they had lit between them.
And the worst, the most stupid thing of all was that he would do it again at the drop of a hat. Even now, with his breathing barely back under control, his pulse-rate still far from normal, she only had to move and he could inhale the clean, fresh scent of her skin, overlaid with some delicate flowery perfume, or feel the brush of her soft hair against his cheek and the heavy throb of blood would start to rise within his body. If she sighed, exhaling warm breath against his shoulder, so that it slid in to caress the skin at the open neck of his shirt, then he was still tempted to turn and take her in his arms once more, to kiss her hard and strong. Kiss her until their senses woke again, fought off the lassitude of satiation, destroyed all rational thought, and the heated hunger and yearning took possession of them once more.
She would go with him too. He knew that without thinking. Knew that he had only to touch her and both of them would go up in flames, the most basic, most primitive parts of their natures responding to the instinctive demands of their bodies.
And that would be the most damnably stupid way to behave imaginable.
He had to get a grip and fast, before things got completely out of control.
‘Sadie…’
At first he found that his voice wouldn’t work and he had to clear his throat and try again.
‘Sadie.’
This time she heard and lifted her head, slowly and with difficulty. Her eyes, still hazed by the storm that had assailed her, the explosive climax that had erupted like a volcano in her slender form, blinked and tried to focus, almost but not quite succeeding.
‘We need to talk—’ Nikos began, then broke off as the sound of the phone ringing broke through the silence, tearing apart the atmosphere that was rich with the heavy clouds of sensuality and jolting them back to the real world in a second.
Automatically Nikos reached for it, lifted the receiver.
‘Yes?’
Hearing his father’s voice, he knew that he had no alternative but to deal with whatever Petros had on his mind.
‘I have to take this,’ he said to Sadie. ‘And I may be some time.’
She looked as if she needed the time anyway. How could they talk when she was so clearly not yet capable of doing so? Besides, he would prefer to have some time to collect his thoughts himself. Decide just where he was going to go from here.
But first he had to deal with his father. And if Petros discovered who was with him—if Sadie spoke or gave herself away—then they would be back on the terrible old treadmill of the family feud before he could stop it. That had complicated his relationship with Sadie once before. He was not about to let it happen again.
‘Go and clean yourself up…’
His eyes swept over her dishevelled state, the red linen dress hanging open heavily crumpled and creased, her bra half on and half off, and her knickers discarded in two separate tiny pieces on the office floor. Stooping, he picked them up and dropped them into her hand while she was still clearly gathering her thoughts.
‘But…’ she began, but Nikos shook his head, hunching one shoulder to hold the phone between it and his ear as he turned her and propelled her firmly towards the door.
‘Take a shower—or maybe swim in the pool. I’ll come and find you when I’m ready. What?’
The sound of his father’s voice drew his attention back to the phone conversation.
‘No,’ he said, in response to the older man’s enquiry as to whether the person he was with should take priority over him. ‘No one important. Nothing that can’t wait.’
It was only when the door slammed closed behind Sadie that he realised that he had spoken in English. Even when talking to his father.
WELL, THAT WAS her well and truly dismissed.
Finding herself in the corridor outside the study door without quite realising how she had got there, Sadie did not quite know whether to explode in fury or to burst into shocked, bewildered tears. She was quite capable of both, and the resulting combination was so volatile that any one tiny incident would be enough to spark it off.
For a moment she actually considered spinning round, marching back into the room and confronting Nikos over what he had said. Snatching the phone receiver from his hand and tossing it well out of reach if she had to. She even half turned, ready to do just that. But the thought of the danger she might put herself in—and her mother and George—as a result stayed her movement and kept her feet moving right in the direction that was safest: away from the office and back up to the safety of her bedroom, moving as quickly as she could for fear that she might meet some member of staff which, in her present dishevelled and disreputable state, would be just the worst thing possible.
It couldn’t be more obvious just what she had been up to. Her crumpled dress was still gaping over her exposed breasts and her underwear barely existed. Looking down at the totally destroyed knickers she held in her hand, she couldn’t suppress a shudder of revulsion at the sight of them and the thought of just how they had got into that appalling mess.
And she had only herself to blame.
‘All right.’ She could hear her own voice in her thoughts, husky and inviting—seductively so. ‘Let’s deal with what there is between us.’
And of course Nikos had taken her at her word. Who could blame him? She’d handed herself to him on a plate, without a care or thought for the consequences.
Reaching her bedroom, she hurried inside and slammed the door shut, leaning back against it as the last of her mental strength deserted her, leaving her shaking and distraught.
She hadn’t even had the sense to insist that he use a condom! She had made every possible mistake in the book. The sort of thing that even her twenty-year-old self had managed to handle so much better in the past. So she had no right to complain if Nikos had treated her like the easy conquest he obviously believed her to be.
The easy conquest she had let herself be.
With a cry of disgust and horror, Sadie flung the ruined knickers into the wastepaper bin, not caring that one part of them fell far short, fluttering down on to the deep gold carpet like a wounded and dying bird. A moment later the dress and bra followed them, tossed aside in total revulsion. She couldn’t wait to get out of them as soon as possible. Just the thought of ever wearing them again made her stomach heave.
Take a shower, Nikos had said. He was damn right. She would take a shower. She needed to wash the scent of him from her body, the taste of him from her mouth. If only she could erase her memories as easily, she told herself as she stood under a hot shower, letting the water pound down on her head, sluice over her skin. She scrubbed every inch of her body, shampooed her hair twice, but she still couldn’t get rid of the feeling of having been used and then discarded without a second thought.
‘Damn him!’
Finally having to get out of the shower, before she reduced her skin
