was late when they rose from the bed and shared a shower. Even later when they sat down to room-service breakfast, lingering over coffee before dressing and checking out.
The late morning flight landed in Sydney after midday, and Nicos collected his car, stowed their overnight bags in the boot, then dropped Katrina outside her office building before traversing inner-city traffic to his own.
She should have been tired, but instead she felt energised, and she rode the lift to her office, checked with her secretary, ordered in lunch, and got to work.
Nicos phoned at four to say he’d be delayed, and Katrina indicated she needed to bring work home.
‘Don’t wait dinner.’
‘You want to ring Marie, or shall I?’ Katrina queried, only to have him respond he’d already done so.
It was after six when she entered the house, and she checked the refrigerator, saw the delicious salad Marie had left for her, then ran lightly upstairs to change and fill the spa bath.
Her solo dinner could wait for half an hour while she relaxed in the pulsating water.
Not such a good idea, she reflected, as the memory of Nicos’s lovemaking came vividly to mind. Even the thought of what they’d shared caused sensation to spiral through her body, and she groaned out loud as she recollected her hungry response.
Nothing had changed, she determined, then closed her eyes in frustrated resignation. Who was she kidding? Everything had changed.
It was almost seven when she donned jeans, a cotton top, and went downstairs to the kitchen.
The salad was delicious, and after she’d eaten it she curled up in a chair in the sitting room and used the remote to switch on the television.
She must have dozed, for she came awake at the touch of hands sliding beneath her thighs.
‘Nicos?’
‘Who were you expecting?’ he drawled musingly.
‘I can walk,’ Katrina declared. ‘Put me down.’
He reached the stairs and began to ascend them. ‘You doubt my ability to carry you?’
She weighed little more than a child, and he wasn’t even breathing heavily when he reached the landing.
‘For heaven’s sake, put me down!’
He let her slide down to her feet, and she moved a few paces, then turned towards her room.
‘Goodnight.’
‘Where do you think you’re going?’
The query was quietly spoken, yet beneath the softness there was a hint of steel, and Katrina looked at him in silent askance.
‘My room.’
‘No.’
‘What do you mean—no?’
‘Last night—’
‘Was a mistake.’
‘The hell it was.’
‘We…’ she paused fractionally ‘…got carried away,’ she qualified. Words, they were only words. None of which even began to describe the extent of her emotional involvement or her reaction.
Nicos’s eyes darkened. ‘Is that how you describe it? Carried away?’
She met his gaze and held it. ‘What else would you call it?’
‘We share the same room, the same bed.’ He stilled her protest by pressing a finger to her lips. ‘It isn’t an option.’
Her eyes sparked green fire. ‘Since when did you get to call the shots?’
The palm of his hand slid to cup the edge of her jaw. ‘From the moment we made love last night.’
She felt her insides begin to liquify. ‘We had sex.’
‘So we did, pedhi mou.’
He sounded amused, and she fought against her body’s response. She didn’t want to succumb to his seduction, didn’t need to do battle for her own self-preservation. It had taken months to build up a resistance to him. Yet in one night he’d managed to tear it down as if that invisible wall had never existed.
‘I’m tired.’ Katrina offered the excuse in desperation. ‘All I want to do is slip into bed. My bed. Alone.’
He smoothed the tip of his thumb over the soft fullness of her lower lip. ‘So you shall,’ he said gently, and let his hand fall to his side. ‘But it won’t be alone.’
With that, he turned and walked towards his room without a backward glance.
Dammit, couldn’t he see she needed time to assimilate what had happened between them? That she was at war with herself, and in a constant state of flux at having succumbed to the dictates of her flesh?
In the light of day, all she could focus on was her own weakness. This man had betrayed her with another woman. Worse, that woman had borne his child.
At the time she’d dealt with it. But now, the very structure she’d carefully built was falling down around her ears.
She wanted to hate him, and told herself she did. But she hated herself more.
Katrina reached her room and closed the door behind her. There was no lock, and unless she dragged heavy furniture to bar the door, there was nothing she could do to keep him out.
She cast the double bed a pensive glance. She was darned if she’d just slip between the sheets and lie waiting for Nicos to join her.
There was little doubt that he would.
She could, however, make a silent statement. There were three other bedrooms upstairs. She’d occupy one of those in the hope it would add emphasis to her intention not to sleep with him.
Katrina chose a bedroom, selected linen and made up the bed, then slid wearily between the covers.
She should have been asleep within seconds of her head touching the pillow. Instead she lay staring into the darkness for what seemed an age, her limbs and mind as tense as a tightly stretched wire.
She told herself she didn’t, couldn’t, want him. Yet her body was a mass of contradictions as memory persisted in providing a vivid replay of what they’d shared the previous night.
It would be so easy to adopt a rational mindset where she simply enjoyed the intimacy of sex. Why not? a silent voice demanded. Just enjoy the intense pleasure of physical contact throughout the year she was forced to stay with Nicos, then walk away. Heart whole, with no regrets.
Impossible. She’d gifted him her heart, her soul, almost from the first moment they’d met. For months she’d thought she’d reclaimed them, but last night had proved beyond doubt they were his. Always would be.
She
