‘I...’ Suddenly he felt flummoxed, unsure of what he wanted. He knew he didn’t want to hurt this lovely young woman.
‘Don’t worry.’ She cut across his floundering. ‘Let me get dressed and then I’ll go.’
‘I’m sorry if I misled you,’ Alekos said wretchedly. ‘You are very beautiful, Iolanthe, and charming. I’ve been enchanted by you all evening, and I’m sure you will ensnare a man in no time—’
‘Please spare me that pretty little speech,’ Iolanthe cut him off, her voice cold and clear. ‘I don’t wish to ensnare anyone. I am not a spider.’
‘Poor choice of words. I’m sorry.’
‘You seem very apologetic tonight.’ Iolanthe rose from the bed, the sheet wrapped around her, her cheeks flaring with colour.
‘I am. I shouldn’t have invited you up here, and I certainly shouldn’t have taken you to bed.’ Alekos took a deep breath. ‘We didn’t even use birth control.’
Iolanthe’s eyes widened with panic for a single second before her expression cleared. ‘Even I know how unlikely a pregnancy is after just one time.’
‘Yet still possible.’
Her fingers tightened on the sheet and she cocked her head, her narrowed gaze sweeping over him. ‘So what would happen if I was pregnant?’
Alekos hesitated. ‘I take my responsibilities seriously.’
‘Which means?’
His mouth firmed into a hard line. ‘We’ll address that situation if it occurs.’
‘How reassuring.’ She stalked out of the bedroom, nearly tripping over the edge of the sheet, and Alekos watched her go, caught between frustration and regret. He still couldn’t believe he’d lost control of himself so completely. What was it about her that had enflamed him so? Perhaps it had simply been a matter of needs must; he had not had a woman in his bed in months, thanks to his demanding work schedule. At this point he couldn’t imagine what else it could have been.
He walked into the sitting room of the suite; Iolanthe’s narrow back was to him as she struggled to fasten her bra.
‘Let me help—’
‘No.’ Her voice shook and she took a deep breath. ‘The kindest thing you can do is wait in the bedroom while I get myself out of here.’ Another breath. ‘Please.’ She slipped into her dress, struggling to zip it up even halfway.
‘I don’t want to leave you like this.’
‘But you want me to leave.’
For a second Alekos considered the alternative. Having her stay. Getting to know her. Marrying her, even. Then he thought of all the accompanying emotional risks and his heart shut that possibility right down. ‘Iolanthe, please. Let me take you home, at least.’
‘My father is waiting downstairs.’ She let out a high, trembling laugh. ‘And trust me, I don’t want him to know where I’ve been.’
‘Will you...will you be in trouble?’ Alekos asked in a low voice. It was the twenty-first century, after all. How shameful was it for a twenty-year-old woman to have sex? A twenty-year-old virgin who had told him her father would arrange her marriage?
Alekos closed his eyes in guilty regret. What the hell had he been thinking? He owed Iolanthe more than this. ‘Please, Iolanthe, let me help you.’
‘How?’ she demanded, and before Alekos could answer he heard voices from the hall and then, to his incredulous amazement, the door to the suite swung open. He blinked in stunned surprise at the sight of the man Iolanthe had been dancing with, and, behind him, Alekos’s nemesis, Talos Petrakis.
‘What the hell—?’ Alekos began, but he didn’t get a chance to say anything else for Petrakis’s burly bodyguards swarmed in and grabbed him, twisting his arms painfully behind his back.
‘Papa!’
In stunned horror Alekos watched Iolanthe move to her father, her arms outstretched.
‘Get behind me, Iolanthe,’ Petrakis said in a low voice, but Alekos didn’t hear what else the man said. Papa? Petrakis was Iolanthe’s father?
‘Deal with him,’ Petrakis bit out with a nod towards Alekos. The bodyguards started hustling him towards the door. Alekos struggled against them and received a sharp elbow in his kidneys for his pains.
‘I’m not a naïve university student any more,’ he grated as he continued to struggle to resist the two men. ‘You can’t treat me like this, Petrakis—’
Petrakis did not spare him so much as a glance. ‘Iolanthe,’ he said, and he put his arm around his daughter. ‘Come with me.’
The last thing Alekos saw was Iolanthe’s pale face as her father shepherded her away.
‘IT IS TIME to discuss your future.’
Talos Petrakis stared at his daughter from behind his desk, his expression terrifyingly blank, while Iolanthe flushed and looked away. ‘Iolanthe? You cannot go on like this.’
‘I know,’ she whispered. It had been nearly a month since her father had found her with Alekos Demetriou, and what a horrible month it had been. She’d been virtually imprisoned in her room at their town house in Athens, and the few times she’d seen her father he’d been cold and contemptuous, disgust at her behaviour evident in every stern line of his face. And could she really blame him?
Even now, four weeks later, Iolanthe couldn’t believe how rashly, how stupidly she’d acted. It had been as if Alekos Demetriou had cast some awful spell over her. To have sex with a stranger she’d only met hours before, thinking it would actually lead to something...!
It had been utter madness. Pleasurable madness, she remembered that all too well, but then she really had thought they’d been building some sort of future. In her naïvety she’d thought a sexual connection indicated an emotional one. The memory of how ruthlessly Alekos had dismantled that dream made Iolanthe inwardly cringe even now. Of course it had only been sex. She’d seen him as her chance of escape but he hadn’t wanted it. Hadn’t wanted her.
‘Iolanthe?’ Talos prompted coldly. ‘You realise the desperate situation you are in, I hope.’
Iolanthe’s startled gaze moved back to her father. ‘Desperate?’ she repeated warily. She’d spent the last month essentially quarantined, with only books and a sketchpad for company, while her father had gone about his business and barely spoken to her. His physical and emotional withdrawal had hurt her more than she’d thought possible, especially on the heels of Alekos’s rejection. Her father had never been close to her but she realised now how she had always stood on the bedrock of his approval and love. Which made her actions on the night of the ball even more reprehensible and foolish.
‘You are spoiled goods,’ Talos stated. ‘Damaged beyond repair. What man will have you now?’
Iolanthe flinched at her father’s flat statement. His words belonged in another century, and yet she knew in his world—and hers—they held truth. ‘Someone who loves me...’ she managed in a hesitant whisper.
‘And what man would love a woman who gave herself to a stranger so wantonly?’ Talos shook his head, hurt flashing in his eyes. ‘Truly, Iolanthe, I am still shocked. I did not think you capable of such an act of wanton disobedience.’
She clenched her hands together, knuckles aching. ‘I made a mistake, Papa, I know that.’
‘A mistake with terrible consequences,’ Talos returned. He sighed, sitting back in his chair as he massaged his temples. ‘Where did I go wrong, Iolanthe? That you would treat