Her heart rebelled at his words. “What are you afraid of?”
“I don’t want an affair with you and then have to say goodbye.”
Raina could hardly breathe. “Why does it have to be an affair?”
“Because I want to make love to you. But you’re the kind of woman a man wants to marry before he takes her to bed.”
“And you don’t want marriage because you prefer to remain a bachelor. Is that what you’re saying?”
His chest rose and fell visibly. “More to the point, you wouldn’t want to marry me. I could never be your equal.”
“Why would you say something like that? I know we haven’t known each other long. But if you feel as strongly about me as I do you, what is there to prevent us from marrying? Is there some dark secret you’ve been hiding?”
His hand went to the back of his neck. “Not a secret, but I’m not marriage material for a woman like you.”
A slight gasp of pain escaped her lips because he’d delivered the words with a chilling finality. “What do you mean a woman like me? If this is your unique way of letting me know up front that marriage isn’t in your future, I get the message. You’re the one who brought it up, not me.”
“After the pain your ex-husband put you through, I’m trying to be totally honest with you.”
“Except you haven’t told me why you’re not marriage material. What am I to think about a cryptic comment like that?” Her anger flared. “However honorable you’re trying to be, you have no clue about what I’m thinking or what drives me.”
He moved closer until she could see his black eyes glittering. “I know a lot more about you than you think. You’re the gorgeous young heiress to the Maywood fortune, the darling of the paparazzi from coast to coast. The Maywood estate in Carmel is one of the wonders of your state. Your corporation is one that helps keep the economy of California afloat. Your philanthropic projects are well known.”
His admission stunned her so much she couldn’t talk.
“According to the newspapers, besides your important work at its jet-propulsion laboratory, you run the entire corporation like a captain runs his ship, involved in every aspect. I happen to know that the Maywood tactical defense-system group works on air-defense issues, particularly air-vehicle survivability where the vulnerability of the US Air Force is concerned. Do I need to go on?”
By now her body was trembling. “So you’ve done your homework on me. I guess that means Chloe didn’t keep her promise to me after all.” The knowledge stung.
His expression grew fierce. “What promise?”
“That she wouldn’t tell her husband-to-be that her old scandal-plagued heiress friend was coming to Greece. Did you know she’d asked me to be her maid of honor? Much as I would have loved to do that, I told her it wouldn’t work. It was her special day. I didn’t want my being there with all my baggage to ruin it for her. That’s why she chose Althea.”
Akis shook his head. “Neither Chloe nor Theo said anything to me. You’ve got this all wrong.”
“Then how did you find out about me? No one was supposed to know I was coming. In order to keep the press from creating chaos at her wedding and swarming around me instead of focusing on her at the church, I chose to slip into Greece unnoticed.
“Out of consideration for her I flew on a commercial airline and stayed in a budget hotel in order not to be recognized. We agreed that I’d attend the reception as one of the guests. She made sure that there would be a place for me to sit at one of the tables in the rear of the ballroom while I watched.”
“I believe you, Raina. Now you need to listen to me. I found out about you from a completely difference source.”
“What source would that be?” Her voice sounded shrill, even to her own ears. “It’s finally making sense that you singled me out for a dance in the ballroom. I honestly believed it was pure accident that we met. You were the best man and as such, you took on the job of entertaining me. I can hear the conversation now.”
“Stop, Raina. It was my brother who told me about you.”
She blinked in shock. “What do you mean, your brother?”
“He knew I had a lot of questions about you and he did some digging without my permission.”
Adrenaline filled her system. “You two really do watch out for each other. What happened? When he found out my secrets and told you, did you decide to give me a thrill and ask me to dance?
“Was it because I’d had such a bad time of it with that awful husband of mine, you took pity on me? I was so vulnerable, you knew I wouldn’t turn down the best man. And once again I was so desperate for attention, I bought it. No matter what I said or did, you kept coming and refused to be put off.”
“If you’ll let me explain—”
“Explain what?” She was borderline hysterical. “For the first time in my life I thought, here’s a man who wants to get to know me better, just for me and no other reason! What a joke!
“You have no idea what a heady experience it was to see you barge in on Chloe’s parents looking for me.” Tears trickled down her hot cheeks. “Here I thought something extraordinary had happened that night. But all along you put on an exhibition that rivaled anything Poseidon could have done with all his power.”
“Raina—”
“I have to hand it to you, Kyrie Giannopoulos.” She kept on talking, too fired up to stop. “All this time you’ve been toying with me, shoring me up while I was in Greece because I was a pathetic mess. But it shook you up when I brought up the m word. That idea became too real to you.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“No? Who better to take on the responsibility than the best man Akis? My sprained ankle gave you the perfect excuse to see to my comfort, but you played your part too well and it has rebounded on you.”
She was running out of breath. “Let me tell you something. I never want to be someone’s project.” The tears were gushing now, but she didn’t care. “I suppose I should be grateful to your brother. It’s taught me there’s absolutely no one in this world I can trust. For the first time in his life, my grandfather was wrong.”
“Don’t say anymore,” he whispered from lips that looked as pale as his face.
“I won’t. I’m through and am ready to leave.”
“Agape mou—”
But she was too far gone to acknowledge his cry that came out in Greek. “Tomorrow I’ll go back to Chloe’s. You can remain here and you won’t have to lift a finger for me. You’ve done more than enough. Who could have been more qualified than a Giannopoulos to carry the water without complaint?
“In case you don’t understand the expression, it means you took on the job of giving this old maid a thrill out of the kindness of your heart. Congratulations to you and your brother who’ve gotten everything you want out of life, yet can still throw a few crumbs to those less fortunate.”
Akis stood there dumbfounded while she ran down the hall to the guest room and shut the door. Because of his fear that he didn’t have the credentials to be the kind of husband she deserved, he was afraid to propose marriage to her. But he’d handled this all wrong and had said things that had turned the most heavenly day of his life into a nightmare.
He couldn’t let another minute go by allowing her to believe the worst about him. This was all his fault and he had to make it right no matter the cost.
As he walked down the hall, he could hear gut-wrenching sobs. The sound tore him apart. He rapped on the door. “Raina? I need to talk to you.”
She refused to answer. He couldn’t blame her, but there was no way he was going to let this go without her knowing the truth. Relieved that he’d never had the door fitted with a lock, he opened it and stepped inside.
Raina lay across the bed with her face buried in her arms, still dressed in the white sundress. Her body shook with tears that tortured him. He stole across the room and half lay on the bed facing her. Acting on instinct he slid a hand into her glossy hair.
“You’ve said a lot of things and I heard you out. Now it’s my turn.”
“You don’t get a turn. Please leave me alone.”
He smiled despite his pain. “I can’t do that. You’re going to have to listen to me even if you don’t want to. Trying to peel away the layers of misunderstanding is going to take some time. But before we start over, there’s one matter I need to clear up right now.
“Whatever secret you asked Chloe to keep, I swear to you she kept it so well that Theo never breathed a word of anything to me. Furthermore I didn’t know of your existence until I arrived at Nora and Socus’s house. They told me the beautiful woman with the sprained ankle I was looking for was Chloe’s friend from America and that you were going to stay with them for a while.”
He waited for a response. When it didn’t come he said, “Did you hear what I just said? You’ll have to take my word for it that everything going on with you and me was purely accidental.”
In a surprise move she rolled onto her back with a tear-blotched face, forcing his hand to slide from her hair. “If that’s true, then when did your brother manage to tell you all about my life?”