One Night to Risk It All(19)

“An island near Turkey. I call it...” And he realized that earlier he’d told her his mother’s name. It made him feel exposed, to tell her what he called the island when she would know why. He cursed his moment of sentimentality. Cursed the fact that he still cared so much for a woman who’d never loved him back. Who had ended her life rather than spend her days with him. “I call it Meli’s Hideaway,” he said. “And before you ask, no, my mother never saw it. She...died just before I left the Kouklakis compound. But if she hadn’t...this is where I would have taken her. So she could have a rest, finally. Though she’s resting now, I suppose.” If she had given him a chance. If she had trusted in him at all. If the idea of being with him hadn’t been a torture she couldn’t bear.


“I’m sorry,” she said, her voice muted. “My mother passed away, too. It’s hard. Really hard.”

“Life is hard,’ he said, lifting one shoulder in a casual gesture.

“What? That’s it?”

“I’m sorry,” he said. “Life is hard and then you die. Is that better?”

She shook her head. “Not really. You’re not exactly enjoying the journey, are you?”

He stood up as the plane came to a stop. “Enjoying the journey is for another sort of person, from another sort of life. Someone like you, agape.”

“Well, I won’t deny that I have a great family. That I’ve been blessed to have a lot of nice things. Yes, I do enjoy the journey.” She was lying, though. He could sense it. Strange because when he’d met her in Corfu, she had exuded light. Joy. But he didn’t see those things in press photos of her.

It was like she was hiding that light most of the time.

“Were you going to enjoy spending the rest of your journey with Ajax?”

She nodded, her posture stiff. “Of course I would have. I care about him deeply.”

“But you don’t love him.”

“Oh, bah. Why are you people so fixated on love?” Alana had tried to talk her out of the wedding at the eleventh hour. Citing love as the primary reason. “I like him. I love him in a way. Sure it’s not an all-consuming kind of love, but—”

“But you aren’t crying your eyes out just at this moment, either,” he said.

“I have a lot on my plate here,” she said. “I just found out I’m pregnant.” She paused and swore. “Pregnant. Oh...I can’t even. I can’t even take all of this in. And I just ran out on my wedding. And I’m in Turkey. With you.”

“We’re not in Turkey. We’re on my island.”

“Yeah, big effing difference to me just at the moment.”

“If it’s any consolation, I feel similarly...run over. Is that how you feel?”

“Run over by a train, yes.”

“This doesn’t have to be difficult,” he said. He was about to propose marriage again. Yes, she’d brushed his mention of marriage off the first time, but she’d been shocked. She would come around, he was certain of it.

One thing he knew for sure, and that was that he refused to be a shadowy figure in the background of his child’s life. He would not be that man. He would be as different from his own father as humanly possible. As different from everyone in his family as humanly possible.

If you can be.

No. He wasn’t the same. He would love his child. He wouldn’t want to own his child, wouldn’t keep that child around simply to keep a link between himself and the person he was...obsessed with.

He would never be either of his parents.

“How is it going to be easy?” she asked as the door to the plane opened and a rush of thick, warm air filled the cabin.

“Perhaps it will fall somewhere between easy and difficult?”

“Perhaps,” she said, walking toward the exit.

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“I’m not.” She descended the stairs and he followed, his eyes on her curves, the way her white capris cupped her expertly. He was still a man, after all, regardless of how intense the day had been.

And she was still a temptation. It had nothing to do with how provocative her clothing was. It wasn’t, in truth. She exuded class. A kind of untouchable, crisp elegance that a man like him had rarely been exposed to.

Rachel Holt had come by her style and poise due to a lifetime of being immersed in wealth and culture, of being aware of cameras watching her every move.

Nothing like the way he’d grown up.

It was part of what he found so enticing. That prim little exoskeleton of hers. Perfect hair and makeup, even just after finding out she was pregnant and running out on her wedding. But he’d cracked all that open. Had seen her skin flushed pinker than that top she was wearing. Had seen her hair in disarray, her skin glistening with sweat...

He’d had those expertly polished nails dug deep into his shoulders, and that was something he couldn’t forget.

He shifted and tried to ease the pressure caused by his growing arousal. Nothing helped. Not when he had the back of Rachel Holt as his view. The rest of the island just didn’t seem to matter. And neither did anything else.

“And why is that?” he asked.

“Because I...don’t think I like you.” She looked up and around at the cypress trees that spread around them to create a canopy of green, and at the white sand beaches beyond them.