wanted too! Wasn’t it?’
Had she actually been hoping for something else? If she had, then the stupid thought was crushed out of her by his swift retort.
‘Well, I sure as hell wasn’t looking for marriage!’
‘So there you are—we both got exactly what we were looking for. So why can’t you leave it at that?’
‘You know damn well why!’ he flung at her. ‘Because it can’t be left at that!’
‘Why not? Surely if we just put it all behind us and move on, then it can all be over and done with.’
For Theo at least.
‘That isn’t going to work,’ Theo muttered, shaking his dark head slowly.
‘Why can’t it?’
‘Because of who we are—who you are.’
‘Me?’
‘You’re my father’s fiancée. That’s what makes the difference—all the difference in the world.’
‘But it doesn’t have to,’ Skye protested. ‘Only if we let it.’
‘Skye!’
Her name was a violent sound of outraged fury on his tongue and he raked his hands through his hair, pressing them against the bones of his skull in exasperation.
‘Can’t you see that there is no “if we let it”?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘We have no choice but to let it!’ Theo told her fiercely. ‘You are going to marry my father…and…’
‘And?’ Skye prompted when he fell silent, seeming to hunt for the words.
‘Theos! Can you not see it? Can you not feel it?’
‘F-feel what?’ Skye stammered, though she had a terrible feeling that she knew what was in his thoughts. She knew what she had been hiding from for days and the thought of bringing it out into the open terrified her.
‘This thing that’s between us.’
‘There’s nothing between us,’ Skye put in hastily, terrified to even let the idea into her mind. ‘Nothing at all. I don’t know what you’re talking about!’
Liar! his look said. You know exactly what I mean. Exactly what there is.
‘There’s an atmosphere—almost an electricity that’s in the air between us. I can’t keep my eyes—my hands—off you!’
She actually turned white at the words. He watched the blood drain from her cheeks, leaving them pallid and ashen.
He knew exactly how she was feeling. He’d tried to deny it himself at first. But then, like a fool, he’d kissed her. He’d kissed her in anger and contempt, but it hadn’t stayed that way. Other, more primitive feelings had swept through him like a tidal wave and he’d known just why he couldn’t leave the situation that way—why he couldn’t leave the island though, God help him, he’d tried!
He still wanted her. Wanted her more than ever. He didn’t care if she was a gold-digger, didn’t care about anything but having her back in his bed again.
But she was promised to his father. And he had never taken another man’s woman in his life. He didn’t intend to start now.
But if she were to leave Cyril…
‘It isn’t over between us and you know it.’
‘It is!’ It was a cry of panic, of desperation. ‘It is over! It has to be—I’m marrying your father!’
‘Then don’t!’
There, it was out. Theo told himself. The thing that had been preying on his thoughts all day, every day since the moment he had realised just who she was and why she was here on Helikos. The words that he had been trying not to say, words he had sworn that he would never say, but even as he had done so he had known that he would inevitably one day. He would have to.
For days he’d fought with himself. Fought to stay away from her. Fought the need to be with her. He had set himself to a gruelling regime of exercise, running on the seashore, swimming endless laps of the pool, lifting weights in the small gym his father had had built but had very obviously never used. It had kept him out of her way and it had exhausted his body, but his mind had stayed wide awake.
And at night, in the darkness, the memories had come.
Heated memories of the night they had spent together. The one night when he had known all the sweetness and the passion that her glorious body could offer.
And he had known he wanted more.
The sweetness he wanted to taste all over again. The passion he longed to sate himself on once more.
He had barely managed to cope with the past two days as it was. He had only kept himself from giving in to the magnetic pull her body had for his by telling himself over and over again that she wasn’t available, that she was en-gaged—to his father, for God’s sake!
She was not only not available, she was forbidden!
But even knowing that, he had endured two nights without sleep. Spent two long days fighting the need to see her. Fighting his body’s need to bury himself in her again.
He knew now that that was why he had been so insistent that she tell his father about the night they had spent together. He didn’t just want the truth out in the open; he wanted her free from this impossible engagement.
He wanted her all to himself. And he felt he would go mad if he didn’t have her.
‘Don’t marry my father. You can’t marry him feeling the way you do about—’
‘About you?’ Skye inserted swiftly, jerkily. ‘I don’t feel anything for you!’
‘But you do.’ Theo dismissed her protest with a contemptuous flick of his hand. ‘You feel just the way I do—I can see it in your face. In your eyes whenever I’m near.’
‘You arrogant…’
The negligent shrug of broad shoulders under the white tee shirt showed how little he cared about her accusation.
‘I may be arrogant, but at least I’m honest.’
Deliberately he took a slow step forward, then another, his eyes fixed on her face, watching every flicker of reaction that she was unable to hide. He saw the way her head went back, the sudden change in her breathing, the darkness of her eyes.
‘See?’ was all he said, but he knew she’d got the message. Ruthlessly he pressed home his advantage. ‘Damn you, Skye, think about this—about what will happen when my father finds out…’
‘Why should he find out?’
