A Greek Escape - By Elizabeth Power Page 0,37

not taking their lovemaking the whole way. Perhaps he was remaining faithful to someone, she thought uneasily. Someone who moved him to anger and roused his passions in a way she might never be able to do…

‘Did you bring her here?’ She couldn’t look at him as she started fastening her blouse.

‘Who?’

‘The woman you won’t talk about?’ she said grievously.

He laughed—a deep, warm sound on the scented air, mingling with the drone of insects and the mellifluous birdsong. ‘You really are a very imaginative little lady.’

‘Not as imaginative as you, with your island mansion and your racehorses,’ she accused, kneeling up to tug her shorts on.

‘Uh-uh,’ he denied. ‘The racehorses were your idea,’ he reminded her with a hint of humour in his eyes, although the slashes of colour across his cheeks were evidence of the passion that still rode him. ‘And now I really think it’s time that we started back.’

‘I’m being serious,’ she stressed, wishing he wouldn’t continue to evade the issue, wondering if he was only doing it because there really was someone else.

‘So am I,’ he breathed heavily, getting up and pulling her with him, and this time his determination brooked no resistance.

CHAPTER SEVEN

LOOKING BACK, LEONIDAS wasn’t sure how he had managed to stop himself making love to Kayla that afternoon. Heaven knew he had wanted to. A fact not made any easier by the knowledge of how much she had wanted him, too. But there were ethics to be observed, and there was no way that he could have taken all she had been offering when he wasn’t being straight with her. It had all boiled down to guilt, he decided shamefully. Guilt because he wasn’t telling her the truth.

But the truth was that he had come here to be alone. Not to indulge in any social or sexual entanglements with a girl who could carry him along with her ridiculous yet infectious sense of make-believe. Well, make-believe to her, at any rate. Because he could afford that island, had it been for sale—and a dozen like it, did she but know it. But it seemed like a lifetime since he had indulged in that childish game, and he had found it oddly refreshing.

In the world he moved in there was no room for fantasising or dreaming. Only for cold hard facts and figures. Securing deals. That was living the dream. Or so he had thought.

Until now, though, he hadn’t begun to realise how deeply and for how long his dreams had been buried. Firstly by his father, and then more recently beneath the weight of his own responsibilities. He had been so busy making money—reaping the benefits of all he had worked for during the past decade or more—that he hadn’t taken the time even to question where those dreams had gone. And now this little nobody had come along, making him question his values. He was annoyed with himself for allowing her to get under his skin to such a degree. But that didn’t change the fact that he wanted her more than he had wanted any woman in a long time—much less one who would have been in her own marriage bed right now if things had worked out as they should have.

A hard possessiveness kicked in as he imagined her naked with the faceless, double-crossing character who had betrayed her—he could only temper his indignation at the thought of the two of them together by imagining himself in Kayla’s bed. And that brought other problems as his body hardened in response to imagining her sobs of pure pleasure directed at him and him alone as he made himself master of her body.

But things couldn’t go on as they were. He was either going to have to come clean at some stage, he decided grimly, or end their relationship before it went any further. Neither prospect filled him with any pleasure.

He knew exactly what she thought about company men, and after the experience she had had with that lowest of the low fiancé of hers—not to mention her father—she’d be blameless for thinking he was no better. Yet staying away from her wasn’t an option he welcomed either. He was just relieved that his secretary had e-mailed him with some plans that needed his urgent attention, so that for today at least he didn’t have to think about how he could come clean with Kayla. However he chose to tell her, he knew she wasn’t going to welcome finding out…

When Leon didn’t