A Deal with Demakis(82)

                Clad in a long coat, his mouth set into a tight line, Nikos stood on the other side of the door.

                Her heart, if possible, might have jumped out of her chest. For a few seconds, she forgot to breathe as panic flooded her muscles. Tears hit the back of her eyes with the force of a thunderstorm.

                “Open the door, Lexi. I know you’re in there.”

                The nerve of the man to think she was hiding from him! Sucking in a sharp breath, she undid the dead bolt and opened the door.

                And felt the impact of his presence like a pealing pulse everywhere in her body. His tie dangled from his throat, his dress shirt unbuttoned and crinkled. He already had stubble—which meant he had shaved only once today—the very sight of which gave her tingles in the strangest places.

                She had complained once that it rasped her skin, and he had begun shaving twice. Then she had complained that she missed it. He had grown it in the next day and tickled the inside of her thighs with it.

                Dear God, the man could turn her inside out.

                Fighting the upsurge of color, she stood in front of the door and eyed him nervously. “If this is about me taking that laptop, I’m sorry, but I’m not returning it. Put it under damages that were due to me.” She had to keep this light, self-deprecating, or she would collapse into tears right there.

                “That’s what you think I came over for? Because you took a laptop?” He threw her a narrowed look before striding through the small gap and entering the apartment. The quiet brush of his body against hers made her tense.

                With a sigh, she closed the door and leaned against it.

                Cursing, she ran a nervous hand over her abdomen. Even with clothes mussed from the flight, he looked breathtakingly gorgeous and effortlessly sexy. It was not fair that one man had everything—looks, sexuality and the arrogant confidence to carry it off so easily.

                She couldn’t think like this about him. He was engaged to another woman. There were a few lines she wouldn’t cross, even in thought. But the sight of his sunken eyes, and the protruding cheekbones, the tired look, gave her immense satisfaction.

                Really, she needed to channel Ms. Havisham more.

                “Where is your fiancée?”

                “In Athens, I assume, with her lover.”

                “If this is a pitch about sophisticated open marriages and New York sex stops—” she wasn’t going to break down again, at least not until he left “—then get out. I have work to do.”

                He shrugged his coat off and threw it on the couch behind him. Pushing the sleeves of his shirt back, he picked up a sketch from the couch. And casually rolled the grenade onto the floor. “The engagement is off.”

                Her mouth fell open. For a few seconds, she wondered if she had imagined the words, if she was, once again, lapsing into an alternate reality in which he came back to her and professed undying love.

                “Lexi? Are you all right?”

                When she nodded, he went back to poking around the living room that she had converted into her studio. The wide wood table she had found in a flea market stood tilted to catch the sunlight from the sliding glass doors. And taped to it with a clip was the penultimate chapter of Ms. Havisham’s story.

                With hands that were obviously trembling, he ran a finger over the last box on the page. The one where Ms. Havisham was standing over Spike’s immobile body. He looked at her then, and the stark expression in his eyes knocked the breath out of her. “She has killed him then?”