Page 25 of Virgin's Night with the Greek

‘And that’s why I think we should experiment,’ he said, clearly not to be deterred. ‘See what works for you and what doesn’t.’

‘Why are you doing this?’ she said, baffled by his persistence. ‘You could have anyone.’

‘I don’t want anyone. I want you.’

Her heart soared for a moment before reason intervened and planted her back on earth. ‘As a problem to solve,’ she said. ‘Something broken to fix. A project.’

‘I still dream of you,’ he said, not denying her accusation, she noticed, although with the way his voice had somehow become a caress, seductive and hypnotic, that didn’t seem to matter. ‘I still find you irresistible. I want your hands on me. Your mouth on mine. Agree to my proposal and as soon as you’re finished here, I’ll take you to my estate on Santorini. For the weekend. It’s very private. It has its own beach. There’ll be no distractions there. Nothing to disturb us. We can take it slowly. Carefully. You will be in control.’ His gaze dipped to her mouth and his voice dropped an octave. ‘Totally in control.’

Him? Give up control? Really? Hmm. ‘I find that hard to believe.’

‘I’m willing to make an exception for this.’

‘Why?’

‘Because our chemistry is unique and I want to know what it will be like between us as much as I think you do. We can experiment until we get it right. And imagine getting it right, Willow. Imagine the fireworks.’

Willow didn’t need to imagine them. She was experiencing them now. Tiny explosions were detonating in the pit of her stomach and shooting showers of sparks into every centimetre of her body. His eyes were so dark, so compelling, his voice was so shiveringly spellbinding. She wanted his hands on her and his mouth on hers too, with a desperation that ached.

What if he was right? she couldn’t help wondering, her resolve wavering wildly in response to everything he’d said. What if itwasabout position and angle and timing? Maybe it had hurt so badly because of where she’d been in her cycle. Or because he’d been on top of her. Or because, it being her first time, she’d tensed at the unfamiliar intrusion, which was never going to make it good.

Right now, she was roughly in the middle of the month and it would never be her first time again. If he genuinely meant what he said—and she couldn’t see why he wouldn’t—she could be in charge of the pace and position. She trusted him to stop if she needed him to. He had before.

And while she might never be able to embrace commitment, deep down she didn’t want a lifetime of celibacy. She wanted the excitement and pleasure he promised to unlock. She longed to explore her sexuality and discover howshecould be in control of her body instead of the other way round. Physical intimacy didn’t have to mean emotional intimacy and for one weekend, surely, she could be brave?

‘All right,’ she said, her heart thumping with anticipation and hope, the desire she’d kept at bay rushing through her like a river smashing through a dam wall. ‘Why wait? Let’s go now.’

Making their escape took longer than Leo had anticipated since frustratingly, people kept coming up to talk to him. But within the hour, having picked up a bag from Willow’s hotel, he was pulling into the VIP car park that served the private business aviation terminal at Athens Airport, still congratulating himself on a good plan well executed.

Once he’d devoured all the information on her condition he could find, he’d mentally revisited every encounter and conversation he and Willow had shared and begun to strategise. It hadn’t been particularly complicated. He’d known what he wanted, and like her, he’d intended to get it, hence setting aside his issues with the portrait and attending its unveiling.

He hadn’t doubted the outcome of the conversation on the terrace for a second. He could be extremely persuasive when he chose and most people came to see things his way eventually. That was why he’d had the jet on standby and the villa restocked. His focus had been wholly on the goal, his decisiveness and self-confidence making a welcome return, and after weeks of feeling utterly at sea when it came to this woman, retaking the helm and steering the ship in the directionhewanted had felt good.

Whathadtaken him by surprise, however, was the degree of satisfaction and relief he’d experienced when she’d acquiesced. It had nearly floored him. Was the guilt he felt over what had happened the night of the wedding reception really that skewering? Did he want her in his bed that badly? Perhaps her presumably negative image of him bothered him more than he’d assumed. Perhaps altruismwashis thing, after all.

Ultimately, it didn’t matter. The weekend was to be purely physical. An opportunity to right so many wrongs and finally draw a line under the month-long blip in his otherwise rock-steady life. Come Sunday evening, armed with proof that great sexwaspossible for her, Willow would head off to conquer the art world and he’d continue to run the family empire to the best of his abilities and protect his siblings from the capriciousness of his mother. The status quo would be restored and his head would never be turned again.

If Willow had been harbouring any doubts about having made the right decision back there on the terrace—which she wasn’t, even though her completely irrational response to the tall, polished brunette who’d accosted them on their way out of the nightclub had made her question whether she was absolutely sure she knew what she was doing—they’d have been swept away by the excitement of travelling by private jet. It certainly beat the no-frills experience she’d had on her journey from London to Athens all those weeks ago. Leo’s plane came with a dozen large cream leather seats, a crew of six and a magnum of champagne, a glass of which she accepted from a flight attendant with a smile and an appallingly pronouncedefharistó.

‘So this is very comfortable,’ she said, taking a sip of deliciously cool bubbles to control the jumble of nerves and anticipation twisting her stomach into knots, and settling back to enjoy the luxury once they were in the air.

Across the polished walnut table, Leo unfastened his seat belt and shot her the glimmer of a smile. ‘It’s the only way to travel.’

If you were a billionaire, perhaps. For lesser mortals, a pair of feet or a bicycle did just fine. ‘Don’t tell that to your shipping shareholders.’

‘The shipping we do is commercial,’ he said, draining his cup of the coffee he’d opted for since he’d be driving from Santorini Airport to the house. ‘The transglobal cargo-in-containers sort.’

‘No cruise liners? No corporate yachts?’

‘Sadly not.’

‘That does seem remiss.’

‘Don’t feel too sorry for me,’ he said wryly. ‘The planes more than make up for it.’

Planes, plural? ‘How many do you have?’

‘The family has this one. The company has another three.’

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