She was in this bed with Nikos because it was him, because for all his acerbic words and unfeeling facade, she liked him. It scared her—the little fluttering in her tummy when he looked at her, the way her heart missed a beat when he smiled. She couldn’t lie to herself that it was just attraction or desire.
“Never better, Nikos,” she said, speaking past the thump, thump of her heart. And felt his smile against her skin.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
VENETIA AND TYLER are getting married tomorrow morning.
From the minute Nikos had received the message from his security head, only one thought resonated incessantly in his head.
Had Lexi known all this time where they had been? Her concern for him—had it all been an act?
She hadn’t denied his earlier accusation that she wouldn’t tell him if Tyler contacted her. And yet, he wanted to hear it from her mouth that she had knowingly deceived him.
He thanked his pilot and swung his legs out of the chopper.
Pulling his cell phone from his coat pocket, he switched it off. Savas was going to call; he knew it in his bones. And he was not ready for another one of his grandfather’s ploys. Theo Katrakis was going to make his move any minute now, and then Nikos would finally have what he wanted, and this time without paying Savas’s price.
Walking through the marble foyer, he shrugged off his coat, suit jacket and tie. He mounted the steps to the first floor, and stopped outside Lexi’s bedroom.
It was past eleven and by the absence of light under the door and the silence, she was sleeping. The last thing he wanted to do was scare her.
He turned the knob slowly. Moonlight filled the room with a silvery glow. His heart thumping in that annoying way anytime he was near her, he reached the bed, only to find it empty.
A hushed whisper reached him from beneath the veranda, and he took the stairs down to the pool behind. A rented scooter lay against the wall next to the ivy at the back of the house and standing by the pool was Lexi.
In her white shorts and bright yellow spaghetti strap top, she looked innocent and young, as if she was incapable of deception.
Her slender shoulders stiff, she looked up at him. There was no guilt in her eyes.
He knew, and he had accepted as much as he could, that what Lexi shared with Tyler was indescribable. That he was her friend, family, everything rolled into one. He understood their relationship had been born out of the hardest time of her life.
Having known that bone-crushing loneliness, he was only glad that she had had Tyler.
But the consequence of that was that in her loyalty, her affection, Nikos would always only come second to Tyler.
Something flashed in her gaze as she took in his scowl. Fear? Shame? “Nikos, I’ve been trying to—”
He didn’t let her finish. “Did you know where they have been all this time?”
Her luscious mouth trembled.
“Answer my question, Lexi.”
“Yes.”
The one word reverberated in his ears. His gut felt strangely hollow, his throat closing in, making it hard to breathe. Shying his gaze away from her, he turned and looked out at the blue surface of the heated pool.