Wedding Night with a Stranger (14 page)

B
REAKFAST
was beautiful. After a night of passion, and long slow love as the dawn was breaking, Ariadne’s husband chose to make her fresh orange juice and toast and bring it to her in bed. Then later, while he was showering, she cooked him some of the delicious little
bougatsas
with custard Thea often made for her uncle, and a nourishing spinach and feta omelette to sustain him in the workplace.

‘Being married has its compensations,’ Sebastian observed. As he smiled at her across the breakfast table, admiring her with his eyes in her shorts and pretty top, she allowed a wild, little hope to lift its head. What if they decided to play it for real? What if he asked her to stay?

When it was time for him to leave for work he kissed her long and deeply, though their lips were already bruised with kissing. ‘I’d love to stay with you today,’ he murmured. ‘But I have some news for my employees that can’t wait.’

‘Is it about Thio’s contract?’ she guessed.

He nodded, scanning her face, and said carefully, ‘It means quite a lot to Celestrial. There have been some worried faces in the office. I know you aren’t comfortable with the circumstances, but the outcome has been very good for us. And…’ he squeezed her hands‘…let me know how it goes with the solicitor.’

After he’d gone and she’d cleared the breakfast dishes, she
found the firm of solicitors in the phone directory and booked an appointment. She had the option of Monday or Tuesday, but Monday seemed too close, so she opted for Tuesday. Fingers crossed there’d be something to inherit. Of course she was curious to know, but she couldn’t suppress the thought that, once she had her inheritance in her possession, there was nothing to keep her here with Sebastian. It would be time for her to leave.

And go…where?

Sebastian drove into work whistling along to songs on the radio, preserving the buoyant, relaxed mood another night of passion had created by carefully controlling his thoughts. Some apprehension of having slid deeper into his glorious entanglement with Ariadne Giorgias lurked at one corner of his mind, but not to worry. He’d been moved by people before, and no doubt he would be again. The trick was not to get emotionally attached.

So she’d had a rift of some sort with her uncle and aunt. Families had conflicts, that was life, and there was no point letting a woman’s distress play upon his heartstrings. An utterly impermissible notion had crept into his head while he’d been comforting her in the night, and he worried he might have said something reckless in the heat of the moment. She hadn’t mentioned anything about it this morning, so perhaps he’d dreamed it. But there’d been a look in her eyes, a certain look he knew he must not encourage.

He doubted if
he
had that look. He’d never been a very emotional guy, despite what his family seemed to think.

Anyway, today was a day for celebration. He could hardly wait to assemble his employees and break the news.

A cheer went up at the meeting when he told them. If he’d been a different kind of boss they might have dared to pop a few champagne corks, but they restricted themselves to grinning, back-slapping and general loony happiness.

By mid-morning, it was clear not much work was likely to be
done this day. And with his own obsessive need to luxuriate in recollections of the night, he could hardly hold it against his workforce. He could have spent the day watching Celestrial’s share price zoom on the stock market, but he kept wondering what Ariadne was doing. Cooking? He grinned to himself. That perky little vase filled with pretty leaves came back to him. He resisted as long as he could—it wouldn’t be kind to give her any false ideas—but then he sprang up suddenly and grabbed his jacket.

‘I’m leaving for the day,’ he told a startled Jenny on his way out. ‘Oh, and…hey, why don’t you take the rest of the day off?’

He wasn’t a romantic guy, by any means, but flowers should have a presence on other occasions too, not just funerals.

He stopped off at a couple of places on the way home. Searching for his wallet to pay the florist, he came upon Ariadne’s passport in the inside pocket of his jacket. He patted it. At least he could definitely certify she was still in the country.

Agnes had phoned to say she didn’t feel well enough to come in. Ariadne had the villa all to herself.

Feeling lethargic after her late night, she took Sebastian’s laptop up to bed with her, propped herself up on some pillows, and composed a letter to her old university requesting a reissue of her degree certificates. Then she spent some time scrolling the ads on one of the major Sydney job network sites. Perhaps once she’d assembled her testimonials, she could find employment in Sydney. If she could find a flat not too far away, perhaps she and Sebastian would stay in touch. He might take her out some time, to dinner, or a movie. They might meet for coffee, or…

Her heart panged. What a fool she was. As if people who’d been lovers ever met for coffee.

Sounds from downstairs startled her, and before she could shelve the laptop she heard the familiar footsteps bounding up the stairs.

‘Oh, there you are.’ Sebastian’s tall form appeared in the doorway and her heart leaped up in surprise when she saw he seemed to be laden with flowers and packages.

‘What are you doing?’ He deposited his armful on the floor and sprawled on the bed beside her.

‘Job hunting. What are
you
doing?’ She craned to see the flowers. Roses interspersed with white alyssum. ‘Are they for me?’

‘For the house.’ His thick black lashes swept down and screened his gaze. ‘It’s such a shemozzle at work I’ve taken the day off. Here, let me see that.’ He peered over her shoulder at the screen at the advertisement she’d been investigating. ‘Ah. Have you done this sort of thing before?’

She nodded. ‘In Athens. And I’ve done a bit of study and training in antiquities. I
could
work in a museum.’

‘Well, you shouldn’t have much trouble finding something you like.
I’d
give you a job. Like
that
.’

She smiled and raised her brows flirtily. ‘What as?’

He kissed her neck. ‘I’d think of something. That reminds me.’ He glanced appreciatively around the room. ‘I’ve been meaning to say, everything looks—fantastic. In fact, last night I could have sworn my mother had been here, though I don’t think even she makes the
walls
sparkle. Agnes must have been inspired.’

She nodded without speaking, and he continued to hold her in his dark, smiling gaze. ‘It wasn’t Agnes, though, was it?’

‘Some of it,’ she said with a shrug. ‘I just gave her a helping hand. She isn’t very well, you know. Her asthma’s pretty bad at the moment. It’s a large villa for one elderly woman to clean on her own.’

‘Yeah.’ He frowned, and let out a sigh. ‘I should have thought. I s’pose it’s too much for her. I did notice she wasn’t performing up to scratch.’

‘You did?’ She widened her eyes in mock astonishment.

He laughed and gave her a little shake. ‘Yes, I
did,
but I didn’t want to sack her. I think she relies on the money, and…well, you know, Esther was fond of her.’

There was a beat of silence. ‘Esther. Your wife.’

He met her gaze, then lowered his thick, black lashes. ‘Yeah.’

She screwed up her courage to say carefully, ‘What happened with Esther? Did—she die?’

His face smoothed to become expressionless. ‘Cancer. Three years ago.’

‘Oh.’ She had the sensation of walking on extremely fragile eggshells. ‘That must have been—awful for you.’

‘It was awful for
Esther
.’

‘Oh, of course it was, of course.’ She could see talking about it was painful for him, but wasn’t sure how to back out of the topic gracefully. ‘You—you must have suffered a lot too.’

He shot her a glance, then lowered his gaze and said harshly, ‘I was absolutely fine. Esther was the one who suffered. I was the selfish bastard who survived.’

‘Oh, oh.’ Her heart clenched. She stared at him in distress, urgent to think of some soothing thing to alleviate the excruciating moment. In her desperation she risked touching him, and stroked his arms, relieved when he didn’t draw away. ‘Someone—someone has to survive to tell the story.’ He didn’t answer, and, still stroking him, she babbled on to fill the silence, ‘The story of Esther, I mean. Who she was, and what she was like.’

She held her breath. Had she said the wrong thing?

He glanced up at her then with a shrug, and his grim expression relaxed. ‘That’s truer than you know. But let’s not worry about it right now. See what I’ve brought you.’

He reached for the roses and put them in her arms, then piled a wide, slim black box on top.

‘Oh, thank you. They’re
heavenly,
’
she breathed, inhaling their sweet heady fragrance. ‘And wow. Not chocolates!
Wicked.
Look at the size of this box.
Theos,
these are my downfall. How did you know?’ She lay the roses down beside her and lifted the chocolates to smell the box.

He smiled, a sexy, sinful smile, his dark eyes flickering over her with a hungry, wolfish look. ‘Well, I
am
a genius. You said so yourself.’

She laughed and he took her in his arms and kissed her, rolling her onto her back, oblivious of the gifts they were crushing in an embrace that grew hotter and steamier by the second. Desire flared in her again with an almost scary readiness as he undid the buttons on her top for an urgent and delicious exploration of her breasts.

The more she had of him, it seemed to her, hungrily releasing
his
shirt buttons, the more she had to have of him. After a long, writhing, mindless time she grew conscious of things sticking into her side, and broke from his arms, gasping in air.

‘Oh, no,’ she said when she could. ‘The chocolates. They’ll be crushed.’

He reached for the roses and lifted them to safety. The box wasn’t too badly squashed, apart from the corners.

She examined it. ‘I think it’s only the box that’s damaged.’

They surveyed each other, shirts hanging open, pleasure still tingling in her veins, desire shimmering in the air, unappeased.

She smiled. ‘Hungry?’

His eyes gleamed. ‘Not for chocolate.’

She flicked him a glance from beneath her lashes, then tore off the cellophane wrapper. ‘Oh,’ she sighed, opening the box and viewing the sumptuous array. She closed her eyes to inhale the intoxicating aroma. ‘I’m so glad you’ve taken the day off.’

‘The whole weekend. First time in—ages. Feel like doing a little sightseeing tomorrow?’ He leaned forward and planted a sexy little kiss on her shoulder.

‘Yeah! That’d be great.’ She smiled, pretending to consider the chocolates, enjoying the play as he delayed the moment of pouncing on her with a little conversational chit-chat.

‘What would you like to see?’

Aware of his fingers stroking a shivery path down her spine, she murmured hazily, ‘The Katherine Gorge.’

His brows twitched. ‘How about the Opera House?’

‘Seen it.’

The chocolates looked a little on the soft side, but were silky and succulent notwithstanding. She bent her head to study the key to the varieties. ‘Nougat, almond or strawberry liqueur?’ She glanced up at him. ‘What I’d really like, if you had the time, would be to see my parents’ cottage.’

He was watching her with a sensual gleam in his eyes, but when she said that his brows lifted. ‘Great. Do you know the address?’

She popped a cherry liqueur into her mouth, closing her eyes as its deliciousness melted on her tongue and mingled with her mouth juices. After a blissful second she said, ‘Off by heart. It’s in wobbly writing in all my old story books.’

‘You’ve never been back since, have you?’ A dark flame smouldered in his eyes.

‘No. I’ve often longed to see it again. I’m quite excited.’

His lids were heavy and slumberous. ‘Are you?’ He ran his finger from her mouth to her shorts’ zip and said huskily, ‘Well, I’m
very
excited.’

She could see by the bulge in his groin that he wasn’t exaggerating.

Excitement was infectious. It turned her voice to a throaty purr. ‘Sure you won’t join me in a little Cheri Suisse?’

‘That’s exactly what I intend.’

He bent and slipped his tongue into her mouth at the same time as his rough, urgent hands finished unbuttoning her top, and slid around her back to unfasten her bra.

She felt her blood ignite. A hot, sexy kiss mingled with chocolate was almost too much pleasure to endure at one time. While his clever tongue tickled her sensitive mouth, her hungry hands
convulsively enjoyed the textures and contours of his bronzed chest and washboard-hard abdominals.

‘Delicious,’ he said after another steamy while, drawing away from her.

She bent to lick off a chocolatey smear she’d left on his right nipple, causing his skin to shiver and the flat little bead to perk up. ‘Ooh,’ she said, savouring the flavours of chocolate and raw salty man. ‘Your nipple likes chocolate.’

‘You’re a little tease,’ he rumbled, his voice a deep, sultry murmur. She made a move to take another chocolate but he swiftly grabbed her hand and held it still. ‘My turn.’ He reached for the box, and his long, tanned fingers hung poised over the selection. ‘Ah. What else but raspberry?’

He held his selection between his palms for a second, his eyes gleaming wickedly. ‘Now let’s see what happens.’

In a rapid movement he smeared the chocolate over her breasts, then, with a laugh that was halfway a growl, bent to suck each of her nipples. She shivered with delight as lightning raced along her nerve endings, tightening the tingling points and igniting them with an explosive hunger.

Her shorts came off in the sexy tussle. When his marauding tongue and ruthless, ravaging hands had turned her blood to wildfire and she’d cried and moaned her pleasure, it became her turn again.

Perhaps she was running a fever, because in a surge of reckless daring she sat up and placed her hands on his belt buckle, and purred, ‘Let’s see what we have here.’

With hands that trembled at their own unaccustomed boldness, she released the button and eased down his zip. He watched her face, sensual amusement dancing in his aroused eyes like searing points of flame. He lifted his lean hips a little to assist her in dragging off the confining clothes, then kicked them away altogether.