Chapter 4 #2
She wasn’t sure. She’d been sneaking around to see Christos during their torrid affair and she had no idea what he usually did with his free time. On Mykonos he’d talked of little besides the passion that flowed so powerfully between them.
“I don’t know. Watch a game, or talk, or whatever it is that you like to do.”
“Come over here, Ava,” he said.
She took a few steps into the room and then realized that she wasn’t being herself.
She was still stuck in the past when it came to Christos.
She wasn’t as shy as he always made her feel.
Pushing aside the doubts that had been brought on by the way things had ended between them, she sank down onto the white leather couch. “You come here.”
He arched one eyebrow at her in that totally arrogant way of his.
He poured himself another drink and came over to her side. Sprawling out on the couch, stretching his free arm along the back, he took a sip of his drink and just watched her.
“Now what?”
She thought about it. Somehow she had the idea that telling him to take off his shirt wasn’t going to really help her quest to know more about the man he’d become. But it would satisfy her curiosity.
“Ava, you’re staring again.”
“I can’t help it. There’s a part of me that can’t believe you’re really here.”
She realized she’d surprised him when he stiffened on the couch.
“Staring at me helps?”
“No. I stare at you because…” She took a deep breath. “Because you’re incredibly attractive and I’ve always liked looking at you.”
He leaned forward, putting his glass on the coffee table. “That’s good.”
“Is it?”
“We’re going to be married,” he said.
“Is this going to be a real marriage?” she asked.
He pushed to his feet. “I’m not interested in being married to an unfaithful woman.”
“I’m not interested in any man but you, Christos. I never have been.”
He looked at her. “If you even look at another man…”
The jealousy she remembered. And she had no way to combat it. He had to trust her. And she had to show him that he could. “I’m only looking at you.”
“Prove it.”
“How?”
“Come to me,” he said, holding his hand out to her.
Ava was the only woman in the world who evoked such deep feelings in him. Feelings that made him volatile. And he hated that.
“I don’t see what that will prove,” she said, nervously tucking a strand of hair behind her ear.
He just kept his hand extended toward her and waited. It was time to set the boundaries of the relationship and to let her know in no uncertain terms exactly who was in charge.
Finally she pushed to her feet and took a few steps toward him. He loved the way she moved. There was something distinctly feminine in the way her hips swayed with each step she took.
“I’m here, now what?”
He shook his head and waited for her to close the gap between them. She placed her hand in his and he drew her closer until their chests brushed.
“Now tip your head back,” he said.
He wished he could say that he was in complete control but he wasn’t. He wanted this woman with the kind of passion that shouldn’t have been possible because he didn’t trust her. Yet a part of him did. He trusted this reaction from her.
Her head fell back and their eyes met. He forgot about games and proving anything when he saw that look in her eyes. He lowered his head to hers, intending to stake a claim with his kiss, but when her lips parted under his, he forgot about plans and games.
“Excuse me, sir.”
Christos didn’t take his eyes off Ava. “Not now, Antonio.”
“Mr. Sabina is on the phone and he said it was urgent.”
Damn. He dropped his arms and stepped away from Ava. “I’ll take the call in my study.”
Antonio nodded and left the room. Ava had one arm wrapped around her waist. The fingers of her other hand moved slowly over her lips. “May I come with you?”
He started to say no but then just shrugged. “It’s business so it might be boring.”
“That’s okay. I want to know what you do, try to understand it.”
He couldn’t imagine why that would be something she’d be interested in. He was very aware of her presence behind him as they walked down the hall to his study. She sat in one of the large brown leather guest chairs as he went behind the desk. He picked up the phone.
“What’s up, Tristan?”
“Vincent Perez has been embezzling. I realize that it’s late at night where you are, but we’re going to need to deal with this in the morning.”
“Do you need me back in London?” he asked. The corporate offices for Seconds nightclubs were located there. And maybe some distance and time away from Ava would help him get his head back in the game and away from how tempting she was.
“No. Gui is taking care of pressing charges. He was the closest. But we’re going to have to look at the rest of the finance staff and find a suitable replacement for Vincent. Are you available at nine your time tomorrow?”
Christos palmed his BlackBerry from his pocket and checked his calendar. “Yes.”
“How are things going with the woman?” Tristan asked.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“We’re almost ready to return to Greece, and then I think all the details will straighten out.”
“Ah, is she there with you?”
“Yes.”
“Did I interrupt anything?”
“Au revoir, Tris.”
“I did,” Tristan said, still laughing as Christos disconnected the call.
Ava watched him with those wide blue eyes of hers. “What’s in London?”
He didn’t want to talk business with her, but maybe it was better than the alternative—lifting her out of that chair and into his arms.
“A business venture I have with a couple of friends.” When they’d started Seconds, they’d been twenty and defiant, each refusing to follow in the predestined path his family had outlined for him.
Tristan’s family was in publishing on a big scale.
And Guillermo—well, Gui’s family were royal and they didn’t approve of owning something so base as a chain of provocative nightclubs.
“I don’t know any of your friends,” she said, quietly.
“Why would you?”
“We were intimate with each other, Christos, shouldn’t we know at least a few of the people who are important in each other’s life?”
He rubbed the back of his neck, wondering if that was why she’d turned to Stavros. Was it because he’d insulated her from everyone else? He didn’t want to dwell on the need he’d had to make her completely his, to become her entire world.
“We were lovers, Ava, little more.”
“Now we are parents and you want us to marry.”
“I believe you want that, too,” he said, unsure where she was going with this. He tried not to think about what she’d said about Theo. He let the boy call him Baba, because to tell him not to would have been awkward, but he didn’t believe he was the boy’s father.
“I can’t be married to a stranger. Not even for Theo’s sake.”
“What do you want from me?”
She pursed her lips as she thought. Always so cautious, this one was. “I want a chance to become friends with you. I don’t know a lot of happily married couples, but the ones I do know…well, they are friends with each other. I think Theo deserves that from us.”
He nodded. It was one of the reasons he’d offered to marry her instead of just taking Theo back to Greece. “That’s amicable to me.”
“You have to stop trying to make everything between us sound like business.”
“Why do I have to do that?”
“Because it makes me want to slap you when you do it.”
“I didn’t realize you have violent tendencies.”
“Only with you, Christos,” she said.
He walked around his desk and leaned against it so that only a few feet of space separated them. “Business is the only way I know how to manage this.”
“Manage what?”
The way he felt about her, but he couldn’t say that. “Marriage.”
“This is a marriage of convenience?”
“It is convenient for both of us,” he said.
She rolled her eyes. “I think we should try to be friends.”
“How do you propose we do this?”
“Have dinner with some of my friends tomorrow night,” she said.
He glanced at his calendar. “I can do an earlier dinner. Perhaps around seven?”
“That’s fine.”
“Who will we be dining with?” he asked, wanting to run a background check on them to ensure they were the right type of people for Ava to be associating with.
“Laurette Jones and her fiancé, Paul Briscoe.” She stared up at him.
“You’re staring again.”
She flushed. “Will we be lovers?”
“We will be married.”
“I can’t be intimate with someone who doesn’t trust me.”
“You were before.”
“I’m different now.”
Yes, she was. There was an inner strength and core to her that the girl she’d been hadn’t had. Before, she’d been a kitten who’d come when called. Now she was a tigress who might come when he called or might turn on him with her claws bared.
And he’d had no idea that the differences in her would make him want her more than ever.