like one?
Wasn’t she letting herself be treated like one?
Lukas didn’t love her. He didn’t even want to be here with her. She was like a craving he had to satisfy, an itch he had to scratch, and he didn’t even want to.
She closed her eyes briefly, unwilling to continue, unable to stop. She’d brought herself to this humiliating moment. She’d allowed herself to fall so far, stoop so low, simply because she wanted a little—a little—love.
And yet love had nothing to do with this.
Her eyes still closed, she felt Lukas pulling her shirt down. He kissed her navel, making her shiver. He tugged gently on her hand and Rhiannon slipped from the hard metal surface, her eyes open but averted.
‘Look what giving in to desire does,’ Lukas said, and Rhiannon heard the derision. ‘Rutting like animals in the kitchen,’ he continued flatly. ‘No self-control at all.’
‘I’ll go,’ Rhiannon whispered, her throat raw and tight.
Lukas had turned away from her, one hand fisted in his hair. Could he not even bear to look at her? Was he that disgusted?
‘Perhaps it’s best,’ he said quietly, and Rhiannon fled.
Lukas waited till he’d heard Rhiannon’s soft, scared footsteps on the stairs, heard the relieved click of her door. Then he swore.
He strode from the kitchen, found the lounge, and sat down at the piano—his usual source of comfort. His refuge.
Except tonight there was no escape from the torment. His body throbbed with unfulfilled desire even as his mind ached with the knowledge of what he’d stooped to…what he’d almost done.
All because of desire.
He shook his head, his fingers splaying over the piano keys without making a sound.
Desire. He’d seen it ruin lives—his mother’s, his three sisters’, his nephew’s. All of them had given away their self-respect, their dignity, for a few moments of grasped pleasure, a mistaken belief in love.
He’d spent his life witnessing their mistakes…paying for them. He’d promised his father, and more importantly himself, that he would never give in to base cravings, no matter how strong or urgent, and watch need wreck his life.
For a brief moment he remembered his own need—a boy begging for love. Clinging, grasping, pleading…a weak, pathetic fool.
Never again.
Of course he’d had women. He was neither a monk nor a saint. But the affairs had been brief, a matter of expediency on both sides, and each time the woman he’d used—he couldn’t give it a better word—had understood what she was getting.
And what she wasn’t.
But Rhiannon…Rhiannon was off-limits. He knew that. She was innocent, vulnerable. Dangerous. An affair with her would lead to complications he didn’t need, couldn’t afford. He closed his eyes, imagining the tabloid headlines, the smearing of the Petrakides name.
And Rhiannon would be hurt.
He knew that—knew she was too innocent to keep herself from falling in love. Love was something he would never give. Something he would never want.
Because, as she’d reminded him, he didn’t want anything. Refused to allow himself to want, to be weak.
Yet he wanted her.
Lukas swore again. Why did that slip of a woman, with too much curly hair and eyes like sunlit puddles, make him go crazy? Lose control? Want to lose control?
That was what chilled him the most.
Nobody made Lukas Petrakides lose control.
Nobody.
Except this one woman who had come closer than anyone else.
He stood up from the piano, strode to the window. Outside the sky was black, pricked with stars reflecting blurrily on the sea below.
He could hear the gentle lapping of the waves, the timeless sound of surf and wind, and felt soothed by the power, the effortless control of the ocean around him.
Things had to change. Rhiannon had to go. He’d wanted to give her time, to sow the seeds of doubt that would have her leaving for Wales in good conscience, thinking it was her idea.
Now he realised there was no time. The desire was too strong, the danger too real. Tomorrow he would leave…and soon so would she.
The thought of never seeing her again made Lukas’s gut twist. He didn’t want her to go.
The realisation shamed him. Already she was making him want, making him weak. It had to stop.
Even if it hurt. Especially if it did.
‘YOU’RE leaving?’ Rhiannon clutched the back of the chair as she watched Lukas riffle through some papers. This was the Lukas from the resort—the business Lukas, the professional man.
He wore a grey silk suit, tailored and immaculate, and he didn’t even look at her as he said, ‘Yes. I have business in Athens.’
‘You’re just going to leave me here? Like…’ Her mind struggled to remember the Greek myths from his school-days. ‘Like Ariadne?’
Lukas looked up, eyes glinting briefly with admiring humour. ‘Ah, yes. Poor Ariadne. Theseus just left her on that island—Naxos, in fact—after she helped him slay the minotaur. A fitting comparison. Remember, though, she was rescued by Dionysus.’
‘I don’t want to be rescued,’ Rhiannon flashed, and Lukas smiled coolly.
‘No one’s offering. Christos will be arriving in Athens within the week, and I need to be there.’
‘I should be too…’
‘No, Rhiannon,’ he corrected her gently, but with ominous finality. ‘That is not your place.’
‘Annabel…’
‘Is my responsibility.’
‘Not yet!’ Rhiannon retorted, eyes flashing fire, and Lukas sighed.
‘Rhiannon, after all we’ve discussed, haven’t you yet realised how impossible this situation is? I know you feel an obligation towards Annabel, an admirable desire to see her well settled, but—’
‘Well loved,’ Rhiannon corrected fiercely, and Lukas acknowledged this with a brief, brusque nod.
‘You cannot possibly mean to sacrifice your career, your life, to be near her in Greece. No one requires that of you.’
No one wants that of you. That was what he was really saying. Rhiannon looked down. It had been a long, sleepless night, reliving those shaming moments in the kitchen with Lukas, her own flooding desire.
She’d also tried to think of solutions, possibilities that would keep her with Annabel.
Nothing had come to mind.
‘What if I want to?’ she finally whispered, and Lukas stilled.
‘Don’t presume,’ he warned softly, ‘that what happened between us last night meant…anything.’
‘Don’t flatter yourself,’ Rhiannon replied, blushing painfully. ‘If I choose to stay in Greece it will be because of Annabel only, not you. Last night—’
‘Was a mistake.’ His tone was so final, so brutal, that Rhiannon flinched.
‘One you seem to keep repeating,’ she finally said through numb lips.
The look he