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Alex’s hand tightened on her hip. ‘My ex.’
Isobella looked up at him, shocked by the admission and the bitterness in his gravelled tone. His brow had furrowed, his smile had become taut, his sexy dimples were flattened into solemn lines.Yep—just the cold bucket of water she needed. ‘You were married?’ she squeaked. No wonder they’d looked so good together.
He looked down into her unadorned face through the awful owlish glasses and thought how much he preferred Isobella’s classic understated beauty to Sonya’s high-maintenance glamour. ‘Ex-fiancée,’ he corrected grimly.
His top lip furled. It hardened his features, and she got a glimpse at the arrogant surgeon he’d probably been back in his heyday. She dragged her gaze from his, focusing on his shoulder again. So Sonya and Alex had been engaged.
‘What happened?’
He didn’t look at her. His grip on her hip had started to bite, and the rigidity of his frame now matched hers. His face was shuttered and the silence stretched between them.
‘Alex?’ Why she felt compelled to push, she wasn’t sure.
‘Let’s just say she preferred me when I was a surgeon.’Not so much when I was undergoing radium, throwing up, losing my hair and being generally angry at the world.
He still hadn’t looked at her, but he radiated hostility, the huskiness of his voice adding an extra degree of indignation. Isobella started to get the feeling that Sonya had deserted him when he’d most needed her. She thought about Paolo’s desertion, and how much it had torn at her heart, at the fabric of her life and all she’d thought she’d known about herself and their love.
‘I’m sorry.’
The emotion in her whisper was compelling, and he glanced at her sharply. She had that soft empathy in her gaze again, that molasses quality. Eyes a man could drown in. For a moment he felt enveloped by her compassion.
He shrugged, trying to lighten the mood. Her empathy was seductive. ‘It was a valuable lesson.’
It sounded so hard, the words delivered with a gravelly bleakness she couldn’t help but shiver. ‘Plenty more fish in the sea?’ she said, injecting a lightness into her tone. This was too deep, too personal, for both of them.
‘Oh, no. I may be Greek, but I’m not worth a damn as a fisherman. These days all I do is catch, kiss and throw back.’
Her efforts at lightening the mood had failed. If anything his mood had become darker, the timbre of his voice dropping to an almost sinister whisper. She could see his jaw clench and unclench in her peripheral vision, and shivered at the sudden sapphire chill of his eyes.
She forced a smile to her lips, feeling strangely claustrophobic in the airy room, so close to his grim countenance. She was desperate to lighten the situation. Her body had relaxed and she deliberately straightened, pulling away from the mesmerising magnetism of his presence.
‘I thought all good Greek boys wanted to settle down and have lots of little Greek babies? Little boys to carry on the family name?’
Alex had seen the wariness creep into her gaze, and gave a sudden laugh to ease the tension. Isobella was right. His mother nagged him constantly about him being the only chance to carry on the Zaphirides name. How ecstatic she’d been all those years ago, when Sonya had been on the scene. Her firstborn son settling down with a nice Greek girl.
He dipped Isobella quickly, and smiled down into her startled face as she clutched at his shoulders. ‘What makes you think I’m a good Greek boy?’ He pulled her up again just as quickly, and smiled at the sudden rag-doll feel to her frame, taking full advantage to pull her closer.
Isobella’s head spun. His husky question had caused a wild leap in her pulse. His cerulean gaze was full of daring. His body was pressed into hers, and suddenly she was thinking of things—bad things—that bad boys did. She had to get this back on track.
She laughed to cover the nervous gallop of her heart. ‘I’m sure even bad Greek boys want the same thing.’
Alex pondered it for a moment and then grinned at her. ‘No. But I bet their mothers do.’
She laughed genuinely this time. His humour was just the antidote to the spiralling sexual attraction. He joined her, and his wicked dimples tightened her pelvic floor muscles as if he’d stroked her belly.
The music ended and she was grateful, stepping out of his arms and heading off the floor before she was tempted to stay for another. One dance with catch-kiss-and-throw-back Alex was more than enough for her sanity. Dancing in his arms had made her want things, inappropriate things, and she had absolutely no intention of ever becoming hooked on Alexander Zaphirides’ line.
