Irresistible Greeks: Red-Hot and Rich: His Reputation Precedes Him / An Offer She Can't Refuse / Pretender to the Throne
Eva drank down the rest of her brandy before answering him, in the hopes that its warmth would melt the block of ice that seemed to have formed in her chest. ‘What circumstances?’
Markos kept his expression deliberately bland. ‘You did not appear to become ill until after the appearance of Grey’s second wife. Do not cry, Eva.’ All attempts to remain detached fled as he saw the tears shimmering in Eva’s huge gold-coloured eyes, and Markos quickly placed his brandy down on the glass-topped coffee table before moving onto his haunches beside the chair where she sat, to take her icy cold hand in his. ‘Talk to me, Eva. Tell me why you are crying.’
‘I’m not,’ she denied, even as those tears began to fall down the paleness of her cheeks. ‘I just… You’re right. Seeing Yvette…it was a shock—’ She broke off and began to cry in earnest.
It was as if a dam had burst inside Eva—the dam that had held back all the grief and pain she had buried deep inside her when her hopes and dreams of having a family of her own, a baby of her own, had been dashed five years ago, when the specialist had told them that Jack could never father a child.
A child Jack now appeared to be having with his second wife.
It didn’t matter by what means Yvette Cabot Grey had become pregnant, only that she was. With the baby Jack had denied Eva five years ago.
Markos was completely at a loss as to what he should do or say as Eva buried her face in her hands and sobbed as if her heart were breaking. Which perhaps it was.
Over Jack Cabot Grey?
Having no experience upon which to draw, it wasn’t for Markos to criticise whom others might choose—or not choose—to love. Except that Jack Cabot Grey was everything Markos disliked in a man: shallow, selfish and, where Eva was concerned, in Markos’s opinion cruelly vindictive. None of which changed the fact that Eva could not seem to stop crying as if her heart were breaking.
Markos reached out and gathered Eva up into his arms, lifting her and cradling her tenderly against his chest before sitting down in the chair himself. Her tears quickly dampened the front of his shirt. Markos ran his fingers soothingly against her temple, considering the irony of holding the woman he desired in his arms as she cried over another man.
If his cousin Drakon could only see him now.
‘It was the baby,’ Eva finally choked out painfully. ‘I—we—we tried for so long to have a baby of our own, and—we finally had tests. The specialist told us it wasn’t possible,’ she sobbed.
Oh, dear God! And that cold-hearted bastard Cabot Grey had stood there and calmly introduced his pregnant second wife to Eva, all the time knowing that Eva wasn’t able to have a baby herself. The absolute bastard!
Could this also be the reason Eva’s self-confidence was so fragile beneath her veneer of derision? The reason she was so determined not to become involved with another man? Possibly also the reason she and Jack Cabot Grey had divorced?
Markos could certainly believe the latter. Even on such short acquaintance Markos knew that Jack Cabot Grey was the sort of vindictive bastard who would never have let Eva forget she was unable to give him the Cabot Grey son and heir.
‘It’s all right, Eva,’ he assured her softly, speaking into the silky softness of her hair. ‘Everything is going to be all right.’
She gave a choked laugh. ‘Of course it isn’t.’
No, as far as Eva was concerned perhaps it wasn’t… ‘You are a beautiful young woman, with all your life still ahead of you. Not all men are like Jack Cabot Grey—’
‘Thank goodness!’ She gave a shiver of revulsion.
Markos looked down at her quizzically. ‘You really do not love him still?’
Eva straightened before attempting to stand up, but she was prevented from doing so as Markos’s arms tightened about her to keep her firmly sitting on his knee.
Which was pretty embarrassing, now that Eva thought about it. In fact the whole of this evening had been embarrassing, she realised, now that she had got over her shock and calmed down a little.
First of all she had completely flipped out when they’d arrived at Jonathan’s house. Then she had almost collapsed with surprise when she had realised Jack was also at the party. Even worse, she had run from the room and been violently ill in the ladies’ powder room once she had seen that Jack’s second wife was pregnant. An embarrassment that Markos had witnessed when he followed her. And now she had cried all over Markos’s white shirt, probably ruining it, no doubt giving him completely the wrong impression as to why she had become so upset in the first place.
Not the best first date she had ever been on.
She doubted Markos had ever had one like it before, either.
She gave a shake of her head. ‘I’m not sure that I ever did love Jack,’ she answered him honestly. ‘Not really.’
‘And yet you married him…?’
Eva nodded. ‘I was a student when we met at a party given by one of my father’s friends. Jack was six years older than me, and he seemed so mature and self-assured in comparison with my other friends—taking me out to the theatre and wining and dining me at expensive restaurants.’ She grimaced as she saw Markos’s raised brows. ‘I’ve had plenty of time to think about this, and I know now that I allowed myself to be dazzled by Jack’s easy charm and self-confidence. I mistook being dazzled for being in love.’
Markos looked down at her quizzically. ‘It was a big thing to move to New York with him—away from your family and friends—after you were married.’
‘I’m afraid that was probably in an effort to get away from most of my family. My parents aren’t the happiest married couple in the world,’ she explained at Markos’s questioning look. ‘They should probably never have married each other, and they certainly shouldn’t have had a child together. My childhood was like a battlefield.’
Markos gave a pained frown as this further knowledge of Eva’s life only added to those reasons why she now felt so cynical towards love and relationships. His own childhood hadn’t been without trauma, when his mother and father had died so suddenly when he was only eight, but when he’d gone to live with his aunt and uncle he had been lucky enough to find another set of parents who had loved and cared for him as their own. Whereas Eva didn’t seem to have had even one set of parents to love and nurture her.
‘You haven’t had an easy time of it, have you?’ Markos observed.
Eva smiled bravely. ‘No worse than a lot of people.’ She drew in a deep breath. ‘Markos, I seem to be doing this a lot recently where you’re concerned—but I really am sorry for blubbing all over you just now.’
‘No apology is necessary.’
‘What if I were to make it a “suitable” one…?’ Eva quirked her brows at him as she pulled his bow tie undone, before starting to unfasten the buttons down the front of his shirt.
Markos regarded her warily. ‘I am not sure this is a good idea—’
Eva didn’t allow him to finish as she moved to lean into the hardness of his bared chest before pressing her lips against his.
Markos sat completely unmoving, his arms still lightly about Eva’s waist as those deliciously sensual lips moved softly against him, as light as butterfly wings. The lightness of her perfume was invading his senses, and he felt the heaviness of her breasts pressing against the hardness of his chest.
She moved back slightly, her palms hot against his chest, her breath warm against his lips as those golden eyes looked directly into his. ‘Make love with me, Markos…’
His body reacted instantly to that husky invitation, his pulse racing, heart pounding, and his shaft becoming rock hard and throbbing in seconds. It was impossible for him to deny how much he wanted to accept that invitation.
But he wasn’t going to do so.
Eva might have stopped crying, but there was no forgetting how upset she had been earlier. And the reason for that distress wasn’t going to go away any time soon—which probably meant she wasn’t completely responsible for her actions right now. For Markos to make love with her under these circumstances would surely make him as much of a bastard as her ex-husband. Even if he did literally ache to just pick Eva up in his arms and carry her to his bed!
CHAPTER EIGHT
‘WHERE are you taking me?’ Eva’s arms moved up about Markos’s neck as he stood up with her still cradled firmly in his embrace.
His eyes were a deep, dark emerald as he glanced down at her. ‘Where would you like me to take you?’
‘You know…I don’t think I really care,’ Eva answered, surprising herself with her own honesty as she realised she really didn’t care where she was going, so long as Markos was going to be there too.
Something had happened to her when that dam of emotion had burst inside her earlier and she had cried in Markos’s arms. Somehow—miraculously—she had been released from all past hurts and disappointments, leaving her emotions as light and free as they had been when she was a university student. She felt that same bubbling sense of anticipation inside her now that she’d had then—what might happen in her life next?
What might happen—not what had Eva been planning to happen? Because she no longer felt that determination to decide her life. She had let go of the past. All of it.
So Jack’s wife was going to have a baby? So what? Jack probably wouldn’t believe Eva if she were to say the words to him, but it no longer upset her that Yvette was pregnant. She simply wished the two of them every happiness with their future son or daughter, and she had no doubt that Jonathan would be over the moon when his grandchild was born—boy or girl.
One day Eva might even have that for herself—a man and a family of her own to love—but until and if that day came she would feel a contentedness, a calmness, and just wait and see what happened next.
And she really hoped that Markos was going to be part of that more immediate ‘next’. She had already known he was as charming and self-assured as Jack had ever been, and Markos was certainly more powerfully charismatic—he’d had to be to have persuaded her to go out with him at all this evening! But after tonight she also knew Markos was kind and considerate, with a quiet strength, caring for her in a way her ex-husband never had. For a brief moment earlier tonight she had really thought Markos was going to pick Jack up by his shirtfront and shake him like a rag doll!
But Markos’s strength of character was inborn, not acquired or a veneer—and Eva had never physically wanted a man so badly in her life as she now wanted Markos.
Her arms tightened about his neck as she gazed up at him admiringly. ‘You really are pretty wonderful, you know.’
He gave a half-smile. ‘Because I am capable of carrying all these extra pounds you believe you possess into my bedroom?’
‘It’s all perfectly proportioned and in the right places!’ Eva gave him a playful punch on the arm, realising as she did so that she still carried her black silk clutch bag.
He gave a disarming grin. ‘I believe I have already assured you that I am well aware of that.’
Yes, he had—which was another plus in his favour. Markos seemed to be accumulating pluses in spite of Eva’s previous prejudice against him. Too many more of them and she could be in serious danger of falling—
Whoa!
Wanting, aching to make love with Markos was one thing—a big thing, considering he was the first man Eva had wanted to be intimate with since the disintegration of her marriage. But allowing her emotions to become involved was something else entirely.
Markos was a Lyonedes. From a family that was powerful and rich beyond her imagining. More to the point, Markos was a man known for having short and meaningless relationships—not a man that a woman might pin her future hopes and dreams on. A lesson her cousin Donna had learnt only too well…
Donna!
Damn it, with everything else that had happened this evening Eva had forgotten all about her cousin’s unhappy experience with Markos!
Had she really forgotten? Or could she just no longer quite accept her cousin’s version of what had and hadn’t happened between them?
Donna had described him as being wonderful when they were going out together, but turning into a cold and ruthless stranger when he had decided he no longer wanted the relationship. Oh, Eva believed Markos was more than capable of being cold and ruthless—she had seen him being exactly that with Jack earlier this evening—she could just no longer see Markos behaving that way towards a woman. No doubt that was another no-no his Aunt Karelia had instilled in him!
Besides which, the cruel and callous Markos her cousin had described him as being at the end of their relationship would never have had the patience or the inclination to deal with Eva’s tears tonight. He would have run a mile in the other direction.
Which left Eva precisely where?
Trusting her own intuition?
She had done that in her life once before, with dire results.
No, that wasn’t quite true of the events of seven years ago. At twenty-two, her marriage to Jack had seemed to her like a good way of escaping the vicious circle of her parents’ relationship. But she was twenty-nine now, with a successful career and a life of her own. This attraction she felt towards Markos was based on that maturity and success, not on an imagined youthful idealism.
‘What are you thinking about?’ Markos had been watching the play of emotions across Eva’s expressive face for the past few minutes after switching on the bedroom light, realising that she was so lost in thought she hadn’t even noticed they were now in his bedroom and he was standing beside his king-sized bed, still holding her in his arms.
She gave him a startled glance as she took in the intimacy of their surroundings, and then that surprise was replaced by a warm and inviting smile. ‘Nothing of any importance,’ she assured him huskily.
‘Sure?’
‘Very sure,’ she confirmed determinedly.
It sounded to Markos as if she had made her mind up to something—to do something—and was determined not to allow anything to make her change it.
All of which confirmed to Markos that the decision he had made a few minutes ago in regard to making love with Eva tonight was the right one.
‘Could you pull back the bedcovers?’ He lowered her slightly so that she could turn back the brocade cover and the duvet, before lowering her completely onto the bed. Her arms fell from about his neck as he straightened slightly to look down at her. Her hair was an ebony tumble against the cream silk sheets. ‘Roll over,’ he encouraged gruffly as he took the black bag gently out of her hand and placed it on the bedside cabinet.
‘Roll…?’
Markos allowed himself to chuckle softly at the doubtful expression on Eva’s face. ‘Do not look so worried, Eva; my only intention is to unzip the back of your gown, not to force some strange sexual practice on you.’
Her cheeks were slightly flushed as she glanced at him over the bareness of her shoulder once she had rolled slightly away from him. ‘Maybe force wouldn’t be necessary.’
Markos drew in a sharp breath even as he bent down to slowly lower the zip at the back of her black gown. That breath stayed caught in his throat as he took in the creamy perfection of Eva’s long, naked spine, and revealing the top of a pair of silky black panties.
Markos clenched his hands into fists in an effort to stop himself from touching the creamy length of Eva’s bared flesh now so temptingly revealed to him, and a nerve pulsed in his jaw as she rolled over to face him once again, allowing him to lower the gown down over her breasts and the slenderness of her waist, curvaceous hips and long silky legs, before discarding it completely.
Those black silky panties were now the only item of clothing she wore—a perfect foil for the creamy naked swell of her breasts. Full and pert breasts, tipped with rose-coloured nipples, which were swelling, hardening, under the heated intensity of Markos’s gaze.
Eva was beautiful everywhere—so very beautiful—and in a way that made Markos ache just from looking at her, from breathing in the sensuous perfume of her skin.
‘Markos?’ Eva looked up at him uncertainly.
His nostrils flared as he breathed out deeply, before bending slightly so that he could pull the covers gently over Eva’s tempting nakedness.
Her eyes widened. ‘What are you doing…?’
Markos sat on the side of the bed, securing those bedcovers beneath her arms as he reached up and smoothed the silky hair back from her temples. ‘I would very much like to kiss you goodnight, if that is agreeable to you?’
‘Goodnight…?’
Markos gave a gentle smile. ‘I believe you have already suffered enough excitement for one evening, don’t you?’
Eva would hardly call the time she had spent at Jonathan’s house earlier this evening exciting—nor the bursting dam of emotions that had followed it! Nor would she compare either of those things to the thrill of just imagining making love with Markos…
‘I don’t understand.’
He gave a shake of his head, his eyes dark. ‘This evening was a less than happy one for you, and I believe it would be wrong of me to now take advantage of you. As such—’
‘But I’m perfectly okay now,’ she protested.
‘You are not okay, Eva,’ he insisted flatly, his fingers still lightly soothing against her brow.
But she was okay—more than okay, actually—so much so that she couldn’t even begin to describe the euphoria she felt at being free from the past. ‘Perhaps you’re the one that’s changed your mind about wanting to go to bed with me after I made such an idiot of myself earlier this evening?’
‘I have not changed my mind in the slightest in regard to wanting to make love with you, Eva,’ he assured her. ‘But, as I have already stated, I would prefer not to take advantage of the fact you are feeling less than your usual feisty self.’
Eva looked up at him searchingly. The sincerity of the expression in his eyes and face was unmistakable. ‘Such gallantry isn’t doing a thing for your reputation as a womaniser, you know,’ she teased huskily.
His expression hardened. ‘The thing to remember about reputations is that they are formed by people other than the person whose reputation is under discussion.’
Yes, they were. And the man Donna had described to Eva wouldn’t have shown a moment’s hesitation in taking ‘advantage’ of her.
Which left Eva feeling more confused than ever in regard to the enigma that was Markos Lyonedes.
She gave a baffled shake of her head. ‘If you have no intention of making love with me then why did you undress me and put me in your bed?’
His expression softened again. ‘I believe, if we are to be exact, that I put you in my bed first and then undressed you. And I did so because you are emotionally exhausted and need to sleep.’
‘I could have gone home and slept.’
‘And tomorrow is another day…’ Markos continued softly as if she hadn’t spoken at all.
Eva chuckled softly. ‘You’re supposed to be Rhett Butler, not Scarlet O’Hara!’
He shrugged those broad shoulders. ‘It is the sentiment which is important, no matter who says it.’
Yes, it was, and Markos’s thoughtfulness in not making love with her tonight had succeeded in throwing Eva’s emotions into even further turmoil. As well as making her ache for his touch!
‘Where are you going to sleep?’
He shrugged. ‘There are three other bedrooms in the apartment that I can use.’
‘And if I would rather you stayed here with me…?’
Markos drew in a ragged breath. ‘I would ask what I have done to deserve such torture!’
‘You’ve been a perfect gentleman,’ Eva assured him firmly. ‘And if I ever chance to bump into your Aunt Karelia, I’ll be sure to tell her what a credit you are to her.’
‘I am gratified to hear it,’ he replied dryly. ‘And now I believe it is time for you to kiss me goodnight and then get some sleep,’ he added huskily.
Eva was only too eager to kiss Markos goodnight, but at the same time as she was totally unsure that sleep would be possible once she had.
‘And I am going to return to the sitting room to finish my glass of brandy before taking a very long, very cold shower!’
The grimness of his smile revealed the depth of self-control he was having to exert not to make love with her as his head lowered towards hers.
Eva curled her arms up about his neck as their mouths met. She put every shred of emotion she was feeling at that moment into a long kiss. The fondness she felt for Markos. The desire. The aching yearning. Most of all the joy in at last being free of the past and able to feel all of those things…
For Markos.
Markos wrenched away from Eva’s tantalising lips, breathing hard as he gently but firmly pulled her arms slowly down his shoulders and chest. ‘Enough,’ he breathed raggedly, shaking his head as Eva’s fingers lingered on the bareness of his chest. ‘Please, Eva, I sincerely hope that I am a gentleman, but I know I am not a saint!’ A nerve pulsed in his tightly clenched jaw.
Her lips were swollen from the heat of their kisses, her eyes a dark languid gold as she looked up at him. ‘Goodnight, Markos.’ Her voice was as sultry and inviting as the unhidden longing in those extraordinary eyes.
Markos rose quickly to his feet, so as not to give in to the temptation to throw back the bedcovers and taste those deliciously naked breasts. ‘I think I may be in need of more than a single glass of brandy to help me get to sleep!’ He stepped away from the bed—away from Eva.
Eva gave an enigmatic smile. ‘You know where I am if you don’t succeed.’
Markos ran an agitated hand through the thickness of his hair. ‘You are not helping, Eva!’
She laughed huskily. ‘I don’t believe I was trying to…’ Her breasts were thrust forward and up as she stretched languidly before once again settling down beneath the covers, those golden eyes gleaming with mischief as her gaze lingered on the obvious bulge in Markos’s trousers.
‘Temptress!’ he murmured achingly.
‘Spoilsport!’ she came back challengingly.
Markos gave a rueful shake of his head. ‘I will take great pleasure in reminding you of that taunt in the morning.’
‘Promise?’
Markos sucked in a sharp breath and stared down at her for several long seconds more before turning to walk determinedly across to the bedroom door. He paused in the doorway to turn and look at Eva once more. ‘You might want to barricade this door with any of the bedroom furniture you can move!’
Her eyes shone back at him teasingly. ‘I’m not the one walking away…’
No, Markos was. And he had more than enough reason to regret it once he had returned to the sitting room. Not even two large glasses of brandy were enough to dispel the knowledge that an almost naked and apparently willing Eva was just a short distance away down the hallway.
‘You look—’
‘Awful,’ Markos finished dryly as he looked across the kitchen the following morning to where Eva stood framed in the doorway. ‘Whereas you look…’ Sexy as hell, Markos acknowledged achingly as he took in her appearance in his black silk dressing gown, which reached almost down to her ankles, and with her hair an ebony tangle about her shoulders. ‘Rested,’ he substituted wryly.
‘Did you sleep in those clothes?’ Eva eyed the crumpled white evening shirt and black trousers he had been wearing last night.
‘I didn’t sleep at all!’ Markos grimaced.
Having realised once he had taken a shower the night before that all of his clothes were still in the bedroom where Eva was—hopefully—sleeping, he’d had to put back on the same clothes he had worn to go out that evening. Only to then return and sit in one of the armchairs and stare sleeplessly out at the night sky as it changed slowly from black to grey and then orange as the sun came up and the new day began.