Vassalio. The man she had just taken advantage of—and who had let her!
‘How could you do it?’ She was referring to the sex, shame creeping over her, scorching her already flushed cheeks. What a laugh he must have been having—and at her expense!
‘You didn’t give me much choice,’ he reminded her dryly.
‘You could have stopped me any time you wanted to!’
‘Really?’ A sceptical eyebrow arched sharply. ‘You think I’m that superhuman?’ His mouth twisted in hard self-derision. ‘Show me any red-blooded man you think would be capable of resisting being dragged out of sleep by a sex-goddess with no panties on.’
He made her feel cheap, and she wished fervently that she could turn back the clock instead of just standing there, hating herself for feeling the burn of desire stir deep down inside her where she was still moist and slightly tender from their spontaneous and unrestrained coming together.
‘If it makes you feel any better,’ he said, running fingers through his long dishevelled hair, ‘I didn’t intend for things to go as far as they did.’
‘Oh, really?’ she shot back, her features distorted with self-disgust. ‘What a bonus it must have been for you when they did!’
‘It wasn’t like that.’ He sounded defensive, exasperated—angry, almost. ‘Why the hell do you think I didn’t take things to their natural conclusion the other day on that island?’
‘Because it was more fun stringing me along.’
‘That isn’t true.’
‘Isn’t it? And what about just now? You wouldn’t have thought twice about doing it again.’
‘That wasn’t my motive,’ he stated decisively. ‘I was trying to coax you into the sitting room so that I could break it to you gently who I am without it flaring up into the mess we find ourselves in now.’
‘You mean instead of me finding out for myself what a rotten lying cheat you really are?’
‘If that’s what you want to believe,’ he rasped, grim-mouthed. ‘But it was never my intention to deceive you.’
‘Why?’ It was a small cry from somewhere deep down inside of her. ‘Why should I believe anything you say?’
‘All right. I deserve that,’ he accepted with no loss of dignity. He clearly wasn’t a man to grovel or to eat humble pie. ‘Look, I apologise for not telling you before now,’ he continued. ‘But I didn’t know who you were when you first arrived. For all I knew you were a snooping journalist on a mission for a story, and I came here for some privacy. To get away from all the media attention and publicity that’s been dogging me over this past year. I wasn’t going to risk losing all that for a girl I didn’t even know. Apart from which, I found it rather refreshing being with someone who wasn’t playing up to me because of the size of my bank balance.’
‘So you used me!’ Kayla breathed. ‘Just for your own amusement.’
‘That isn’t what I’m saying. But if you want to think that, then there’s nothing I can do to stop you.’
‘You could have trusted me enough to tell me the truth!’
He made a self-deprecating sound down his nostrils. ‘A man in my position can’t afford to trust.’
‘Which just goes to show the type of people you mix with,’ she tossed back, refusing to give any quarter. He had lied to her. Deceived her. And, though it was killing her to acknowledge it, that made him no better than Craig.
‘I can’t argue with that,’ Leonidas conceded. ‘But I don’t suppose it would make any difference to tell you that you don’t fall into their category.’
‘You mean because none of the others have been such a push-over as I’ve been?’ Near to tears, it came out almost on a sob, but there was no way in a million years that she was going to let him see that. Forcing aggression into her voice, she uttered, ‘A builder. Hah! You must have been laughing up your exclusive designer sleeve!’
Ignoring that last remark, he said, ‘That was your interpretation when I said I was in construction—which, as you can see...’ he gestured to the plans on the easel, the others on the table ‘...I am.’
‘And you let me think it! That’s worse than lying! That’s...’
‘Kayla, stop it!’ He made a calming gesture with his hands. ‘I can understand how you must feel.’
‘Can you?’ Her eyes were dark and tortured, and her mouth was twisted in wounded accusation. No wonder he’d got nasty about her taking photographs of him in the beginning!
‘I’ve said I’m sorry, haven’t I?’
‘And you think that makes it all right? An apology from the great Leonidas Vassalio!’ Her bitter little laugh made him visibly wince.
‘No, it doesn’t make it all right.’ Beneath the robe his tanned chest fell in hopeless frustration. He hadn’t intended it to sound as dismissive as it had come out. ‘I was constantly aware that I was going to have to tell you sooner or later.’
‘Oh, really?’ Kayla shot him a look of pure incredulity. ‘Like when, exactly? After we’d had sex again?’
‘Kayla, stop it!’ He was moving towards her, but she backed away.
‘So how did you imagine I’d respond?’ She’d come up against a chair, the one where she’d sat that morning after he’d rescued her from the villa, but she didn’t want to think about that now. ‘By being grateful to you?’
‘Which is exactly why I’ve never said anything,’ Leonidas admitted raggedly.
‘Because it would have spoilt your fun!’
‘Because I didn’t want to hurt you.’
‘Oh, you wouldn’t have hurt me, Leon!’ Hadn’t she been hardened by Craig? And before that her father? she reflected bitterly, before tagging on with painful cynicism, ‘I’m sorry. Is it Leon? Or should that be Leonidas now?’
The emphatic distaste she placed on the name everyone knew him by made him flinch. But he couldn’t blame her, he thought. He had misled her, and then been stupid enough to imagine he might be let off lightly when he came clean and admitted it. But she had been hurt too deeply before and he should have known better, he realised. It was crass of him to have thought she would be anything but angry and bitter, especially after finding out in the way she had.
‘You wouldn’t have hurt me, Leonidas,’ she reiterated, in an attempt to ease the pain of another betrayal—and by a man she had believed was different from men like Craig and her father and all the others. A construction worker who’d come here to fish and sketch and live rough for a while because he valued his solitude and his privacy. Except all the time she’d been naïve enough to imagine he’d been sketching he’d been controlling his multi-billion-pound empire! ‘I just wouldn’t have touched you with a bargepole.’
But she had, she thought
