No, she was safest going into this from the standpoint that remaining married was irrational and that he was no more excited by her now than he had been during the months of their marriage. If he presented her with actual evidence to the contrary—well, that would be the time to re-evaluate her views.
‘What’s wrong with the cockpit?’ she challenged audaciously.
Rion’s eyes flared in shock. So, the innocent young girl he’d married was long gone, and in her place was an experienced adulteress, who only yesterday had been claiming she needed the divorce to move on with another man, and was now suggesting they make love at the earliest opportunity. To his infinite frustration his disgust was accompanied by the overwhelming urge to take her right here on the tarmac, and an erection so hard it was painful.
And it made him furious—because it seemed that no matter how she behaved, she still reminded him of his lack of refinement. She always had. He drew in a ragged breath. But at least he’d feel no shame taking her back to his house in Metameikos, no shame in flying her there on his plane. Unlike five years ago, after their pitiful wedding, when he’d been forced to take her on the bus back to that shabby rented apartment. He smarted in distaste. From the second he’d opened the front door of that place—the only one in Athens he’d been able to afford—all the self-belief that maybe he could be good enough for her had evaporated. He’d never felt more ashamed of who he was in his life.
And he knew she’d never felt more ashamed of him—she’d been so desperate to escape it, her lack of faith in him so unequivocal, that she’d even volunteered to work. But even though he’d done everything he could so that she didn’t have to, even though he’d avoided involving her in the sordid details of his pathetic day job, worked every hour there was to try and save for their own place—a place she could be proud of—it had never been enough.
And it never will be, a voice inside him taunted, even though you fought so hard for all this because you believed if you succeeded she’d come crawling back.
No—that was a lie. That hadn’t been the reason. His determination might have doubled the day she left, but he’d succeeded for himself, and for Jason, his brother.
He turned away from her, his voice terse. ‘You will be travelling in the cabin.’
There wasn’t any evidence to the contrary then, Libby acknowledged with ridiculous disappointment. She really didn’t excite him. And the sooner he admitted it, the sooner she could silence the what ifs? She ducked down, pretending to look for another pair of legs on the opposite side of the plane. ‘Because you have a co-pilot joining you up front?’
‘No. I fly alone.’
She walked towards the steps defiantly. ‘Then there is no reason why I shouldn’t join you, is there?’
It was only when he’d followed her in and sat down beside her that she realised in fighting so hard to prove that he didn’t really want her she’d just inadvertently guaranteed their close proximity for the duration of the flight.
‘How long will it take us to get to Metameikos?’ she asked hesitantly.
‘Just under an hour.’
No time at all, she thought, trying to feel relieved as he hit the starter switch and took the controls. But they hadn’t even taken off yet, and she was already transfixed by the sight of his long-fingered hands manoeuvring the complex equipment, unable to prevent herself remembering how they had once felt against her bare skin.
God, why did looking at him keep making her think about sex?
She moved awkwardly in her seat and tried to think of a logical answer. Maybe it was because he’d been the object of her first teenage crush, and somehow that made him the blueprint for the kind of man she found attractive. But, whilst his dark Mediterranean looks had been a novelty to her at fifteen, she’d met plenty of men since who fitted that description. The language teacher at the night classes she’d enrolled in as her first act of freedom once she’d arrived back in England; one or two of the other tour guides that Kate—whom she’d met at those language classes—had introduced her to when she’d expressed her enthusiasm for travel; the multitude of men she’d inevitably met the world over once she’d started filling in. But none of them had made her feel this irrepressible physical hunger.
Or maybe it was just that he was the only man she’d ever made love with, and like Pavlov’s dogs, who had salivated when they heard bells ringing because they had come to associate that sound with food, her body had connected the sight of him and the smell of him with sex. Yes, that was probably it. She just needed to uncondition her response, to associate him with something negative instead—the way he’d become so obsessed with money, perhaps. She took a deep breath, relieved to have alighted on a course of action that would bring about an end to it.