‘To what? Seduce men into doing what I want?’ She laughed, bitterly hurt by his unfounded accusations and assumptions.
She’d never used her looks—quite the opposite. She’d fought to be taken seriously—not to be tainted by preconceived opinions based on the shape of her body and the actions of her mother. And he was the worst of all—accusing her of hurting Eleni in some way.
But it was the blistering betrayal of her own body right now that appalled her. Scornful tears stung her eyes. ‘Newsflash, Your Highness—here’s some truth for you,’ she snapped. ‘I don’t like to be touched.’
She stilled at the look of shocked disbelief on his face, then shook her head, backing up as he stepped near her again. ‘And that wasn’t a challenge.’
But she’d read his frown of intent and the awful thing was that it wasn’t honesty she wanted now, but his touch. That hidden part of her—dormant all her damn life—had been roused. But instead of being pleased about it, it terrified her.
‘Not a challenge?’ he questioned, and then he muttered grimly, ‘Not the truth.’
She lashed out, trying the only way she could to push him away. ‘I am nobody’s precious thing. Certainly not to the half-brother I barely know. You will hurt no one but yourself. You’ll get no revenge here. Only a stain on your soul. Sorry to disappoint you.’
‘A stain on my soul?’ Giorgos laughed equally bitterly.
Did she think he’d kissed her out of some medieval quest for vengeance on her family? Have mercy! It had taken only one second for him to lose his head completely when he’d got his hands on her heaven-sent curves.
‘When you take advantage,’ she clarified. ‘When you exercise power over another just to make yourself feel good.’
Her bitterness made his skin shrivel with shame. Because for a moment there that was exactly what he’d wanted to do. Slake his anger and his frustration by satisfying himself with her beautiful body beneath his. Even now raw, desperate lust racked him in a shiver he could hardly contain—and he was furious with himself.
‘Eleni is pregnant,’ he gritted, goaded by guilt into revealing the terrible truth to her.
‘What?’ She paled. ‘And you think Damon has taken her?’
He watched her. ‘I don’t believe she left willingly.’
But even as he said it, his sister’s words echoed in his mind. ‘I’m not coming back... Not till I’ve sorted it out.’
‘What does he want to do?’
‘Apparently he’s prepared to marry her.’
Relief bloomed in her face.
It only sharpened his anger. ‘You think this is a good thing?’
‘Maybe she cares about him. Maybe they’re actually in love.’
‘Maybe this is a fairy tale,’ he growled derisively. ‘Eleni is naive. If she does think she’s in love with him it’s because he’s seduced her. He’s conned her into believing it.’
‘You’re not going to give her any credit, are you?’ Kassiani said, almost sadly. ‘In your world she’s just too innocent and too sweet and too stupid to make a decision on her own.’ She suddenly flared up at him. ‘Could you be any more insulting? No wonder she ran away. Either way, you’re not going to believe her. Either he kidnapped her against her will or she went willingly because he bamboozled her. Because you think she’s a brainless idiot. I bet you totally bully her.’
Giorgos blinked at her sudden snap. He didn’t bully Eleni—she’d been happy with the arrangements he’d made...hadn’t she? His stomach bottomed out. If she was happy, why wasn’t she safe at home here in the palace? Was this woman right? Had he underestimated Eleni’s ability to make her own decisions? He needed to talk to her. But how could he?
He hadn’t had a proper conversation with her in years.
The truth whispered, tormenting him. Guilt at his ineptitude curled, squeezing the air from his lungs. He’d thought he was doing the right thing. Maybe he’d been wrong all along. Again.
‘My sister is in trouble,’ he said starkly. ‘All I want to do is help her. Help me help her.’
He heard her raggedly drawn in breath and saw the trembling of her mouth as she finally realised how desperate he was feeling.
‘There’s nothing I can say,’ she said dully. ‘Truthfully, I only met Damon a few years ago. He offered to help me.’
‘Why?’
She hesitated before answering. ‘He’s a more genuine man than our father is. He’s more caring. He’ll want to do what he thinks is right.’ She looked at him. ‘He will want to protect both her and his unborn child.’ A sad, twisted little smile curved her lush mouth. ‘In a way, I feel sorry for the Princess. Between the two of you she’s going to have quite a tough time.’
Giorgos stilled. Damon Gale was protective? He was not going to repeat the mistakes of his father? Kassiani was an illegitimate love-child. The abandoned daughter of an abandoned lover. Damon wasn’t going to do that to his own child.
Perhaps his meeting with Eleni hadn’t been contrived. Certainly on paper it seemed Damon Gale didn’t need money or fame. In fact he actively sought privacy, as did his half-sister. So if his seduction of Eleni was by fate rather than some Machiavellian manipulation then Damon was only doing what he felt he had to. And if Giorgos was in the same position he had to admit he’d have done the same thing. Hell, a decade before he’d tried to.
He breathed out a long sigh, accepting that he was going to have to break the news to Eleni’s fiancé that the planned wedding was off. He was going to have to back his sister. He was going to have to trust her.
He glanced up and saw Kassiani looking at him directly. Such sweet torment, standing only an arm’s length away, watching him with a concerned look in her eyes. A concern that he hadn’t earned.
His gut tightened as desire rose again.
No, neither concern nor pity was what he wanted from this woman. And that was wrong too.
‘I want to go home,’ she said softly.
Giorgos instinctively shook his head, instantly rejecting the idea of her departure. ‘You can’t. You know too much.’
‘I won’t breathe a word to anyone. Not to protect you but for your sister, who is kind and intelligent and funny and perfectly capable of making her own decisions.’ She paused, her pout becoming pronounced. ‘How you two can be related is beyond me.’
‘You’re not going home tonight,’ he muttered as need speared through his body.
He wanted her to remain locked in the palace with him—to have her within his control. The remnants of his desire to punish her had now morphed into the fantasy of pleasuring her. Of seeing her aroused and begging for release. He could do it—he could please her. And in doing so please himself.
It had definitely been too long. And she... She didn’t like to be touched...
He gritted his teeth, holding back a growl. Maybe he was no better than some twelfth-century warlord, taking a pretty captive to suit his pleasure—every bit the bastard she’d painted him. But right now he didn’t care. He just wanted to forget everything in hedonistic pleasure.
He knew he could. He knew she’d liked his kiss. She’d wanted more. It would take little to make her want more again. Her molten chocolate eyes were now almost entirely black and he was losing himself in their bottomless depths.
‘I’m not staying here,’ she uttered in the faintest whisper.
Because she knew it too—knew that acting on this electricity arcing between them was inevitable. That was why she wanted to run away.
‘You say you don’t like to be touched,’ he challenged her. ‘But you enjoyed my touch. Not at first, sure. I took you by surprise, and I apologise for that, but don’t lie about what happened then.’
The thought that he might have disgusted her was appalling. That he might have subjected her to something she had felt repulsive. Her reaction initially had been stiff,
but he’d dismissed it as surprise because suddenly the floodgates had opened and she’d been ardent in her response.
And as he watched her closely now, as he listened to her, he saw other signs—the brightness of her eyes, the frantic beat of the pulse at her neck, the way she kept licking those lips that were obviously dry and bothering her. He remembered the way she’d softened and opened up for him. That hadn’t been a moment he’d forced—that had been a moment of her surrender. Not to his will, but to the emotion flooding her. The desire for deeper touch.
She’d been attracted to him. She still was. But she didn’t want to be. And perhaps he could understand why.
‘Someone hurt you,’ he said. His anger lit again, but this time in a different way.
She frowned at him searchingly, then rolled her eyes. ‘Not in the way you’re thinking.’
‘No one has touched you when you didn’t want them to?’ He didn’t believe her.
‘They have. But I stopped them.’
He lifted his brows.
‘It wasn’t about control or anything worse.’ Her colour rose. ‘I just mean a kiss at the end of a date...’
‘How did you stop him?’
‘Men don’t like a lover who doesn’t respond. No matter the attributes she might have.’
He shook his head. She knew her ‘attributes’ were like catnip to any red-blooded man. But he knew there’d be some men out there who wouldn’t care about whether she responded to them or not. Those men would just take—in which case she’d been lucky. But her lack of response was...interesting.
‘You didn’t respond to them?’ He felt very still inside.
‘As I said, I don’t like to be touched.’ She folded her arms, looking like a spiky ball of defensiveness.
Did she mean she didn’t feel anything at all? Or she just hadn’t met a guy who could actually push her buttons? ‘Are you saying you’re frigid?’