by surprise, he slid his fingers around her wrist in a warm, close grip. “Can we at least talk about it, and try to find a way?”
She wrenched her arm free and stepped back, horrified by the way her pulse leaped at his touch.
She’d have done better to stand her ground because he took her retreat as an invitation to march right into the room and close the door. It was all she could do not to run for cover behind the love seat. Trying not to hyperventilate, she clutched the cashmere shawl tightly at her throat.
The suite was generously proportioned. Even allowing for what the furniture occupied, there was still almost enough floor area left for a Las Vegas chorus girl to put on a show. Yet he seemed to swallow up the space until it shrank to the size of a shoe box. “What’s the matter, Brianna?” he inquired silkily, closing in on her. “Are you afraid I might kiss you—or just afraid you might like it too much to try to stop me?”
“Neither,” she replied, and suppressing a tug of something suspiciously like desire, she drew herself up to her full five foot nine in an attempt to stare him down.
She might as well have spared herself the effort. “Really?” he purred. “Why don’t we find out?”
His arm snaked around her waist and pulled her close. The feel of his body against hers sent the blood thrumming through her veins. The lightning rod that was his mouth brought back in vivid recall the memory of the first time he’d kissed her, and where it had led: to a rendezvous in his stateroom, and an introduction to the pleasures of lovemaking, of sex, that had spoiled her for any other man.
But she remembered, too, what came afterward. The betrayal, the abandonment, had almost killed her. Although she’d honored her modeling assignments, smiling through her pain, covering up the dark circles under her eyes, everyone had noticed something was wrong. Rumors that she was ill—anorexic, bulimic, on the verge of a break-down—had circulated like wildfire and almost destroyed her career.
You’ve got to show them you’re still on top, Carter had urged. And she had. Because her career was all she had left. Dimitrios had robbed her of everything else.
She couldn’t let him do it again.
Lifting her hands, she pushed against the solid wall of his chest with all her might. “That might be your idea of starting over, but it’s certainly not mine.”
He released her willingly enough. “Forgive me for allowing my baser instincts to get the better of me,” he said, aloof disdain written all over his cold, beautiful face. “Believe me, I know better than anybody that what happened between us in the past is long ago over and done with, and nothing either of us can say or do will ever change that.”
“At least we’re agreed on one thing.”
“More than one, I hope. I’m calling for a truce, Brianna, because the future—Poppy’s future—is all that matters now.” He wiped a hand down his face, and all at once weariness softened the severe cast of his mouth and left him looking achingly vulnerable. “They tell me what’s happened to her isn’t my fault, but I blame myself anyway. If I’d been a better father, paid closer attention to her, she might not be in such bad shape now.”
Touched despite herself, Brianna said, “I’m sure you were, and are, an exemplary father, Dimitrios.”
“No.” Restlessly, he paced to the French doors and stared out. “I ignored her symptoms. She had what appeared to be a cough and a cold, and I did nothing about it for the better part of two months. It wasn’t until I noticed she had bruises that couldn’t be accounted for that I insisted on a more thorough investigation into the possible causes.”
“Surely you’d consulted a doctor before that?”
The question was out before she could contain it, and he swung around, his face a mask of hurt and anger. “Of course I did! Within a week of her cold first appearing. I’m not a complete imbecile.”
“Then if indeed there’s blame to be assigned, surely it lies with her doctor?”
Again the fire went out of him. “It lies with me,” he muttered, dropping down on the love seat. “It’s a parent’s job to protect his child. He should instinctively sense when something’s not right, and maybe I would have, if I hadn’t been away half the time, looking after business.”
“But, Dimitrios,” she said, “that’s what fathers do. They go out and make a living so that their children have a decent roof over their heads, food on the table and clothes on their backs.”
“There’s a big difference between working to live, and living to work.”
“I’m not sure I understand.”
He cast her an oddly cynical glance. “Ambition can consume a person—and you ought to know.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
A muscle twitched in his jaw. “Nothing,” he said, averting his gaze. “Just that, in your line of work, you have to…stay on top of your game.”
“Well, yes. But don’t you think that’s true of anyone who wants to succeed, regardless of what they do?”
“Not if winning becomes more important than anything else. Because somebody always ends up paying. In my case it happened to be my daughter.”
“You give yourself too much credit, Dimitrios. You aren’t responsible for Poppy’s illness. It happened despite you, not because of you. None of us ever has total control of the world around us. Sometimes fate plays a dirty trick and all we can do is find a way to live with it.”
He pinned her in a mesmerizing stare. “Are you speaking from personal experience?”
Not five minutes earlier he’d said that the past was over and done with and the future was all that counted. But the way he was looking at her now was all about the past. It hung between them, as vibrantly alive as if it had happened just yesterday. The memories tore at her, making her ache for what might have been. And for the man she’d thought he was.
“Brianna?”
He felt it, too. It was there in the sudden deepening of his voice when he spoke her name. It swirled in the air between them—an awareness so acute she felt herself melting in its heat.
“Yes,” she said, hating that she sounded so breathless. “I learned to move on when dreams I held dear didn’t materialize.”
“Any regrets? Ever wish you’d held on to those dreams, instead of letting them go?”
Cecily’s triumphant voice echoed down the years. Face it, Brianna, it’s over. He tried both of us and chose me. We were married, just last week. Sorry there wasn’t time to send you an invitation….
Hardening her heart, Brianna said, “No. Do you?”
“Hell, yes,” he said grimly. “I wish I could have given Poppy a mother who cared. But there are some things money can’t buy.”
“Are you always so uncomplimentary about my sister?”
He flung another forthright gaze her way. “What do you want me to say, Brianna? That she was the best wife a man could wish
