Page 21 of Forgotten Greek Proposal
Dear heavens, had there ever been a finer specimen of manhood in the history of the world? This was the man who in a few short days she would exchange vows with and pledge to spend the rest of her life with, and as all these thoughts tumbled in her healing brain and her pulses throbbed just to look at him, she understood the fluttering in her stomach contained not an ounce of fear.
This gorgeous, sexy man was her fiancé and he was in love with her, and last night she’d finally understood for the first time since waking in her hospital bed why she’d fallen in love with him in turn.
The full lips she’d been dreaming of as she’d fallen into her real dreams tightened. Folding his arms, he repeated in clipped tones, ‘Tell me I am hallucinating.’
She swam as close as she could get and held on to the poolside to look up at him. ‘Kalimerato you too.’
‘Are you insane?’ he said in the same clipped tone that contained strong undertones of anger. ‘You have suffered a major head injury.’
‘So you keep reminding me.’
‘I shouldn’t have to keep reminding you. Swimming alone in your condition is the height of insanity. Anything could have happened.’
‘Erm…you know I can stand up in it, right? And I’m barely five foot.’
‘That is not the point,’ he virtually snarled. ‘You have recklessly endangered yourself.’
She was still filled with all the fizz she’d set off on her swim with, Thanasis’s appearance having added extra zing to it, and her good mood refused to dampen despite his obvious anger. ‘Are you always this overbearing or is it just an early morning thing?’
‘Over—?’ His mouth snapped shut and he took a visible deep breath.
‘Look,’ she said before he could open his mouth again. ‘I appreciate your concern, I really do, although quite honestly I’d prefer it without the headmaster tone, but as I told you last night, I’m not a child. I don’t just feel fine today, I feel normal, like properly normal. There was no danger at all in me taking a swim… By the way, how did you know I was out here? I swam past your room ages ago.’
‘This is the other side of my room,’ he said tightly.
‘Your room must be humungous.’
‘It’s big enough.’ He took another deep breath. ‘I know you think you are recovered but I gave my word to the medical team at the hospital that I would make you take things easy until the wedding.’
She couldn’t help but smile at how visibly he was trying to rid himself of his visible anger. ‘Poor you, thinking you could make me do anything.’
His jaw clenched and he raised his gaze to the heavens. ‘This isn’t a joke. I know you hate being told what to do but for once will you please just do as you’re asked and keep yourself safe?’
Absurdly, this pleased her, yet more unneeded evidence that Thanasis really did know her and more unneeded evidence that he really did care for her, even if he did need to work on how he expressed that caring. She got it though. If the shoe were on the other foot and she were in love with him and saw him doing something she considered reckless then she’d probably be all overprotective too.
Sidestepping on the tips of her toes to the nearest gently inclining steps, Lucie got out of the pool and gave a mock curtsey. ‘There. I’m being a good girl again, and if it makes you happy, I’ll make a good girl promise not to go swimming on my own without supervision or arm bands until our wedding.’
Even though his eyes were still raised and his body language all tight and controlled, to her delight, his lips twitched as a glimmer of amusement flashed on his gorgeous face.
‘And now that’s all cleared up, do you have a towel I can use please?’
His neck rolled before he gave a sharp nod and turned to an inbuilt shelving unit stacked with towels and toiletries, and for the first time she noticed that this section of balcony didn’t just have a long L-shaped sofa and coffee table but a Jacuzzi bath and an outside shower too.
Thanasis averted his eyes as he handed Lucie the towel. She was wearing what had to be the plainest, least revealing swimsuit he’d ever seen on a woman and yet his veins were as thick and heavy as they’d been when he’d caught that glimpse of her semi-naked in her hospital room.
He turned his face away so he wasn’t subjected to the torture of watching her rub the towel over her delectable body. He needed to cool his core temperature, not raise it.
He should have bribed the doctors to keep her at the hospital a few more days.
After a night of restless sleep, which he’d given up on when the sun had risen, he’d thrown himself out of bed with a renewed determination to avoid Lucie’s company as much as humanly possible… And then he’d glimpsed her swimming past his bedroom without a care in the world and clearly no care for the significant head trauma she’d suffered.
He’d come within a breath of bodily snatching her out of the water.
‘Have you always been this rebellious?’ he asked in a rougher tone than intended, but God help him he defied anyone in his shoes not to struggle containing their emotions when faced with someone who combined the beauty of Aphrodite with the discord strewn by Eris.
All the discord Lucie sowed lay entirely within him, and as Thanasis felt her stare fix on him and his awareness for her magnified, he thought she must have a touch of Hecate in her too. What else explained the growing sensation that he was being cast under a spell?
‘I don’t know about being rebellious,’ she said musingly. ‘I just know my own mind and have learned over the years how to assert it. I guess it was the whole growing up in two wildly different households thing.’
