Saved By The Greek Doctor (Greek Gods #3) - Holly Rayner Page 0,50

I understood why she had—and I saw the blush creeping up her neck in response. Then I saw her tip her chin and allow her eyelids to grow a bit heavier.

“My safety net, eh? Is that why you came all the way to the mainland after me and did all that work to find where I was staying?”

I moved toward her and kissed her gently, my lips moving over hers in a whisper that did more to tease me than satisfy me. But this wasn’t the place to do what I really wanted with her. This was just the place to taste her.

The place, I thought, to make some promises about openness and honesty and vulnerability. Promises to both her… and myself.

“I came because I didn’t think you were finished needing me,” I whispered. “And I knew I wasn’t finished needing you.”

Chapter 25

Trish

I barely slept a wink that night, and Nikos and his sudden appearance—and his presence on the other side of the wall, in the room he’d insisted the hotel book for him—was just one of the reasons for that.

The truth was, no matter how brave a face I had put on for Nikos, and no matter how determined I seemed to be in the light of day, the night’s darkness brought with it a whole bunch of doubt. Because Bryan was right; I had spent years with him in my life. I’d spent years thinking that we were heading somewhere, and subconsciously planning the rest of our lives together—though I didn’t think I would have admitted it to myself at the time. I didn’t even know if I’d been aware of it, honestly, or if it had just become part of the white noise that I was living with.

I’d certainly never said it out loud to anyone else.

The moment I realized it wasn’t going to happen, though, that whole assumption was one of the things that broke apart. One of the glass balls that went crashing to the ground when I walked in on him and his secretary. And those glass balls all shattered into a million pieces—too many to put back together, no matter how good your glue was.

The problem was, all those smashed balls lying on the floor had done a real number on my self-confidence, which hadn’t been that great to start with. And when I’d gone to the office the next day and heard everyone talking about me, heard the rumors Bryan himself was spreading about me…

Well, there was a reason I’d come running to Greece. There was a reason I hadn’t told anyone except my mother that I was going. And there was a reason for me having made that promise to myself when I came that I would spend the trip without men and without drama. Because my confidence in myself was shot, and I’d known myself well enough to know that I needed time and space to put it back together.

I’d also known—or I’d thought I’d known—that getting involved with another man would just be another opportunity to lean on someone else. Allow myself to fade into the background again. Just part of the white noise.

Nothing that really mattered.

I turned over in my bed for the thirtieth time and stared at the wall, still wide awake, brain still too busy considering everything—dissecting it to the smallest possible pieces—to let me rest.

Of course, I thought, then that whole fainting thing had happened, and then Nikos was there, scooping me up and saving the day. And instead of spending my vacation by myself, patching up the holes and using the best glue I could find to put the pieces back together, I’d spent the week with Nikos, completely ignoring the fact that I had left those glass balls behind me on the ground, smashed to bits.

Had I been ignoring my problems during my time with Nikos? Was that why I was feeling so strung out right now? Or was it something deeper?

I flipped over again, more forcefully this time, and stared out the window at the dark night sky, speckled with stars. It wasn’t as beautiful here as it was out on the island. There was too much light here. Too many people.

Too little of the magic I’d found on the island.

Was this whole thing, I realized with growing certainty, something to do with that magic? Was it bigger than my guilt over having left those glass balls smashed to bits on the floor somewhere in Texas? Because instead of just putting myself