As she sat too close to this dangerous image, this sexy version of her boss, Charlotte felt as if she was in some erotic dream, some wild, vivid dream, where she would be unable to look at Nico in the morning thinking of the terrible, reckless, depraved things she had done with his twin, for how could a mouth look so divine just biting into the lime of his gin? How could a finger look so sexy and dark and debauched as it stirred the ice though his drink?

  There was no lack of manners, he was not being rude, but it was sex and she knew it. He melted the ice with his finger as he was melting her now.

  ‘Where were we?’ Zander said, and she struggled to remember whatever it was she’d been saying, struggled to keep her head in the most oppressive environments.

  ‘About to have dinner,’ Charlotte said, her eyes pleading for the waiter, for the summons to their table, for she could feel the length of his thigh against hers, remembered the press of him on the Xanos hillside. She had been a fool to think she could handle this, that for a moment she could resist the potent force of him.

  ‘And how was your day?’

  ‘Fine.’ It was she being the rude one. ‘Pleasant, in fact.’

  ‘We could eat here,’ he offered, and her eyes darted from him to the bar. Sure enough, people were eating at the tables. ‘Shall I suggest …?’

  Thank God for the waiter who came and told them their table was ready. She almost wept with relief as she stood, pulled down her dress over her thighs, tried to rearrange not just her clothes but her mind into some semblance of decency as they walked though the restaurant to a beautifully laid table. The music in the background was so unobtrusive she was sure the entire room must be able to hear her heart.

  The waiter informed them that it was too cool and windy tonight for the balcony table she had ordered, which was a regret for her cheeks were on fire.

  ‘I didn’t order champagne,’ Zander said as they were seated and the waiter started to pour it.

  ‘I did.’ She sat and gave him a smile. ‘If he was aware of who my guest was tonight, Nico would insist. Anyway, I thought it appropriate, given that tomorrow you finally meet.’

  He wanted to be wining and dining Charlotte; he did not want to sit here with his brother’s PA, drinking champagne his brother would pay for, eating food that he had bought. He wanted nothing from Nico—well, no charity anyway. He wanted to take from him rather than receive, but not by a flicker did he betray the dark thoughts. Instead, he turned his charm to high beam, knew he could not be resisted. In the glare at first she attempted to resist, but he watched her melt, watched her weaken, and he would have her tonight, Zander decided. She would walk into the meeting tomorrow with the bruises from his mouth on her neck. Better, Zander decided, when he had told his brother his feelings, he would leave the meeting with her, would take Charlotte as his.

  His for a while, Zander thought, because that was all it ever was.

  The menu had delicious offerings and, grateful for reprieve from his gaze, Charlotte pored over it. It was a mixture of traditional Greek with a contemporary twist.

  ‘I’d like the dips.’

  ‘We are in Xanos,’ Zander said. ‘Why not try the crab ravioli? There is none finer.’

  ‘I’d like the dips,’ Charlotte said, but she chose fish for her main and winced just a little as he ordered herbed milk-fed lamb. ‘Are you looking forward to tomorrow?’

  ‘I’m not thinking about tomorrow.’ Zander replied. ‘Instead, I am enjoying tonight.’

  ‘But …’ She tried to quash her frustration. Almost every conversation was off limits till he met with her boss, yet there was so much she wanted to know about him, so much she wanted to share with him.

  ‘I’d far rather hear about you,’ Zander said.

  Except that was off limits too. She didn’t want the fantasy to end with the drudgery of her real life served up at this sumptuous dinner table, didn’t want to watch his black eyes glaze as she droned on about her problems.

  ‘It’s a beautiful hotel …’ she said.

  ‘You’d have seen a few in your travels,’ Zander commented. ‘But, yes, it is.’ He looked over at her. ‘Have you tried the spa?’

  ‘I’m here to work,’ Charlotte said, for she was conscientious, and though she had had more than a peek at the luxurious spa menu, she would never expect Nico to foot such a bill.

  ‘I am very proud of it,’ Zander said. ‘With all my hotels, I try for something different yet somehow the same.’

  Their starters were delivered. She took one look at his ravioli and, though the dips were the best she’d tasted, she couldn’t help but wish she’d taken his advice.

  ‘Here.’ He cut off a large piece and she thought he would place it on her plate but it was Zander, so of course the fork, his fork, went straight towards her mouth. She opened a jaw that felt rigid, tried to tell herself to relax, to take the offering, but with him it was so loaded. She tasted the butter on her tongue and tried to remember to swallow, tried not to ponder how with Zander everything tasted of sex.

  ‘Tastes good, yes?’

  She nodded. It was all she could manage. She licked a trickle of butter that was on her lip and as she did so the smile he gave her told her their minds were thinking along the same lines. He watched her toying with her food and, rather than summon the waiter, he moved forward a little to pour her more wine, which gave him the excuse to press his knee in. To his satisfaction she leaped as if branded, and then put a hand over her glass too late, for the champagne met slender fingers and bubbled and fizzed.

  He took her hand and wanted to suck each finger dry. Perhaps, from the tremble that shot through her body, he could have got away with it, but she thought him a gentleman, and for now he obliged, took a thick white napkin and wrapped it around her hand.

  And not a drop more passed her lips, and though somehow she made it through the main course, the conversation was awkward. He knew she was on guard, knew she was wrestling, could feel her nerves as the dessert menu was presented, as the evening neared a close.

  ‘I’m not sure if I’m hungry.’ She wasn’t hungry, but surely it was better to be here in the restaurant than saying goodnight, trying to resist his kiss. If he did kiss her again, which he would, she knew exactly where it might lead, so she stared at the dessert menu till it blurred out of focus.

  ‘If you’re having trouble choosing, we can get a couple,’ Zander offered. ‘We can share.’

  ‘It’s terribly warm,’ Charlotte said. She was babbling a little, Zander realised. ‘I won’t be a moment.’

  He did not want to be here, fed by his brother. He wanted Charlotte for himself, on his terms.

  He walked and found her easily, tucked away on the balcony, staring out to the Mediterranean, the wind blowing her curls around her face, and he could see from her profile she was troubled.

  She knew he was approaching and was scared to turn around in case she fell against him.

  So hard she wrestled with her conscience as she stood there.

  She did not fall into bed with men. There had been a couple of relationships—one that had ended almost as soon as it had begun when she had told him about her mother’s illness and one that had meant a lot but had faded and died as her mother’s illness had become more and more consuming, but it was Zander consuming her now.

  Zander was the first man in ages she had responded to, the first man she had ever reacted to with such force, and tonight, in this hotel, with this beautiful, beautiful man, it was not the champagne that reduced her inhibitions but the vibe of him, the presence that seeped into her pores, into her brain, and made her giddy with lust and with promise. It made twenty-four hours seem an impossible delay.

  She had left for some privacy, to gather her thoughts, to convince herself she could hold out till tomorrow, but there was almost relief when she heard the door and his footsteps coming up behind her.

  She felt the lips on the back of her neck and it felt like salvation, and she closed her eyes because all she wanted was to feel the tease of his mouth. He kissed her very slowly, and she felt the scratch of his unshaven jaw as lips slid across her flesh. She could stop him at any moment, his kiss so slow, so light, she could brush him off and turn around and pretend perhaps that it had never happened, except she gripped harder to the balcony wall and did not turn around, for she did not want it to end.

  He kissed her harder, as if to warn her perhaps, as if to tell her she could end it here, but she wanted him more than she wanted a neat conclusion.

  She wanted the hands that snaked around and slid to her stomach, she wanted the bruise she was sure he was leaving because he kissed low on her neck, so deep she felt like crying, felt like turning her head right round to suck on his mouth, but still she stood there. She wanted, how she wanted, the slight pressure on his fingers, the push back into him that gave her a daring feel of what was waiting, his solid length pressing into her bottom.

  ‘We could take dessert upstairs,’ Zander said, for he wanted her in his room. He wanted every morsel now that went into her mouth, every sip, to come only from him, everything to be untainted by his brother.

  ‘I shouldn’t.’ Still she could not face him, still she dared not open her eyes, because if she did, she must make decisions, and she struggled so hard to remember. ‘I’m working.’

  ‘Not now,’ Zander said. ‘You just clocked off.’

  ‘Your brother—’

  ‘Forget about him,’ Zander said, for he must be dismissed from this moment. Zander must not for a second reveal the bitterness that was there or she would run.

  ‘I don’t want to regret this in the morning.’ It was a plea almost, because around him she could not think.

  ‘Why would you regret something so nice?’

  ‘Because …’ she attempted, except his fingers were at the back of her bra and nimbly, easily, through her dress he unhooked her, and she was dressed except she felt naked, exposed. Shamelessly it exhilarated her. What did this man do? He turned her round and he gave her his mouth. He wrapped her in the heat of his arms and cooled her with his tongue. He kissed her, but Charlotte could never, she realised, recall it afterwards as just a kiss, for it stroked and it soothed and it beat in her mouth and dragged at her skin and it was faint-making and delicious and did things to her body that no mere kiss ever could. Even wearing her high heels he was the taller, and their bodies meshed. He pulled her right in, he leant on the balcony so his body was a curve for hers to melt into—and readily she did.

  He gave all to that kiss and Zander had kissed many, many women. Had kissed through his youth to assure a bed that night, had kissed just to get dinner when his stomach had been hollow with hunger, had kissed just to survive, but never, not once, had a kiss tasted so good.

  Her lipstick was gone, her inhibitions fading, her breasts pressed against him, he caressed her. His mouth adored her in a way that made her feel both reckless and safe.

  He took her away with his kiss and then he brought her back with its absence. He handed her her bag, which told her he had come out to fetch her; he draped her in her wrap and covered the swell of nipples beneath her dress, looked into her blue eyes and told her, looked right into them and told her, ‘You’ll never regret this.’

  And he lied.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  WHY she trusted him she did not know.

  Why she so willingly let him lead her to his room was not something she could readily explain.

  In the bathroom of his luxury suite, she attempted to scold herself—to tell herself she knew nothing about this man, that he was a client of her boss, that she had known him for just a couple of days.

  Not a single lecture worked.

  He was the brother of Nico, whom she trusted, but it came down to something rather more basic than that, for there was no man on earth who made her feel the way Zander had in the time they had spent together.

  She had not laughed so freely in years, had not talked so readily to another soul—and as for his kiss …

  As she rinsed her mouth and looked up into her glittering eyes in the mirror, lifted the hair and saw the bruise he had left, she was also deeply honest with herself—in their few hours of contact he had offered escape. Tonight she was the dress and the shoes and the woman who looked back in the mirror, a woman who could handle things, she told herself as she removed her unhooked bra through the arms of her dress.

  It was not love she sought as she walked from the bathroom to the lounge of his suite, it was escape and Zander offered it in spades.

  Dessert had been delivered as loosely promised.

  Shot glasses filled with mousses and brûlées, tiny pastries and potent custards, and not for a second was she tempted, at least not by the table, for she walked to him and was pulled down to his lap, to a kiss that did not need now to be tamed.

  It was not the real Charlotte that kissed him back, it was the Charlotte she wanted to be, perhaps the Charlotte he thought he had met on the beach, a woman who could handle such things, could take the roaming of his hands on her body, could give her all and remember not to love him tomorrow.

  For Zander, unusually, there was much at stake.

  Wrongly, he assumed she had been his brother’s lover and it was imperative he win before they met.

  How delicious the moan in her throat as she sat on his knee and kissed him.

  Did he do this? he wanted to ask as he tore down her dress to the breasts he had undressed and suckled at her nipples.

  Or this? he begged in his head and stood with her in his lap and pushed her to the bed with his mouth.

  Or this? As he slid down her panties.

  There was a rough edge to his kisses, an urgency to him that hadn’t been there before, an anger almost, and she pulled back on the bed, confused at the change in him.

  ‘Zander?’

  And he looked up to blue eye that held his, and saw her eyes were darker when troubled. He wanted them pale, wanted her soothed, wanted their night, not the conquest.

  Wanted her.

  ‘I’ve been thinking of you for so long,’ he offered by way of explanation for his urgency. ‘For weeks. Forgive me if I got carried away.’ And he watched as she blinked, still wary. ‘When we spoke, when you were in London and I was in Australia, when you were in bed …’ And she blinked again, for she had thought of him too. Unable to picture him then, still her mind had wandered, so much so that she could now understand his haste. ‘We’ll take things slowly.’ He smiled his lethal smile, except this time he meant it—thought not of his brother or hate, only of her. ‘We’ll go back to the beginning. How did you lie?’

  She did not understand his question.

  ‘How did you lie in your bed when you spoke with me?’ And she could not help but smile at the memory of a dream that had come true, and could now forgive his roughness.

  ‘On my side.’

  ‘Show me.’ He rose from the bed and she watched the suited man slowly undress as she rolled to her side and pulled up the covers around her shoulders.

  ‘You?’ Charlotte asked, as he climbed back into bed.

  ‘On my back,’ Zander said, and something deep in her stomach tightened. ‘So tell me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How is the weather?’

  And she lay on her side and closed her eyes and imagined the rain on her window and the grey of her life and his voice in her ear, only this time it was better, for it was cool but not cold in Xanos, and this time he was beside her.

  ‘What did you do today?’ This time, as she spoke of her day, she didn’t have to pretend, didn’t have to make anything up, for it was all real.

  ‘I went walking in the hills.’

  ‘Alone?’ Zander asked.

  ‘No, not alone.’

  ‘And did you enjoy it?’ This time, when she retold her day, there was his hand on her waist, this time and for evermore she would lie in her bed in her room and remember the feel of him, gentler hands now exploring her body, the nuzzle of his mouth on her arms along her shoulders, a tender exploration of her breast. ‘Did you enjoy being with him in the hills?’

  ‘Very much.’

  ‘What did the two of you do?’

  ‘We just kissed,’ Charlotte said, as he rolled her onto her back.

  ‘Just?’ Zander asked, his mouth moving down to her stomach.

  ‘Better than just.’

  ‘Better than this?’ he asked, and his head moved lower.

  Though determined as his quest was to rise above Nico, as he tasted her with his mouth, he forgot to hate. Charlotte lay there, eyes open to the ceiling, to what should feel strange and wrong and unfamiliar, except as his tongue explored and his lips teased, he knew what she wanted as only a lover could; he knew more than her as he pushed down hips that were resisting and demanded she come to his mouth. He kissed her till she bore no more reluctance, till she gave to his mouth a part of her that had once been subdued.

  And then, when her body was quiet, he rose over her and kissed her again, kissed her slowly till she was waking, till she was again alive with greedy want, could attune to different sensations. She wanted to feel him, to hold him, to sheath him, for his fingers were now within her and she wanted the rest.

  Her fingers were all thumbs at the feel of him, the hard strength that would soon be within her, but his fingers were far more skilled than hers.

  He felt the restraint of the latex, felt her clumsy roll down and wanted, for the first time, to tell her not to bother, wanted to really feel the intimate skin that wet his fingers now. Wanted more for himself than was usual as for Zander touching was merely a means to an end, the part where he said and did the right things, worked a while for a brief reward. Yet here and now this did not feel like work.

  He forgot to hate for the first time, for it had no place in this room.

  He forgot he was here to prove something, to claim something, as his body pressed towards her. He forgot too that he was performing, because that was all sex ever was, and he meant what he said as his fingers moved from inside her, as his erection moved to that place. What he said he would not recall, what she heard was in Greek and not fully understood, but it was an intimate declaration that did not require translation.

 

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