As she’d talked, Eros had paled. ‘Why did you never share all this with me before?’
Winnie compressed her lips. ‘People don’t want to know about that sort of stuff.’
‘But I want to know everything because I care about you,’ Eros said levelly. ‘So keep talking.’
‘If it wasn’t men leering at me on the home front, it was adolescent boys. I had several scary experiences as a teenager but I managed to keep myself safe. By the time I got to John and Liz’s home, I was viewed as antisocial and difficult. They changed all that. They changed everything,’ she admitted chokily, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘But do you know why I’m telling you all this? Because I want you to know that family means everything to me and I don’t expect perfection. Family can encompass a whole pile of different people. It can be your friends, people like John and Liz, even misguided people like my grandfather, who don’t know when to mind their own business.’
Eros crossed the distance between them and hauled her into his arms, desperate to comfort her. He was appalled at what she had gone through without proper support. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No, you’re not,’ she whispered helplessly. ‘You’re like Grandad. Of course, you don’t like each other. You’re just sorry you’re not getting your own way.’
‘Partially,’ Eros admitted gruffly, brushing her hair back from her tear-stained face. ‘But it’s important to me to protect you. I don’t want you to get hurt and I’m afraid I don’t trust your grandfather not to hurt you.’
‘You can’t keep me locked up here for ever.’
‘Like a princess in a tower?’ His charismatic smile curved his sensual lips. ‘No...but I’d like to.’
‘I know...’ Acting on impulse, mesmerised by the stunning jewelled eyes welded to her, Winnie stretched up and covered his mouth with hers. ‘But you can’t.’
‘That doesn’t mean I’m giving up.’ Eros claimed her parted lips with fiery hunger and drank deep of her response, holding her so close that she could feel every stark line of his big powerful body, including his blatant arousal.
‘You can’t be...again?’ she mumbled weakly. ‘Really?’
‘Really,’ Eros husked, long fingers lifting the hem of her dress, gliding up to the junction of her thighs to pry them apart and explore, his body already aching for the silken oblivion of hers.
He pushed her back against the wall and hoisted her up against him, the carnal play of his fingers ensuring her readiness. A moment later, he plunged into her and buried himself deep, his breathing raw and ragged in her ears as his hips hammered against hers. It was fast and hard and very erotic, and she shot to a climax so swiftly that she saw stars behind her eyes. Only when her legs slid limply down his hard thighs in the aftermath and they were both panting did she register that he hadn’t used a condom.
‘You didn’t use protection!’ she gasped.
Eros blinked, green eyes still dark and sultry with sexual satisfaction. He groaned out loud, raking his tousled black hair from his brow with frustrated fingers. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘No...no, it’s okay... At least, it should be,’ Winnie muttered, feverishly calculating dates. ‘We should be fine. It’s not the right time. I should see a doctor, see about taking the pill.’
‘No discussion?’ Eros lifted a judgemental black brow.
‘Not on that topic...maybe in a year or two if we’re still together,’ Winnie suggested with characteristic practicality.
‘I’m not pushing it. Whatever you decide is okay with me...’ he conceded, surprising her. ‘And, Winnie? We will still be together.’
As Winnie walked into the bathroom, Eros appeared in the doorway. ‘I’ll head into my Athens office tomorrow and drop you off at your grandfather’s estate on the way. But I won’t be able to pick you up coming home because I have a meeting in Piraeus and I don’t know how long it will run. When you’re ready to leave, your security team will arrange it.’
Winnie turned slowly from her beach-flushed reflection in the mirror and gave him a huge smile. ‘Thank you,’ she said warmly, appreciating the reality that he had listened to her and respected her right to do as she wished even if it went against his own instincts.
* * *
‘Four security guards to look after me is overkill!’ Winnie hissed in disbelief as she saw the men getting out of the car behind to supervise her visit to her grandfather’s home. ‘Grandad’s not about to kidnap me, for goodness’ sake. Don’t you think that you’re taking this security stuff too far?’
‘Better safe than sorry,’ Eros told her, impervious to reason. ‘If they see anything remotely suspicious, they will immediately contact me.’
‘And if they contact you, what are you planning to do?’ Winnie demanded incredulously. ‘Storm the house to extract me in a military assault?’
Eros studied her with a ferocious glitter of emerald fire lighting his stunning eyes. ‘I will do whatever it takes to protect my wife and my marriage.’
Winnie groaned out loud. ‘This is one of those masculine things, isn’t it? A show of strength?’
Eros gave her a flashing, utterly beguiling boyish grin that lit up his lean, dark features. ‘It’ll annoy the hell out of Stam. I’m warning him politely that I will not tolerate further interference in our marriage. He’ll tell you, of course, that I’m paranoid.’
‘I don’t care,’ Winnie whispered softly before she reached for the car door. ‘Paranoid or not, you’re mine...’
The assurance fell into a sudden silence as she immediately regretted those revealing words and Eros stilled in surprise. ‘Am I?’
Far more hers than he had ever been before, Winnie adjusted painfully, her heart-shaped face suffused with mortified colour. She loved him but that didn’t mean she had to wave that fact like a big banner in his face. In fact, coolness would be far more effective with Eros. Weren’t men supposed to always want what they thought they couldn’t have? What came easy was always deemed less valuable.
‘I’ll see you later,’ Winnie framed, climbing hastily out of the car and walking towards the grand front door of her grandfather’s home. She had given the older man a brief call the night before to tell him that she was coming to visit. She was hopeful that the month she had been on the island would have given him the chance to calm down and develop a more accepting attitude towards her marriage.
Stam Fotakis was in his office but he immediately rose from behind his desk and ordered his PA to serve coffee.
‘I thought you might have taken the morning off,’ Winnie remarked wryly as he instructed his PA to hold his calls.
‘I never take a day off,’ Stam informed her with pride, studying her over the top of his reading glasses. ‘Unless I’m celebrating, of course, and the fact you’ve arrived without luggage suggests that I have nothing to celebrate...yet.’
Winnie quickly caught his drift and almost winced before deciding to be equally direct. ‘I’m not planning to leave Eros. We’ve decided to stay together,’ Winnie admitted, watching the older man’s craggy face tighten and darken at that unwelcome news. ‘I’m here to ask you to back off and accept our marriage.’
‘Thee mou...’ Stam Fotakis breathed with a sudden frown of condemnation as he studied her strained and anxious face. ‘You’re still in love with the bastard!’
His perception made Winnie pale but she stood her ground. ‘You have to recognise that Eros and I are a couple and that it is absolutely in Teddy’s best interests that we make a go of our marriage.’
‘You’d walk through fire for Nevrakis, wouldn’t you?’ her grandfather breathed in a tone of incredulity as he sprang upright again. ‘When will you learn that he is simply using you?’
‘How is Eros using me?’ Winnie pressed levelly. ‘I know the best of him and I know the worst of him. Let me tell you about his first marriage.’
Her grandfather raised his hand in an immediate silencing motion. ‘I don’t want to hear some sob story.’
‘It’s not a sob story—it’s an explanation,’ Winnie argued and, as quickly and as simply as she could, she told her grandad about Eros’s first marriage.
‘Am I supposed to be impressed that I’ve married you off to a sentimental idiot with silly romantic notions about honour and loyalty?’ Stam Fotakis demanded, frowning at her in concern. ‘You’re making excuses for him, Winnie. He was a married man and he turned you into his mistress!’
‘It wasn’t like that between us.’ Winnie lifted her chin, although it took courage to fly in the face of such opinions. ‘And I respect stuff like sentiment and honour and loyalty. I like that he didn’t blame Tasha or anyone else for the mess he involved us all in. I like that I wasn’t one of many lovers he took. I like that he knows he made mistakes but that he’s trying to make up for it now.’