comprehend it. He released her as if she’d scorched him, and kept walking.
“Dev!” she called in utter bewilderment. “Why won’t you even say hello? What’s happened to you?”
He continued walking, not fast or slow, never turning around.
She thought she’d been in pain when she’d opened the box of gardenias to discover he’d gone, but this pain reached the marrow of her bones.
Let him go, Stephanie. Let it all go.
Turning away from him, she kept walking, and had almost reached the beach area when he called to her in his deep voice. “Stephanie? Come back.”
She looked over her shoulder at him. “When you left the Caribbean so fast, I worried you were ill or even dying, but obviously you’re fine. Don’t worry. I’m leaving and won’t venture near again.”
“Come back, or I’ll be forced to come after you.”
She heard the authority in his voice that left her in no doubt he’d do exactly that. With her heart thudding, she started toward him. By the time she reached him, her khaki-clad legs would have buckled if he hadn’t helped her onto the nearest padded bench aboard the yacht.
The last time she’d seen him he’d been in his bathing suit after their dive. His eyes had smoldered with desire as he’d kissed her passionately, before they’d parted to get ready for dinner. He’d told her to hurry, then had pressed another long, hot kiss to her mouth. Neither of them could bear to be separated.
Or so she’d thought.
This brooding version of Dev looked formidably gorgeous. He was wearing white cargo pants and a gray crew-necked T-shirt. His black wavy hair had grown longer, setting off the deep bronze of his complexion. With his height and fit physique, he bore the aura of a man in command, just as she and the girls had supposed. But he’d lost weight.
He lounged against the side of the boat, his hands curled around the edge, his long legs extended. Legs he’d wrapped possessively around hers, whether under the water or in bed. But there was a gauntness to his handsome, chiseled features that suggested great sorrow or illness. She’d been right about two things: he’d left the Caribbean on some kind of emergency, and was a native Greek down to every black hair on his head.
“I heard you showed up at the shipping office, but I never dreamed I’d find you outside the Diomedes. What are you doing here?”
Stephanie could hardly fathom the frigidity of his words. “I told you. After what we shared, you left so fast without an explanation I could live with, I feared something terrible must have happened to you. I—I needed to see for myself,” she stammered.
“I thought the card I left with the flowers summed things up.”
“It did, but I guess I’m a hard case.”
She heard his sharp intake of breath. “I’ll ask again. What are you doing here?”
“I came to Greece to find you, and was told you were away on business indefinitely. The man at the desk didn’t give me any additional information, so I was trying to find someone on this yacht who might tell me where you were. But no one was about.”
“Evidently that didn’t stop you from waiting around.” He spoke in a low wintry tone so unlike him she shivered in fresh pain. “In your desperation, I’m surprised you didn’t come to Egnoussa much sooner.”
Her desperation? What on earth was wrong? How could he have changed into a completely different person? He might not like seeing her again, but his demeanor bordered on loathing.
Though terrified at the thought he might be seriously ill, and stung by his hostile behavior, Stephanie still held her ground. “I would have been here the next day if I’d known where you lived. But the note you put with the gardenias didn’t tell me where I could find you.”
“How remiss of me.” Coupled with his sarcasm was an icy smile, devastating her further. “Still, with the help you were given, you managed to track me down easily enough.”
“If you’re talking about God’s help, you’re right.”
Evidently he didn’t like her response, because he straightened to his full height. “Even knowing you as I thought I did, I have to admit I’m surprised you’d use that excuse to cover who you really are.”
“Who I really am?” Despite being stymied, she lifted her chin proudly. “Then we’re on even footing, because I don’t know who you are either. The man I met in the Caribbean was named Dev Harris, an international exporter from New York on a scuba diving holiday. A man who made our dive master, Angelo, look like a beginner.”
Below black brows, Dev’s dark eyes pierced her to the core of her being. This frontal view of his face exposed shadows beneath them, and carved lines around his mouth that hadn’t been there before. Despite her anger it grieved her that he could have been suffering all this time.
“And you made quite the seductress.”
A gasp escaped her throat over the unexpected remark thrown out at her like that. Incredulous, she shook her head. “Seductress? I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Come on, Stephanie. The game is over. Working for Crystal River Water Tours, you don’t make the kind of money to send you all over the world, on two occasions in the last three months, without a definite agenda.”
For a moment she was so shocked, she couldn’t make a sound.
“However, I have to admit you played your hand with such finesse, you almost took me to the cleaners, as you Americans say. I barely got out of there in time.”
“In time? For what?” She couldn’t begin to understand him. In a slow rage over his indictment of her, she moved closer. “Curious you’d say that, because it seems I flew out of Providenciales too late.”
He folded his powerful arms. “And now you’re in trouble up to the last silvery-gold strand of hair on your beautiful head.”
“Yes,” she answered in a quiet voice, without blinking. Trouble that came wrapped in a baby quilt, with a bottle of formula, among other things.
A white ring encircling his mouth gave evidence of the negative emotion fueling him. “So you’re here to continue where you left off.”
She swallowed hard. Two could play at this game he’d accused her of. If she could keep him talking, maybe she’d find out what was going on. He wasn’t the same Dev. “Only if you still want me.”
“That’s an interesting proposition. Why don’t you make me...want you.” His voice grated the words. “If you can accomplish that feat, I’ll let you name your price.”
“What price are you talking about?” she cried in absolute shock.
His eyes narrowed to black slits. “One way or another, money is the reason you’re here.”
“You think?”
In spite of his cruelty to her, his dare emboldened Stephanie to take him up on it. Much as she wished she could turn off her desire for this man whose child she was carrying, it didn’t work that way. With her only thought being to get to the bottom of this nightmare, she reached for him and slid her arms around his neck.
“I’ve missed you,” she whispered, before pressing her mouth to his, needing to be convincing so he’d listen to her. “You have no idea how much.” After three months deprivation, her longing for him was at full strength, despite her pain at being abandoned. She needed to feel his arms around her and be kissed the way he’d done before, as if he was dying for her.
At first she could wring no response from him, and couldn’t bear it. Then, suddenly, she felt his groan before he pulled her closer, as if he couldn’t help himself. Every remembered memory came flooding back...the rapture, the ecstasy of his mouth and hands doing incredible things