The Latin Lover

She laughed. “How did you get so smart?”

“Hey, I’ve managed to go my whole school career without getting twisted around some girl’s finger. You can’t do that without being aware of what’s going on around you relationship-wise.”

“Everyone else thinks Spiros and I are like brother and sister.”

“People see what they want.”

“You don’t see it that way?”

“You make the guy crazy, Phoebe. You have for a while. And the way you look at him…it’s all heated. Not a sister look. And those I know, being your brother and all.”

He was right.

Chrysanthos took Phoebe to a popular dance spot, and she spent hours dancing with her brother’s friends and perfect strangers. It was fun, and it did exactly what her brother had promised it would. It got her mind off Spiros and the whole marriage thing for a while.

She exhausted herself physically and was able to fall asleep when she got home late that night. The next morning she felt strangely at peace when she woke.

The old adage that sleeping on something made it look more bearable in the morning had proved true. This time. What had helped as well were Chrysanthos’s words about Spiros. Her brother had said she’d been making him crazy for a long time. Okay, so the comment had been highly embarrassing when he’d made it, but, looking back, it gave her hope.

Apparently Spiros had been attracted to her for a while. She hadn’t noticed. But she’d convinced herself it was never going to happen. So she hadn’t been looking for the signs.

When they had kissed in her tiny student apartment his passion had been too overwhelming for her to blind herself to it. But then later he had dismissed the kiss as nothing special.

Now she had to wonder. Had he played down its impact on both of them because he refused to compromise his integrity? She had been promised to his brother, and Spiros had made it more than obvious that he placed the highest priority on keeping promises. He would not have wanted to compromise her ability to do so.

But this was all speculation.

There was only one way to find out if he wanted her. The question was, did she have the courage to push the issue? Could she face another rejection if she was wrong?

When faced with a loveless and passionless marriage as a possibility if she didn’t, she knew she had no choice. Better to deal with rejection now than a lifetime of marriage to a man she loved but who didn’t want her. What she could have tolerated with Dimitri—a marriage of convenience—would be pure torture with Spiros. And she couldn’t do that to herself. Not even for the salvation of Leonides Enterprises.

Spiros let himself into his apartment, checking the voicemail on his mobile phone as he did so. Still no word from Aristotle or Phoebe. It had only been the better part of a day, but that didn’t prevent his impatience from growing. He wanted to know if Phoebe would agree to be his.

He poured himself a whiskey and took a sip just as the buzzer for downstairs went

off.

He pressed the intercom button. “Who is it?”

“Phoebe.”

What was she doing here? Had she come to tell him her answer in person? He pressed the unlock buzzer and then waited for her to arrive.

Her unmistakable knock sounded on his door and he let her in, scrutinizing her features for clues as to what she had decided. She looked…resolute.

Was that good or bad? And what was he? A woman, that he should be so worried about all this?

“Would you like something to drink?” he asked as she sat on the edge of the butter-yellow leather sofa.

It was very comfortable, but he still wasn’t sure about the color. But it went with the rest of the room and, according to the decorator who had done his apartment, that was what mattered.

“What are you having?” Phoebe asked.

“Whiskey.”

She scrunched her nose in a wholly adorable way. “Maybe a wine cooler?”

“We’re in Greece, Phoebe. Not the States.”