Modern Romance Collection July 2024 Books 1-4

CHAPTER SEVEN

GRIFFITH’SFINGERSTIGHTENED around his pen as the sound of a door closing drifted in through the open window. Unless a ghost had taken up residence, it could only be one person.

He would prefer the ghost. Perhaps it would haunt him less than Miss Rosalind Sutton.

He hadn’t seen her in two days. Not since the morning she’d walked out of the en suite bathroom clad in nothing but that gauzy blue blanket that had clung to the curves of her breasts and wrecked his control.

Never had he wanted a woman as badly as he’d wanted her in that moment. Sunlight had pierced the thin material, highlighted the nip to her waist, the flare of her hips, her long legs. Her curls had had a mind of their own, spreading around her head like an auburn-colored halo.

And those eyes...large, framed by dark lashes, innocent.

The answering heat that had flickered in the green depths had catapulted his lust into something so fierce and reckless he’d had no choice but to leave. His self-control was resting on a knife’s edge. Retreating was the only option. It was what he was good at. Keeping himself out of emotion’s way.

Surprisingly, she had left him alone. It was for the best. At least that was what Griffith told himself as he tried to focus on anything but the woman whose mere presence tormented him.

Fortunately, he had plenty to do, even without the modern wonders of technology. He had brought printouts of finances, shipping routes and summaries from each of the members of the executive boards, which he’d requested a month ago. Summaries that included what they had achieved during his sabbatical, what they wanted to change and, most importantly, what they wanted to see in the future. His father had done the company proud, had celebrated success even as he’d kept a constant eye on opportunities to grow. A continuation of the legacy Griffith’s grandfather had started when he’d turned a few shipping boats into an empire. A legacy Griffith was determined to follow.

You don’t deserve to lead. You’re not even half the man they were.

He smothered the intrusive thoughts. He hadn’t been deserving before. But he would be. He would never make the same selfish mistakes ever again.

Having work to focus on would also help him maintain control.

With that resolution in mind, he’d sat down at the oversize walnut desk, three levels of bookcases soaring up to the ceiling in front of him and the large windows overlooking the rose garden at his back. An ideal environment to jot down notes and make the most of his sudden desire to be productive.

Except every time he sat down to work, thoughts interfered. Thoughts of dark bouncy curls framing an angelic face that hid a surprisingly strong character. Thoughts of a slender body clad only in a blanket, the material following curves his fingers itched to touch, and long legs that he had envisioned, more than once, wrapped around his waist as he drove himself inside her.

Cursing, he stood and threw the pen down on the desk. It was only understandable, he reassured himself, that he was entertaining thoughts of himself and Rosalind tangled up in his bed. It had been well over a year since he’d had sex.

Was that why the attraction he was now feeling for the feisty and determined lawyer was so strong? So all-consuming.

He stalked to the window. Not only did he want nothing to do with her damned envelope full of papers, with resolving his father’s estate, but he also wanted—no, needed—to keep his distance from her and the temptation she presented. Jumping into bed with a woman he’d just met would be repeating his past sins. Placing pleasure above more important things like taking up the reins of Lykaois Shipping.

Or serving out his punishment for the way he’d lived for the past thirteen years. Focusing on hedonistic pursuits and material goods instead of maintaining a relationship with a father who had experienced his own loss.

A punishment that seemed all the more just when he allowed himself to remember how things had been before Elizabeth Lykaois’s death. Yes, he’d been raised in luxury, traveling frequently between his mother’s native England and his father’s home in Greece. But he’d never once doubted his parents’ love, had been secure in a way he knew few children were. He’d been drawn to the finer things in life. Belen had even cautioned him about his preference for new cars and dating around in his first couple of years at university. The tone then, however, had been one of paternal warmth, of sharing words of wisdom with a boy turning into a man.

Not the cold disappointment that had followed as Griffith had spiraled out of control after Elizabeth’s swift illness and shocking passing. Once he started, once pleasure eclipsed anguish, it had been impossible to turn back.

And every time his father had reached out, every time Griffith had been tempted to sit down and have a heart-to-heart with his father, he’d backed out of it, unable to bear it. His father had represented love, family. Things that demanded he open his heart and deal with his pain.

So he’d run. Run in the opposite direction and welcomed anything and everything that would distract him. And ignored, to his detriment, the small part of him that wanted to reconnect with his father. To grieve with his father.

A part he now realized he should have paid more attention to.

His lips twisted into a grimace. It was awful to have a life-changing realization after it was too late to do something about it.

Griffith glanced out the window at the gardens. They had been his mother’s pride and joy. When one of his father’s solicitors had shared the real estate listing for the chateau, his mother had fallen in love with it. The black gates had been rusted and falling off the hinges. The roses had grown wild, tangling over the sidewalks and up the walls. The mosaic in the grand hall had been chipped, some of the tiles missing. Even then he had been drawn to the modern, the contemporary, seeing more value in the designs of the future rather than getting stuck in the past. His father had been a mix, appreciating aspects of both history and the future. But his mother, while she had appreciated innovation, had been in love with history.

Nowhere was this more evident than in the chateau and all the loving work that she had put in to restoring it to its former glory. The year before she’d gotten sick, she had spent almost every waking hour at the manor, working alongside bricklayers and restoration specialists, learning the craft and pouring in as much of her own blood, sweat and tears as she expected from the workers.

At the time, he had been proud of her, with her dust-covered face and big happy grin as she stood in a pair of overalls. She’d held a paint roller in one hand and a glass of wine in the other as she’d celebrated the completion of the painting of the great hall with her husband and son.

Yet as his grief had taken over after her death, he’d come to resent the chateau. It had started small at first, wondering if she hadn’t been so caught up in the restoration if she might have noticed the little signs of her illness sooner. Then his father had invited him down to tour the finished home just a few months after the funeral. It had been too soon. He had declined, seen the hurt in Belen’s eyes. By not going, he had started a snowball effect that would affect his relationship with his father the rest of his life.

But he hadn’t been able to bring himself to step a foot back into the house that he associated with her. The house that should have brought joy and instead only served as a reminder of what would never be.

It had been around that time that he had thrown himself into what his father had described more than once as a self-indulgent lifestyle. The never-ending carousel of trips, luxury cars, yacht parties and one-night stands. By the time he’d hit thirty and realized that his way of life could only be sustained by buying more, doing more, to fill the always present chasm his mother’s death had carved out inside him, he hadn’t known any other way to exist.

And, he admitted to himself as he stared out the window at the roses, now tamed and flush with summer beauty, the thought of trying something new, of putting effort into overcoming his grief, had seemed insurmountable.

Coward.

A movement caught his eye and tore him out of the past. Rosalind walked down the steps of the patio and into the garden. She wore a creamy blouse tucked into a dark blue skirt that circled her waist and fell in soft folds past her knees. He did a double take as he realized that her feet were bare.

When he had realized that she had no clothes except the dress she’d worn, he’d gone up to the attic. His mother had never been able to resist supporting aspiring artists and designers, ranging from painters and sculptors to aspiring fashion moguls. Many of them had found their success under her patronage and had sent her gifts, including their own work, as thanks. He had recognized the label on one of the trunks, now an international fashion powerhouse. Knowing his mother had never even seen the garments had helped him steel himself against the sudden onslaught of emotion.

Also knowing that Rosalind would be wearing clothes instead of that damned blanket had helped as well.

She wore them well, he thought as he watched her move about the gardens, wandering along the stone path, stopping here and there to smell a flower. Casual, but elegant, they brought out her natural beauty. Her curls lent her a youthful air. But the confident set of her shoulders, the delighted smile on her face as she smelled a rose the same pale orange as the sky at dawn, made him all too aware of the fact that she was a woman.

She ran one finger over the petal of a rose. The sight made him hard in an instant.

You’re a grown man, not a prepubescent teenager.

His body ignored the lecture from his rational mind as blood pumped through his veins. He should turn away, needed to get back to work.

One more second. Just one.

She stopped, frowned. Threw one last look of longing at the flowers before she moved back to a table on the patio and sat down with a sheaf of papers. Working, no doubt. Trying to figure out how to convince him to sign those damned papers.

The woman wouldn’t know how to have fun if it bit her.

You could show her.

No, he couldn’t. That part of his life was over.

The sound of a chime drifted up through the open window. He saw her glance at her phone, could sense even from here the sudden tension that gripped her. The occasional phone call or text message would still occasionally slip through.

Who was reaching out to her? Her boss? Her parents? Perhaps a boyfriend? Just the thought of another man talking to her, kissing her, touching her, filled him with an unexpected pulsing rage.

Cursing, he turned away from the window and went back to his desk. Was he so desperate for connection, so starved for physical affection, that he had taken to spying on a guest, no matter how unwelcome she was? To creating imaginary lovers to vent his frustration and anger on? Succumbing to jealousy, an emotion he’d never experienced before?

He managed to refocus on a proposal from a board member about expanding their shipping routes to include the Northwest Passage the following summer. A move that would save ships currently navigating through the Panama Canal thousands of miles, not to mention time, fuel and money.

The proposal, well written and well-thought-out, drew him in. So deeply engrossed was he in reading that it took him a moment to realize someone was knocking on his door.

He looked up just as the door swung open. Rosalind stood in the doorway. Her fingers plucked at her skirt as she hesitated on the threshold of the room he’d told her to avoid.

Shocked that she would defy a direct order, furious that she had done so, he remained seated. Let the silence stretch between them.

“I...” A deep blush crept over her cheeks. “I need to speak with you.”

“I told you to stay away from my office.”

“I know. I—”

“But you decided to invade?” He stood then, a thin thread of humor beneath the quiet anger in his voice. He slowly circled around the desk like a predator stalking its prey. “Trespass? Ignore any and all common decency because you wanted something and damn anyone else who might get in your way?”

She swallowed hard as he prowled toward her. But she didn’t back down. He hated that he liked her for that. Hated that even with fury pounding through him he noticed details he shouldn’t, like the swell of her breasts pressing against her shirt, the rapid pulse dancing at the base of her neck.

“I need to talk to you.”

“So you said. And I told you I had no interest in speaking to you.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Did you ever stop to ask me what I wanted? Or do you just toss out orders and expect people to obey them without question?”

“Yes.”

“That’s not how I operate, Mr. Lykaois. I talk to people, ask them what they want, engage with them.”

“Then you’re in the wrong business, Miss Sutton.”

Her lips parted as something flickered in her eyes. She glanced away, then back at him so quickly he would have missed it if he hadn’t been looking right at her.

“I’m good at what I do.”

He walked back around the desk, put much-needed distance and a physical barrier between them.

“Apparently not good enough.”

Instead of bursting into tears or responding with fiery words of her own, she merely cocked her head to one side and pinned him with that mossy green gaze that saw far too much.

“Does it work for you?”

“What?”

“This impenetrable shield you’ve got going on.”

She stepped closer. The muscles in his back tensed. Suddenly he felt cornered, with the windows at his back and fiery temptation in front of him.

“You snap at people. Say horrible things to push them away.” Another step closer. The faint scent of jasmine reached him, teased him with its alluring dark floral fragrance. “But I think there’s something else going on.”

“I didn’t realize you had a degree in psychology, too.”

“No, just good people skills. You keep people at arm’s length because then you don’t have to try.”

His mouth dried. “Excuse me?”

“When you’re rude to people, you set a precedent. No need to try, no need to make nice when people don’t expect it of you. Then you can hide in your Kent estate or your secret London club or wherever and just...” She threw her hands up in the air, as if trying to physically grab onto the words that eluded her. “Just wallow in your pain and misery.”

“Wallow?”

If she caught the dangerous edge to his voice, she didn’t show it as she held his gaze.

“Yes. I lost my mother a few years ago. I know it’s hard to move on from—”

“You know nothing.”

He ground the words out, watched as her eyes widened in alarm. She saw too much, made him want too much, feel too damned much. She had the perception, the power, to rip away every wall he’d built and leave him with nothing except the pain he’d managed to keep at bay for thirteen years.

She threatened his very sanity. He needed her gone, out of his office, out of his life.

Now.

“Don’t try to build a bridge between us, Miss Sutton. There is no common ground. Yes, we both lost our mothers. But that is where the similarities between us end. If you think sharing the woe is me details of your life will somehow make me sign that contract, then think again.”

Too far.

He’d gone too far. She didn’t cry, didn’t yell, didn’t even blink. But he could feel the change in the air, the cold creep in as her heart hardened against him and his reckless words.

Ashamed, his eyes flickered to the side, caught sight of his reflection in the glass of a painting hanging on the wall. The scars twisting down his face, distorting his once handsome visage into something unnatural and beastly.

Monstrous.

That was what Kacey had called him. And she was right. The way he acted could be monstrous. But how else could he protect himself?

“No, I don’t know your whole story, Mr. Lykaois, or what losing your mother was like.” The compassion beneath her cool words only deepened his guilt. “I think you’re punishing yourself.” A board creaked. The scent of jasmine grew stronger, sweet yet seductive. “But have you ever stopped to think, for even one moment, that you’re punishing everyone else around you, too?”

It was as if someone had reached down his throat, wrapped their hands around his lungs and squeezed every ounce of air from his body. He couldn’t speak, could barely think, as the shocking weight of her words penetrated and left him adrift in a new reality.

One where, once again, he had made himself the center of it all.

He recovered just enough to say what he should have said the moment she came to his office door.

“Get out.” The icy calm in his voice belied the storm raging inside him.

With the faintest rustling of her skirt, Rosalind turned and did exactly that.