and admitting he was that important, that essential, scared her.
She swallowed, blinking to try and dispel the stinging in her eyes. “I would certainly hate to miss this.” She looked at the view, at the sun glinting off the crystalline water. It was easy to look at the scenery and say it. Easy to let him think she might mean something else.
Far too difficult for her to let herself be vulnerable to him. To let him know how much he was starting to mean to her. It was almost harder to admit to herself how much he was starting to mean to her. Because she was tired of wanting the impossible.
“Jess.” He whispered her name and he turned to look at him. His expression stopped her heart. He looked so hungry, so sad. And just as quickly as the emotions became evident on his face, they disappeared. “I do have some work to complete today, and then I would like to see you again. After dinner?”
She nodded. “Yes.” She was grateful for a break, a reprieve. Because her chest felt so tight, far too tight, and she was finding it difficult to breathe.
This was supposed to be about her. About reclaiming a part of herself she thought was lost. About letting go of her past, not clinging to someone else. And she couldn’t lie and say Stavros meant nothing to her. Of course he did. She liked him. She wanted him to have this, this last thing that he desired, before he gave himself over to his country.
But she was going to try to lie and say that was the end of it. She was going to try and do that for as long as she could.
She would use the time apart to try and get a grip on the other emotions, the unwelcome ones.
“Then I’ll see you back to the villa.”
She nodded, trying to ignore the fullness inside of her that was keeping her lungs from expanding all the way. “That sounds good.”
Yes, she needed to get a grip, and she needed to get it badly.
She’d gone into her marriage a naive idiot, and she’d learned a lot about the reality of life since then. That, coupled with the fact that she knew her relationship with Stavros wouldn’t last, should be enough to keep her head on straight.
Sadly, she wasn’t certain it was.
“Jessica?” The villa was empty when Stavros returned later that evening. It was later than he’d intended. Mainly because he’d spent the evening sitting in his Piraeus office, staring out at the ocean and trying to get a grip on his rioting libido.
And the strange twinge in his heart that seemed to hit him hard and radiate down to his stomach whenever he pictured Jessica’s face.
He was much later than he should have been, and he half expected her to be in bed. He prowled the halls for a few moments, opened the door to her room and confirmed that it was empty. He’d known right away.
He could feel that she wasn’t here. A strange sensation, an impossible one, and yet, he had complete certainty in it. Strange how she’d done that. How she’d opened him back up to feeling.
Stranger that he wasn’t fighting it.
Just for this month. Just a little while.
He walked out onto the terrace and looked down at the beach below. He could see her by the shore, her silhouette outlined by the silver moon. He walked down the terrace stairs, and out to the beach, pulling the knot on his tie and letting it fall somewhere in the sand. He discarded his jacket and kept moving to her.
No matter where she was, he felt compelled to find her. To go to her. He could feel her absence nearly as keenly as he could feel her presence. And he wasn’t certain what that meant. Only that he had to be near her. And that if the force of his physical desire weren’t so powerful, weren’t so all-consuming, the need that came with it, the need to be with her, would be frightening. At least with the lust there, he had something else to focus on. Something to take the edge off the unfiltered emotion she called up in him with so much ease.
He walked soundlessly on the sand, discarding his shoes, not caring about their fate. Jessica turned sharply, and he wondered if she could feel him, too.
“Hi,” she said, her voice barely audible above the sound of the waves on the shore.
“Sorry I’m late.”
“You didn’t give me a time. It’s okay.”
“Still, it’s pretty late.”
She shrugged. “It’s okay. I had a nice evening. I called Victoria and told her to expect an invitation to an event in Kyonos. I hope that was okay.”
“It was the right thing to do. No matter how I feel about it.”
“It’s not exactly ignoring it, I admit. But we both know you can’t just not contact her at all over the next month.”
His stomach tightened. “I know.”
“Don’t you have a celebration ball coming up for when Eva and Makhail return from their honeymoon? It’s on the copy of your schedule I received and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity for you to be seen with Victoria.”
“Oh, yes. I had forgotten.”
“She should go to that. With you. Give a hint as to your developing relationship. That way your people can really look forward to the engagement announcement.”
His people. That was what all of this was about. His country. His heart. He had thrown himself into it, completely, into planning what he would do to make it better, to heal it. And that was why he was marrying Victoria.
He couldn’t lose sight of it. But it was so easy to do when Jessica filled his vision. So easy to simply let his desire for her color everything. That was emotion. That was weakness. He could not afford it.
Just right now, it was okay though. Just for this moment in time. He moved to her, unable to stand apart from her any longer. Unable to be so close yet not touching her.
He sifted his fingers through silken strands of blond hair. “I missed you,” he said. He wasn’t sure why he said it, even though it was true.
He wasn’t certain that level of honesty had a place in their arrangement. But he wasn’t sure what else he should say, either. Wasn’t sure what to hold back and what to give.
Holding anything back when Jessica was around seemed an impossibility. He wasn’t sure he wanted to, and that was a new feeling entirely.
Lust he’d dealt with. He’d put it aside when he had to, embraced it when it was convenient. He’d never been controlled by it. But it had never before been accompanied by this strange … ache. An ache that seemed to spread through his body, sink down deep into his bones, beyond, down into his soul.
Wanting Jessica was painful. And it was more real than anything in his recent memory. He craved it. Because it was better than not being near her. Than not wanting her. He wasn’t sure what kind of madness it was, only that for now he wanted to drink it in.
“Jessica, I want to kiss you.”
She nodded, her gaze level with his. “I’m game. I like it when you kiss me.” She had a bit of her false bravado in
