It was the novelty of that, that was all. And for now he was loving the novelty.
Reaching for her hand, he tugged her up and over until she fell into his lap, making a spasm of lust arrow straight to his groin.
He shook his head, and before he bent to kiss her said, ‘Where I go, you go.’
Lucy accepted the kiss, drowned in the kiss, but a sense of guilty anticipation made her shiver slightly. No matter that they were spending time together like this. Ari was still as open as a closed book when it came to anything but the most general conversation. And now the thought of getting a chance to learn more about this man, who was fast tangling her head into one big knot of confusion and reducing her body to little more than a slave to his, was proving to be far headier than was healthy for her heart.
When the kiss deepened, and as Ari carried Lucy over to the bed and came down on top of her with his delicious weight and told her how beautiful she was, how desirable, she conveniently blocked out the clamour of voices in her head telling her to be careful, not to be weak, and not to be so easily seduced—and above all not to fall in love.
On Friday evening Lucy was sitting ramrod-straight on a rigid divan in the main drawing room of the grossly opulent Levakis house. Tonight had to be one of the most excruciatingly uncomfortable evenings of her life. From the moment she’d arrived, with Ari’s hand on her arm, it had been clear she wasn’t welcome.
Lucy had held her head high and thanked her lucky stars for her chaotic but expensive education; every time Helen had directed some snide comment her way, or had tried to undermine her, Lucy had answered with the utmost dignity. Helen had even been so rude as to conduct some of the conversation between the few guests in French, but her eyes had almost popped out of her head when Lucy had replied fluently.
Lucy felt inordinately proud of her mother’s legacy.
Ari was now on the other side of the room, talking to the same beautiful blonde who’d captured his attention at that function the first week. Lucy tried to ignore the poisoned darts that seemed to be arrowing into her heart, and tensed even more when she saw Anatolios, Ari’s half-brother, head her way.
He sat down, far too close for comfort, obviously drunk, and Lucy tried to edge away, smiling weakly. He merely moved with her, crowding her. She felt intensely vulnerable.
Anatolios’s blue eyes followed where her gaze had just been and he said, ‘Beautiful, isn’t she?’
Lucy flushed. ‘I’m not sure I know what you mean.’
She looked at Anatolios reluctantly. She guessed she couldn’t be much older than her own twenty-three years, and hoped the revulsion she felt didn’t show on her face.
He smiled sleazily, and then, shockingly, ran a fleshy finger up and down Lucy’s bare arm. She flinched, but couldn’t move, hemmed in as she was.
He gestured with his head. ‘That’s Pia Kyriapoulos. She used to be a famous model, and now she’s famous for being wealthy and divorced and looking for a new husband.’
Lucy swallowed painfully and looked across the room. They did look amazing together—blonde contrasting with dark. Pia had her hand resting on Ari’s arm, and he certainly didn’t look in a hurry to move it. At that moment he looked up and straight at Lucy. Feeling inordinately exposed, Lucy smiled brilliantly and looked back at Anatolios as if he’d said something funny. Not as if he’d said something to make her heart feel as if it was being ripped, still beating, out of her chest.
When she felt Ari’s gaze move again Lucy ripped her arm away from Anatolios, who glowered sulkily at her. His eyes dropped to her cleavage and Lucy screamed inwardly. The guy was a total creep.
Just then Helen swept into the room and said something to Ari who, after a moment’s hesitation, followed her from the room, his face hard. Sensing a chance to escape, Lucy mumbled something about needing the bathroom and fled, vowing to get out of there even if she had to leave on her own.
Wherever I go, you go. Ari’s words resounded mockingly in her head. At least until the next available, infinitely more beautiful woman came along, she surmised grimly.
She was coming back from the bathroom and passing a partially opened door when she heard raised voices. Ari and Helen.
Without being conscious of what she was doing, she slowed down and heard Ari say, a low and blistering voice, ‘I’ll never marry someone like her; she’s completely inappropriate. And anyway, don’t you think it’s a little late to be doing the concerned mother act?’
CHAPTER EIGHT
LUCY’s heart froze like ice in her chest as the words registered. Was Helen afraid that their affair was more than just a fling? She had to swallow back a semi-hysterical cry, putting a hand to her mouth. Well, Ari had certainly reassured her of that.
The next words from Helen were indistinctly shrill, and then Ari’s voice came again. Lucy stood rooted to the spot in some kind of sick, paralysed fascination, and heard him say something along the lines of, ‘… useless waste of space of a brother …’
There was an awful silence, and then the sharp crack of what could only be a hand across a cheek.
Knowing that it wouldn’t have been Ari, and acting on a surge of adrenalin that was pure primal instinct, Lucy pushed open the door and flew into the room, aiming herself straight at Helen, who still had her hand raised, her eyes glittering almost feverishly.
Lucy was unaware of their shocked looks. She saw only Ari’s proud stance, the livid handprint and the trickle of blood from the corner of his mouth. She saw red, and for the first and only time in her life considered striking another person. It was only Ari’s quick reflex action, pulling her back behind him, that stopped her.
Helen lowered her hand and her eyes took on a malevolent glow. She smiled cruelly. ‘Well, well—if it isn’t the quiet little secretary, come to save her lover.’ The woman’s obsidian eyes flicked up and down and she added cuttingly, ‘Or perhaps I shouldn’t say little.’
Lucy made to move again and Ari held her firm, glancing back with a hard expression, ‘Leave it, Lucy.’
He turned back, and Lucy could feel the ice in his gaze even though he wasn’t looking at her.
‘She wouldn’t balk at striking you too. After all, you never had any qualms about striking a five-year-old—did you, Helen?’
Helen’s focus moved back to Ari, and Lucy could see the older woman’s face grow mottled with anger. Abruptly Ari turned and pulled Lucy with him, and within a blur of minutes they were sitting in the back of his car, leaving the house behind.
Lucy was still shaking, a mixture of powerful anger and shock coursing through her. She glanced at Ari. He was looking resolutely out of the window. When she saw his mouth her heart lurched painfully.
‘You … you’re bleeding.’
He turned abruptly, and the dead look in his eyes scared her. He smiled harshly. ‘Want to kiss it better for me, Lucy?’
He flicked out a handkerchief nevertheless, and dabbed at the blood. Overcome with an emotion she couldn’t name, Lucy reached out and put her hand to his cheek, where it still felt warm.
‘How
