She decided to treat this lightly and gave him a noncommital smile she was rather proud of in the circumstances. ‘Tell me about Greece,’ she suggested evenly as they reached the smooth polished surface of the warm rock and perched comfortably, looking out over the glassy, still water.
Andreas gave her an amused glance from dark cynical eyes as he poured two glasses of the rich blackcurranty wine and then handed her hers. ‘You can get a guide book for that.’
The sun was sinking lower, flirting with the prospect of letting the moon have pre-eminence, and Sophy took several sips of the wine—which was perfectly wonderful—before she said, ‘Okay, tell me about your work, then. Detail your average day. All men like to talk about their jobs, don’t they?’
‘When they are in the company of a beautiful woman?’ Andreas said with a distaste that was not totally feigned. ‘I think you have been associating with the wrong sort of man, Sophy.’
‘You are being deliberately difficult.’
‘Not at all.’ He let his eyes sweep over her lovely face and something in his gaze brought the colour surging into her cheeks. ‘Tell me about him, your husband,’ Andreas said very quietly, all amusement gone from his dark face. ‘Were you happy? Was he good to you?’
It was totally unexpected and for a moment all she could do was to stare at him, her eyes wide. And then she took a deep breath and said just as quietly, ‘Yes, we were happy. Matthew was a good man and I loved him.’
The dark face didn’t change by so much as the flicker of an eyelash. ‘Is it painful to talk about him?’
‘Painful?’ She turned her profile to him, looking out to sea again. ‘Not now,’ she said slowly. The memories she had of Matthew were precious and warm, but they were in the past. She had moved on. ‘But he didn’t deserve to die so young.’
‘Tell me what happened,’ Andreas said quietly. ‘I want to know.’
So she told him it all, from when she and Matthew had first met at university until the night he had died in her arms. ‘I couldn’t believe it at first,’ she said quietly. ‘He was my best friend and then suddenly he wasn’t there any more.’
Andreas had said nothing whilst she had talked, but now he refilled her glass before saying softly, ‘Did you mourn him as a friend or a husband, Sophy?’
‘What?’ She was too shocked to say anything more.
‘I am sure you loved him, but fire can never be wholly content with water.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about.’ She glared at him angrily, not sure if he was criticising her or Matthew or whether any criticism was intended at all.
‘Water is calm and tranquil, undisturbed by the more turbulent emotions that drive some men and women,’ Andreas said softly. ‘Some of the greatest statesmen in the world have had such attributes, but you…you were not meant to be the wife of such. Fire must be met with fire or else it slowly becomes quenched and reduced to the merest flicker. Fire is passion and wildness. It is fierce and frantic and life itself.’
Her chin was up, but something in the intensity of his voice caused her not to be as angry as she felt she should be. But he was all but telling her she shouldn’t have married Matthew, wasn’t he? Or at least that they would have proved to be unhappy in time—and all this when she’d only known him a couple of days. How dared he say whether they had been right for each other or not? But…somehow he wasn’t being nasty.
‘You didn’t know Matthew,’ she said coolly, ‘and frankly you don’t know me either, so I fail to see how you can say anything about our marriage.’
‘I have heard and seen how you talked about him tonight.’ His eyes had locked on hers and the rosy light that was now bathing the sky in the first signs of dusk made his bronzed skin and black hair even darker.
Sophy stared at him a moment lon
ger and then slid off the rock on to her feet. He couldn’t be allowed to affect her so deeply. She took a gulp of the wine and then, as Andreas reached for the glass in her hand and took it from her, became still. He placed it beside his own glass on the smooth stone and then turned her into him, his hands about her waist.
‘You are angry with me,’ he murmured softly, but without any regret in his voice that she could hear.
‘Why would I be angry?’ she said icily, wishing she had the power to send him tumbling away from her if she pushed him, but knowing she wouldn’t make any impression at all on the hard, muscled chest. ‘You tell me I shouldn’t have married my husband and that we were unsuited, when you never even met Matthew! How could I possibly object to that? Of course, some people might call it arrogant in the extreme, but no doubt that wouldn’t bother you for a second. It wouldn’t, would it?’
‘Do you want a lie to smooth your ruffled feathers or the truth?’ he asked mildly.
She opened her mouth to tell him exactly what he could do with his amateur psychology when his mouth closed over hers, hot and stunningly sweet as his hands moved her firmly into his body. It was a smooth and experienced move and allowed no opportunity for escape, not that Sophy was thinking of it anyway.
He explored her mouth leisurely but with an exquisite finesse that spoke volumes about his knowledge of women, and the scent of the sea and sand combined with the overwhelming enchantment that was taking her over.
Somehow her arms had wound round his neck, although she hadn’t been aware of it, only that the smell and feel of him was all about her and she didn’t want it to stop.
His hands were in the silk of her hair, turning her head to gain even greater access to her mouth before his lips began to cover her face and throat and ears in hot little burning kisses that made her moan low in her throat. And then the devastatingly knowing mouth was nibbling at her lips again, provoking a response that Sophy could no more have denied than she could have stopped breathing.
Andreas was breathing hard, his chest rising and falling under the thin silk of his shirt, but his control was absolute, and after a few last lingering kisses he moved her gently from him, looking down into her dazed eyes with an unfathomable expression. ‘So, we know how we would settle any disputes between us, eh?’ he said softly.
Sophy was trying to ignore the tingling in her spine and the slow languorous warmth that had weakened her limbs and sent her dizzy, but his words—with their underlying message of some sort of future involvement—sent a healthy shot of adrenalin into her blood. ‘There is and will be no “us”,’ she said fairly steadily, ‘so that’s a purely rhetorical question, I take it?’