that my stepfather’s house?” she breathed in shock.
“Yes.”
The car drove up the long lane through the park and woodlands then stopped in front of the entrance. As Talos opened the door and helped her from the car, Eve looked up with an intake of breath. She craned her head back to get a good look at the mansion, with its striking Victorian Gothic parapets stabbing upward into the steel-gray sky.
Holding her hand over her eyes to block out the noon sunlight that had finally penetrated the clouds, she looked back at him. “I lived here as a teenager?”
“And now it is yours, along with a vast fortune.”
She looked at him sharply. “How do you know?”
“You knew it yourself yesterday, when you attended the reading of the will.”
“But how do you know?” she persisted.
He shrugged. “I’ll make sure you get a copy of the will. Come.” Taking her hand, he escorted her past the grand sweep of the front door. Inside the foyer, five servants waited to greet her, headed by the housekeeper.
“Oh, Miss Craig,” the plump woman sniffed into her apron. “Your stepfather loved you so much. He would be so glad to see you’ve finally come home!”
Home? But it wasn’t her home. Apparently, she’d barely set foot in this place for years!
But looking at the elderly housekeeper’s sad face, Eve felt a sympathetic pang. She put an arm around her.
“He was a good man, wasn’t he?” she said softly.
“Yes, that he was, miss. The best. And he loved you as his own natural-born child. Even though you weren’t, and American to boot,” she added, wiping her eyes. “He’d be so happy you’ve finally come back after so long.”
Eve paused delicately. “Has it been so…?”
“Six, no, seven years. Mr. Craig always invited you back for Christmas, but…”
Her voice trailed off as she wiped tears with her apron.
“But I never came, did I?” Eve said.
The older woman shook her head wistfully.
Eve swallowed. Apparently she’d taken her stepfather’s money and let him pay her bills as she shopped and partied her way around the world, but hadn’t even had the grace to return for an occasional visit!
And now he was dead.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered over the lump in her throat.
“Let me take you to your room. You’ll find it’s just as you left it last.”
Shortly afterwards, the quietly sobbing housekeeper left them in Eve’s old bedroom. In the darkness, with Talos behind her in the only light of the double doorway, Eve yanked back the black curtains, filling the room with gray light.
Turning back to get a good look at her room, she choked back a gasp of dismay. Everything was red and black, down to the king-sized black lacquer bed. Dramatic. Modern. Sexy.
Garish.
Talos leaned against the door frame as Eve looked through the room, desperate for something, anything that would tell her what she needed to know. She opened closet doors, running her hands idly over the new clothes that hung there. The clothes were like the room, sexy and dramatic. Powerful clothes for a woman who desired attention and knew how to wield it.
Eve shivered.
She pulled open the shelves, touching each item lightly with her hands. Black stiletto heels. A Gucci handbag. A Louis Vuitton suitcase. Finding her passport, she thumbed through it, searching for answers that weren’t there. Zanzibar? Mumbai? Cape Town?
“You weren’t kidding,” she said slowly. “I do travel constantly. Especially for the last three months.”
When he didn’t reply, she turned back to face him. His face seemed carefully expressionless.
“Yes,” was all he said. “I know.”
She tossed the passport into her suitcase with the sexy clothes and shoes that all seemed foreign, as if they belonged to someone else. Leaning against the modern black four-poster bed, she looked around her with a heavy sigh. “There’s nothing here.”
“I told you.”
Desolately, she went to the bookshelf. It held only faded fashion magazines, years out of date, and a few slender volumes on etiquette and charm. She picked up the book on top, a splashy pop-culture book and read the title out loud in dismay. “How to Get Your Man?”
“That’s never been your problem.” There was a distinct edge to his voice.
Her heart was breaking, and he was making jokes? She made a huffing sound and chucked the book in his general direction. He caught it midair.
“Look, Eve,” he said evenly. “It all doesn’t matter.”
“It does matter—these things tell me who I am!” She jabbed her finger toward the closet. “I’ve just found out I was the kind of girl who only cared about her looks, who ignored a stepfather who loved me, and who never bothered to come home at Christmas.” Tears rushed into her eyes. “And I let him die alone,” she whispered. “How could I have been so cruel?”
Desolately, she picked up a dusty photo in a gilded frame. She saw the image of a man giving a cheeky wink, his arm around a beautiful dark-haired woman who was laughing with joy. Between them was a plump little girl with a big beaming smile and two missing front teeth.
She stared at the adults in the photo for a very long time, but no memories came back to her. They had to be her parents, but she couldn’t remember them. Was she really that heartless? Did she truly have no soul?
“What did you find?”
“Nothing. It doesn’t help.” She threw the photograph across the room, where it bounced softly against her bed. She covered her face with her hands. “I can’t remember them. I can’t!”
Crossing the bedroom in three long strides, he took her by the shoulders. “I barely knew my parents, but it hasn’t hurt me.”
“It’s not just the past,” she whispered. “Why would you want to be with a person like me? Without substance, without heart?”
He didn’t answer.
“And now it’s all too late,” she said over the lump in her throat. “I’ve lost my only family. I have no home.”
“Your home is with me,” he said in a low voice.
She looked up at him. The sunlight from the tall windows gently caressed his face, illuminating floating dust motes like tiny stars all around them in the red-and-black bedroom.
“Let me show you.” He slowly stroked up her bare arms, his fingers light against her skin. “Marry me.”
Electricity spread up her arms and down her body. She fought the urge to step closer to him, to press her body against his chest. Shaking her head, she breathed, “I can’t.”
“Why?” he growled.
“I don’t want you to marry me out of pity!”
His hands suddenly moved around her, caressing her back through her dress, causing the black silk to slide deliciously over her body with his featherlight touch. “Pity is the last thing I feel for you.”
She closed her eyes, leaning forward in spite of herself. Wanting more of his touch. Wanting to feel his warmth. His heat.
He pulled her more deeply into his arms. She felt the scent of him, the warmth of his body beneath his clothes.
“Come away with me,” he whispered into her hair. “Come to Athens and be my bride.”