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She didn’t love him. She loved Matt.
Lukas felt sick.
The family business on Santorini had taken all of five days, but afterward Lukas hadn’t gone back to New York. He’d stayed the whole summer in Greece building boats with his grandfather and crewing for a company that rented high-end sailboats for vacationers on the Mediterranean.
And while he stayed away, a tiny part of him dared hope that Holly would realize in retrospect what she hadn’t realized that night—that she loved him.
But by autumn he knew it wasn’t going to happen. He never heard a word from Holly. And all he had from Matt was a handful of emails. The first had thanked him for being a good sport and taking Holly to the prom, the second said that Holly reported that they’d had a good time, the third wondered when Lukas was coming home so they could work on the sailboat.
So Holly had never told Matt what had happened.
Lukas supposed he should be grateful that Matt didn’t want to punch his lights out. Instead, he just felt guiltier. His other feelings—the ones towards Holly—hadn’t changed. He tried to think about other women, deliberately— and desperately—losing himself in the lure of every passably attractive woman who smiled at him.
At the end of summer, he didn’t go home at all.
Sometimes Lukas told himself he was being noble, refusing to go back and make Holly uncomfortable. In truth, he knew he was making himself as comfortable as possible by staying away. He couldn’t face them. He had ostracized himself.
He hadn’t gone back at all until Matt demanded he be best man at their wedding.
It was his punishment, Lukas realized—to attend their wedding, to stand there and watch Matt and Holly stare into each other’s eyes as if they were the only two people in the world, then to have to reach into his pocket and hand over the wedding ring that Matt slipped onto Holly’s finger. He’d even had to prepare a speech that he’d rehearsed so often he could say it in his sleep.
Matt had been amazed. “You? Prepared?” He’d laughed at the thought.
But sheer preparation was the only thing that had got Lukas through it. Then he’d toasted their happiness. He didn’t dance with the bride.
“Sorry,” he said right after the toast as he headed toward the door. “I’ve got a plane to catch.”
He caught that plane and then another. He drank more whiskey than he should have, hoping it would take the edge off his pain. It hadn’t. But he’d survived. He put all thoughts of Holly behind him. That chapter of his life was over.
He hadn’t let himself look back.
When he heard of Matt’s death, he had felt guilty and gutted—and he’d stayed away. He’d never let himself think about Holly unattached.
Until now.
And now, Lukas thought grimly, it was déjà vu all over again. The old turmoil was back. The awareness. The desire.
He had spent the past half dozen or so years growing up, becoming the adult he probably should have been then. He had focus these days. Purpose. He worked hard. He made better than a good living. He gave back to the community. He dated sophisticated, sensible women. Beautiful women like Grace Marchand.
And he was still hung up on Holly.
And Holly still hated his guts.
He looked at her now as she stood on the dock, arms folded, holding the towel across her chest, shivering with cold, determinedly ignoring him.
He didn’t blame her.
“Come on, Holly,” he said to her now. “Your lips are turning blue. Let me give you a ride home.” He paused. “And an apology, as well.”
* * *
An apology?
From Lukas? That would be a first. And for what?
As far as Holly was concerned Lukas Antonides had about a million things to be sorry for. She hesitated, wanted to hear more. But, typically, Lukas wasn’t waiting around to explain. He was already striding ahead of her toward the parking lot, obviously expecting her to follow.
Holly darted her tongue out at him, feeling childish. Then, as he knew she would, she followed.
Walking behind Lukas was never a hardship. A woman would have to be dead not to appreciate the physical Lukas Antonides. In casual khaki cargo shorts and a faded red T-shirt, he should have looked no more imposing than the teachers she’d kayaked with from St. Brendan’s. They worked out at the gym, but they seemed like milquetoast compared to the man moving ahead of her.
Lukas was lean with broad shoulders, narrow hips and hard muscular arms and legs that spoke of hard physical labor, not a gym membership. He moved up the hill with the grace and power of a panther at home in—and in charge of—his world.
