One Night to Risk It All(10)

She pressed her palms into her eyes, trying to keep the tears at bay. “Out. Out. Out,” she said.

“Rachel...”

“You ruined my life!” she screamed, flinging her arms wide. “I thought you were different. I thought you made me...feel something and you were just lying. I blew up my life for you and it was a lie!”

“I never promised you anything. You made a mistake. Unhappily for you.”

“Don’t call him,” she said, her stomach sinking. “Just don’t call him.”

“I don’t have to,” he said. “You won’t marry him.”

“One night with you and I’m going to leave the man I’ve been engaged to for years? I hardly think so,” she said. Only a few moments ago, she would have. Just a few short moments ago.

She would have exposed herself to scandal, exposed her family to it. She would have destroyed everything she’d spent years rebuilding for him. What had she been thinking?

And now...what had she done? What was wrong with her? She hadn’t thought, not for a moment. She’d been feeling. Lost in some inane fantasy that had no hope of ever coming true.

Now she was sitting here, all of it burned down, ash at her feet, the hero of the story revealed as a villain.

“Just go. And please don’t contact me. Please don’t call him, don’t... Don’t.”

“Now, why,” he said, his lip curling, “would I agree to that? I got exactly what I wanted. I am a man who makes careful plans, agape, and I don’t plan on changing them just because you shed a tear.”

He strode across the room, to the hotel door, and walked out. He didn’t even look at her again. Didn’t spare her one more glance as he closed the door behind him.

Rachel sank onto the floor, her knees giving out entirely. And it was then she realized that she was still completely naked. But it didn’t matter. Putting on clothes wouldn’t make her feel less exposed. Wouldn’t make her feel less...dirty.

That’s what it was. She felt dirty.

She’d betrayed Ajax.

That was the truth no matter who Alex really was. But his betrayal was like salt in her wounds, as they would be salt in Ajax’s.

Ajax...

She would have been prepared to end the relationship if there had even been a chance that...

That Alex wasn’t a lying, horrible, hideous bastard. But there wasn’t. He was. And that meant she had to go back home. The wedding had to go forward. Her life had to go forward. As if this hadn’t happened.

This was why she’d avoided passion. This was why she’d avoided doing things that were risky, and crazy. Because when she took chances, she got hurt. Because when she trusted, it came back to haunt her. On her knees, her chest burning so bad she could hardly breathe, she remembered exactly why she’d taken to hiding herself.

Never again. She would go back to Ajax, to safety. And if Alex told him about tonight, she would beg for his forgiveness. She stared ahead, eyes dry and burning like her insides.

She would forget the heat and fire she’d discovered tonight. She would forget Alexios Christofides.





CHAPTER THREE


HE’D TOLD HIMSELF he wasn’t going to the wedding. He’d told himself so as he’d boarded a plane in New York that was headed for Greece. He’d told himself so as he’d reclined in first class, accepting more glasses of wine than he normally would during travel.

He’d told himself so as he drove from the airport to the Holt Estate, where he knew the wedding was being held.

Everyone knew where the wedding was being held. It was international news. The wedding of enigmatic businessman and heartthrob Ajax Kouros to the beloved Holt Heiress. Photos of the event would cost a premium, the world waiting with bated breath for information, for a glimpse.

It had been shoved in his face on every news publication since he’d left Corfu. Since he’d been thrown out of Rachel Holt’s bed.

Rachel.

He couldn’t think of her without aching. That soft skin, that smile. The way she’d made love with him, all enthusiasm and clumsy motions. She had been inexperienced—well, non-experienced—but she had wanted him.


Never in his life had he been wanted like that. Not just in a sexual sense.

At some point over the course of that night he had forgotten. That he wasn’t just Alex. That she wasn’t just Rachel.

He had been a man, who wanted a woman. Not a man twisted and bent on revenge.

But her sweet voice piercing his sleep with Alexios had brought him straight back. And then it had all gone to hell. He hadn’t enjoyed that moment. Hadn’t enjoyed her realization that he was Ajax’s enemy.

That fact had surprised him. And then when she’d asked, with tears in her eyes, that he not tell Ajax, he damn well hadn’t done it.

And what was the point of going to all that trouble to have Ajax’s woman if he didn’t let him know it? He’d clearly passed the point of seducing her up the aisle so he could rob Ajax of his acquisition of Holt, a fact he’d learned was contingent on the marriage, so at the very least he could stop their marriage and deprive him of the company that way.

And yet he hadn’t made the call.

It was a mystery to him. As was the fact that he was now at the Holt Estate with an expertly forged invitation. A forged invitation that allowed him to be one of the few guests admitted early to enjoy canapés and a tour of the grounds.