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She came out onto the balcony to find a bowl of frozen grapes and a carafe of chilled water (with ice, which was her preference and an American habit she'd never let go of) on the hot tub ledge.
Lysander.
She gave a swoony sigh she never would have let anyone else hear.
He could be so incredibly thoughtful.
When her body was fully relaxed from soaking in the bubbling water, and she felt refreshed from the frozen grapes and crisp, cool water, Rowan got out. Taking the remainder of the carafe of water with her, she settled on a lounger. The sun felt so good on her body, she just lazed while her thoughts drifted and she watched the people come and go on the deck two stories below.
She should have brought her tablet out to read, but couldn't make herself get up and retrieve it.
"You have forgotten to frost the glass again," Lysander said as he pressed the button.
"I didn't forget." In fact, she'd had to turn it back to clear.
Given his way, Lysander would have left it frosted twenty-four-seven.
"And yet here you lie with your luscious body on display."
"Thank you."
"For what?"
"Calling my body luscious." She smiled up at him. "You make me feel beautiful."
"You are beautiful, and I do not want my goddess of a lover the subject of other men's fantasies."
Rowan laughed. She could not help it. "You are always so complimentary." But she was no goddess. "The only way anyone can see me up here is if they have better than normal vision, or binoculars and who is going to go to that effort?"
The sun loungers were set toward the back of the balcony as well. The angle would make spying on her even more difficult than the distance. If anyone were that keen to do so.
"You refuse to see yourself as the irresistible woman that you are."
"As long as you can't resist me, that's all that I care about."
"I cannot. Why do you think I am out here when I still have a dozen unopened emails marked urgent in my in-box?"
Warmth curled through her all the way down to her toes. "Am I keeping you from your work?" she teased.
He growled and started stripping off his clothes.
~ ~ ~
It was more difficult than Rowan expected to return to normal life in Athens. Well, her new normal, living with her sexually irresistible billionaire lover.
Living with Lysander wasn't the hard part and hadn't been since the day she moved in. Getting used to his demanding work schedule was. He'd always worked longer hours than her, but since they got back from Mexico, he worked less from his office in the villa.
There were days the only time she saw him was when he woke her in the middle of the night to make love.
With one exception, the evenings he made it home for dinner, his attention was entirely on Rowan however. That exception had been when they had dinner with his mother and her husband. The older couple had been charmed by the kitchy t-shirts, though Iona's husband had clearly been more impressed with the aged tequila Lysander gifted him.
Most nights they ate alone at the villa. However, sometimes Lysander took her to A List restaurants, where he always arranged for some sort of private dining for them, so they could eat undisturbed.
Being the center of his intense focus was becoming as addictive as his lovemaking, but on the days she didn't see him at all, Rowan spent way too much time thinking.
Before their trip to Mexico, they texted back and forth throughout the day. Since returning to Athens, he often took an hour, or longer, to reply to her texts. There were times when she hadn't asked a specific question that he did not reply at all. And, unlike before their trip, he rarely initiated a text conversation.
Their first week back, she'd chalked that up to him being busy catching up with work. By the second week, the pang she got when her texts went unanswered felt more like a knife jab to her tender heart.
