t think that’s a very good idea. My instincts told me you were a good guy. But you turned on me like I was some sort of criminal when you found out who I was.’
‘I no longer think that, or you wouldn’t be here.’
She opened her mouth to speak, paused, then eyed him. ‘But that’s only half true, isn’t it? If you’d thought I could really cope on my own you wouldn’t have stepped in.’
He dropped his hand, then immediately flexed it at his side when it continued to tingle wildly. ‘You told me how long you’d been out of the corporate world. That, coupled with your husband’s activities, placed you in a vulnerable position.’
‘And you were trying to save me? How unnecessarily noble of you.’ The hand she’d placed on her hips drew attention to her pert breasts. Breasts he’d feasted on for a long time that first night. Breasts he wanted to touch, to caress again more than he wanted his next breath.
He whirled away and focused on the views of the GW Monument and Capitol Hill in the distance, lit up beacons of power, hoping his brain would find a different focus other than replaying the sight of her in that pulse-destroying bikini.
‘So, are you done berating me?’ he asked. He wanted her gone before he did something completely stupid. Like finding out just how robust the wraparound sofa behind him would be with both their weights pounding it.
‘No. I don’t need saving, Ari.’
‘Fine, I won’t interfere. Even though you’ve clearly exacerbated a simple assessment directive, perhaps I should’ve just let things play out. Let’s move on, shall we?’
Behind him, she heard her soft sigh. ‘Move on. That’s easy for you to say.’
His chest tightened. ‘No, actually, it’s not,’ he said, then froze. Where the hell had that come from? Pushing his hands into his pockets, he hoped she would let the careless slip slide.
Instead, she came closer until she stood next to him. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked with a soft murmur.
He clenched his jaw for several seconds, then felt the words spiral out of him. ‘It means I know what it feels like to be under scrutiny. To know that people are looking at you and forming judgements you have no control over. That at best you were being judged with pity and at worst with scorn and malice.’
She sucked in a shocked breath. ‘God, who...why...?’
He turned and glanced at her. Her wide eyes were drowning in sympathy and her mouth was parted with agitation. The realisation that she wore that look for him struck him in the gut. ‘You don’t know about Alexandrou Pantelides, my father?’
She shook her head.
Giddy relief poured through him. ‘Then I prefer to keep you in the dark just a little while longer.’
‘Was he...was he the one you meant when you said him that day in your office?’
Another time, another slip. When it came to this woman, it seemed he didn’t know when to shut the hell up. ‘Yes,’ he confessed.
‘And you don’t want to be like him? What did he do to you?’ she asked, sympathy making her voice even huskier.
‘Nothing I wish to share with you.’
Although a tinge of hurt washed over her eyes, she kept her gaze on him. ‘Okay. But you know there’s nothing to stop me from searching the Web for information the moment I leave here.’
His insides tightened at the thought of Perla knowing just how mired in deceit and humiliation his past was. ‘No, there isn’t. But it’ll be an extra few minutes when I know you’re not forming an opinion about me the way you think others are doing about you.’
