a grown-up world and she was going to have to face it.
Just as she was going to have to face his wife—and though the thought of that had no earthly right to hurt her, it did.
She went through the motions of normality. She met a friend for a drink and then went to see a film. And spent a night waking over and over, to find that the bright red numbers on her digital clock had only moved on by a few minutes.
She showered and dressed and made coffee, and when the doorbell rang she bit her lip, telling herself that it was only the postman, but she knew it was not the postman. Call it sixth sense or call it feminine intuition, but she knew exactly who would be standing on her doorstep.
And he was.
She opened the door and stared into the black, enigmatic eyes.
‘Dimitri,’ she offered warily.
‘Molly,’ he mimicked, mocking her wary tone. ‘I am disturbing you?’
He couldn’t do anything but disturb her, but she shook her head. ‘Not really.’
‘You aren’t working?’ He raised his eyebrows.
‘Not at the moment, no.’ She answered the question in his eyes. ‘I write,’ she explained.
‘Novels?’
She shook her head. ‘Travel books, and articles, actually, but that’s really beside the point. Look, Dimitri—I don’t know what it is you want—I’m just a little surprised to see you here.’
His eyes mocked her. ‘But you knew I would come.’
Yes. She had known that. ‘Was there something particular you wanted?’
‘Don’t you think we need to talk?’
‘To say what?’
‘Oh, come on, Molly,’ he chided softly. ‘There’s more than a little unfinished business between us, ne? Do you think we can just ignore the past, as though it never happened? Pass each other by in the street, like polite strangers?’
‘Why not?’
‘Because life doesn’t work like that.’
‘No.’ She wondered if his wife knew he was here, but that was his business, not hers. And he was right—there was unfinished business. Things that had never been said that maybe should be, especially if she was going to be bumping into him all over the place. ‘I guess you’d better come in, then.’ Her voice sounded cool as she said it, but inside she felt anything but.
‘Thank you,’ he murmured.
He hadn’t expected it to be so easy, though maybe he should have done if he had stopped to think about it. For hadn’t it always been too deliciously easy with her? Such a seamless seduction it had been with Molly, and hadn’t there been some perverse, chauvinistic streak in him which wished she had put up more of a fight?
He observed the polite, glacial smile—thinking that there was a coolness about her now, which might suggest something else. That she didn’t give a damn whether she spoke to him or not. Or that there was another man in her life—for surely someone as beautiful as Molly would not be alone? Another man whom she adored as once she had said she adored him.
He stepped inside, and the pert, high thrust of her buttocks hit some powerful button in his memory. He felt a pulse begin to throb deep and strong within his groin and his body felt as though it had betrayed him. She moved with a confident assurance, and something about this new, older Molly set his loins melting in a way which both frustrated and infuriated him.
He had known her one long, hot summer on Pondiki—a summer of thoughtless passion. She had driven him and every other hot-blooded man on the island insane with desire that summer. Those tiny little cotton dresses she had worn when she had been working. Or outrageous scraps of material only just covering her body on the beach. Or naked as could be, with just the darkened circles of her nipples and the faint fuzz of hair at her thighs—the only things breaking up the smoothness of that bare, pale flesh.
He had triumphed in the joy of knowing that only he had seen her undressed and uninhibited like that, but in that he had been wrong. And he had been a fool, he thought bitterly. Even now, the memory still had the power to anger him—but then it had been the first and the last time he had been betrayed by a woman.
She turned to face him, determined to present the image of the slick, urban professional, even if inside she felt like the impressionable teenager she had once been. Yesterday, she had reacted gauchely, but yesterday she had had a reason to do so. Yesterday his appearance had been like a bolt out of the blue. Today there was no excuse. ‘I was just having some coffee—would you like some?’
He smiled. How times had changed. She used to practically rip the clothes from his body when she saw him. Who would have thought that one day she would be offering him coffee in a chilly, distant way he would never have associated with Molly? ‘Why not?’
She felt like a stranger in her own home as he followed her into the kitchen and sat down on one of the high stools at the breakfast bar, but then Dimitri dominated his surroundings like some blazing star. He always had.
‘Do you still take it black?’
He gave a careless smile. ‘Ah. You remember?’
Molly’s hand was shaking slightly as she poured their coffee, automatically handing him a cup of the strong brew, unsugared and untouched by milk, and he took it from her, a mocking look in his black eyes.
Oh, yes, she remembered all right. Strange that you could learn your tables and French verbs by heart for years at school and some of them would stubbornly refuse to reappear and yet you could remember almost everything about a man with whom you had enjoyed a brief, passionate affair. So was the memory selective—or just cruel?
‘Don’t read too much into it, Dimitri! Everyone in Greece takes their coffee that way!’ she countered as she reached for a mug.
But he wondered what else she remembered. The feel of his flesh enfolding hers, the sheer power as he had driven into her, over and over again? Was she remembering that now? As he was. She had left him dazed—in a way that no woman before nor since had ever quite done—and where once he had revelled in that fact, it had afterwards come to haunt him.
She pushed the coffee towards him, hating herself for thinking that his silken skin was close enough to touch. For a long time she had yearned to have him this close again, and now that he was she felt…Briefly, Molly closed her eyes. She was scared, and she wasn’t quite sure why. ‘Here.’
‘Thanks.’ But he ignored the coffee and instead let his gaze drift over her.
She wore a short denim skirt and a white T-shirt which had flowers splashed across the breasts. Her feet were bare and her toenails painted a shiny cherry-pink, and he felt his mouth dry with automatic desire. Some women knew how to press a man’s buttons just by existing—and Molly Garcia was one of them.
‘You’re staring,’ she said quietly.
‘Yes. I imagine that most men do.’
‘Not in quite such a blatant way.’
‘Ah.’ He smiled. ‘But I am Greek, and we are not ashamed to show our appreciation of beautiful things.’
She remembered that, too, and how much it had appealed to her at the time. And it wasn’t just where women were concerned—it was the same with good food, a cooing baby, or a spectacular sunset—Greek men were open about showing their pleasure in the good things in life.
With an effort, he tore his eyes away from the diversions of her body, forcing his attention on the high-ceilinged room instead. ‘And this is a beautiful house.’
‘Yes, it is.’ She forced herself to concentrate. ‘But you aren’t here to talk about my house.’ And neither was he here to stare at her in a way that reminded her all too vividly of how close they