Tamsyn disgustedly. Maybe he used his remarkable charisma as a means to an end, no matter where he was.
‘You certainly can,’ said Xan, his honeyed Greek accent sounding almost obscenely erotic. ‘I was wondering if I might borrow Tamsyn for a little while?’
The woman’s smile instantly turned into a grimace. ‘She doesn’t finish her shift until seven,’ she answered unhelpfully.
And that was when Tamsyn piped up—and to hell with the consequences. She stared at Xan, determined not to be affected by the gleam of his gaze as she tried desperately to forget the last time she’d seen that powerful body. Yet how could she forget all that olive-skinned splendour as he’d held her tightly in his arms? Or discount the temporary sanctuary he’d provided as he rocked in and out of her body all night.
And then he had left her. Had walked away as if she didn’t exist. Left her open to pain and self-doubt. Was she going to keep coming back for more?
‘You can’t borrow me,’ she snapped. ‘I’m not a book you take from the library.’
‘Tamsyn! I will not have you speaking to a customer like that!’ the manageress cut in, revelling in the opportunity to administer a public telling-off.
‘Please.’ Xan’s intervention was smooth. ‘It’s no problem. I can see you’re very busy here and unable to spare her. I’ll come back at seven, if that’s okay.’
Tamsyn wanted to scream at them to stop talking about her as if she wasn’t in the room, because hadn’t that been what all those case-workers used to do when they held those interminable meetings to discover why she kept bunking off school? And she wanted her stupid, betraying body to stop reacting to the Greek. She didn’t want to look at the sensual curve of his lips and be reminded of how it had felt to have him kiss her. ‘I’m busy at seven,’ she said.
The cobalt eyes narrowed. ‘Really?’
‘Really.’ It was a lie, but Tamsyn didn’t care—because surely a small white lie was preferable to doing or saying something you might later regret. And she didn’t owe him anything.
‘Then when are you free?’ he persisted.
‘I’m not,’ Tamsyn answered. ‘There’s absolutely nothing I want to say to you, Xan. It’s over. You made that perfectly clear. So if you’ll excuse me—the kitchen has just rung the bell with another order.’
And with that, she marched over to the aluminium serving hatch to pick up the bacon butty which was already growing cold.
STANDING HUDDLED IN a shop doorway opposite the now dark café, Xan waited for Tamsyn to emerge but it was already ten after seven and still she hadn’t shown.
The shop doorway remained defiantly closed and he wondered if perhaps she’d slipped away unseen from the back of the building. He wondered what lengths she would go to in order to avoid him.
He’d imagined...
What?
That she would be deliriously happy to see him, despite him having failed to contact her after their passionate night at the palace? Despite the fact that he’d hired a private jet to get away from Zahristan as quickly as possible the next morning, after leaving her only the briefest of notes, and then had disappeared for the best part of three months?
Yes. That’s exactly what he’d imagined because it had happened so often before. Women took whatever crumbs he was prepared to offer them. They were grateful for anything they got and even when they complained it wasn’t enough, they still came back for more. He’d meant it when he’d told Tamsyn he wasn’t deliberately cruel—despite the tearful accusations sometimes hurled at him in the past. He was just genuinely detached. He’d learnt detachment from the moment he’d left the womb—that was one of the inevitable legacies of having a mother who was so bogged down with self-pity that she barely deigned to notice her child. He never raised hopes unnecessarily, or proceeded with a relationship if the odds were stacked against it. And breaking the heart of his friend’s new sister-in-law was never going to be on the cards.
He shouldn’t have bedded her in the first place which was why he hadn’t hung around the day after the wedding. Why he’d deliberately avoided seeing her and instead gone riding with the Sheikh, who had seemed to have enough problems of his own without Xan adding to them.
He had waited for the dust to settle and his libido to cool and for a short period of time to elapse. Then he had flown out to his beautiful waterfront estate in Argolida on the Peloponnese Peninsula, to begin the future which had been mapped out for him so long ago. There had been several meetings with the young woman he’d once agreed to marry and he had gone through the motions of what was expected of him. It should have been simple, but it had turned out to be anything but. He had stumbled at the first hurdle—he who never stumbled. Failure wasn’t a word which featured in his vocabulary and for weeks he had attempted to cajole then scold himself into a state of acceptance—an acceptance which had stubbornly refused to materialise. He’d witnessed Sofia’s bewilderment as he struggled to find the right things to say. He had pictured his father’s distress when he explained that the marriage was a no-go he should never have agreed to. For the first time in his life he hadn’t known which way to turn. If he married Sofia he could not make her happy, but if he walked away—what then? Her pride would be wounded and his family’s reputation tarnished.
It had been at the beginning of a conference call with the Sheikh last week that a solution had suddenly occurred to Xan. It wasn’t perfect—but then, what in life could be regarded as perfect? But it would suffice. It would have to. And surely it was better than the alternative.
His throat dried as the café door swung open and Tamsyn stepped out into the rainy night and suddenly every thought drained from his mind. Yet why should his heart race like a train when she was dressed so unbecomingly? In her faded jeans and ugly padded jacket, she shouldn’t have merited a second glance. But something seemed to happen to his vision whenever Tamsyn Wilson was around and he found himself unable to tear his eyes away from her. It had happened the first time he’d laid eyes on her but it was a whole lot worse now. Was it because, despite her sassiness and outspokenness, she had been an innocent virgin—thus defying all his jaded expectations? He kept replaying that moment when he’d first penetrated her sweet tightness and she’d made that choking little cry, her mouth open and moist as it had sucked helplessly against his shoulder.
Her hair was tied back, her ponytail flowing behind her like a curly red banner, but her face was pale. So pale. From here you couldn’t see the freckles which spattered her skin like gold. He found himself remembering the ones which reposed in the soft flesh of her inner thighs. How he had whispered his tongue over them...tantalising and teasing her, before bringing her to yet another jerking orgasm, which had left her shuddering against his mouth.
He began to walk towards her, aided by the red gleam of the traffic lights which was reflecting off the wet road like spilled blood. And then she saw him, her eyes first widening and then narrowing as she put her head down and increased her speed and Xan felt a flicker of excitement as he realised she was trying to get away from him, just like she’d done at the palace. Did she really think she would outpace him? Didn’t she realise he’d seen the yearning look of hunger in her eyes when he’d walked into that steamy café, and it had echoed the hunger in him?
‘Tamsyn!’
