Xenakis's Convenient Bride(7)

Now it was six years later and she had tried several times to locate her  son, but things had happened to prevent her. Each small failure had  reinforced that she wasn't meant to have him.

He was in a better place without her.

But she would never rest until she knew that for sure.

It made moments like this bittersweet. As the road quieted and the cool,  salt-scented air swept over her, she drank it in, trying to relax and  live in the moment. To accept life's hard turns and just be.

But that made her hyperaware of Stavros's strong frame surrounding her.

It made her remember their kiss.

Think of Brandon.

That memory was a distant recollection of flattery and pretty lies that  she had believed because she had wanted to. Those first stirrings of  attraction were nothing compared to the way this man's aura glowed off  him and sank through her skin, slanting rosy hues through her without  even trying. He set her alight in ways she hadn't believed were  possible.

She told herself the vibration of the bike caused her nipples to feel  tight and her loins to clench in hollow need. She was hot because it was  a hot summer day. She was flush against the front of his hot body while  the hot sun beat down.

Still, it was all she could do to stop herself from inching back into  the hard shape pressed to her butt. She knew what it was and it provoked  an ache into her breasts and belly and the juncture of her thighs. It  was maddening.

She told herself not to give him this power over her, but it wasn't voluntary. It simply was.

And now she was forced to slow and extend this ride. Up ahead, the road  was plugged with sheep, the herd thick between the thornbush-covered  hillside and the rail that kept traffic from dropping off the short,  sharp ledge to the scrub-covered shoreline.

On impulse, she made a sharp right onto the narrow peninsula that jutted  out into the sea. Might as well be a decent hostess if they were right  here. At least she could take a break from the physical contact.

Behind her, Stavros said something, a curse or a protest, she wasn't  sure. His hands seemed to harden on her hips, fingertips digging in, but  not in a sensual way.

Worried about getting back to work?

"The sheep will be twenty minutes clearing the road. It would take that  long to go back around the other way," she called back as she wound  along the goat track to the end.         

     



 

The motion rubbed their bodies together even more and she was relieved  to finally stop the bike and climb off. "At least there's a breeze out  here. And it's pretty."

It was spectacular. The jut of land provided a near 360-degree view of  the horizon. As she took off her helmet, there was no sound except the  whisper of wind in the long grass and the rush of foaming waves against  the boulders that formed the tip of the spit.

The rugged beauty was deceptive, though. Sometimes people walked out on  those boulders, tourists who didn't know better. One slip could be  deadly. The currents were dangerous and if bad weather was headed for  the island, it showed up here first, chopping the sea into crashing  waves, then throwing itself against the land in mighty gusts and nasty  pelts of rain.

When Stavros stayed by the bike, she glanced back. "Is your leg bothering you?"

He sent her a filthy look, one loaded with resentment and hostility, taking her aback.

She parted her lips, not knowing what to say.

The way he stalked behind her, toward the tip of the spit, had her  stammering, "You can't swim here. It's too dangerous. People die."

"I know." The gravel in his voice made her scalp prickle.

Stavros paused where the end of the striated rock had been broken off by  a millennia of waves, the pieces left jagged and toppled in the  churning water below.

Part of her had disbelieved that he had ever lived here, but as he  looked out as if he saw something in the rolling, shifting sea, she had  the impression he had stood in that exact spot before. Searching.

Her heart dropped.

He seemed very isolated in that moment, with his profile stark and  carved, his hands slowly clenching as though he was bearing up under  tortuous pressure.

His anguish was palpable.

She moved without consciously deciding to, standing next to him,  searching his expression, wanting to reach out and offer comfort.

His flinty gaze seemed to drill a hole into the water, one that led  directly to the underworld. He looked as though he was girding himself  to dive straight into it.

His ravaged face made her throat sting. His posture was braced and  resolute. Like he was taking a lashing, but refused to cringe. He  accepted the castigation. Bore it, even though there was no end in sight  for this particular punishment.

A clench of compassion gripped her, but he was a column of contained emotion.

"Stavros." It was barely a whisper. She wanted to say she was sorry. How could she have known this would be so painful for him?

His face spasmed before he hardened his jaw and controlled his  expression. When he cut his gaze to hers, it was icy cold. His voice was  thick with self-contempt.

"Man whore is the least of my character flaws."

Her heart lurched. She knew how deeply that word whore cut. She hadn't  meant to sink to that level when she had called him a tomcat.

In that moment, she knew he was nothing like superficial Brandon who  threw money at an unplanned child to make it go away. Stavros was as  deep as the vast sea they faced, churning beneath the gilded surface he  presented to the world.

"I didn't know-" She touched his cold arm, but he shrugged off her light fingers.

"Let's go. I have a job to finish so I can get the hell off this island."





CHAPTER THREE

THE WATER CURTAIN had been only a drawing and some footings when his  father had died. Stavros was laying the tiles around the base of the two  columns, standing back to assess his work, when Calli spoke.

"I've been making spanakopita. I thought you might like some."

He'd been trying to keep her at a distance these last few days, feeling  exposed since she had blithely forced him to face what he had been  avoiding for twenty years.

Swim for shore. I'll be right behind you.

He had always had a defiant streak. He came by it honestly. His father had flouted rules just as often.

Why do I have to wear a life vest if you don't? he had asked his father as they'd boarded the small skiff.

Do you want to go fishing or not? I'll be fine. Put on your vest or we're not going anywhere.

Sebastien had asked Stavros why he owned a boat he didn't use. That was why. Boating made him sick and it wasn't mal de mer.

He'd always had it in his mind that he would overcome that weakness, though. Perhaps he would even sail these waters one day.

To what end? So he could do this? Relive the day he had, for once, done  as he had been told and swam? Swam as if his life depended on it,  because it had?

While abandoning his father to his death.

He kept thinking that Sebastien could have the damned yacht. He didn't  want it. It certainly didn't bring him any sort of happiness, exactly as  Sebastien had called it that night in St. Moritz.         

     



 

He should have helped his father get to shore. That was the voice he  used money and toys and women and death-defying feats to muffle. It  wasn't only his opinion. That truth had been reinforced in his  grandfather's interrogation after the accident and colored every word  his grandfather had spoken to him since.

Use your American name. It's better for business. Translation: "You  don't have the right to use Stavros. That was your father's name."

You want the company to succeed, don't you? Don't let your father's dreams die with him.

Think of your mother and sisters. Do you want them to be well supported or not? It's up to you.

Basically, "do as I say or I will turn all of you onto the street."

Despite Stavros saying nothing to Calli about the way his father had  been killed, she had offered a doe-eyed empathy that had been too tender  a thing to bear. He had brought her back here and worked until dark,  only pausing when she had brought out a plate of ground lamb sprinkled  over triangles of grilled pita, and a dollop of tzatziki with a salad of  peppers.

"I'll have to start over with the moussaka tomorrow, but no sense letting this go to waste," she had said.

She was acting compassionate when he had only ever seen grief in his  mother and sisters and that well-deserved censure from his grandfather.

Yet, since that day on the spit, he hadn't been dwelling on the accident  so much as how his grandfather had yanked them off this island and sold  the house immediately after the accident. He had changed their names  and refused to hear Greek under his roof, denying Stavros this  connection to his roots. To his memories of a happy childhood.

"Keep the keys for the Vespa," Calli had told Stavros when he finished up that evening. "If I need it, I'll let you know."

Her generosity had been hard to assimilate against the criticism that  had dominated his life for nearly two decades. He had taken the keys,  but turned from her kindness like it was too hot, too bright.

He had worked half days on the weekend, spending the afternoons  reacquainting with the island, allowing himself to remember more than  his fatal mistake, all the while trying not to wish her curves were  spooned against his back. He didn't need a woman cuddling him through  this. He had to face it alone.