The Greek's Innocent Virgin

"I don't know," she admitted. "I wasn't sure how long it would take to sort through Andrea's things, so I didn't book my return flight in advance. I'll make reservations once I reach Athens tomorrow."

"What is the rush to leave then?"

She'd never been a game player and wasn't about to start now. "Sebastian, you don't want me here and I don't want to be here. That's reason enough, but there is also the fact I have to get back to work."

"I did not say I did not want you here."

No, he had merely said he could never love her. "I'm Andrea's daughter and you hated my mother."

"I hated the affect she had on my great-uncle, the way she stripped him of his dignity."

"Which can only mean the sooner I'm out of your hair the better you'll like it. You can forget Andrea and her daughter ever came into your family."

'I can never forget. It is because Andrea came into his life that Matthias is dead now."

"Then you definitely don't need a living reminder of your pain." She turned and started walking across the still warm sand, toward the steps leading up to the villa.

"Wait."

She ignored him. They'd said all that needed to be said.

Hard fingers wrapped around her wrist, halting her progress across the beach. "Damn it. I said wait."

She spun to face him, her emotions on the verge of exploding. "And I made it clear I don't want to. Now let me go."

She yanked at her wrist to no avail.

"I am sorry."

"I don't need an apology for the truth, I just need you to leave me alone."

"My mother was pushing me into a corner and I didn't like it." His tone was driven, his cool shattered before her. "I'm not proud of saying something hurt­ful."

"What are you talking about?"

An impatient sound exploded from him. "You know very well. What you overheard me say at lunch."

She'd been reacting to his vow he couldn't forget her mother was the cause of his great-uncle's death. It had superceded the words she'd been working so hard all afternoon to sublimate, but they had to be faced now.

"Let me repeat, don't apologize for speaking the truth. It may hurt, but it's a clean wound and will heal faster than pain born of dishonesty." After a lifetime as Andrea's daughter Rachel knew the difference all too well.

His hand cupped her cheek, the touch oddly pro­tective. "And did it hurt to hear I could never love you?"

"Yes." She'd promised herself a long time ago to be as honest as it was possible for her to be. "Do we really need a postmortem?"

"I wish to know."

"Why, so you can gloat? Do you need to hear that I'm stupid enough to care about you so your ego is bolstered? Or maybe you just want some revenge for what you perceive as my dereliction of duty toward Matthias."

"It is not that."

"I don't understand you, Sebastian." She swal­lowed against the constriction in her throat. "You kissed me in Andrea's room. And the other night, you kissed me on the beach and touched me. We almost made love, for goodness' sake, but then you told your mother you could never love me."

His hand traveled down her cheek and neck, one finger softly brushing the rapid pulse he found there. "Sex is not love."

She flinched from the physical pain of those words. "No, it's not," she said barely above a whisper.

She might have almost no personal experience in that area, but she'd seen enough growing up to know he spoke an irrefutable truth. Another bit of honesty that hurt because his words confirmed that any feel­ings he had for her were limited to the physical.

"I want you."

"I'm not my mother." Sex was not a disposable commodity for Rachel and she hated it that he would relegate something so devastating to her to nothing more than the slaking of a base desire.

"No, you are not."

She pulled away, not believing him for a second. He'd said too much to the contrary in the last four days. "I need to go."

"I want you to spend the night with me."

Her mouth opened, but nothing came out. Every word he spoke was like a knife slashing her heart and her hope was bleeding to death. "No."

'I did not mean it.'' His face was creased with lines of frustration.

“You don't want to spend the night with me?'' she asked with blatant sarcasm that hurt her as much as it mocked him.

"I assure you that I do, but I did not mean what I told my mother.''

"Is sex really worth compromising your personal integrity?" Or maybe he didn't consider it wrong to lie to Andrea Demakis's daughter.

"It is not like that."

"Of course it is."

"Please, Rachel."

Her mouth froze in open astonishment the he would plead. "What is it like then?" she heard herself ask­ing.

"My feelings for you cannot be dismissed simply because you are the daughter of a woman who brought my family grief."

"Of course they can. It's the Greek way." A con­cept of vengeance as old as the story of Nemesis.

"No, they cannot." It was as if the admission was dragged out of him and that more than anything else made her believe it.

"You have feelings for me?" she choked out.

His jaw tightened. "Have dinner with me; spend the evening as my companion."

Admissions of emotion were over it seemed, but he had said the words. His feelings could not be dis­missed.

"And tomorrow?"

"You have no plane reservations."

"But..."

"You do not have to leave right away."

He pressed his finger to her lips. "Shh...do not think." His eyes were hotter than the scorching sun. "The past is gone, but we exist here in the present and I want to explore what it is between us."

She could no more deny him than she'd been able to throw away her memories surrounding him. "All right."

His smile stole her breath and then his lips finished the job, closing over hers with a drugging sensuality that left her dazed long after he walked her to her room and left her there to get ready for their dinner date.

She wore a dress Andrea had bought her, one she had left behind in Greece when she went to America. It was short, falling to three inches above her knee in a sophisticated black crepe, leaving her arms bare and though the neckline was demure, it clung revealingly to her breasts.

She would be horribly uncomfortable wearing it with another man but Sebastian was differ

ent, even after everything that had transpired since the funeral. She was coming to accept that he always would be. To her.

Which was why she was willing to explore this thing between them. If it wasn't Sebastian, she was sure it would never be anyone else. Not only because of what had happened to her when she was sixteen, but because the emotional connection she had to him had grown over years she had tried to starve it, stay­ing away from Greece and the island.

What were the chances they would diminish alto­gether, even if she never saw him again? Nil. And if she cared for him, she wasn't going to fall for some­one else.