She dragged her gaze off the open-plan main floor with its ultramodern furniture in masculine tones of charcoal and silver. The stairs climbed at different angles to multiple levels, pausing on a landing where a small sitting room provided a space to enjoy the expansive view over the city through the massive wall of windows. The uppermost flight of stairs ended in a loft she presumed was the bedroom.
"Don't worry about unpacking. People will be here tomorrow."
"People. More bodies you've purchased for use?" She stared with contempt at the mountain of parcels piled up like stacks of money against the wall. Another rich playboy who did as he pleased. She had pegged him right from the first, but had still fallen for his line. She really was the stupidest woman alive.
"Explain that remark." His tone might have scared her if she wasn't so appalled. And hurt. Profoundly hurt.
"You picked me specifically to annoy your grandfather!"
Greece? That's where you've been?
She had seen the disapproval in the old man's eyes. The flinch as Stavros revealed she had been born on "his" island, like he knew it would get at the old man as nothing else could. The way Edward had stood there, silent and baleful as some kind of silent war raged between them, had stung like a snakebite.
"I paid you to annoy him." He waved at the parcels. "And I've included a tip."
"Why would I wear any of that when the point is to embarrass him? To be an embarrassment." Humiliation choked off her voice, burning hotly behind her eyes. "That's an ugly thing to do to someone. I'm not going to be part of it."
She moved to stab the button that called the private elevator.
"We have an agreement." He pushed a button labeled Cancel, then leaned on the wall next to it, blocking her from hitting the call button again. "A legally binding contract."
"That's what happens when you shop the bargain basement, Steve. You don't get the longevity you expect from the item. Move." She jerked her chin, wanting to punch right through him to the button he was blocking.
"Don't call me that," Stavros growled, prickling with what might have been his conscience.
"Don't call you Steve? It's better than what I want to call you. I'd take it, if I were you. Move." She dodged behind him, but he only flattened his back on the panel, aware he was being juvenile, but he hadn't expected this.
"You're overreacting."
"I'm reacting with the exact amount of outrage that is appropriate. You lied to me. You are exactly like the entitled, superficial jerk who ruined my life the first time." She pulled out her cell phone.
"Who are you calling?" As if he didn't know. It made him see red.
"I let myself believe you were better than you are." Disillusion put a ragged edge on her voice. "You knew I wanted to come to New York and you used that not just to advance your interests, but to belittle me."
He took her phone and her arm, turning her toward the sofa. "Come here."
"Don't you touch me." She shook free of his hold.
For one second, he stared down a look of genuine violence. He wasn't scared, precisely. He didn't expect she could hurt him beyond a few scratches or bruises, but he was taken aback by how deep her rage ran. How anguished she looked at the same time.
"You dragged me here with a promise of something that means everything to me-" She bit her lip, arms straight at her sides.
"Yes. Exactly what is that?" he demanded, looming over her so he could see into her eyes.
She ignored the question, throwing out her hand in a wild wave. "Just so you could parade me in front of your grandfather as something shameful. I can get that by going home to my father, thanks. Go to hell with your arrangement. Steve."
They had more to discuss, but "Last one." He pointed in warning. "I mean that." If he had come away with nothing else from Sebastien's challenge, he had at least reclaimed himself.
"Steve! Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve, Steve!"
He wanted to crush the word right out of her, but kept himself just this side of civilized as he gave her a deadly stare. "Use the name you call me when I'm inside you."
Her pupils expanded and a shadow of betrayal moved within them, dimming the angry light in her golden eyes. "Don't. Just admit you're a bastard."
"Not by birth, but definitely by nature," he agreed, moving closer. "Now call me by my proper name. My real name, glykia mou. Or I'll make you. You know I can." He was pretty sure he could. He had spent most of their honeymoon learning how to wring the prettiest noises possible from her.
Her jaw set and lifted as he came into her space. She glared up at him, mouth tight, hands still fisted at her sides. "Give me back my phone."
"You do not get to call your guard dog every time we have a disagreement."
"It's not a disagreement. You lied."
"I told you I wanted to marry you for this." He shaped the air closest to her body, deliberately keeping his hands in the space where the heat exchanged, but they didn't touch. Her nipples peaked as though he fondled her, though. Her breath changed and he knew by the way her thighs twitched that she pulsed in a way that echoed the tightening in his own groin.
"You said..." She swallowed, gaze clouding. "You said you wanted..."
He waited, feeling the pull of satisfaction in the corners of his mouth when she couldn't remember what they were talking about. Neither could he.
"I want you," he told her. Truthfully. With gut-wrenching honesty, if she only knew it. "Open your dress."
She breathed loud enough for him to hear it. Her mouth trembled.
"Why are you doing this?" she said with a helpless pang.
He cupped her cheek and stepped close enough to drop his head and capture her lips. No resistance, just pure, hot response as she welcomed him. He stole greedily past her teeth with his tongue, fingers dispatching her buttons with more urgency than finesse.
Her hands went into his hair as her dress fell open. He released her bra and took possession of her breasts, loving her groan of abject pleasure as he found both her nipples and rolled his thumbs over the pert tips.
Bending, he stole a taste of each one, wanting to linger, but wanting other things. The win. Total surrender. He turned her away from him.
"Put your hands on the wall."
She did, breath ragged as she placed each palm flat on either side of the call button on the brushed-nickel panel next to the elevator. As he ran his hands up under her skirt and caught at the lace that was soaked with her response, his breath hissed in, hot and fiery, burning his chest. He lingered to caress her slippery folds, watching her back bow and shudder, feeling her cling to his light penetration.
"More?" He barely choked out the word. "You want me?"
"Yes." She arched as he brought her skirt all the way up to her waist and caressed the smooth globes of her ass.
"Say it." He ruthlessly clung to control. Of himself. Her. But rationality was disappearing behind stark need. "Ask me for what you want. Ask me."
"Use a condom."
He tightened his fingertips into her hips, so aroused by her words of permission he nearly went blind, but fought it, not certain he could keep himself from taking her without getting what he wanted first.
Then he heard her moan, "Please, Stavros..."
CHAPTER SIX
SHE WOKE ALONE in the bed. The humid scent of a recent shower drifted from the open door of the bathroom.
Her whole body protested when she sat up, muscles aching from exertion, brain lethargic from heavy sleep. She couldn't help a small whimper as she swung her feet to the floor and sat there naked on the side of the bed, feeling profoundly alone.
"Sore?"
She flashed a look into the dark cavern of the walk in closet, heart leaping in surprise. He was naked, but there was no reading his expression or even the tone of that one word. Concerned? Smug? She couldn't tell.
He'd been insatiable last night, but there'd been something in his desire for her that had made him undeniable. She knew there was something in his name, his relationship with his grandfather, something that pierced into the very heart of him.
She had felt him trying to exorcise it last night, as he had immersed himself in their lovemaking, not taking, but giving, again and again. His concentrated attention, his words of praise and pleasure, had been reassuring and compelling, but what had really kept her as lost to passion as he was had been that layer of inner pain she couldn't reach.
Succor. They had sought that together last night.
In the light of day, she still felt flaunted as something substandard, though.
She pulled the edge of the sheet across herself. It was a flimsy shield.
He finished pulling on his shorts and skimmed a white business shirt from a hanger. He shrugged into it as he came into the bedroom.