A Deal with Demakis(67)
There was a gentle breeze around them, the sounds of the ocean beyond the estate walls soothing, and yet inside, he felt anything but.
He felt betrayed, hurt, he realized. And yet she had made him no promise, owed him nothing.
It was his own fault for forgetting what was important. Because five days of spending time with the woman, making love to her every which way, waking up with her slender form tucked tight against him, had warped his defenses, his armor.
Every time he had made love to her, it was as though she was changing him from inside out and he didn’t know how to stop it. Sex had become something else, something he had never felt before.
His hunger for her knew no bounds, but it was the little things he craved to see that lingered in him long after he was away from her, the little intimacies they shared that sent a ripple of fear to brew within.
How else had the little minx gotten him to admit that Spyros worked for him in Athens? Her soft body cradled against his, her eyes had shimmered in the moonlight as she muttered about why he wanted to paint himself in the cruelest color possible with her.
She was determined to prove that he had a heart, and a kind, working one, at that. To stop her from going on, he had said that it had been to his own advantage to hire Spyros behind Savas’s back, because he knew everything about the ins and outs of the business.
To which she had smiled, looking at him as though she had discovered a treasure, and kissed him, forcing Nikos to admit that Spyros at the end of it all, had been thankful to Nikos because he would have never had the guts to stand up to Savas and admit his love for his wife.
But she had drawn the lines now, had shown him his place in her life, like everyone else he had ever cared about.
The little realization sat on his chest like a boulder cutting off his breath. For all her claims, she hadn’t given him another thought, while he...he had been planning to ask her to stay as long as she wanted, he’d had a studio prepared for her, he...
Hurt gave way to bitter anger that he had to choke back to speak. “Have you just been manipulating me, hoping I would learn about them too late?”
She looked at him with a stricken expression, shaking her head. “I didn’t tell you when I thought they just needed time. I have been trying to rack my brain about what is best for everyone—”
“You mean what is best for him.” The words barreled out of him on a wave of emotion that suddenly he had no control over. “Because everyone and everything else is secondary to you.”
“This whole week...I’ve never felt more alive, I’ve never been happier. How dare you taint it with your ridiculous accusations?”
She sounded so uncharacteristically ferocious that Nikos stilled, his heart thundering loudly in his ears. Her gaze blazed with pure fury. “Then why didn’t you...”
Tyler stepped out from behind the wall. Fierce emotion flooded through him, washing away the hurt, the anger, and he stood shaking in its wake.
Theos, what was happening to him?
Lexi clamped his fingers tight, refusing to let him retreat. “I know how much she means to you, Nikos. I... The moment I learned what Venetia was proposing, I have been going crazy with worry. I spent all morning trying to contact Tyler. I begged him to come clean with you.”
He couldn’t look away anymore. Their gazes met and the depth of feeling there rocked him to his toes. No one had ever considered his feelings before in his life, no one had ever wondered if he was in pain, that he could hurt and bleed just as anyone else, that he wanted to be loved and cherished and even protected.