Page 14 of Reclaimed By His Billion-Dollar Ring

The real reason, though, as Nikos well knew, was to give herself a sense of protection.

He carefully poured the chilled sparkling water into one of the glasses provided and handed it to her. She took it, scrupulously avoiding the slightest chance of their fingers brushing, and drank from its contents gracefully. Nikos mixed himself a spritzer and raised his glass.

‘What shall we drink to?’ he asked. His tone was deliberately bland.

He saw her lovely mouth tighten, her fingers around the glass do likewise.

‘To never seeing each other again. Again.’

She knocked back another big mouthful of her water, difficult when it was effervescing so frenziedly in the heat, but the gesture served its purpose. As did her words.

The opening salvo.

Had she not been wearing her shades, Nikos knew she’d be glaring at him with a killing basilisk gaze. But his only response was to take up a deliberately relaxed pose, stretching out his legs, crossing them at the ankles and leaning back on his elbow.

Yet behind the relaxed pose he was bracing himself.

The only accusation she can throw at me is that I left her. Nothing else.

He had made sure of that—made it a condition to her father’s fixers.

And all that’s in the past—long gone.

So there was no point dwelling on it, was there? It was the present he was concerned with now. Only the present.

I am not concerned that our affair ended—or why. I am only concerned with what I want there to be between us now.

His eyes rested on her. Even with that net of tension over her, radiating her resistance and hostility towards him, she was still so beautiful it could take his breath away. He wanted to feast his gaze on her, drink her in... And then reach for her...feel her resistance to him melting away, feel her mouth opening to his, her arms coming around him, her body yielding to his...warm and ardent and eager...

Memories, delectable and enticing, were like tendrils in his mind, but he pushed them away. He was not there yet...

‘Why?’ he said, tilting his head to look directly at her, answering her with a tone of voice that was neither challenging nor countering, only enquiring. He was keeping his cool. Surely the best way to handle this.

He could see her expression change.

‘Why?’ she repeated.

It was like a bullet. Shot from her. Right at him.

She reared back. ‘You have the almighty nerve to sit there and ask why!’

More bullets, spitting at him like machine gun fire.

‘You think—you really think—that you can just, oh, so casually invite me out! Behave as though nothing had happened between us! As if—’

He cut across her. ‘It did happen, Calanthe. Our time together that summer. And even if it hadn’t...’

He changed his voice, his gaze never leaving hers. He wanted her to understand that she could protest all she liked but it would make no difference.

‘Even if the very first time I’d ever set eyes on you had been at your father’s birthday party I would still have asked you out. Still have wanted you here. Because...’ his voice became a caress ‘...you are simply the most beautiful woman I have ever set eyes on.’

He saw her face work. ‘Don’t. Just...don’t.’

Her words were not bullets now, but tight, like wire pulled to breaking strain.

He gave a shrug. ‘Why not? Why not tell you the truth? You were irresistible eight years ago and you are even more so now.’

She shot forward, fury in the set of her shoulders.

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