him to say. Alice’s fingernails gripped the sofa. Kyros and weddings went as well together as water and electricity. And didn’t the very word sound uncomfortably intimate, especially to her, who had once—mistakenly as it turned out—rather hoped to marry him? What an idiot she had been. She stared at him. ‘Anyone I know?’
‘My twin brother Xandros.’
‘Xandros?’
‘You sound surprised.’
Alice shook her head in disbelief. ‘Surprise doesn’t come close to it. I thought your brother was a commitment-phobe—legendary for the number of lovers he had.’
‘So he was,’ he agreed, with a careless shrug. ‘But it seems that even the world’s most restless lovers can be tamed—for now he has met and married a woman called Rebecca—’
‘She’s not Greek?’ Alice interrupted quickly, with a sudden painful pounding of her heart.
‘No. She is English.’ Their eyes met. ‘Just like you.’
No, not like me at all, thought Alice trying not to allow the hurt to show. Kyros had done his best to convince her that their upbringings were too dissimilar for the relationship to work—and that the cultural differences would sound a death-knell to a shared future. Or maybe that had just been him alighting on the perfect excuse to finish a youthful romance that she’d had no desire to let go of. ‘I thought that you and your brother were estranged. That you didn’t speak anymore.’
Kyros raked a hand through his thick dark hair. It was true—he and Xandros had fought all their lives and eventually they had fallen out in dramatic style. His twin had left the island for America and had never returned, both brothers telling themselves it was for the best—and that was how the rift had been born. How black and white things could seem when you were eighteen years old—and then somehow life turned them grey and indistinct.
‘That was a long time ago,’ he said offhandedly. ‘Time heals—and both of us seem to have forgotten what the original row was about. So I thought, why not go to his wedding?’ It had meant a lot to Xandros, or so he had told him just before the ceremony, when he’d clasped Kyros in a fierce hug. His wincing face hidden from view, Kyros had submitted to this unheard of and unwanted display of emotion, telling himself that his brother was clearly overwrought with wedding plans.
‘And is he…. happy?’ questioned Alice.
‘Happy?’ Kyros’s mouth hardened. How foolish and predictable women could be—with their naïve supposition that happiness was a permanent state! Something which came ready-made and indestructible with the marriage certificate. Happiness was like a bubble—perfection itself until it popped and then it was gone, leaving no trace other than a faint memory.
Yet, undeniably, he had been slightly taken aback to observe his brother in the throes of a love affair. To see his tough twin unashamed of showing the world—and a woman—how much he adored her had filled Kyros with unease. It could not last—it rarely did—and such a weakness would come back to haunt him. As well as effectively slicing off a huge piece of his considerable fortune if they divorced.
‘Oh, everyone can be happy for a while,’ he said, his black eyes hardening into shards of jet as he looked at her. ‘Whether it will last, who knows? I doubt it.’
‘What a cynic you are,’ Alice observed wryly.
‘Or realist?’
Their eyes met in a long, unspoken moment until Kyros finally broke it—because the slow flicker of desire was threatening to catch fire. Her fingers were bare, yet he wanted to make sure—because the new breed of women in Western society often seemed to decline to wear a wedding band.
‘You don’t have a husband yourself, Alice?’
She shook her head. ‘No, I don’t.’
‘A boyfriend, then?’
‘Again, no.’
He smiled. ‘No one who could match up to me, ne?’
Had he read her mind? Damn him. That no man had ever captured her heart and her body in the way that Kyros had. ‘Certainly not in the ego department,’ she said drily.
He laughed, shifting his position on the sofa very slightly. ‘Nor any other department, I imagine,’ he murmured.
‘I really haven’t given it a lot of thought,’ she said, ignoring the blatantly sexual boast and praying that the lie would not show and that nothing in her expression would alert him to the sleepless nights she’d spent aching for him after he’d gone. It had taken a lot of time and a lot of work to reach a place where the thought of Kyros didn’t bring an involuntary catch to her throat—and she wasn’t going to throw it all away now. ‘Or rather, I haven’t given you a lot of thought.’
‘Really?’ he questioned sardonically.
‘The past is a place I don’t choose to visit often, Kyros—apparently it’s best left behind,’ she continued, though inside she was wondering how she could have forgotten his arrogance. His obvious belief that his memory should burn as bright as some eternal light. ‘We had an affair when we were both young. It ended. So what?’ She shrugged. ‘It happens to everyone.’
Kyros’s eyes narrowed first with disbelief, and then irritation. Was it possible that she was speaking the truth? That she could dismiss her ‘affair’ with him as if he were just some insipid ex-boyfriend?
Well, either she meant what she said, or she was trying to make a point—to show him she no longer cared. And either way she would take those words back, Kyros thought as the hard beat of desire made him want to take her there and then.
He had come here tonight on an impetuous and half-formed wish to see what had happened to her—but her throw-away remark was like hurling a bucket of petrol over the smouldering embers of a fire which had never quite died.
He wanted her.
Still wanted her.
And tonight he would have her. He would peel that tarty-looking dress from her body and bare the breasts he knew so well and he would take them into his mouth and suckle them. He would soon discover for himself how time had changed and refined the curves of her body and her secret feminine places.
His mouth dried. He would make her keep her shoes on. He would make love to her and finally slake his desire for her. Only this time he would walk away and he would finally be free—for there would be no lingering trace of her left in his mind or his body. He would shake off every last trace of her in one long and delicious night of sex.
‘Indeed, it does happen to everyone—for nobody’s experience is unique,’ he agreed softly, his gaze settling on the scarlet gleam of her lips. Like a snake uncoiling itself, he rose from the sofa with a fluid grace and began to walk across the room towards her. ‘So tell me about this party you’re going to tonight.’
Alice’s breathing began to quicken. ‘There’s… nothing much to tell.’
He thought of what a stir she would create in that outrageous outfit. He thought of all the times she had dressed for him. And undressed for him, and suddenly a great rush of jealousy
